Newsom kills California High Speed Rail

[Coastal Elitist]

That's a step in the right direction. However I can't see there being a high demand to travel between Bakersfield and Merced. The whole project should be cancelled.

Also the end of the article says this:
By afternoon, however, Newsom's office said that he is fully committed to building a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco, despite his comments during his State of the State speech.

How many car trips have you canceled because the speed limit wasn't 70mph from point A to B?




Yeah, I thought so.

Is this a drunk post, because I have no idea what you're trying to say here

[Mr. Smith]

The map was logistically difficult and needed work, that was the biggest issue. It wasn't the conservative trope of scrimping and hoarding every dollar to neglect infrastructure (like in many red states). High speed rail is a good idea, but getting a line from Los Angeles to San Francisco is challenging to say the least.

There are that could probably bring down the cost, such as having the line to the bay area follow I-580 and end at the Dublin/Pleasanton (or a possible Livermore) BART station, and leave HSR in the bay area for a later project, but instead he just killed the whole thing.

Inclined to agree, albeit following SR-4 over to Brentwood/Antioch, fewer hills to work against and the probable BART Connection has heavier ridership than Dublin/Pleasanton anyway.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

The map was logistically difficult and needed work, that was the biggest issue. It wasn't the conservative trope of scrimping and hoarding every dollar to neglect infrastructure (like in many red states). High speed rail is a good idea, but getting a line from Los Angeles to San Francisco is challenging to say the least.

There are that could probably bring down the cost, such as having the line to the bay area follow I-580 and end at the Dublin/Pleasanton (or a possible Livermore) BART station, and leave HSR in the bay area for a later project, but instead he just killed the whole thing.

Inclined to agree, albeit following SR-4 over to Brentwood/Antioch, fewer hills to work against and the probable BART Connection has heavier ridership than Dublin/Pleasanton anyway.

Aren't there already plans to extend eBART from Livermore via the Altamont? It'd be a budget saving measure to extend to Stockton and you'd have a de-facto connection anyway to the Bay Area.

[dead0man]

oh my

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I like HSR becuase I'm a gigantic dork, but I can't help but think it would be a lot more efficient (in terms of reducing emissions and traffic) to invest the money on bike lanes and subway/tram/BRT lines. My heart says "YES WHIZ TRAINS, I WANT SUPERFAST CHOO CHOOS" etc, but my head is rather skeptical.

[Crumpets]

Ah, the rare "Man kills train" headline.

[Ban my account ffs!]

That's a step in the right direction. However I can't see there being a high demand to travel between Bakersfield and Merced. The whole project should be cancelled.

Also the end of the article says this:
By afternoon, however, Newsom's office said that he is fully committed to building a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco, despite his comments during his State of the State speech.

How many car trips have you canceled because the speed limit wasn't 70mph from point A to B?



Yeah, I thought so.

Is this a drunk post, because I have no idea what you're trying to say here

It was a very eloquent way of saying that even if only Merced to Bakersfield is high speed, it still greatly improves travel times for trains and does so on the cheapest areas to improve the tracks.
It’s also how I imagine the Republican brain works.

[pbrower2a]

The map was logistically difficult and needed work, that was the biggest issue. It wasn't the conservative trope of scrimping and hoarding every dollar to neglect infrastructure (like in many red states). High speed rail is a good idea, but getting a line from Los Angeles to San Francisco is challenging to say the least.

There are that could probably bring down the cost, such as having the line to the bay area follow I-580 and end at the Dublin/Pleasanton (or a possible Livermore) BART station, and leave HSR in the bay area for a later project, but instead he just killed the whole thing.

Inclined to agree, albeit following SR-4 over to Brentwood/Antioch, fewer hills to work against and the probable BART Connection has heavier ridership than Dublin/Pleasanton anyway.

Aren't there already plans to extend eBART from Livermore via the Altamont? It'd be a budget saving measure to extend to Stockton and you'd have a de-facto connection anyway to the Bay Area.

Stockton has been a dump since at least the 1970s, but figuring that it is the sort of place that one needs to commute from to have a chance at a good life... if one cannot quite leave it...

[Coastal Elitist]

That's a step in the right direction. However I can't see there being a high demand to travel between Bakersfield and Merced. The whole project should be cancelled.

Also the end of the article says this:
By afternoon, however, Newsom's office said that he is fully committed to building a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco, despite his comments during his State of the State speech.

How many car trips have you canceled because the speed limit wasn't 70mph from point A to B?



Yeah, I thought so.

Is this a drunk post, because I have no idea what you're trying to say here

It was a very eloquent way of saying that even if only Merced to Bakersfield is high speed, it still greatly improves travel times for trains and does so on the cheapest areas to improve the tracks.
It’s also how I imagine the Republican brain works.

lol, I was actually for the original high speed rail plan because I do like trains. However this project is way behind schedule and has sucked up enough money. I also don't see a demand for a route between Bakersh**t and Merced

[Ban my account ffs!]

That's a step in the right direction. However I can't see there being a high demand to travel between Bakersfield and Merced. The whole project should be cancelled.

Also the end of the article says this:
By afternoon, however, Newsom's office said that he is fully committed to building a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco, despite his comments during his State of the State speech.

How many car trips have you canceled because the speed limit wasn't 70mph from point A to B?



Yeah, I thought so.

Is this a drunk post, because I have no idea what you're trying to say here

It was a very eloquent way of saying that even if only Merced to Bakersfield is high speed, it still greatly improves travel times for trains and does so on the cheapest areas to improve the tracks.
It’s also how I imagine the Republican brain works.

lol, I was actually for the original high speed rail plan because I do like trains. However this project is way behind schedule and has sucked up enough money. I also don't see a demand for a route between Bakersh**t and Merced

Personally I'd like to see a massive inflow of cash (a few tens of billions of dollars) into Amtrak.  They have a whole mess of shovel ready projects that would massively improve service, capacity, and speed in a lot of areas... namely the Northeast Corridor and in the Midwest out of Chicago.

Amtrak has purchased 28 new trainsets from Alstom (the Avelia) to replace the aging Acela Express trains from 2000. 

Features:

40% more trains allows service every 30 minutes at peak periods.
30% more passengers on each train without sacrificing personal space, plus trains are modular so more capacity can be added easily.
20% less energy needed to operate trains
160mph top operating speed initially up to 186mph with minimal improvements (this represents true high speed at 300km/h) and a top speed of 220mph (350km/h) for the train.

The hope is to knock at least an hour off the Washington-Boston trip from the get go thanks to tilting technology that allows for faster operation on existing infrastructure.

At the same time, Amtrak is working on upgrading track in various parts of the country to allow operating speeds up to 110mph on traditional routes.

With a significacnt influx of investment by the federal government, Amtrak could turn the NEC into a true high speed corridor and greatly improve other popular corridors (like the west coast and routes fanning out from Chicago) and bring travel times that are significantly faster than driving at an affordable price.

[Ban my account ffs!]

In addition, the long distance routes will have their locomotives replaced with new Siemens Charger diesel-electric locomotives that significantly reduce emissions and use less fuel while providing top speeds of 125mph.  Because they have positive train control (PTC) they can operate at speeds of 90mph on most standard freight track and 110mph on upgraded track, up from a max of 79mph on most track currently.