A report issued by the California High-Speed Rail Authority and the Federal Railway Administration says that a high speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco would carry 68 million passengers by 2020 and cost $37 billion to build. That’s a nice idea, but where will they find the money? A metro line to Washington Dulles Airport will cost $4 billion - only 10%. Could a list be developed of those projects with the highest ratio of benefit to cost?
Around 2094 maybe…after the 203 enviromental impact studies, lawsuits over the studies are resolved, lawsuits over making it available in the 29 most commonly used languages and accessable to folks lying on rolling hospital beds, the design is completley quiet and pollution free, and goes through no one backyard, three more governors are recalled, and when California balances its budget…who i am kidding, the Lions will win the super bowl and we’ll have coast to coast HSR befor that happens…
This forum doesn’t have the GE vs EMD and Amtrak problems worked out yet - we don’t have the time to take on any new projects. We will get back to you after our agenda is cleared!
PS - if it is carrying 68million passengers - where are they all going to live and work?
Stop the world I want to get off!
CA isn’t the only place that could use high speed rail service. If CA wants federal $$$$ for its’ rails, then the CA congress critters had better be ready and willing to vote some funds for the Midwest H.S.R.
They apparently all live right here with me in my neighborhood and all commute with me to the base every morning. I’m keeping the books on tape industry alive and well aswell as the folks that make the plastic coffee cups with the no spill lids, cause I’d have to sue myself if spill it on me.
In all seriousness though, southern CA does have what appears to be pretty good ridership on the Coaster and Metrolink trains between LA and SD. The ROW appears to be in good shape. There are way too many grade crossings for true HSR, but the F59s get going at quite a clip once they get north of Oceanside and into the Camp Pendleton area. I know several folks that commute back and forth a couple of times a week to LA. If it were feasable for me to ride the train to base I would, but the air station is on The Peoples Democratic Republic of Coronado, providing a daily reminder to the rich island gentry of how us po fokes live.
I would like to see a HIGH SPEED RAIL SERVICE between San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco via Santa Baraba. If they make improvement on the COAST LINE like add CTC, extended seveal Passing Sidings
Reality check kiddies - it ain’t gonna happen. Especially down there at Fullerton to “death-by-seawater” down to National City. Not in my lifetime.
DHarmon - Loved it when the Marines came out of the bushes at 2am in warpaint/blackfaced and heavilly armed at 2AM laying the steel down there at Fallbrook Jcn. in 88-90 when Santa Fe still owned it. Knew that turf well.
Quit wasting money on wonky studies that restate the obvious - Just build it!
Mookie: When you settle the locomotive issue, this will still be around. CalTrans will still have transportation folks (highway people) making uninformed judgements about what to do about railroads in the Great Granola Bowl to pacify all the fruits, nuts & flakes.
CG9602: Better hope that CA falls into the ocean and floats out to see in the next big quake. They think that the world ends east of the continental divide. DHarmon is one of the few that sees the bigger picture.(be nice to us Mookie!, we savvy Huskerland…)
mc
Ok, lets see… I have read High speed rail service studies for the following…
NEC!!
New York to Albany???
Florida
Texas
Michigan to Chicago
La to Vegas
and now La to San Fran
The only one that will get built is in Iraq!
High speed rail connecting the Los Angeles and the San Francisco areas poses several questions, one of which is what route would it take? The shortest route would be up and over the mountains that encircle the Los Angeles Basin along the I 5 corridor which follows the San Andreas Fault line. This route could require a long tunnel which could be very expensive since California is earthquake country. Add to that the line would have to be electrified. How is California going to pay for it given its shaky financial situation that caused a sitting governor to be recalled.
Sombody suggested routing the tracks along the Coast Line. This route is much longer, and because part of it runs along the Pacific Ocean it is vulnerable to storm damage.
While I think the ridership for a Los Angeles - San Francisco high speed rail link might be there, how do you provide credible projections of ridership? I am somewhat skeptical because a similar high speed rail project was proposed 20 years ago, but it was shot down for several reasons, one of which was its proponents could not provide credible ridership predictions.
I don’t know - they are pretty busy running for office or promoting their pick for office. Next they will want to move DC to Hollywood and Vine!
…Any new project can be shot full of holes…If it is a viable program worth looking into let it start through the process and see where it goes…Other Free World countries have done that and it’s now reality for them. We’re sure spending record amounts of money now for benifits mainly for folks other than us…How about thinking of this country and it’s infrastructure once.
We made major infrastructure builds in this country back in the 30’s…while we were in a depression…seems we might strive to shore up what is breaking down pretty fast now that our ecomomy is not receding but in expansion. [8D]
What this translats to is that there is $37bill they can steal and use to widen 1 or 2 freeway’s.
The biggest difficulty with HSR in Kalifoonia as our new Governator calls it, outside of the politics and big money interests, is the TERRAIN. This is a huge obsticle. In La we are ringed by very large mountain ranges. (Mt Baldy +10,000ft) with only a handfull of ways out north and south. Cajon canyon, Solidad canyon, the south coastal plain, and the northern coastal plain. non of them are easy to insert a HSR system into. Where would the ROW’s come from, everything is private property (often very $$ property ).
Going north south along the coast sound easy but now your trying to insert a fast, percieved noisy system into millions of NIMBY’s backyards from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Then once you get north of Santa Barbara the coastal mountain ranges will prevent any HSR trains from
Now if they can come up with HSR/Autotrain so they can take their Humvees with them…
Just put flanged wheels onto the Humvie and everyone will think its diesel locomotive.
I saw a proposal for a ground effects air vehicle, it looked like an aircraft fuselage with large but clipped wings. The plane was to “fly” only about 50 feet over the surface at up to 300mph using the aerodynamic lift generated by the combined effects of the wing surface and the airflow under the vehicle. The purpose being that they could build a vehicle that could carry very heavy loas a plane couldnt lift and was much faster than a steamship. The Russian (bless there hearts, they’ll try anything) actually built several prototypes, but found them not cost effectient, slower than a regular plane and burned alot more fuel. they were also prone to wave generated turbulance under the plane and to actual wave damage if the seas got too rough.
I haven’t driven on I 5 in 20 years, but is it still possible to use the median as a r/w? Other than the grades and curvature problems it would solve the noise/property/NIMBY issues. I suppose the HSR could use an elevated r/w to help reduce grade problems as long as it could be quake proof($$$$). An active tilt system will lessen curvature speed restrictions.
The Soviets were planning to use the ground effect vehicles as fast combat assault craft, simililar to the LCACs (hover craft) that the USN/USMC use, only with much greater range, payload and speed. They tested prototypes in the Black sea. But as i recall you are correct that they did not perform as well as hoped in rougher sea states.
Now back to California bashing…
So where exactly is all the money in CA going???
I’ve lived in TX and FL, were service fees, sales and property taxes are high, but no income tax and they seem to get by okay as far as state services.
I’ve lived in Commonwealth of VA where your money becomes common wealth. They have moderate to low sales tax, moderate income tax, low service fees (except auto tax, which I think they got
Yes, HSR is expensive, but $33-$37 billion for 700 miles of double electrified track is not that expensive. This comes to $19 million per mile. Notice that double electrified track light rail in urban areas can run from $30 million per mile up to $140 million per mile, depending on terrain. Dallas’ DART light rail is running around $30-$40 million per mile. Seattle’s big dig of light rail, mostly tunnel, is running around $140 million per mile.
Florida expects its HSR between Tampa and Orlando, following interstate right of way, will costs around $14 million per mile, and Florida is using the Jet Train instead of electrifying its tracks, saving $3 million per mile. Therefore, California’s cost per mile is only about $2 million more per mile, not bad considering there will be several miles of tunnels out of LA, and the Bay Area…
The costs of $37 billion, the high end of the estimate, does not equal the amount of money California spends on highways each and every year… HSR can be built just by placing a moratorium on highway spending for only one year, just one year!
However, California expects to build the HSR between San Jose and LA for around $10 billion, around 350 miles…
Its the other 350 miles that will costs twice as much…