California Requests Stimulus Funding For Bullet Train 567
marquinhocb writes "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger requested $4.7 billion in federal stimulus money Friday to help build an 800-mile bullet train system from San Diego to San Francisco. 'We're traveling on our trains at the same speed as 100 years ago,' the governor said. 'That is inexcusable. America must catch up.' Planners said the train would be able to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in two hours and 40 minutes, traveling at speeds of more than 200 miles per hour. About time! There comes a point when 'let's add another lane' is no longer a viable option!"
It will never happen (Score:5, Insightful)
At least not in our lifetimes. Between all of the NIMBY's and environmental impact statements, this will be delayed in the courts for decades
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Re:It will never happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, WHAT? Cali has way more money/ability to get money than most states. Not to mention they have more of a 'need' for this type of transport. Most other states probably wouldn't have the numbers of people to justify building it. Imagine a state in the midwest asking for 5 billion so that the tiny train riding population can ride in style. Ya right. So if by any state you mean New York and surrounding area then yes. The population density throughout the US is not really set up for a bullet train system because even if you did connect major cities, you would need cars and buses to get people to their spread out homes.
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You most likely have not lived east of the Mississippi. There are HUGE swaths of populations that could use fast, convenient mass transportation. Not just New York and "surrounding areas." Think the entire eastern seaboard. Thin
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How are millions of passengers going to get to hotel or housing? A new massive taxi fleet charging more than the train ticket to get you home/to a hotel? A new bus system? In America we are not compact enough for this. It's basically the last mile problem but for transport.
This gets parroted every time the subject of high-speed trains comes up. Interestingly, it also "proves" that air travel can never be viable. How are people going to get from the airport to their homes/hotels? In reality there are a lot of ways to leave the airport, like by buses, trains, taxis, cars. I'm not going to guess at the percentages for these modes of last-miles transport, but I will be bold enough to claim that most air travellers eventually make it. Otherwise we would have heard about huge popul
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But our standard High Speed Train service runs at either 125mph (on the Great Western Line) or 140mph (East Coast or West Coast Mainline), which is significantly faster than anything in the US. Even those speeds mean that London-Manchester (e.g.) is much faster by train than by plane.
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It's better to think of a continuum of service speeds rather than a discrete separation between bullet trains and local trains. This high speed railroad map of Europe [wikimedia.org] shows there are lines within England which are handling >200km/h trains. Network Rail has proposed upgrading the London to Edinburgh line to 320km/h+ by 2020 but they need funding to the tune of £34 billion.
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Last I heard, California was flirting with bankruptcy, so I doubt they have the money...
Oddly enough, many of the world's people and organizations most able to generate huge sums of cash are constantly on the edge of debt disaster. Massive revenues are often more important than debt levels when determining how much capital a government, corporation, or dude can raise.
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Its like if your neighbor has a Rol
Re:It will never happen (Score:5, Informative)
Don't kid yourself -- they're not looking to build a bullet train, they're looking for another handout.
California pays more in federal taxes then it received in services every year. According to the Tax Foundation (http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html [taxfoundation.org], page 5) in 2005 California received $0.78 from the federal government for every dollar paid. In 2005 (the most recent report) they were 43rd among states for money received. Saying they are looking for another handout is a bit of a stretch.
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They're just looking for their money back from the feds.
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Don't kid yourself -- they're not looking to build a bullet train, they're looking for another handout.
"Handout"? Last I checked, Californians pay federal taxes too. It's really not so much to ask that some of those federal dollars be spent in California on a project that would benefit millions of people. You can only build so many interstate highways connecting the dirt farms of North Dakota.
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At least not in our lifetimes. Between all of the NIMBY's and environmental impact statements, this will be delayed in the courts for decades
But we have SOOOO much money in the state budget, we'll be able to buy them all off!
Note that this is bitter bitter sarcasm. As the state is laying people off left and right and performing slash and burn on it's education system among other things, it's good to know that the governator is still willing to reach for the pie in the sky.
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Well the $4.7 billion would come from the federal government.
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It's not like the US Govt is having problems keeping a balanced budget.
Stop having so many wars... they're expensive! Iraq and Afghanistan, ~$150 billion a year. How many bullet train systems could you buy?
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Not to justify the war in Iraq, but $150 billion a year isn't shit compared to the $2 trillion the government's spent on bailouts in the last year. Even going by the (likely biased) http://costofwar.com/ [costofwar.com], that's twice the amount spent on the entire Iraq and Afgahnistan wars. And that's just one year.
The point is, you can't just point out one thing and say, "It's becaus
Re:Yeah, the US govt is just rolling in money... (Score:5, Insightful)
some of the hardest working US citizens
Which makes it even worse. Some of the hardest working US citizens, and they spend all their time doing unproductive stuff. So yes, most of that trillion was basically set on fire.
And that is where everyone is so wrong about stimulating the economy. There is no point spending money on doing unproductive work A, just so the worker can buy productive work B. In that case you should just buy productive work B immediately and avoid work A. Stimulating the economy only works if you can spend the money on something actually productive.
This is btw very similar to the (intentional) "mistake" that the US government has been doing with the bank bailouts. They claim that they have to pump the money into those bad banks so that they can lend to main street. But in that case, the government would be better off just pumping the money directly into main street. Everyone knows it, but very few actually says it out loud. Financial industries are never worth saving by the government for the simple reason that they don't do any productive work. They are simply conduits that help other sectors do productive work, and as such are easier to just replace.
Re:Yeah, the US govt is just rolling in money... (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed, that's not a bad analogy for money spent on bombs. More blew up than burnt, but anyway... Don't confuse Money with Wealth. Money is an abstraction. You can print as much as you like, it's value remains backed by the wealth of the country (ultimately, anyway) which is why you can have US$1 = 47 Indian Rupees. When the GP points out that a trillion dollars has been spent on military adventures, it doesn't matter so much that a lot of the money bought things from american arms companies, paying soldiers' (and mercenaries') wages, as much as it represents that portion of the country's wealth which is represented by 1 trillion dollars being ploughed into unreclaimables such as keep a navy active in the area, building temporary bases, firing ammunition and detonating bombs, flights, supply deliveries... oh, and medical care for the many wounded US soldiers.
So no, the government didn't set money on fire - that would actually increase the value of the dollar. Instead, they effectively set a lot of your country's wealth on fire and thus devalued the dollar even more. In real terms, yes, you would have retained wealth better if you had invested it in infrastructure such as trains, rather than in flying hundreds of thousands of people back and forth around the world.
I'd go into the ethical side of the Iraq invasion - the lies about WMD and how Saddam was a threat to the US, the thousands of deaths resulting and the pillaging of a foreign country's natural resources under threat of military action, but I think the economic argument is the only one that will resonate with some people.
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The national average for cars is approximately 25 miles per gallon
We need to be finding ways to get people out of their cars, not enabling that lifestyle. It's more than gas mileage, it's all the overhead it takes to support the roadways. We spend a collective fortune on highways so you can have a semi-private box to convey you from one place to another. I'd also like to see your numbers on the national gas mileage average. Because I can guarantee you around here it's closer to half that.
A more fai
Re:It will never happen (Score:5, Insightful)
And then there's the scalability problem.
Huh? Need more throughput, add an extra car to the train - or run additional trains on the same rails - you know that trains aren't going bumper to bumper right?
My boss spend 1.5 hours on his train commute; I only take 45 minutes.
I hate to state the obvious, but how long would it take you to drive your car from LA to San Francisco, and then how long would it take a bullet train going 200mph?
Waiting time == non-productive time
No, driving time is unproductive time. You waste 45 minutes driving while your boss could be working while he is sitting on the train, because he isn't driving.
So if the railways have died out, how come trains are thriving in many places? They are not suitable for all applications, but for specific high density routes they are way more efficient than anything else we currently have.
Re:It will never happen (Score:5, Funny)
You waste 45 minutes driving while your boss could be working while he is sitting on the train, because he isn't driving.
Exactly. Not only can you work on the train, you can drink on the train. So you're not only missing work time, you're missing drinking time.
That has to figure in to the equation somewhere.
Re:It will never happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Ooh, ooh! I know this one! Because the government subsidized the automotive infrastructure!
Re:It will never happen (Score:4, Informative)
Well, the fact that the road network is nearly fully state-sponsored may have something to do with it...see e.g. Interstate Highway system [wikipedia.org].
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Second there's the lost time of having people standing-around waiting for the damn train.
That's better than wasted time driving the car. You can read and write while waiting at the station. Once on the train you can read, write, eat, go to the toilet, have a meeting on the way to the conference, use your laptop, etc.
And if the train is faster than driving you'll likely still end up at your destination sooner.
I have to walk an hour to get to my station
So, about 4 miles? I suggest you buy a bicycle.
You can't do the same with railways - people could kill themselves tripping over the rails when trying to board the train.
Are you trolling, or have you just never seen a railway?
Once the capacity is fully used (with the maximum service frequency, longest possible
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Actually, going by the bullshit he has accumulated on this thread, we will need -100 "send this one to oblivion" mod.
Re:It will never happen (Score:5, Informative)
Spain, with its very similar geography, has shown this can be done on budget and (mostly) on time, so long as the project adheres to tested technology, as is the plan. And it's pretty popular. If Spain can do it, surely California can as well. It just takes willing
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Clearly you've never seen the San Joaquin Valley. Once you get past the Cajon Pass from the south it's all fault free, mountain free flat land all the way to Sacramento.
And it smells like asparagus. I hate the I-5...
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Damnit, Tejon Pass. Yeah, someone's gonna correct me on that one before /.'s "You must wait longer!!" filter lets me reply...
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The Feds didn't worry about mismanagement by banks or auto companies, why would they worry about mismanagement by state governments?
"Oh, you screwed up and have no money? Back your large truck up and we'll shovel in money until you say stop... we just have to wait for the printer to finish printing out more."
Re:It will never happen (Score:5, Informative)
I simply worry about their ability to get it done at all.
Not the NIMBY's and the environmental impact, just the corruption factor and the fact that it's Tax-N-Spendifornia. If they were in the black it'd be one thing but they want the federal gov't to pay for it when they are deep in a major budget crisis? If I were the feds (or the rest of the nation) I'd say "screw you, come back when you can manage your own budget and maybe we'll talk."
I think you may be mistaking California for Massachusetts. If California were Tax-N-Spend, it wouldn't have a budget issue. The issue in California is that they can't tax. All budgets in California must (1) be balanced, and (2) be passed by a super-majority. The legislature's made up of the Senate consisting of 25 Democrats and 15 Republicans; and the Assembly having 49 Democrats, 29 Republicans, 1 Independent, and 1 vacancy. So the Dems have a significant majority (and have since 1970), but not enough to pass a budget on their own. And the California Republican party has maintained incredible party discipline for a while now, absolutely refusing any increases in taxes, period. So, obtaining taxes for services has become essentially impossible.
This has been complicated by being "tough on crime." Things like Three Strikes laws have dramatically increased California's prison population in recent years. This has resulted in an increase in funds that must go to prisons. This, combined with a refusal to increase taxes means that much more of the limited government revenue is going into the black hole that is the prison system. Because of this, pretty much every aspect of California's selection of services have been significantly cut back for at least a decade now. The impact on the University of California in particular has been huge; they lost 20% of their funding in this past year alone, on top of significant cuts before the budget crisis. (The increase in tough on crime laws is bi-partisan, the democrats have their fair share of blame in this one. The lack of increase in taxes to cover for shortfall is a R-party issue entirely though.).
the myth of Massachusetts (Score:5, Informative)
I think you may be mistaking California for Massachusetts.
And I think you may have your head up your ass and have no idea what you're talking about.
MA is 23rd as of 2008 [boston.com]. Damn near dead average.
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leglize pot
let everyone out of jail who has any pot convictions, even if they trafficed 500 tonnes, just give them a tax bill.
im sure that will save 10 billion.
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Re:It will never happen (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, it goes back much further than a decade - it all starts with Proposition 13 [wikipedia.org]. (Most Slashdotters are probably too young to even remember it.)
Re:It will never happen (Score:4, Interesting)
Wrong - Tax revenue from property tax has grown faster than any other California revenue source, outpacing inflation + population growth by 50%+
You don't think it actually costs $400k to build a house in Tracy or Apple Valley, do you? Prop 13 forced the cities to rig the system. Here's how it works:
1. People want housing, developer wants to build a house... City has to expand services, including schools, police, roads, water & sewer.
2. Cities set up exorbitant planning and permit fee's to offset costs. These fee's can be as high as $100,000 per house!
3. Permit fee's build in a market floor. Any house with a valid occupancy permit is worth more than the fee's. This lifts all home values.
4. Fed loans banks fiat money at obscenely low rates. Banks turn around and loan it to home buyers at higher rates.
5. Homeowner's now pay banks 5 - 6 - 7% on permit fee's collected up front, rather than as yearly property taxes. Bankers laugh all the way their country clubs, where they meet with their colleagues and find ways to encourage more.
6. Lather rinse repeat for 30 years...
Re:It will never happen (Score:5, Informative)
That's one way to look at it, but here [wsj.com] is a different take:
...voters diluted the Gann Spending Limit in 1990, when they passed Proposition 111, exempting infrastructure projects, disaster spending and a number of other state expenditures from the spending limit.
Prop. 111 freed politicians in Sacramento to use the revenues that gushed in during the dot-com boom and housing bubble to grow the state budget to unsustainable levels. If Gann hadn't been neutered, a Reason Foundation study found in February, California would have been rolling in a $15 billion surplus this year.
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As I recall part of the problem with California's prison costs is guards often make $100K or better. $100K is a lot for a no skill job. Gray Davis in particular gave them a 30+% raise just because they were a huge campaign supporter.
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Pick some place that needs developed. One possibility is anywhere the 'perma'frost is melting - there's infrastructure needs in every part of that process. But, I wouldn't worry too much about how soft the down time would be for the criminals, one way or the other, I say worry more about getting important work done during their on duty time. A tropical island is no vacation if the criminal is working 10 hr/6 days a week building a longer and more durable airstrip or a hospital or any serious project.
Hmmm (Score:4, Funny)
I'm thinking a better suggestion is between Los Angeles and Tijuana.
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So your proposing a one way train then?
Why? (Score:2)
are there a lot of San Diego to San Francisco commuters?
Also, he should look into California's unique geology and formations between those two destinations.
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They should do San Jose to Portland instead. The sheer volume of techies passing between these two cities would make such a railway line profitable. Intel alone runs a small fleet of private jets to ferry staff back and fourth, because it's cheaper than filling commercial flights. And that's just the internal traffic within a single company.
Also, Portland and San Jose is full of the sort of people who like trains, so the opposition would be less.
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Portland and San Jose is full of the sort of people who like trains, so the opposition would be less.
Unemployed semiconductor engineers like trains?
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Portland and San Jose is full of the sort of people who like trains, so the opposition would be less.
Unemployed semiconductor engineers like trains?
Semiconductor engineer? What is that - some guy who pilots a monorail? Or maybe he only collects half the tickets....
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because (Score:3, Informative)
Los Angeles to San Francisco is the busiest air corridor in the United States with an estimated 60 million passengers per year expected by 2020. It is one of the top 20 corridors in the world.
The airports can't handle much more traffic and it costs a substantial amount of money to build new ones (upwards of $20 billion), connect highways, etc.
So high speed rail makes real sense. There isn't even a place to put another airport in the bay area unless you stick it way out of the way.
The links to San Diego and
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Fly Southwest (Score:3, Insightful)
I can fly Southwest from Sacramento to San Diego in 1:25 minutes of air time.
Add 45 minutes at Sac security and 20 in the terminal and I still get there faster than the travel time on this train which probably won't ever exist.
Not only that, but the plane ticket costs around $74 during the summer. There is no way this train could possibly compete with airfare. Crossing california is not practical on trains.
Trains are great for crossing urban centers. A train from San Diego to LA would have been great when I lived in SD and worked in LA. Fix that problem, then we can talk about bullet trains.
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Crossing california is not practical on trains.
Works fine in Europe, with all those mountains and such...
Re:Fly Southwest (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/map.htm [ca.gov]
Granted, you may not trust those numbers, but still, I'd say that's comparable. Plus, you don't have to deal with the cattle-car rush that is the boarding on a Southwest flight. I'd take the train in this case... similar price, reasonable speed and none of the hell that comes along with modern air travel...
And, this will be a train from San Diego to LA as well...
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none of the hell that comes along with modern air travel...
I don't know how long that will last, truly. I have heard rumblings that TSA is really eyeing up Amtrak as a great expansion to their mini empire. Ah, yes, a few years old but: http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/press_release_0401.shtm [dhs.gov]
I'm waiting for the first train to get blown up in the US. I suspect the only reason it hasn't happened is because no one rides trains here.
I can't wait until the federal government decides to try to build fencing around major rail corridors.
Re:Fly Southwest (Score:5, Informative)
Amtrak is subsizided by the feds. There IS a way that this could compete with airfare, just not fairly.
Airlines get subsidized by the feds, too -- consider all the airlines that have been bailed out in the past twenty years (some of them multiple times), plus federal funding for airports.
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And all the major cities on Amtrak routes have commuter flights between them which cost the same or less, are more frequent, and except for Boston - Providence, take much less time.
Amtrak doesn't compete with planes. Amtrak simply has found an alternate source of revenue that doesn't depend on actually satisfying customers.
Re:Fly Southwest (Score:5, Insightful)
Commuter flights go between airports, which are located outside of cities. (Well, mostly -- I'm amazed at the downtown location of Vegas's airport.) To go from downtown Baltimore to downtown New York, you have to drive or catch a cab or light rail out to BWI, go through security, fly to LaGuardia, wait for your bags, and take a cab -- or a bus then the subway -- downtown.
Amtrak, on the other hand, takes you from Penn Station in Baltimore's Station North district to NYC's Penn Station right at Madison Square Frickin' Garden. Assuming that you actually want to be in the city, it's a straight shot, most definitely faster, and more comfortable.
Airlines have taken plenty of government money (especially when you include the subsidies that keep airports running), and are not exactly know for customer satisfaction.
Re:Fly Southwest (Score:5, Insightful)
Whereas airlines do everything all by their lonesome, right? No government assistance at all. Bold entrepeneurs, living the American dream, unlike those commie railroads.
GMAFB. Every major type of transportation -- air, road, rail, and water -- is dependent on public funds, in the US and everywhere else. Anti-rail zealots like to pretend that rail is inherently socialist and that air and road are inherently capitalist (water doesn't seem to enter into their thinking at all.) There's a deep irony here: the 19th-c. "rail barons" also liked to present themselves as bold, individualistic risk-takers, meanwhile sucking at the government teat.
When an airline builds and runs its own airport and ATC system, give me a call.
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Actually, airlines pay substantial fuel taxes which not only pay for ATC but get siphoned off into the general fund. Then they pay landing fees at many airports as well.
No major airport in the US is run at a loss. Some of the smaller airports may be, where the city feels that the benefit of the airport outweighs the cost, but all major airports pay their own way.
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Actually, airlines pay substantial fuel taxes
No they do not. Tax rates for jet fuel are $0.04 per gallon (federal) and about $0.06 including state taxes. Compare this to $0.184 per gallon of gasoline (federal) and an average of $0.40 including state taxes.
No major airport in the US is run at a loss.
Construction is usually heavily subsidized, so the fact that operational costs are covered in no way refutes that airports are subsidized.
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GMAFB
Get My Ass.. Fucked... Backwards?
Re:Fly Southwest (Score:5, Insightful)
That's as silly as saying that trucking companies are dependent on government because they don't build their own roads.
Except it's not silly at all to say that; it's a simple observation of the truth. And that basic truth -- that every major form of transportation we have is dependent on government -- should be remembered in discussions on building transportation infrastructure, instead of pretending that one form of transportation is Honest God-Fearing American Capitalism Hard At Work while another is Evil European Pinko Socialist Government Interference In The Free Market. Which is pretty much what the conversation seems to degenerate into every time rail is mentioned.
In 2006 [bts.gov], which appears to be the most recent year for which figures are readily available, total government expenditures (federal, state, and local) on highways were almost $100 billion, while rail expenditures were a little over $1.5 billon. Please, please try to tell me that this doesn't constitute a massive subsidy -- a hell of a lot bigger than anything Amtrak gets, or ever will get -- to trucking and other industries that depend on highways for their existence.
Oh yeah -- air travel? A little under $42 billion. Again, this is a massive subsidy, and so far beyond anything that rail gets that there's really no comparison. So go ahead, bitch about Amtrak ... but remember where your tax dollars are really going.
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Just curious, did you happen to think to look up usage based revenues like gas tax [api.org], registration fees, etc.? Just asking...
If the government built the water system you get your water from and funds its construction and ongoing maintenance with a "pe
450000 permanent jobs created? (Score:2)
California High Speed Rail Authority officials said the train network would generate 600,000 construction-related jobs while it was being planned and built and that it would create another 450,000 permanent jobs during its operation.
450,000 new permanent jobs sounds an awful lot. Are they going to pay people to travel on the train or what?
Originally... (Score:2)
Trains are a great idea; for a full SYSTEM. (Score:2)
Trains can be an excellent means of transportation. But, as AC post 29622359 [slashdot.org] points out, the current system is broken.
If you have a well-integrated public transit system already in place; with the train station is a well-served, centrally located place in the city; on BOTH ends, then it would be great. Taking a train between Seattle and Portland is great. Both cities have excellent public transit systems, and both cities' main train stations are located in well-served areas of downtown. If a bullet got
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The public transportation problems you mentioned currently exist with flying too.
And I think trains are better for regional travel anyway, not cross country.
Wow (Score:2, Funny)
'We're traveling on our trains at the same speed as 100 years ago,' the governor said.
So trains traveled 5 mph a 100 years ago?
Trains Are Amazing (Score:2)
Too expensive (Score:2, Troll)
No, actually, if you're willing to spend 45 billion dollars you can add lanes pretty much indefinitely. Why the hell does it cost this much to build a few hundred miles of track? The Chinese were able to build maglev track for about the same cost per mile.
Maybe we should have the Chinese build it. What the hell, they did okay building railroads the first time around.
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Not really, no. At least not in California. New freeways here cost $1 billion per mile, and that was an estimate from ten years ago. A project to add one lane in each direction to the 91 freeway between the 71 (a freeway) and 241 (a tollway) is nearly $100 million for a mere five miles, and that's in an area where not much has to happen in the way of eminent domain. When you get into city areas with houses and busine
SHOULD it happen? I'm not convinced. (Score:5, Insightful)
Amtrak is insanely costly compared to what the train service used to cost. I don't see this as being any cheaper. And the current right-of-way isn't well maintained. This would need even more in the way of maintenance than the current system.
The rail lines right-of-way is owned by the freight haulers. They put their priorities first, and passenger trains regularly get delayed. The last time I rode the train from Nevada to Berkeley (well, Emeryville...the Berkeley station was closed) the train was delayed for over four hours. With no explanation or estimate of when the problem would be fixed.
Yes, we definitely need better train service. But lets go for improvements that we know can reasonably be made. Like the Dept. of Transportation in charge of the right of way, so that freight trains can't arbitrarily pre-empt the lines from passengers. (I'm not thrilled with how the DOT maintains highways, but it does a better job than the railways do with their right of way.)
Re:SHOULD it happen? I'm not convinced. (Score:4, Informative)
Being used to transportation in North America, this amazed me more than any of the technology involved in the trains. Also the things were sparkly clean. I think it comes down to respect. They are willing to keep the trains and buses clean out of respect. I believe they make sure they are on time for the same reason.
We aren't incompetent or too corrupt to get it done. North America simply isn't respectful enough for public transit.
Re:SHOULD it happen? I'm not convinced. (Score:5, Informative)
High speed trains like the german ICE (used in a variety of countries, including China), the french TGV or the japanese bullet trains do not run on regular rails. Rails for speeds exceeding 200km/h need to be specially built. In Germany we have a high speed rail network, next to rails for slower moving trains. Similarly to a highway, you sometimes have 4 rails next to each other. Two for every direction and high or low speed. In cases where there are only 2 rails, the rains usually only go slow. So there should be no delay by freight trains or other slow trains on the high speed network.
This makes a lot of sense (Score:4, Insightful)
As pointed out in previous posts: Airlines are already subsidized. (As are the Auto makers). I would like to go as far as to say that a railroad would be competitive if you were to take out ALL subsidies given to the auto makers (road construction and direct subsidies) and Airlines (Airports, cheap planes due to defense contracts).
Putting public money to work to build a railroad network is a good way to invest public money. it's a hell of a lot better than subsidizing bankrupt companies. It will make the US more competitive in manufacturing (cheaper freight transport), services (cheaper people transport). And building the whole system will provide a lot of meaning full jobs.
Re:This makes a lot of sense (Score:5, Informative)
You know, Tricky Dick Nixon promised us that Amtrak would only be living on the public teat for a couple of years, and then private investors would buy it. Didn't work out that way.
Which was obviously bullshit, because the railroads were getting out of passenger rail service because it was unprofitable. This is different because it's a proven technology being applied to a known market.
I've ridden on both Amtrak and high speed rail (Deutsche Bahn ICE), and there is simply no comparison. Amtrak is slow and cramped, and a throughly frustrating experience. The fact that it's faster to drive than ride, shows just how worthless Amtrak is. Amtrak should die, but doesn't because the reps from all the rural states (ironically, the ones that rail the most against "big government" and "government waste") continue fund it as being necessary. As the Amtrak Commissioner said back in the late 90s, they lose money on every run. They lose money on the capital expenditures on the high traffic Northeast Corridor, and they lose money on every trip on everywhere else. DB ICE on the other hand, is FAST and comfortable. I'd prefer it flying any day. Big seats. The ability to walk around. Tables. It's great. An American would say, "This is the future of travel!", while everyone else in the world would say, "It's 20 years old, jackass."
building the whole system will provide a lot of meaning full jobs.
Nope. It shifts jobs from productive activities to wealth-destroying government waste.
Oh come on. Public infrastructure as always provided jobs, and promoted investment. There's already significant travel between SF and LA, and Cal HSR simply takes advantage of this situation.
Oh, and the people of California want it. How do I know this? We put it to a vote.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh, for crying out loud. (Score:5, Insightful)
There also comes a point when "let's have another horrendously expensive tax-sucking boondoggle" is no longer a viable option.
Look at Spain's high-speed rail network for an example of how it can only pay for itself, but actually earn a decent profit too. The AVE in Spain is the perfect case-study government funded decent rail infrastructure can really work out really well for everyone except perhaps the airlines - they charge x2 what airlines charge because they know they can fill trains after train even without coming close to competing on price.
High speed rail really is the future if you have the vision to invest in it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8268003.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Writen like someone who's not riden the train (Score:5, Interesting)
Acela isn't as fast as that, but it's arguably a bigger security issue, as it runs through Boston, NYC, Philly, and DC downtowns.
It works just like a commuter rail train. You arrive at the station. The train pulls up, you've got a few minutes to get on, tops. You get on the train, grab a seat, throw your suitcase overhead or at the end of the car, and relax. Pull out your laptop, make a call, or sit in the quiet car for relaxation.
Everything in your scenario is pure FUD. I'd bet the ridership will match that of Acela on the East Coast -- lots of business riders, often going to and from on the same day.
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The bullet trains in Japan are quite convenient, like you say. They run exactly on schedule almost all the time. About the only thing that stops them is earthquakes. I show up at the plat form 5 minutes before the train comes, put my large luggage in the storage area near the door, and sit down and relax. It is certainly a lot nicer than air travel.
The real problem is cost. I don't know how much the train would cost in California, but it is expensive here in Japan. A ticket to Tokyo from Shizuoka city
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And of course despite your Insightful rating, Amtrak loses money, over a billion dollars a year.
http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/08financial.pdf [amtrak.com]
Re:yeah, just like amtrak (Score:5, Informative)
"Unlike, say, the massive socialist US interstate system."
Which facilitates massive movement of goods and people in a way rail never can.
Rail currently handles 40% of all goods shipping in the U.S. Before NAFTA this figure was much higher, close to 75%, but it has dropped because of the difficulty rail has crossing borders. So you're wrong; rail is a very efficient method for massive movement of goods that has lost ground to more expensive truck freight because of political restrictions on its use.
Re:yeah, just like amtrak (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it would operate a lot like amtrak... the us govt will sink tons of money into it and it will never come close to breaking even.
Kind of like airports and highways, yep.
Oh, but those are somehow magically different!
[sigh]
Actually, there is a difference. The federal government sinks tons of money into air and road travel, but it doesn't demand the kind of insane restrictions it imposes on rail (freight trains always get right-of-way over passenger trains, that kind of thing.) IOW, those systems aren't set up to fail the way Amtrak is. It's pretty impressive how well Amtrak manages to keep its major lines going when it has to deal with a system that is specifically designed not to work by anti-rail ideologues.
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Just fly larger aircraft. An airbus A340 seats up to 800 and will do the same trip in 75 fewer minutes.
You've assumed time for security screening will be the same. You've assumed delays will be the same. You've assumed the ticket cost will be the same.
All three assumptions are only true if the train is managed -extremely- poorly. Given that this is California, that might be the case, but they are still huge assumptions.
Re:$45 Billion? With a B? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article, it says this is going to cost $45 billion to build. $45 BILLION? For 800 miles of high-speed tracks and trains? I can't see any concievable way, even if they had to purchases premium land the entire length rather than using state land, that there's any way to justify 56 million dollars per mile. International constructions have cost around one twentieth of this amount.
Lots of bridges, tunnels and filldirt.. Its already been kicked off of the SF Peninsula because they said it would be too expensive to go underground the whole way, and the only other way to have a 200+mph train go through high density residential areas is to elevate it, which the residents refused as an option. It would have shared the caltrain route, which already has long sections of elevated track (via10-20' of filldirt and fences on both sides) that effictively creates a berlin wall through neighborhoods. To keep people from "trespassing" they would have to elevate the whole line, and that pissed a bunch of people off (especially those in Atherton behind their wooden fences). Caltrain electrification will be done first, and highspeed rail, to be successful, would have to tie in to caltrain somewhere, or it would just be a train to nowhere.
-T
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Train to nowhere? (Score:3, Interesting)
Typical Bay Aryan.
You are the chosen ones.
In fact all that high speed rail needs to do is hook up with CalTrain or BART.
Just send the bay area people down Amtrack to BART from Sacramento and call the project complete if the bay area non-sense is taking too long.
The best part about the central valley route is it's relative cheapness and flatness.
I can't see a route more or less down I-5 costing as much as (much less more then) a route in fucking France (spit).
Land in Europe is insanely expensive
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Re:$45 Billion? With a B? (Score:4, Funny)
56 million dollars per mile
In California this breaks down to:
10 million per mile for environmental impact studies
20 million per mile in lawsuits related to the environmental impact studies
20 million per mile in kickbacks
56 million per mile in construction costs thanks to union labor wages
These will be the actual per-mile costs due to lowball estimating in order to get the project started and to take on a life of its own so it will be completed no matter what the final costs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's becasue it's not your area of expertise.
Civil project are expensive, very expensive.
They have to deal with roads, mountains , bridges, tunnels.
It's very expensive to build roads of any type. If you want them to last.
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cheap cheap!
Siemens
PS: There seems to be something wrong with the numbers. 4.7b is correct, but that's for 25miles not 800 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transrapid).
highspeed != maglev
The proposal is a standard wheels-on-rails rail line with bullet trains, ala the japanese bullets. see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail [wikipedia.org]
Re:Monorail!! (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, you might have missed this key fact, but the Simpsons monorail episode is a sixteen-year-old CARTOON. When the hell are the anti-rail twits going to stop treating it like a serious guide to transportation issues?
Oh, right, we still have people who think Frankenstein was a guide to science. Never mind. Carry on, then.
Re:the eventual outcome (Score:5, Funny)
After spending $4.7 trillion, not billion, they will have a light rail between San Diego and Santa Barbara that travels at 50 MPH.
Fixed that for you.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Why tear up land for something like this? I've used trains a number of times, and although interesting rail is just not as good a solution as buses or, especially, air travel.
Trains use much less land than highways to transport an equivalent number of passengers and are more energy efficient than other forms of transportation.
And here I'm not just talking big planes. I'm talking regional airports that, if funded to the same level, could provide an amazing degree of flexibility in travel, to places all over and not just two fixed points.
Regional airports in California aren't equipped to handle large planes nor additional air or ground traffic. They have issues with noise and safety issues and are typically underfunded. They also have insufficient linkage with the local public transit systems.
Airplane travel is not even that much different in terms of fuel consumption than trains, and could be improved if we spent R&D money on that instead of more train follies. For a nation as spread out as America, it's more important to cover more area.
We're not talking about putting bullet trains all across America...only through California's high