California High-Speed Rail Thread

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It's disgusting how people complain and complain about this, but have no problem with spending more money per mile for freeway widening projects.

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The big problem with California HSR is that you still need a car at your destination. Were not built up like Japan.

BART and the LA Metro will get you close to home in the bay area and LA, respectively. And both of them are adding new lines. The HSR improvements in the bay area will help Caltrain, too.

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The big problem with California HSR is that you still need a car at your destination. Were not built up like Japan.

Zipcars claim to have a CA presence. I know them from Chicago and Champaign. I would imagine that this would be the sort of business model that would mesh well with HSR.

Zipcars has some competitors, such as City CarShare.

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I remember looking at maps like these fondly

Some of those look better than others. I don't know if Eugene-Sacramento would be that great a line, or the ones in the Mountain west. On the other hand, NY-Albany-Buffalo-Chicago with connections to Detroit, Toronto, and Montreal seems pretty good.

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Replacing half of the bay bridge (2 miles of bridge replaced) cost 10% as much as this entire 800 mile HSR. There's clearly some serious anti-train propaganda going around.

The SF bay bridge collects $228 million a year in tolls, or $114 million for each half of the bridge. That $114 million will clearly never pay for the $6.5 billion half of a bridge replacement. So even toll bridges don't pay for themselves. But trains have to pay for themselves, because.

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Replacing half of the bay bridge (2 miles of bridge replaced) cost 10% as much as this entire 800 mile HSR. There's clearly some serious anti-train propaganda going around.

The SF bay bridge collects $228 million a year in tolls, or $114 million for each half of the bridge. That $114 million will clearly never pay for the $6.5 billion half of a bridge replacement. So even toll bridges don't pay for themselves. But trains have to pay for themselves, because.

That is just a mortgage amortization formula. At 5% interest per annum, paying $114 million a year, or about  $9.5 million per month, $6.5 billion can be paid back in 27 years. The bridge pencils - and pays for itself. This assumes that the $114 million represents net revenues.

Something is wrong with that math.

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Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom has bailed on the project.

Is California high speed rail now a Dead Man Walking?

I think Newsom is just trying to get some attention for himself since it's an election year, and no one cares about the Lt. Governorship. Quit trolling, Gavin, we know you were once a strong supporter of HSR.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom has bailed on the project.

Is California high speed rail now a Dead Man Walking?

I think Newsom is just trying to get some attention for himself since it's an election year, and no one cares about the Lt. Governorship. Quit trolling, Gavin, we know you were once a strong supporter of HSR.

In light of the fact that California voters have turned against the project, Newsom has more than a leg and an arm to stand on when he decided to join the tide of public opinion.   And when such a prominent public official bails out on the project, do you seriously think others won't follow the example he set? 

The media coverage of HSR has been pretty negative, so 9 points down isn't bad. Only useless moderate heroes are going to flip.

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Despite the right-wing media's best efforts, the voters still support the Proposition they voted for. It's pretty ridiculous that some two bit county judge is holding up the statewide project.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/survey/S_314MBS.pdf

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High speed rail wins court cases. Two bit county judges get overturned.

LOL at the stupid plaintiffs saying how the win for high speed rail is a slap in the face of the voters who voted for high speed rail and still support high speed rail.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/01/bullet-train-california-court/13450161/

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Despite the right-wing media's best efforts, the voters still support the Proposition they voted for. It's pretty ridiculous that some two bit county judge is holding up the statewide project.

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http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/survey/S_314MBS.pdf

26% are opposed even if it's free to build?

There are some brain-dead NIMBYs and Republicans who would oppose it even if it cost negative money.

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Despite the right-wing media's best efforts, the voters still support the Proposition they voted for. It's pretty ridiculous that some two bit county judge is holding up the statewide project.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/survey/S_314MBS.pdf

26% are opposed even if it's free to build?

There are some brain-dead NIMBYs and Republicans who would oppose it even if it cost negative money.

Believe it or not, some people don't like having their property seized by the government. What brain-dead idiots!

But I doubt we'll ever be able to test that claim, given that only two HSR lines in the entire world are revenue-positive.

If we don't build HSR, there's going to have to be property seizing for more freeway lanes and airport runways. Anyways, most of the NIMBYism isn't from people whose property is seized, but would be near it.

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Despite the right-wing media's best efforts, the voters still support the Proposition they voted for. It's pretty ridiculous that some two bit county judge is holding up the statewide project.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/survey/S_314MBS.pdf

26% are opposed even if it's free to build?

There are some brain-dead NIMBYs and Republicans who would oppose it even if it cost negative money.

Believe it or not, some people don't like having their property seized by the government. What brain-dead idiots!

But I doubt we'll ever be able to test that claim, given that only two HSR lines in the entire world are revenue-positive.

No I meant if the construction costs were negative.

Anyways why does rail have to pay for itself? do you think the $6.5 billion replacement for half of the Oakland San Francisco bay bridge will ever pay for itself? Of course not.

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HS1 passes through my home borough and I haven't heard any noise complaints about it; in addition, I've found it really useful for when I've had to take trips to Kent.

Yes, there's a premium on it, but there's something about whooshing through the countryside at 140mph that really appeals to me.

Yeah, but you don't have California style NIMBYs or Californian Republicans there.

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I can't wait to take the train from Merced to Fresno!

They're doing it in pieces- the worst pieces to start- and setting the whole scheme up to fail. Which would be a tragedy. Track-sharing in the Bay and SoCal? It's almost laughably bad.

It will be finished on about 1/3 of the total distance in 2018.  This will significantly decrease the trip time and demand will rise accordingly...especially for central valley residents who are likely to be the most loyal users anyway.

Hopefully Central Valley voters will wise up and stop electing anti-HSR politicians like House Majority Leader McCarthy.

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I had a flight from LA to SF where the time from when the flight was supposed to be in the air until when it actually landed (3 1/2 hours) was greater than the HSR time from LA to SF.

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BART plans to extend to the San Jose Dirdion station by 2025 as well, so this would become a major transfer point between HSR, Caltrain, and BART.