Cost of High Speed Train Significantly Increasing (San Francisco: how much, subsidized)

[CAVA1990]

You will be required to show ID before boarding the train.

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

You will be required to show ID before boarding the train.

I would hope so. If they were to build HSR without airport style security and it became a popular mode of transportation, it would be a very soft and very high profile target for terrorists. Why bother getting around TSA and metal detectors when you could just walk onto a train with a bomb?

[krudmonk]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

You will be required to show ID before boarding the train.

You mean like when I buy alcohol? ****, what a pain!

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

I would hope so. If they were to build HSR without airport style security and it became a popular mode of transportation, it would be a very soft and very high profile target for terrorists. Why bother getting around TSA and metal detectors when you could just walk onto a train with a bomb?

You could kill more people at a sporting event, which has magic wands and maybe a pat-down. Airports are heavily secured because you can actually take over a plane and go wherever you want, possibly turning the plane itself into a weapon. Nobody drove a train into the World Trade Center. Just because HSR plans to compete with planes, suddenly they share all characteristics? No, trains are still trains.

[CAVA1990]

I believe we had to go through metal detectors and show ID before people flew planes into buildings. Believe me, the train will operate much more like a plane than a subway. Look for these features:

1. Reservations required, probably via internet only. No jumping on and off trains by whim.
2. Airline style revenue management (different fares like an airline based on time of purchase, time of travel, and other factors).
3. Checked baggage
4. Metal detectors and baggage X-ray machines (you have to do this now just to go to the Smithsonian.).
5. Assigned seating.

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by krudmonk

You mean like when I buy alcohol? ****, what a pain!

You could kill more people at a sporting event, which has magic wands and maybe a pat-down. Airports are heavily secured because you can actually take over a plane and go wherever you want, possibly turning the plane itself into a weapon. Nobody drove a train into the World Trade Center. Just because HSR plans to compete with planes, suddenly they share all characteristics? No, trains are still trains.

Remember, we're talking "perceieved" rather than actual risk. Why do I have to go through a metal detector at a government building and not a shopping mall? Any government run facility (including the high speed train) will be secured to the greatest extent possible. No bureaucrat wants to take the risk of being undersecured.

[krudmonk]

Fair enough, but the collective paranoia with regard to terrorism may have subsided by then. Let's hope so.

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by krudmonk

Fair enough, but the collective paranoia with regard to terrorism may have subsided by then. Let's hope so.

Amen to that.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Originally Posted by SEAandATL

Really? A lot of people compare California to Japan.

And that is a bogus comparison. Go try and find a place like the Carizzo Plain, or even, for that matter, Eastern Santa Clara County, in Japan.

[jkbatca]

Originally Posted by NewToCA

This was so predictable:

The new cost for the total project — originally projected at $33.6 billion in 2008 — has been revised to $42.6 billion to adjust for inflation.


Oh yeah, the fares have almost doubled too, but now they are stating the original fare they used to help justify the project was just a "placeholder", not a real fare:

“We basically arbitrarily set that 50 percent ticket price when we first started...Our research tells us that price is artificially low, and that a 75 to 80 percent rate of airplane flights is more widely used. So, we felt an increase in fares was appropriate.”

Fares inflate for high-speed rail | San Francisco Examiner (http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Fares-inflate-for-high-speed-rail-79376472.html - broken link)

I wish people would have discussed and thought about this more BEFORE the bond was voted on. Oh well...

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Originally Posted by jkbatca

I wish people would have discussed and thought about this more BEFORE the bond was voted on. Oh well...

I voted no.

I vote no on most bonds, as a rule of thumb.

But this one in particular warranted my no vote.