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California Requests Stimulus Funding For Bullet Train
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!"
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
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I'm thinking a better suggestion is between Los Angeles and Tijuana.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
After spending $4.7 trillion, not billion, they will have a light rail between San Diego and San Francisco that travels at 50 MPH.
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.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
I would draw comparisons between this and the Simpson's Monorail episode, but at least the Monorail got built before they realized it was a gigantic waste of money. The bullet-train would simply be a financial quagmire for this fiscally irresponsible state.
Worth noting:
"Report details why high-speed rail won't meet ridership predictions, deliver on promised travel times, or meet emission reduction targets."
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?
Attitudes make the difference between Space and Time: we want to MAX our temporal, and MIN our spatial extension.
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.
"The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk
The northboard train will be called the Fruit Train, and the southbound train will be called the Nut Train.
Cue the Simpson's Monorail song!
Or any regular rail system. The last place that I want to be is in a train doing 150 MPH when an earthquake hits. I would much rather be in a maglev or monorail, both of which are elevated and fairly easily to isolate from an earthquake.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
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).
It's not like the US Govt is having problems keeping a balanced budget.
Look, up here in norther California we don't like them southerners. They should stay where they are (and pay us for our water). The number of people commuting from NorCal to SoCal probably doesn't warrant a frickin' bullet train. Besides that would still be a 4 hour daily commute. We need more local mass transit, both in the north and the south. We need better routes and newer technology. A bullet train from SF to LA doesn't make sense.
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
You sound like someone who has never taken a train before. I imagine riding this would be like any other high speed rail in the country, like the Acela. You buy a ticket and get on with basically whatever you want. It's nothing like an airport.
... it was supposed to cost $10 billion ...
Air fair from san francisco to san diego is $29 each way. That travels at 300+ mph.
Dude, seriously? Thats 112 million per square mile. How about they pay me to build one, I'll pop one up next to I5. I'll do it for a billion...
Trains can be an excellent means of transportation. But, as AC post 29622359 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 put in place between Seattle and Portland; the few dozen daily airline flights between the two cities would probably drop to just a handful.
Obviously, a good rail system is not a replacement for driving, when having your own car at the other end is important; but a properly designed and run rail system CAN be a truly cost-competitive replacement for airline travel in many instances.
The problem is that there is now no way we will get a properly designed and run rail system. Maybe in short spurts (The Pacific Northwest corridor, the Californian corridor, etc.) But not nationwide. We will *NEVER* see a transcontinental bullet. Hell, I think we'd see the pie-in-the-sky (or under-the-ocean, as the case may be,) trans-Pacific underwater vacuum-tube rail line before we see a transcontinental high-speed one.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
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.
2h 40m ??? Could do that in a car with an autobaun lane.
'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?
Just trying to get through San Francisco during rush hour takes longer than the train that can make it all the way to san diego!
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
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.
That's incredible! 2 Hours and 40 minutes with billions of dollars? And what can I do now that I couldn't do before with an airplane? A flight is about $120 round trip. Let's call it $200. The federal component of this funding alone would buy some 25 million flights.
For those who don't live in California, keep in mind that intra city public transit is horrible/non-existent - there's no additional convenience over an airport here.
It seems that the further we are in debt, the more ways people find to spend money we don't have.
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.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
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.
There comes a point when 'let's add another lane' is no longer a viable option!"
There also comes a point when "let's have another horrendously expensive tax-sucking boondoggle" is no longer a viable option.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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.
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.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
and the $9.95 billion of general obligation bonds?
Nothing on earth Like a genuine, Bona fide, Electrified, Six-car Monorail!
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.
The roads in Los Angeles are crumbling around us, the L.A. subway system barely goes anywhere useful, there are 90,000 homeless in the greater L.A., more than 100,000 people (net) left California than moved in, the legislature is hopeless, and anyone who has an idea and the political backing to mandate it can push it through with a referendum. Most of these ballot initiatives are pushed by powerful lobbyists whose businesses will directly benefit.ï
So, we get a bullet train, and the wealthy can avoid the airport. What we really need are more city buses and strong disincentives for driving, such as fuel surcharges, and incentives for carpooling, since sitting in gridlock doesn't seem to be enough. And easier ways to get to the major connector hubs, like Union Station here in L.A.
The DOT doesn't own those lines, so good luck with that. If it were my call, I'd build new lines specifically for Amtrak (no freight), put high speed rail on that built to euro spec, and increase ridership. We already have decent intracity transit on the east coast, so regional links make sense. West coast gets funding for intracity transit if they can come up with a decent plan. I don't really see california as having good transit now - they tore it all down in the 50s.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
The British invented the passenger railway and yet our rail networks are still horrible.
They're not the worst in the world, just a source of continual mild disappointment. The best thing about them is that we get to moan about them. It's a bit like our weather, really, except that we didn't invent drizzle (that I know of).
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. Damn near dead average.
Please help metamoderate.
We should just build a central track down I-5. Drive your car onto the train, shut off the motor. Let the train go 200 mph there. Drive off train.
Either that, or we should just build an autobahn down the middle of I-5, separated from the trucks and grannies. Require a special license, like you need an M-1 for motorcycles, require an A-1 for the autobahn. Minimum speed 120 mph in the right lane. Maximum 200 mph in the left. Problem solved.
The Europeans will probably come up with a way to equip cars with 3rd rail pickups and for them to form into trains that are controlled by computer. We'll sink all our money into 20th century tech. Feh. If we're going to fork over that much dough, I want to see something really new--the kind of thing we used to do; leading not following.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I'd hate to be riding that .9149th of a train.. I mean, you'd have plenty of time to get up to full speed before the track suddenly ended...
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
(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.)
DOT, a government-run body, does a better job of maintaining its right of way than Union Pacific, a private company. Hmmm...
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Wow, yet another reason for California to raise revenue by legalizing marijuana! :)
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 and every square inch is someones ancestral home.
You can't plant a garden, much less run a rail line, without hitting ancent relics.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
and they want to build a bullet train? Which, if it's actually completed, will not even come close to the promises made.
Priorities!
Trains today don't go as fast as they used to, only something like 60 MPH. Someone who knows train lore told me that there is a
sign in Kansas which says:
Slow to 110
This is left over from very old service as the trains went over 125 MPH. This was before a curve, but only to lower the wear on the track...
Just a 125 MPH train from LA to SF would beat the planes if you count all the airport mucking around...
:/ In Japan I could travel 600km in 3hours for 120$. With no ticket before hand and trains leaving every 15minutes. The whole time I was there I probably traveled 2500km on local and high speed lines. Likely 30 trips. And I spent a large amount of time in train stations for all these trips, In every station there are boards saying whether the trains are late or on time delayed. So I probably saw times for nearly 500 trains. I only saw one delay the whole time. The timer said it would be 48seconds late due to weather.
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.
A huge amount of money is spent around the world for new environmentally friendly transportation and energy production technologies. This all well and good but all this money is being wasted. There is a much better way and here is why.
We are on the verge of a breakthrough in physics because there is reason to believe that we are swimming in a huge sea of squeakly clean energy, ready for the taking. A recent reevaluation of our understanding of the causality of motion leads to the inescapable conclusion that we are immersed in an immense lattice of energetic particles. Soon, we'll have vehicles that can move almost anywhere at tremendous speeds and negotiate right angle turns without slowing down and without incurring any damage due to inertial effects. Floating cities, earth to Mars in hours, New York to Beijing in minutes... That's the future of energy and travel.
You don't understand motion even if you think you do.
The Problem With Motion
Why? Prop 13 and a state full of taxpayers instead of citizens.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
According to Google Maps, it is 501 miles driving. Source.
Someone needs to check their facts. :-)
Just sayin'.
Planning has been underway since before the vote last year. The HSR will have its own right-of-way and will require building new track. Am I confident it's going to happen? Eh, maybe. But the idea is that it will be true high-speed rail, and with that requires specially constructed track and all the trappings thereof.
In 3010, the potatoes triumphed
> First of all it's going to be a high-profile target for terrorists.
> So, expect check-in situations exactly like the airport.
One big difference, though. It doesn't take much explosion-wise to kill lots of people on a plane. American trains, by comparison, are rolling bank vaults. A bomb detonated in a passenger car would kill ~50 people, max. Passengers in adjacent cars would barely notice the muffled thud. Sure, lots of terrorists could try to pull off a synchronized event... but then the complexity goes way up, and the "bang per terrorist buck" is still pretty low compared to much, MUCH softer targets... like a McDonalds across the street from an elementary school, or a high school/college football stadium at homecoming.
I *would* like to know, though, how in god's name a trainset consisting of two locomotives and 3-5 passenger cars ends up costing more than a f***ing brand new 777. I tend to support rail projects, but someone first needs to figure out why anything involving a train in America ends up costing more than the goddamn Apollo space program did. It somehow cost more money to double-track Tri-Rail from Miami to West Palm Beach -- through an existing rail corridor that USED TO *BE* double-track at one point in the past -- than it cost to progressively tear down and rebuild I-95 in Broward County, taking it from a 6-lane antique to a fairly impressive 12+ lane modern freeway in the process. Yeah, they built *a* new bridge for Tri-Rail. Big deal... they built two more, each 3-4x as wide as the new rail bridge, right next to it as part of I-95's reconstruction.
I really think that half the problem is that American states send people to study trains in Europe and Japan. Really, they should be going to INDIA to learn how to build and run a huge train network that's relatively fast, dirt cheap, at least as reliable & on-time as American air travel is, and genuinely useful to millions of people every day. Personally, I'd kill for hourly 100mph service from Miami to Orlando, with the ability to do rental car paperwork on the train & walk directly to the parking garage -- key in hand -- once the train arrives. It's a nearly ideal intermediate-speed rail route... farther than anyone really wants to drive, but not *quite* far enough to be worth the cost, grief, and "hurry up and wait" stress of air travel. The problem HERE is that every time FDOT gets ready to build something useful and sane, the HSR monster rears its ugly head, and derails the whole thing for another decade or two.
How many people travel from San Diego to SF on a regular basis ? Not many, and stopping at all the places in between will slow it down to the point of uselessness. I'd think 4+ billion could be better spent on developing 'reasonably' priced air travel ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
California's airports are approaching capacity. The HSR is supposed to relieve the airports of intrastate flights to free up room for more interstate and international flights. A secondary benefit is the connection between main airports like LAX and overflow airports like Ontario International (in San Bernardino County, not Canada). Also, HSR is not as much of a target for terrorism as planes are because HSR is on the ground and follows a strict path. Last, building it will make it easier for other connecting HSR lines to be built, potentially by the private sector. There is a company called Desert Xpress that has been trying to build a HSR line from Las Vegas to Victorville just to cut down on the weekend traffic. If HSR passed through Palmdale/Lancaster, it's a clear path from there to Victorville and ultimately Las Vegas.
San Diego's airport is tiny and voters rejected building a bigger airport elsewhere. Orange County passed on turning El Toro into an international airport and instead are turning it into the largest park in the country. All flights that have to be turned away because of overcapacity are lost business. California may be ok for now, with the recession reducing all forms of traffic, but when the rubber hits the road again we're going to have the same problem.
I don't see how the parent warrants a +4 Insightful moderation.
If the monetary goal for repayment is $4.7 billion and the fare was $30 per person, then it would not be 156 million trips. It would be 156 million one-way fares paid. The distinction is completely relevant... or are you saying that there will be only one passenger per trip?
According to Wikipedia, the typical high-speed rail capacity is 800 passengers per train. So assuming that this is the case and during each trip the train is filled to half capacity with 400 fare-paying passengers, the number of trips required to generate $4.7 billion in fares is under 392,000.
Again, this is incorrect. Operating under the assumption of each train carrying 400 each trip, it would take 235,000 trips at a $50 fare per passenger.
Additional costs and upkeep notwithstanding, it would not take nearly as long to recoup the original $4.7 billion investment as you make it out to be. There would also likely be more than one train in operation at a given time.
How about California dedicating money to stop fires, mud slides and to build a decent electrical system. The last thing they need is a bullet train. Right now they are releasing convicts over the costs of their imprisonment.
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.
[--- PGP key and more on http://www.root42.de ---]
The last time I rode the train from Nevada to Berkeley [...] the train was delayed for over four hours. With no explanation or estimate of when the problem would be fixed.
You've really got to ride wine-enabled Amtrak, like the Coast Starlight (unless you're riding coach, you peasant). Who cares if your [hic] yuo're [hic] lore hate...[hic]
They should cut spending and live within their means, not reach out with a vampiric claw at the taxpayer's wallets.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Frankly, the trains work efficiently in Japan and Europe too.
This is something that fails exclusively in the United States.
Get to the Bullet Train....Ah-gull,ah-gull,ah-gull....
The fools in Sacramento cut my pay (and that of nearly every other state employee) and then have the gall to ask for money for something we don't need. Change the constitution now.
Don't you see it? California penal pot-farms! Spawn a whole lucrative industry using cheap possibly experienced labor! In fact if the state took over pot clubs and replaced them with state operated dispensaries (ala state run liqueur stores in Washington) we probably have to work to create another budget short-fall anytime in the near future (but unfortunately we might be too stoned to care if we successfully did). Invest in junk food stocks now!
Quack, quack.
Working while riding...
"You waste 45 minutes driving while your boss could be working while he is sitting on the train, because he isn't driving."
Cool. Call me back with train tickets as soon as the time I spend working while on the train there and back counts as work hours instead of personal time.
-- Terry
put 50 people in a box on a track, put 50 people in an aircraft fuselage. you're going to tell me moving that box on a track horizontally is as anywhere remotely as costly fuel wise as launching it into the air?
furthermore, even if the airplane moves 5x as fast as the train, downtown to downtown service still beats, timewise:
1. taxi schlep to the airport
2. queue in security line
3. fly
4. taxi schlep to downtown
for la-san fran, and for boston-dc, the quantity of people, at the speed, at the convenience, at the fuel savings... high speed rail makes so much damn sense. it's really odd to me the anti-rail sentiment and where it comes from. is it expensive? yeah, sure...ONCE. so is an aqueduct. then it lasts you forever and is indisputably indispensable for modern society
china gets this, japan gets this, europe gets this
what the fuck is wrong with americans they are so fucking braindead about the blindingly obvious superiority of high speed rail?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
then its just maintenance
and certainly not a boondoggle, unless you actually want to submit there's no obvious benefit from high speed rail. that would pay for itself over time
meanwhile, if you want an expensive boondoggle, try relying forever on a mode of transport which depends upon a fuel source you get by paying countries that are hostile to you, at a forever increasing price rate
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
you have no clue what you're talking about.
"All budgets in California must (1) be balanced,"
1) You either don't live in CA or you have your head in the sand. This is blatantly untrue. There is a reason CA's debt rating is the worst in the country....
2) This exact high-speed rail measure was voted on by Californians last year and it PASSED. When they realized they couldn't afford it they decided to try to get the rest of the country to pay for a California-only transit system.
"The lack of increase in taxes to cover for shortfall is a R-party issue entirely though"
The mass exodus of businesses from CA is entirely a D-party issue though. The only thing keeping CA together (and D's in the majority) has been the irresponsibly low taxes. Now that those items have to be paid for, CA is running scared. An article I read a while ago said it well, "CA used to be taxed like libertarians and subsidized like socialists. Now they will be taxed like socialists and subsidized like libertarians."
The new proposed tax that has been lauded across both aisles removes the corporate income tax and applies a VAT to all citizens. The only reason CA democrats are behind this is they are afraid that their anti-business policies might have killed the goose that lays the golden eggs.
I was not a big fan of ex. Mr Universe movies but I am sure he can do it for CA, see how he handle the governorship very few people can handle this difficult job.
http://askaralikhan.blogspot.com/
Tonight I was surprised to see the Boston Red Sox on the NY Times homepage, top and center. Go figure. People are packed like sardines on trains to Fenway Park. They are literally packed in one end of the car to the other... It might be cool to have a train that goes from San Diego to Los Angeles and San Francisco. I know the sports world will probably love the idea.
Seriously, roads are hugely expensive to build, operate, and maintain. The only thing they do cheaply is act as a free parking lot twice a day.
All transportation is subsidized. Get used to it.
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.
Which is about par for the course here in California with Amtrak. To pull over onto a side track and wait for an hour so that one can watch a freight train loaded with sugar beats go by is annoying to say the least (wasting the time of hundreds of passengers for freight doesn't bother the freight companies in the least). Almost without exception, the only people who ride Amtrak are those who either (a) haven't already done so and vow never again after their first trip or (b) want to travel between northern and southern California as cheaply as possible AND don't care how long the journey takes. The last time I rode the Amtrak here in California was back in my college days when I had plenty of time and little money. It would be cheaper for the government to give away free bus tickets to college students returning home for the holiday breaks than to continue subsidizing the terrible Amtrak passenger service.
I doubt that anyone would advocate that you kick loose dangerous offenders to reduce the prison population. It is one thing to decide to reward criminals. It is another to decide that perhaps they should not have been locked up in the first place. And it is yet another to decide that keeping them locked up is just not justified when you consider the expense of it.
END COMMUNICATION
From what I understand, under Bush and the Republican dominated congress, the system was Borrow and Spend. And for all those people who like to bitch about Tax and Spend, what are the alternatives?
1) Tax and Spend: Collect Taxes and then spend those taxes.
2) Borrow and Spend: This is like saying buying with a credit card is not really spending money.
3) No Tax and No Spend: Some people think that they would like this system. I suspect that they would quickly discover it is not quite so great to either have no services / infrastructure, or to be billed directly by a corporation who has no hesitation of cutting you off when you do not pay your bills.
END COMMUNICATION
An airbus A340 seats up to 800
I think you mean an A380. An A340 seats maybe 350ish?
Where's your source for this claim that it's been kicked off the Peninsula? Yeah, there's been flack from some communities about elevated tracks, but kicking it off the Peninsula would make the project practically useless, since that would destroy any travel benefits to all those people (like me) who live between San Francisco and San Jose.
Besides that, I figure they'll have to elevate or bury the lines eventually anyway, because too many trains are being delayed by people who use them as a suicide mechanism.
156 million trips sounds like a lot until you realize that by 2020, SF LA will hit about 60 million trips per year by air. That's because it is the busiest air corridor in the United States. Oh and the airports here won't be able to physically handle the passenger increase and estimates to build a new airport run around $20-30 billion and that's without highway upgrade costs.
Oh and there would be so many planes in the air that air traffic control would basically melt down.
There's a real problem reaching San Francisco. There's no good right of way for high speed rail. The I-5 route to Sacramento looks OK, but reaching Oakland or San Francisco looks tough.
The only existing right of way to San Francisco is two tracks wide and used for commuter rail. There are houses up to the tracks on both sides, and much grumbling since the rail line got an upgrade a few years ago, with over ten trains an hour and higher speeds. The idea of stacking an elevated high speed line atop the existing commuter line has residents annoyed. (The commuter line is at grade, with dozens of railroad crossings.)
There's a big issue in San Francisco over whether to build a train terminal "downtown". Getting the last half mile into downtown San Francisco is very expensive. It would be much cheaper to stop half a mile away, at the existing station. Actually, "downtown" is migrating towards the existing train station, and most new construction is closer to the existing station than "downtown". So this could work out OK.
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 Sacramento don't cost anywhere near the price of the main segment of LA to SF and are just there to complete the system. I don't even think they are part of the first stage and may never end up being built.
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.)
The freight companies own the rails, not the Federal Government or Amtrak. It's not a matter of senseless federal fiat, but of economics and property rights.
Also, Airports charge user fees to land or take off planes there. Whether or not that covers all the capital cost and operation of the airport is something you'd have to check airport by airport.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Why not go with Transrapid, i.e. Maglev? 300 mph is sure better than 200 mph, especially for so large distances. When so much money gets spent at once, let's do it properly the first time.
Ha ha ha.
I have no idea how inter-state rail works over there in the US (I'd imagine not very well, since public transport seems to be an alien concept to the majority of Americans and a simple journey from South to North usually requires a twelve-hour change at Chicago) but... it'll be just like a 'normal', commuter train.
As in:
Perhaps you don't understand this concept, but it works perfectly well in the UK. (And we generally consider our public transport system to be terrible - the French and the Spanish do it best of all.
Also, security checks at stations are practically non-existent - the most I've ever heard is a pre-recorded announcement over the station intercom saying "do try to keep all personal belongings with you and do not take photographs of the security equipment: if you see anything suspicious, please tell a member of staff or hit the Emergency button on the Help Point."
I speak as someone who commutes by train every single working day (albeit over a shorter route.)
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/2181.html
It's a year newer (2009) and has a lot more interesting information. Including the fact that most of the high income states are in the northeast. Except for Wyoming.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
So the high-speed train goes 220 MPH. Big deal.
Hell of a lot quicker than a car
Here is how a trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles would actually work for this train.
First of all it's going to be a high-profile target for terrorists. So, expect check-in situations exactly like the airport.
Just like the London Underground, which is a target for terrorists? There are ticket barriers though.
- Drive 30 minutes minimum to get to train station.
Depends where you are, my work is a hell of a lot closer to the city's train station than the airports.
- Ride bus from train station parking lot to terminal. 15 minutes
- Check-in/security check/board time (just like an airport terminal). 60 minutes minimum.
Even Eurostar, which has passport checks, and is a bigger "target", with the fact it goes under 30 miles of see, has a minimum check-in of 30 minute (10 for first class)
- Travel high speed to Los Angeles (approximately 440 miles). 120 minutes or two hours.
- Gather bags checked, you don't think they are going to let your average family going to disneyland carry big bags onto a passenger car now do you? 30 minutes.
Whyever not?
- Ride rental car shuttle bus to rental car location (includes wait time for shuttle bus). 30 minutes.
- Drive to Disneyland (or where-ever else in the Los Angeles area). Assume 30 minutes.
Total elapsed time is 315 minutes if my math is right. Or 5 and 1/4 hours. And this assumes there are no intermediate train stops along the way. Do you really think the train will pass by the largest city in the SF Bay area of CA (San Jose) without stopping? I don't think so, therefore add some station time.
Eurostar adds about 5 minutes per stop.
Time to drive a car from San Francisco to Disneyland (which I have done many times) is about 6.5 hours.
So, what have you saved? About an hour of time.
No, real timings based on real high speed rail in backwards countries like the UK
1) Get to st pancras -- 45 minutes from suburbs, 30 minutes from anywhere in the city. Tube or taxi.
2) Check in, 30 minutes
3) Travel to Disneyland Paris -- 2h30
4) Disembark and get to park gate -- 10 minutes.
Total time, under 4 hours. You'll be lucky to get to Dover by then if you're driving, and if you go by plane you'll still be in the air.
A fast train is pie-in-the sky thinking. It's not going to solve anything.
It's not meant to solve the problem of getting fat tourists to disneyland for cheap. It's meant to solve the problem of getting buisnessmen to and from a nearby city for a lunchtime meeting, without losing any time being away from a phone or laptop (with power).
Just fly larger aircraft. An airbus A340 seats up to 800 and will do the same trip in 75 fewer minutes.
No, it wont.
Save the billions spent on the proposed rail line and add a runway or two to the necessary airports at a much lower price.
There is plenty of airspace and capacity, use it properly.
Here's a little tail about the realities of high speed rail vs air. Two people need to get to Brussels for 9AM GMT.
A) Depart house at 05:30
B) Depart house at 05:45
A) Arrive Heathrow at 06:00
B) Arrive St Pancras at 06:30
A) Checked in and security at 06:50
B) On train reading paper at 07:10
A) Board plane at 07:30
B) Finish breakfast and paper at 07:45
A) Land in Brussels at 08:45
B) Fix issue back in the office via VPN at 09:00
A) Leave airport at 09:15
B) Arrive Brussels at 09:30
A) Arrive office at 10:00
B) Arrive office at 09:50
High speed rail 25 minutes faster. The plane doesn't have any fully productive time, but breakfast on the plane might just about work. The train has 1:30 productive time and another 30 minutes of no mobile signal.
Total cost of trip, booked 12 hours earlier
A) £450 return
B) £80 return
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.
Not correct for the ICE: it can run on 'regular' rails - however, only with a reduced speed; indeed, for "high speed" it needs special rails. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercity-Express#Route_planning_and_network_layout)
Actually, adding more lanes does work, compared to the real world numbers of high speed rail.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10170
Not sure why you did NOT add in the time it takes to recover from a major derailment when the engineer screws up while texting little boys and slams into an oncoming freight train.That's at least 210 hours laid up if you survive. But seriously, while this is a worthwhile project for Cali, how are they going to pay for it...are they going to raise more taxes on soda pop & porno mags? But if it could be done without bankrupting my mother, it would be grand for those that have to fight the crowds at LAX.
I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
Quite frankly, who the fuck cares? While Japan has half the population of the US it has something like 2% of the land area of the lower 48, and because of geography that population is crammed into only a small portion of that area - leading to high population densities and having only a (relatively) small number of important cities close together.
You could just as usefully compare fish and bicycles.
Will kill this before it starts. It is not as if they can just build it and be done. It has to go somewhere. That means over peoples property and/or through areas that were kept off the market which are likely to be environmentally sensitive. Or you can build it along hovering over the I-5 and/or California Aquiduct and hope you don't screw up the major transportation artery and water supply during construction.
They should have done this decades ago, now, its gonna be a boondoggle and nearly everyone knows it but they are pushing forward anyway. That's government for you.
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.
To be fair not everyone's destination is downtown.
I think what the best course of action is to give people choice. Right now we've built everything around the car. Now this is a useful transportation tool, but not the only one. I live and work in a city where I can generally cycle to work from May to November, and during winter I take public transit (subways and trams). I can walk to a bakery, butcher, grocer, fruit stands, banks, church, parks, dry cleaner, etc. for basic needs. I could drive there if need be, but it's only one option out of many.
The problem is that anything built after ~1940 has basically assumed you want to drive everywhere. This is a bad design decision, and one that needs to be fixed IMHO.
If you look at how much money Californians pay in federal taxes and how much less they get back, this "pony" has been paid for many times over.
In fact, much of the infrastructure of the whiny Republican heartland has been paid for by the liberals in California, NYC, and New England.
.That being said I have no idea if it will make money. Probably depends on how well it its managed.
The concern about making money is touching. How much money does
Interstate 5 make each year? Oh. Wait. Other than a gas tax of perhaps a couple
of cents a mile Interstate 5 (which is the major N/S route in California)
the driver is not paying anything (other than income taxes and the like).
Why do we expect basic transport to make money? What makes you think the
Airlines have (net, over their history) made any money? (without the subsidies
in the airports etc airlines would be out of business). We need to get folks
off of Interstate 5 and a sensibly priced choice will do that and save lots
of energy for the country and make a safer trip. A big win. Build the bullet train!
Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but it appears that total gas taxes and fees in the US amounted to about $29 billion in 2008. Presumably the actual cost per mile is closer to what you'd pay on a toll road. For extra fun you could add in public health and pollution costs, as automobiles are extraordinarily dangerous and dirty.
So, it's almost definitely a communist style subsidy.
Airplanes and airports, especially the regional carriers, are a huge waste of energy and money. A train carries more people for less money and energy than any aircraft. The difficulty with trains is that they have been, with malice of forethought, handicapped in order to encourage air travel. In the late 50' and 60's it was decided that airplanes were the "wave of the future" and that we could do away with that old technology. As an example a trip by train from Albany NY to New York City is a 2 hour 30 minute trip and a round trip ticket is $82. The train arrives Penn Station in the heart of New York City. Good luck with a plane from Albany to New York City it will be late, cost more and you still have get a cab/shuttle to the city. Not considering the verbal and physical abuse of your person and property by TSA agents the travel time and costs for a regional jet are almost double
Wasn't the same thing just proposed by Arizona to go from Phoenix to Tucson?
Yeah, but "High Speed Track" comes with high expenses. What's needed is good modern track, well maintained, and which passenger trains having priority over freight. (The density is rarely high enough to justify separate grades for passenger trains and freight trains.)
Even ordinary rail lines are expensive to maintain. They're cheaper than highways, but that's not saying enough. The freight handlers can get away with relatively shoddy maintenance as little that's time critical goes by rail, so they can have the train sit there while they repair things. (That's expensive, and they try to avoid it. But they don't try hard enough to satisfy a passenger centric system.)
More than hyper-speed trains we need good, cheap, passenger trains. These only happen in small corridors with dense passenger traffic. (Note that the SFBay BART system is, in effect, a high speed passenger line. But it only has something like 20-30 stops in the entire metropolitan area. It uses buses and cars as feeders, and the parking lots are full, but it's got a lot less penetration than is needed. Partially BECAUSE it's a high speed rail system. (The stops need to be far enough apart for it to pay for the train to pick up speed.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Amtrak is so terrible be cause the system is controlled by the freight lines, which don't want ANY passenger trains on their system. But we NEED decent trains. Who knows what airplane fuel is going to cost next year? A replacement system is mandatory. These "High Speed Trains" are only reasonable where there's a LOT of excess demand. Moderate speed trains are the reasonable choice in most places. They could generally be made to work by upgrading the current rail maintenance program and giving passenger trains priority over freight. And who cares that they only average 50 mph when you look out and see freeways being used as parking lots. A steady 50 mph looks a lot better. (I understand that this is standard on the East Coast, but I haven't been there since I was eight, so I don't know for sure.)
FWIW, when I first came to California the train service was both better and cheaper than it is now. But then the companies that owned the lines were paid by the passengers. Now Amtrak is paid, and it doesn't own the lines.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
In Japan, Hachinohe(.25m)-Morioka(.3m)-Sendai(1m)-Fukushima(.3m) is 250 miles. Population: 1.8million in these cities.
Boston to Washington is 400mi, Contains Providence, NYC, Baltimore and Philly. Population: Probably over 30million if you count the urban area, City centers alone will put you well above 15m, 8.3m in NYC alone.
So comparing a current shinkansen line in japan to a possible line in the US there is possibly 1/10 as many people. But it is impossible because US population is so sparse? REALLY? You might be right that the comparisons are unfair because northern Japanese shinkansen have to deal with such sparse spread out people, in the US they are all clumped together in giant populations. I didn't say connect California to NY did I.
If it is may I say: 'well done Sir.'
I await your demonstrations eagerly.
Don't let those that mock you slow your roll.
They will all rue the day they made fun of you when you float by overhead.
I haven't read your entire blog but suggest one possibility: Motion is discreet because the universe is a computer simulation. If we can find one unchecked buffer we can p0wn it and fly.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
In their efforts to balance the budget, the state govt of california utterly gutted many essential services.
Perhaps they should focus on restoring those, particularly those associated with education, medical care, and consumer protection, back on their feet first.
Absolutely ridiculous!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
The US has become a country of "we can't do it here". It's a shame. People in this country have no idea how backward the US has become. For example, take two cities in Japan, Fukuoka and Hiroshima, cities about the same size as Portland, OR, and Seattle, WA, and about the same distance apart, 175-180 miles.
Between Fukuoka and Hiroshima you can travel by plane, train, or car. As far as the trains, there are 150 trains going between the cities each way every day and the trip takes 62 to 72 minutes city center to city center. It is impossible to travel between Seattle and Portland at that speed. If you are very lucky, you might be able to get between Seattle and Portland city centers in 90 minutes, by traveling out to the airport, going through security, and then back to downtown on the other end. But more than likely it will take at least 2 hours. And then your choices are limited. There aren't 150 flights going each way every day. The train between Seattle and Portland takes over 3 hours and get this, the bridge over the Columbia near Portland is a draw bridge and if there is freighter going up/down the river with a load of wood chips, the freighter has the right of way. The draw bridge opens and the train has to wait twenty to thirty minutes for the freighter to go by. Even though the train is a scheduled passenger service, river traffic takes precedence! To drive between the two cities takes three to four hours depending on traffic.
Between Fukuoka and Hiroshima, you don't even have to think about planning ahead if you want to travel between the two cities. If you suddenly need to get from one city to the other for business or other reason, there is a train leaving every 5 to 15 minutes and you can purchase your ticket on your cel phone while you make a dash for the train station. Such convenience is simply impossible in this country. Having high speed rail between cities makes all kinds of things possible which are unthinkable in the US.
There are so many advantages to having fast rail between city centers. It beats out flying and vehicular travel and is the greenest way to go. It certainly is the most comfortable and safest way to go.
The US could have been the world leader in this technology, but we are sadly to say a country of can't do it here and so we keep falling further and further behind. Don't even talk about comparing rail in other countries to Amtrak. In Japan ticketing is so automated that on some trains, conductors don't even disturb you to ask to see your ticket. Their handheld computers indicate which seats in the reserved cars should be occupied and they won't bother you if you are sitting in your seat. And the train schedules in Japan are so reliable that if trains leave or arrive even a minute or two later on certain days, those one and two minute differences are noted on the train schedules. We should be able to have such reliability and accuracy in the US. Sadly, this country is hopelessly falling further and further behind.
Cali should do it the way the dot com companies did it! Fund it via advertising!!
Ooh, sarcasm.
All human activity has costs. When we are required to pay for those costs, we help ensure that resources are not being wasted, because people don't like to throw away their own money.
That said, the per-unit costs of operating a major superhighway like I-5 or I-95 are quite low. In Connecticut, moderate tolls were removed from I-95 and Route 15 because (among other reasons) the roads had been paid for many times over. Fuel taxes easily cover the costs of operating the road.
With regard to airlines, subsidies are more or less irrelevant. Just as taxes are passed through to the consumer, so are subsidies. The long-term unprofitability of the industry as a whole is more an issue of fools supporting losing enterprises than any inherent property of airlines that makes them money-lowers.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
good luck catching up behind the world. and thank those conservative morons who ran your country for the better part of the last 60 years for this.
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The back-to-the-trees types that the Left Coast is infested with will throw up roadblock after roadblock, until Arnold either gives it up or all the money ends up lining lawyer's pockets.
Regards;
Apples and oranges: The average Turk is FAR more pragmatic than the average Left Coastie.
Regards;
"Why do we expect basic transport to make money? " I don't. I just don't think the state of California needs ANOTHER stupid project to sink billions of HARD EARNED TAX DOLLARS into. We need to cut spending and reduce taxes, and all this will do is increase taxes and spending. "and a sensibly priced choice will do that " "California government" and "sensibly priced" like matter and anti matter. IF they ever came together, the entire planet would explode.
average turk doesnt know shit about pragmatism. and votes with his ass rather than his head.
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