California High Speed Rail - Boondoggle or Boon? (San Diego, Fresno: buy, tax)

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by sav858

I'm guessing the Palmdale alignment had to do with geography and population to some extent. Tejon Pass is probably too steep for trains and would require a very long tunnel. Even the Tehachapi Pass is fairly steep and requires the existing rail line to do a large loop to go up the grade.

Central Valley was the initial segment to provide jobs to the region. CA and more of their equity BS instead of doing what makes the most sense at the time.

The Tejon pass is steeper if you don't want to do a lot more tunneling, but the thing is, the Tejon Pass is too step for *locomotive use*, not for the electric multiple unit configuration that CAHSR will use. There's a post by Alon Levy that looks into this a bit and cites multiple examples of HSR tackling grades of that slope and higher throughout the world. There is one development along the Tejon Pass that would need to bought out which is also costly, but its orders of magnitude less costly to buy that out rather than to do a jog through Palmdale. The Palmdale jog isn't absolutely terrible. It can be used for a path to Las Vegas from LA (though that's better served by passing through the Inland Empire), and it *is* a shorter pathway for points north to get to Las Vegas one day, but that would be for Central Valley cities and not SF or Sacramento where flight would be faster even factoring in getting to and from airports. The main benefit of going through Tejon Pass though is that it's likely substantially cheaper with a tail benefit that it's 12 minutes faster and less energy expenditure.

I don't have a problem with the initial segment being in Central Valley--like I said, the trade-off for the longer line is to also serve multiple growing, some already sizable cities, that will likely themselves generate decent ridership to and from the Bay Area and Los Angeles, as well as a quicker trip to Sacramento can be reasonable. It's also the segment without blended operations and with long straight-ish sections with large gaps between stops where you'd actually reach the top operating speeds, so you do want to be able to initially test and then potentially modify and improve. The problem is if the other parts of it come much later. I think since Caltrain electrification for the blended operation is already a-foot, then it makes sense to really drill down and get construction going for the Pacheco Pass soon, so that the link to a major endpoint is done simultaneously or soon after the Central Valley initial operating segment. It's good, somewhat recent news that the San Jose to Merced segment finally completed its EIR/EIS. The part linking Southern California hasn't hit approval yet, so there's a bit of a silver lining in that there's still time to try to direct it towards the Tejon Pass.

[NORTY FLATZ]

Originally Posted by BOORGONG

You must be a commie-nist. Sheesh.

I've been called some pretty heavy insults, but NEVER the "C" word. Dang...

[NORTY FLATZ]

Originally Posted by BBMW

Yeah, a $5 fair. How much would the fair have to be to cover bothe tge operating costs, and the interest on the debt floated to build it?

Yer missin' the point.

What's the NUMBER ONE REASON people don't go to Vegas?

Answer: It's because the traffic there/back sucks.

In fact, it sucks so much so, that there's a large percentage of people that just won't go. Now, if you were a casino, and you relied on people from SoCal for your new Lambo, it would make sense to accommodate those that you can legally fleece. So, it makes financial sense to pay/subsidize the majority of the fare, to get gamblers in your casino. It wouldn't take long for ALL the casino's to figure out this HSR deal.

Sometimes I just gotta lead 'em to the water, I guess...

[BBMW]

Even Vegas doesn't make enough money to finance this loser. And given how busy Vegas is, they don't need to. And note, a line to Vegas is completely unrelated to the LA-SF project.

Making airline service easier/more convenient, and cheaper would do a lot of the same thing. Better ground transport links to airports with more capacity, especially dedicated to shorter haul flight would do that. Clark County could also help by providing better ground transport in and out of McCarren.

Originally Posted by NORTY FLATZ

Yer missin' the point.

What's the NUMBER ONE REASON people don't go to Vegas?

Answer: It's because the traffic there/back sucks.

In fact, it sucks so much so, that there's a large percentage of people that just won't go. Now, if you were a casino, and you relied on people from SoCal for your new Lambo, it would make sense to accommodate those that you can legally fleece. So, it makes financial sense to pay/subsidize the majority of the fare, to get gamblers in your casino. It wouldn't take long for ALL the casino's to figure out this HSR deal.

Sometimes I just gotta lead 'em to the water, I guess...

[NORTY FLATZ]

Originally Posted by BBMW

Even Vegas doesn't make enough money to finance this loser. And given how busy Vegas is, they don't need to. And note, a line to Vegas is completely unrelated to the LA-SF project.

Making airline service easier/more convenient, and cheaper would do a lot of the same thing. Better ground transport links to airports with more capacity, especially dedicated to shorter haul flight would do that. Clark County could also help by providing better ground transport in and out of McCarren.

Well ok then.

LA to SF.

First off, nobody wants to go to that craphole SF, anymore. (Unless they need to score more fentanyl.) Sad, but accurate.

The word is out, worldwide, that SF is now a 3rd world Country. (Akin to North Korea.) It is NOT a destination, anymore. It's been ruined. And this, is coming from the fine folks of the likes of "Ease Los." (With honorable mention of Compton/Watts/Westminster/Bell/Inglewood/Hollywood and others.)

Heck, even the *Bloods and Crips & M13, have thrown in their collective towels. (They have their OWN turf to protect...)

What all this means, is that there won't be any demand to travel to either SF or LA. (Except for the people who fled some of the more dangerous countries, via airplane. Look in the wheel wells for these fine folks.)

* Collections of fine upstanding citizens of Gotham City.

[BBMW]

The 28 million passengers going through SFO a year suggest your wrong.

Originally Posted by NORTY FLATZ

Well ok then.

LA to SF.

First off, nobody wants to go to that craphole SF, anymore. (Unless they need to score more fentanyl.) Sad, but accurate.

The word is out, worldwide, that SF is now a 3rd world Country. (Akin to North Korea.) It is NOT a destination, anymore. It's been ruined. And this, is coming from the fine folks of the likes of "Ease Los." (With honorable mention of Compton/Watts/Westminster/Bell/Inglewood/Hollywood and others.)

Heck, even the *Bloods and Crips & M13, have thrown in their collective towels. (They have their OWN turf to protect...)

What all this means, is that there won't be any demand to travel to either SF or LA. (Except for the people who fled some of the more dangerous countries, via airplane. Look in the wheel wells for these fine folks.)

* Collections of fine upstanding citizens of Gotham City.

[BOORGONG]

Originally Posted by BBMW

The 28 million passengers going through SFO a year suggest your wrong.

Oops! You need to turn your Ironymeter back on.

[BOORGONG]

Originally Posted by NORTY FLATZ

I've been called some pretty heavy insults, but NEVER the "C" word. Dang...

Lol. All in jest.

[Bill the Butcher]

Originally Posted by FrankNSense

By Comparison when Japan built its first "Bullet Train", it took a grand total of 5 years to get the first line up and running.

We should have outsourced the entire planning, both engineering and environmental, and actual construction to Japan. The entire thing would have been completed by the end of this year and far more efficient.

IMO it should only have two stops in the Central Valley. One on both ends to serve Bakersfield and the Manteca/Modesto/Tracy/Patterson area. Sorry, Fresno, Madera, Visalia and Tulare would be left without a seat at the table. But still even if you are in those central CV cities it could still be worth a 45min to 1hr drive to the high speed rail station to catch a train going all the way down to Orange County or San Diego.

[Dave_n_Tenn]

If you read this you may be offended, or enlightened... either way you should at least look.
https://catalyst.independent.org/202...ia-brightline/