CAHSR demonstrates that it doesn't really make sense on the West Coast either, there some dense cites but it's also a really big state.
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High Speed Rail in California hits a pot hole
- Thread starter Travis
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CAHSR demonstrates that it doesn't really make sense on the West Coast either, there some dense cites but it's also a really big state.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
And I'm not going to tell you there will be worthwhile lines to southern California. It seems you can be realistic about high speed rail, after all. Just not when it comes to California, for some reason.
Donal
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It's actually the opposite problem. Corporate interests and the politicians they own are working to slow the project down at every turn. That's how a certain party in this country works.
Because China built a lot of its HSR between locations that don't have a lot of business travel. Leisure travelers won't care as much.
especially when Ford and Exxon can have their say.
Donal
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Yes, but one of us is wrong. And since you agree with my statement about not putting lines between rural locations...
Donal
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It's OK. The benefits trickle down to everyone.
Brainster
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So if it won't work in the perfect place....
Ziggurat
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California is completely dominated by the Democratic party. Nothing about the HSR failure there has anything to do with Republicans. And the primary external delays have been from environmentalists, not "corporate interests". Corporate interests have inflated the prices of construction, but again, that's a feature of high speed rail, not a bug.
A lot of the stations in California's rail plan won't have a lot of travelers of any kind. Yet the train has to stop at those places anyways. This is a common feature of high speed rail.
Yeah, no. First off, the failure of California HSR isn't their fault. Secondly, what kind of mark actually believes the crap that HSR advocates are saying? I'll give you a specific example. From the official California government HSR website, they claim that air travel from San Francisco to Anaheim produces 390 lbs of green house gasses per passenger. I haven't checked that, but let's accept that as a given.
Then it says that taking HSR saves 389 lbs of green house gasses per passenger compared to taking the plane or car. If we pick a plane, that would mean that taking the train only produces 1 lb of green house gas per passenger, which is complete bull ****, and cannot even be excused on the basis of renewable electricity generation since marginal electricity generation is all fossil fuels.
Now, their car numbers are higher than their plane numbers, so maybe the comparison is supposed to include cars in some unspecified manner. But examining the car numbers still shows it's a bull **** number. Going San Francisco to Los Angeles (slightly shorter than to Anaheim) keeps the plane emissions the same, cuts the car emissions from 524 to 497, but cuts the emissions savings from 389 to 349 lbs. Apparently, going a bit farther costs 27 lbs more in emissions for a car, but HSR saves you 40 lbs more. Which means going a bit farther somehow refunds you 13 lbs of emissions. That last leg must be magical, as it appears to actually generate electricity.
So no, the claimed environmental benefits being bull **** have nothing to do with Ford or Exon.
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theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
You mean like CAHSR is doing?
I'm bumping this thread because I heard a story in the news about it, 18 years after passing, not a mile of track laid yet. Now with a reduced scope the projected costs will be 4x the original estimate. The original estimates were a fraud though, independent estimates had it at 3x the official estimate. Also, it was supposed to finished 6 years ago.
Trausti
Illuminator
The obvious fix is to spend more taxpayer money.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
I still can't figure out who the ridership for this is supposed to be. LAX-SFO only services about 7.5k people daily. That doesn't seem like enough air travelers to make an HSR alternative worthwhile to anyone.
Is it supposed to open floodgates of intrastate tourism or something?
Is it supposed to open floodgates of intrastate tourism or something?
Ziggurat
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Ridership doesn't matter. Hell, actually laying track doesn't matter either. The money got spent. That's what matters.
From the perspective of Sacramento, California HSR has already been a fantastic success.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
I don't know about them, but one of the reasons is that it costs 3x more to build track in the US than it does anywhere else. the other reason, nimbyism, takes almost no effort to shut a project down for mostly "environmental" reasons.
Even the UK?
From what I've read yes, and that's just the average so places like CA, even more.
Not according to this:
"With its first — and now only — phase currently costed at between $58.4 billion and $70 billion by the UK government, Britain’s High Speed 2 (HS2) rail project now costs an eye watering $416 million per mile.
It’s a metric that gives it the dubious honor of being the world‘s most expensive railway project.
Only the equally troubled $128-billion California High Speed Rail project in the United States comes close to matching HS2’s soaring costs, with some estimates suggesting that it could top out at $200 million per mile.
For comparison, the Tours-Bordeaux TGV line in France cost around $32-$40 million per mile in the mid-2010s — although much of that line runs through sparsely populated agricultural regions."
Or here:
HS2 'will be the most expensive railway on Earth'
First 6.6 miles from Euston to Old Oak Common could cost more than £8bn
www.independent.co.uk
Unless its got more expensive while the world wasn't looking.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
It's a dubious honor, and I mourn with the UKians over their misfortune at receiving it.
At least the proposed London-Birmingham route looks relatively straight and flat, and seems to serve two cities within reasonable distance from each other, along an easement that already exists. It's a shame such a train-centric society like the UK, with a successful HSR project already in its CV, couldn't make something like this work.
At least with the California project, all you have to do is look at a map and consider the larger context, and you'd realize the project was absurd from the get-go.
At least the proposed London-Birmingham route looks relatively straight and flat, and seems to serve two cities within reasonable distance from each other, along an easement that already exists. It's a shame such a train-centric society like the UK, with a successful HSR project already in its CV, couldn't make something like this work.
At least with the California project, all you have to do is look at a map and consider the larger context, and you'd realize the project was absurd from the get-go.
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Brainster
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Here's an all-day sucker on how the CHSR lost $4 billion in federal funding. Note that although California politicos have blamed Trump, it's pretty clear that they screwed up. First they missed a 12/31/24 deadline to execute a contract to buy trains: