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Tea Party governors unwittingly help California, hurt themselves

The Fallen Serpent said:
I would agree that not every area is a good spot for "HRS" to start up in the US.

California does seem to me to be a perfect place to test this. As is the eastern sea board.
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And if it can't be made to work in thoise places, it certainly can't work in the Midwest.

The Fallen Serpent said:
As for yearly bailouts/susbsidies, isn't California a donor state?
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Don't know, and it's irrelevant ayway.

The Fallen Serpent said:
I would agree that maintaing and expanding light rail is also a good idea. We should not be abandoning these systems to enact HSR. I imagine they could compliment each other well. A little more expansion of the light rail in the Beaverton/Portland area and I would barely need a car at all. As is my primary use for my car is my work commute and grocery shopping. Considering how much I buy at once in groceries if there was a better connection at the times I shop I would not need my vehicle for that. I would definitely give up my 20 minute work drive commute for a 30 or 40 minute bus/light rail commute. I have done it in the past.
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Nobody uses light rail for grocery shopping. You pay $5 or so to commute to a store, where you can only buy what you can easily carry? Doesn't make a lot of sense.

One thing I know for certain, once in place it will be politically impossible to abandon high-speed rail no matter how big a money-loser it is. Best to have just a little bit of HSR rather than having it nationwide.
 
drkitten said:
No, but there is a huge amount of of business travel between SF and LA. High-speed rail generally isn't for commuters, but for businessmen. That particular corridor is one of the more heavily travelled flight lanes, for example. HSR has the potential to be both faster and cheaper than a train for those business flights.....
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But it won't be faster and cheaper than an airplane, maybe not even a car, which is what businesses will be comparing it against.
 
WildCat said:
But it won't be faster and cheaper than an airplane,
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I love the absolute confidence born of absolute ignorance that characterizes the conservative position.

You have no idea what the operating costs of the rail will be. You have no idea what the fuel costs for the airplanes will be. You have no idea how many passengers the rail will draw. Basically, you know nothing whatsoever,....

... except that you know that airplanes will always be cheaper than railroads.
 
WildCat said:
And if it can't be made to work in thoise places, it certainly can't work in the Midwest.
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I agree. I think we should be putting this to work in California and the eastern sea board first.


Don't know, and it's irrelevant ayway.
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If California is a donor state it is actually subsidizing other states instead of the other way around.


Nobody uses light rail for grocery shopping. You pay $5 or so to commute to a store, where you can only buy what you can easily carry? Doesn't make a lot of sense.
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Come to Portland, OR and be amazed at the impossible! You can buy monthly passes as well. Buying what I can easily carry covers me for three to four days. Especially if you have a reusable bag and backpack grocery shopping by way of mass transit is very viable. I moved out when I was 18, did not own a car until I was 24, and for six years did the brunt of my grocery shopping by walking or mass transit. As is I grocery shop on average twice a week once at the beginning and once at the end of my work week. I stop by the store on my way home from work. Mass transit would be cheaper than car for my daily commute, the only problem is it takes 3 hours most days and requires a 45 minute walk on Sundays when I already work a 12.x hour shift. If mass transit were viable for my work commute my grocery shopping habits would not need to really change. I see people with groceries on our light rail all the time. It is done in Japan. It is done in Europe. It is done in the US.

One thing I know for certain, once in place it will be politically impossible to abandon high-speed rail no matter how big a money-loser it is. Best to have just a little bit of HSR rather than having it nationwide.
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I agree. It is better to start with a few smaller projects with envisioning a possible larger network if it is viable once the test markets are in place. At this point our relatively low national population density and large area means a complete national network is not viable. Perhaps in the future. We shall see. Still, I can see a coastal and southern connection line being viable in the US.
 
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The California network is one of those things you couldn't screw up if you tried. There are just so many people jamming the airports and highways and so little to convey those people.

It should be noted that the most successful new HSR network is in Spain which has virtually the exact same population size, population density and geographical area as California. What's more is that the California system is being designed to integrate with existing rapid transit and commuter rail lines. For example the San Jose station will have a bus depot, light rail, commuter rail and a BART station all under one roof.

The ticket prices have already been set too. They will not exceed 75% of a comparable airline ticket and may be as low as 35% of same.....and that's compared to existing Southwest fares which will be a thing of the past in 2012 when Southwest will have to jack up their prices by almost 200%.
 
drkitten said:
I love the absolute confidence born of absolute ignorance that characterizes the conservative position.

You have no idea what the operating costs of the rail will be. You have no idea what the fuel costs for the airplanes will be. You have no idea how many passengers the rail will draw. Basically, you know nothing whatsoever,....

... except that you know that airplanes will always be cheaper than railroads.
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Do you know if he's wrong by any chance?
 
applecorped said:
Do you know if he's wrong by any chance?
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Entirely depends what exactly you are doing and how many there are of you. Comparing with cars is complicated by the massive sunk cost. FWIW the cheapest way of moving reasonable distances around the UK tends to be by coach.
 
applecorped said:
Do you know if he's wrong by any chance?
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No. There's a miniscule chance he might have guessed right. If you ask me the population of a town in China that I've never heard of,... well, there's approximately one chance in several million I might be able to correctly name the number.

But I'm fairly confident that he's not right, simply because there's so many more ways of being wrong by chance than being right by chance.
 
The Fallen Serpent said:
Ultimately I would love to see a HSR network go from LA to BC. Or at lest to Seattle.
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I think this is the eventual plan, up an down both coasts before they try to bridge the "rail-through" largely empty expanses between them.
 
theprestige said:
...But it's not like there are a lot of workers in Sacramento who need to get to a lot of jobs in San Franscisco. It's not like there's a lot of jobs in LA waiting for a lot of workers in Fresno....
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While this was true a decade or so ago, a heavy percentage of the bay area population moved to Sacramento over the last decade running away from housing shortages and prices, towards Sacramento's burgeoning urban developments. The morning and evening mass migrations gridlock the highways and have already overburdened AmTrac. A highspeed train system from Sac to Oakland and SF is definitely a step in the right direction. SF to LA probably is more of relief for short-hop flights than auto transit, though a 3 hour train ride sounds a lot more attractive than an 8+ hour drive especially if the cost can be had for the same price as a short-hop special on the airlines (~$60+ one way, ~$100 RT).
 
We don't need hi speed rail or any of that crap in Wisconsin. This isn't such a densely populated urban area that will make good use of it. It's not Chicago, or New York. Nor are there that many people who commute to Madison every day.

Kudos to Travis for just mindlessly calling Walker an idiot for showing fiscal responsibility in this entire boondoggle. Because that's what it would end up being. It would be a highly expensive, rarely used rail system, that would end up requiring more and more subsidy, and more and more funding. Almost no one would use it.

Also kudos for jumping straight to the Dem talking points on how he's against "creating jobs". Seriously man, you are so idelogically biased.

Walker was a wonderful county executive, and he'll be a wonderful Governor. And you guys will be apoplectic about him for many years to come.
 
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Whiplash said:
We don't need hi speed rail or any of that crap in Wisconsin. This isn't such a densely populated urban area that will make good use of it. It's not Chicago, or New York.
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No, you're right next to Chicago, and almost entirely economically dependent upon it. The idea that you might want to make it easier and cheaper for businessmen in Madison to get to and from Chicago is of course ludicrous.
 
drkitten said:
No, you're right next to Chicago, and almost entirely economically dependent upon it. The idea that you might want to make it easier and cheaper for businessmen in Madison to get to and from Chicago is of course ludicrous.
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And of course the idea of future linking to lines coming out of PA and NY, that's obviously a ludicrous idea.
 
tyr_13 said:
And of course the idea of future linking to lines coming out of PA and NY, that's obviously a ludicrous idea.
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Well, even if such lines were built, it's obviously not possible to build a local economy off the idea of being a transportation hub. If and when a national high-speed rail network becomes practical, the idea that it would be to the benefit of the state of Wisconsin to have everything move through Madison instead of, say, Des Moines, is equally ludicrous.

After all, you have only to look at the history of railroads in Chicago to see how a railway hub usually destroys the local economy.

Much better to let Iowa deal with the question of how to attract enough people to fill the jobs that kind of infrastructure investment creates.
 
Madison had a good plan to centrally locate the new station as the hub of a downtown revitalization project that now has nothing to build around. It would have been a huge boon to that city and, after giving that money back, Wisconsin is now on the hook for many millions it was obligated to pay anyways towards consultants.



Anyone interested in the California plan should go here.
 
TShaitanaku said:
I think this is the eventual plan, up an down both coasts before they try to bridge the "rail-through" largely empty expanses between them.
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But even before then, the West Coast would have two routes separated by their own "largely empty expanse". The California and Pacific Northwestern high-speed routes won't be connected for some time.

For those interested, here are some maps that show current and possible long-term rail developments in the U.S.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_the_United_States#Current_federal_efforts
 
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