Bullet train? Yes or no? (house, buying, taxi)

[BB_210]

Originally Posted by ysr_racer

I'm 60 years old, my grandkids will be lucky to ride that train. It'll never happen in my lifetime.

Has California thought about laying telegraph wires, or telex cables? I hear it's the newest thing in communications

But what about Jerry Brown's feelings? He NEEDS this train.

[JohnG72]

Originally Posted by 2nd trick op

I doubt you can find regular (and inexpensive) flights from Stockton to San Francisco, or from Bakersfield to Los Angeles; and those are examples of the eventual target markets for HSR in California. Unfortunately, these will require heavy capital and land-acquisition costs -- exactly why these hard choices were avoided until the next phase of the program.



Probably not for quite a while, but I'm fairly sure that the people who decided to build first in the Central Valley (where land is relatively inexpensive and potential high speeds are more quickly and easily realized) were aware of this -- it tends to force a few more hands, a few years further along.

Bakersfield is 2 hour drive from DTLA in traffic(its 114 miles).

Stockton is 83 miles from SF. 2 hour plus in traffic.

Train solves absolutely nothing. Absolutely ridiculous proposition. Unfortunately I can’t call supporters of this hs train what they deserve to be called.

[marcopolo666]

Originally Posted by ysr_racer

Soylent Green IS PEOPLE !!

Soylent Green is Pizza!!! No, really dude it's pizza. No no, really. It's pizza.

https://www.flyingsaucerpizza.com/soylentgreen

[ketch89]

Fast Facts About Cars, Trains and High-Speed Rail

• By 2040, the system will reduce vehicles miles of travel in the state by almost 10 million miles of travel every day.
• Over a 58 year period (from the start of operations in 2022 through 2080), the system will reduce auto travel on the state’s highways and roads by over 400 billion miles of travel.
• Starting in 2030, the state will see a reduction of 93 to 171 flights daily.
• By 2040, the state will see a reduction of 97 to180 flights daily.

[ysr_racer]

Originally Posted by ketch89

Fast Facts About Cars, Trains and High-Speed Rail

• By 2040, the system will reduce vehicles miles of travel in the state by almost 10 million miles of travel every day.
• Over a 58 year period (from the start of operations in 2022 through 2080), the system will reduce auto travel on the state’s highways and roads by over 400 billion miles of travel.
• Starting in 2030, the state will see a reduction of 93 to 171 flights daily.
• By 2040, the state will see a reduction of 97 to180 flights daily.

And if you're a good little boy/girl the Easter bunny will bring you gifts on Hanukkah.

[ketch89]

Myth: High-speed rail is a waste of money. We can expand our roads and airports.
FACT: Providing the same capacity as high-speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles would require:
• 4,300 new highway lane miles
• 115 additional airport gates
• 4 new airport runways
costing more than $158 billion with a 50-year maintenance cost of more than $132.8 billion.

[ysr_racer]

Originally Posted by ketch89

Myth: High-speed rail is a waste of money. We can expand our roads and airports.
FACT: Providing the same capacity as high-speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles would require:
• 4,300 new highway lane miles
• 115 additional airport gates
• 4 new airport runways
costing more than $158 billion with a 50-year maintenance cost of more than $132.8 billion.

Capacity and actually butts in seats are two very different things.

[ketch89]

Myth: No one rides trains anymore.
FACT: Other countries with high-speed rail systems service 1.6 billion passengers per year. Amtrak’s California corridors are among the busiest in the nation, with 5.7 million Californians riding trains last year.

[Finper]

Originally Posted by ketch89

Myth: High-speed rail is a waste of money. We can expand our roads and airports.
FACT: Providing the same capacity as high-speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles would require:
• 4,300 new highway lane miles
• 115 additional airport gates
• 4 new airport runways
costing more than $158 billion with a 50-year maintenance cost of more than $132.8 billion.

California's $77 billion bullet train will be one of the state's great embarrassments: Larry Ellison
By Julia LimitonePublished October 25, 2018TechnologyFOXBusiness

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Elon Musk thinks California's high-speed train is ludicrous: Larry Ellison
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison on technology's impact on health care, the future of AI, autonomous vehicles, California's plans for a high-speed train and how technology will impact other sectors.

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Tesla CEO Elon Musk are on the same page when it comes to California’s $77 billion high-speed rail project.

“Trains leave when you don’t want to leave, from a place you don’t want to leave from, and take you to a place you don’t want to go to, at a time you don’t want to get there, and then you have to get into a car and go wherever you’re going. It is a crazy system,” said Ellison during an exclusive interview with Maria Bartiromo on "Mornings with Maria Opens a New Window. " on Thursday. Ellison, who said he hasn’t spoken to Musk about the train, noted that their views are in-line.

Musk, through his Boring Company, is working on his own high-speed tunnel in Los Angeles to improve and make travel cheaper. Opens a New Window. It is expected to be open Dec. 10, according to a tweet

The high-speed rail project in California began in 2008 when voters approved Proposition 1A, issuing a $9.95 billion down payment on what was then a $33 billion project.

Proponents of the system claim that it will get people out of their cars and to places faster, but in Ellison’s opinion “robot cars” are the future.

“People are going to be in electric cars that autonomously take them from San Francisco to L.A. at a tiny fraction of the cost.” he said. “Leave when they want to leave, arrive when they want to arrive, leave from where they want to leave from, arrive when they want to get there. This technology Opens a New Window. will make that train one of the great embarrassments in the history of governance of California” he warned.


Ellison also said he had a conversation with Gov. Jerry Brown and President Clinton to share his concerns.

Even so, Ellison isn’t trashing the train itself per se, but in his opinion making electric cars is more cost-effective and environmentally friendly.

“The cost of building the train is astronomical. The environmental damage of building the train is astronomical,” he said. “You’re so much better just by using environmentally-friendly electric vans autonomously driven to take you from San Francisco to L.A. If that’s what you want to do, that’s the way to do it.”

If completed by 2033, the trains will run between San Francisco and Los Angeles and are expected to transport more than 120,000 riders per day, at speeds of up to 200 mph.

Tesla Opens a New Window. and Gov. Jerry Brown’s office did not respond to FOX Business’ request for comment at the time of publication.

That's what Musk and Eliison think of high speed rail. It's already obsolete. Innovators in Silicon Valley look to Thor future. They don't invest in the obsolete

[annoyingmagpie]

Originally Posted by 2nd trick op

Amtrak doesn't "run a profit" -- never has and never will. On the East Coast, it acts to co-ordinate its own infrastructure and operations with a number of local commuter-haulers (reginal government entities, such as the Port of New York Authority -- NOT operating railroad companies) which, in turn, inherited their facilities from several private railroads bankrupted by local political hacks between 1950-1975. Amtrak maintains the roadbed, electrical catenary and signal systems, and provides the largest share of dispatching and traffic control.

in California, several short-and intermediate-distance markets (L. A, .- San Diego, L. A. - Santa Barbara and Sacramento -Fresno - Bakersfield, to name three) have evolved and grown since the birth of Amtrak in 1971, And the idea behind CAHSR (which I'm neither endorsing, nor opposing) is to build another, faster layer of service on top of these.

This is a very long-term-goal, based mostly on the premise that the state can't afford much more highway expansion, just as is the case in much of the urbanized Northeast; again, I'll not attempt to sit in judgement.



The network of long-distance intercity trains, with dining and sleeping cars, is maintained by Amtrak on a handful of transcontinental and coastal routes; California sees only eight of these per day, used mostly by retirees and railroad buffs. As a mainstream marketing approach, It's as dead as Abbot and Costello.



You raise a fair point, but lets also consider the Fresno resident, no longer young, but still able to function, who occasionally travels to the major Metros with developed local transit, but can no longer drive long distances -- or at night or in inclement weather. (I myself was forced into this group by rising insurance costs last year, and I was only 68 years of age.) This segment of the population is expected to grow, and the trend synchs with the congestion issue previously cited.

My point being, If a service can't make money it shouldn't be around... That up to and including Amtrak. Hell, they lost money on soft drinks! We're talking government here, so our common sense is moot here. Going by judgment, this backs up the idea that its a waste of money