Slashdot Mirror
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!"
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.
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
To do list for Windows
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
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
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.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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.).
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.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
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.
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.
That's one way to look at it, but here 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.
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.
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, 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.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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.
ok now lets go to math class. 156,000,000/365 = roughly 43000. 43000/20 years is roughly 2150 people a day. 2150 people a day is next to nothing In NYC over a million people take the subway a day.....http://gothamist.com/2009/09/22/subway_yearbook.php....That being said I have no idea if it will make money. Probably depends on how well it its managed. But the numbers clearly indicate that it is possible. And yes I realize i didnt find the number of people who take the train INTO nyc but its the closest number i could find in 2 minutes.
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.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
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, 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.