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The first leg of the California train is taking it through Bakersfield.
A more logical approach would be to connect it to the three large coastal population centers (San Diego, LA and San Francisco with limited stops every 50 -100 miles.
The second leg should be a Las Vegas Spur.
The deal with Fresno, Sacramento and Bakersfield
Bakersfield is not a "leg" on the first phase. Its just the first station to be built on the current alignment connecting LA and SF, and the stops are already limited to every 50 to 100+ miles.
The first phase of CA's HSR should have been built between LA and San Diego since that is where the most rail ridership in CA and I believe outside the Northeast is.
The first phase of CA's HSR should have been built between LA and San Diego since that is where the most rail ridership in CA and I believe outside the Northeast is.
Yes, I have long felt that separate Intra-SoCal and Intra-NorCal HSRs would have been better and move more people. As growth warranted, they could be connected somewhere in the middle, eventually, if it ever came to that.
The first phase of CA's HSR should have been built between LA and San Diego since that is where the most rail ridership in CA and I believe outside the Northeast is.
I think that's a legitimate critique. But one of the problems with that approach is the risk of contentment with what essentially would be glorified commuter rail from LA to SD. There would be will less political pressure to fight the inevitable battles being fought right now, sadly necessary to start the connection from LA to SF. This is partly why the SF-Sacto leg will go last. Nobody wants the appearance of it being built to shuttle Sacramento politicians to their homes in the Bay Area, as we see in DC.
I've read and heard hundreds, literally hundreds, of different criticisms of this project, each with their respective proposed alternatives. The only way this thing ever gets built is when enough people understand their preference will not be met.
Bakersfield is not a "leg" on the first phase. Its just the first station to be built on the current alignment connecting LA and SF, and the stops are already limited to every 50 to 100+ miles.
Bad phrasing on my part. I think starting the line in Bakersfield is a big mistake.
West Coast HSR is such a poor use of all that money. How about we use that money to help install public transportation in SoCal which is effing terrible? Everyone I know back in SoCal commutes at least an hour a day by car. No one uses public transit because good luck trying to take a freaking bus to work in SoCal; that fun venture will take you half a day. Sure, if you live in the city of LA proper, public transit is decent... but that doesn't help SoCal's sprawled-to-hell infrastructure. Public transit is a joke and this HSR is a pet project that is so blind to achieving something that would actually be a useful use of tax dollars.
Let's see which should have been given priority: a pet project chu-chu train connecting LA-SF for fun-sies, or attempting to fix one of the most sprawled out, auto-dependent metro areas in the US? Yeah, who cares about actual transportation within our metros; I want to take a train to Bakersfield!
How does it currently take 1 hour to get from Baltimore to DC for a 30 Mile trip? A 15 Minute trip from DC to Baltimore in 2024 really does not sound impressive. Last I heard they were talking about making a 30 Minute trip from Center City to Manhattan.
I mean it currently takes only 1 Hour to get from Philadelphia to NYC or Baltimore/DC on the Acela.
How fast would the train have to be going through densely populated central and northern NJ for that to happen?
Also, this is with no stops? Direct Philly to Manhattan, probably Penn Station?
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A 15 Minute trip from DC to Baltimore in 2024 really does not sound impressive. Last I heard they were talking about making a 30 Minute trip from Center City to Manhattan.
