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California Going Ahead With Bullet Train
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from the NY Times:
"[California state leaders] have rallied around a plan to build a 520-mile high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco, cutting the trip from a six-hour drive to a train ride of two hours and 38 minutes. And they are doing it in the face of what might seem like insurmountable political and fiscal obstacles. The pro-train constituency has not been derailed by a state report this month that found the cost of the bullet train tripling to $98 billion for a project that would not be finished until 2033, by news that Republicans in Congress are close to eliminating federal high-speed rail financing this year, by opposition from California farmers and landowners upset about tracks tearing through their communities or by questions about how much the state or private businesses will be able to contribute."
The first transcontinental railroad took less than 10 years to build -- considerably less. Before doing something like this, figure out why the hell it's going to take 30 years, and fix that first.
Between the x-ray powered strip searches, the paranoid interrogations, and sexual molestations by abusive, angry pedophile wannabe mall cops, only masochists and boot lickers will want to ride in what could have been a beautiful piece of engineering. I'd rather drive in relative freedom than take a bullet train and be humiliated, brutalized, violated, and treated like an inmate. To quote the Elephant Man, "I am not an animal!".
If the TSA could be kept away, then it would be great. But that isn't going to happen.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
In twenty years, California will have swollen to perhaps 50million people, many of them taking the I-5 or US101 route from LA to the Bay area. I-5 is pretty much clogged now: imagine what happens if you have to continue to resize Oakland, San Jose, SF, Burbank, LAX, John Wayne, Palm Springs, Sacramento, and all of the other regional airports to accommodate grown-- along with the freeways. Something's going to give. Invest now, and the infrastructure is there. Don't invest, and it's going to get uglier than it is now.... much uglier.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
You can object to TSA practices - the violation of privacy, the ineffectiveness, and the rare but flagrant acts of sadism or molestation - without the pointless exaggeration. To hear you talk I'd be much safer and more comfortable wearing a "Democracy Now!" through Pyongyang Station than I would be boarding a California bullet train.
Blathering about pedophilia, fascism, and interrogations just makes your objections sound like paranoid ravings. Yes, you must be persistent, passionate, and creative in protecting your rights and protesting their violation, but above all you must be rational.
Your words are nothing but a disservice to anyone fighting for the Bill of Rights: it makes their job much harder when their rational objections become conflated with the rampant hyperbole and absurdly loaded language of people like you.
Amen.
before I was forced to retire due to ALS I had need to go down to a remote office in LA multiple times per month from the SF Bay area. Airplanes are quick once you leave the ground but the absolute living hell that is air travel made me dread the trip. Having a fast train is something I dreamed about since the month I spent in Europe on business. Totally stress-free "commute". Tie the fast line into municipal light rail like the widely used BART and San Jose light rail and you have a very successful merger of two huge metropolitan economies.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
Right, that's exactly why no one would ever build a high speed rail system somewhere like Japan where they are also prone to earthquakes. Obviously a train getting derailed is the biggest concern in quake prone areas.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
As a Californian transplant, I say you should get the fuck out. You haven't done a fucking thing with this place in decades. Make way for those of us that will, you lazy asshole.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Various reasons - energy efficiency, trains are more likely to be able to go _right where you want to be_ rather than some flat spot 30 miles out of town, etc. And if we assume that one more transport-class airport would have to be built, that's more land area than the entire rail system required. (Case in point - Dallas/Fort Worth Airport is, IIRC, more acreage than a four-lane freeway from Dallas to Washington DC. Same with the big one in Montreal.) Also trains are more comfortable by at least an order of magnitude.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
This doesn't make sense. A rider arriving in LA is going to need a car when they get off the train, unless they fancy spending a lot of time waiting for on Metro (formerly known as the RTD - Rough, Tough, and Dangerous.) Total boondoggle.
That also means that all flights between SF and LA don't make any sense because any airplane traveler arriving in LA is going to need a car when they get off the train, unless they fancy spending a lot of time waiting for on Metro (formerly known as the RTD - Rough, Tough, and Dangerous.) Total boondoggle.
HSR is an investment to the post peak oil future. When Jet A1 fuel costs $5 per liter only the extremely wealthy can afford to travel by air. I hope you Americans are not counting on that, everybody is rich in future? :) Meanwhile the others (and you!) are landlocked either to low speed electric-hybrid cars or low speed trains, that is if you don't start building HSR now . The question here is that do you Americans want to continue your lifestyle of affordable travel after the fossil fuels are out of question, or do you want to isolate yourselves and remove the last of your competitive features: affordable movement of people and goods?
But then again - "Americans, yes they are that stupid".
What would happen if USA neglects building heterogeneous transport networks and stays on the current trend of fossil fuel automobiles and planes? It is not the end of the world after the oil gets too expensive for transportation. If only you can keep the agriculture running you will not starve and private enterprises will built HSR and electric induction roads very fast. The bad thing is that at that time the rest of the world have those and you are late, so very late that I am afraid someone else has the technological and political leadership in this world. As a North European I wouldn't like to see that happen. America(USA) means a lot to me and I want see you leading the world in the future too.
What about us brain-dead slobs?
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