Oops judge puts halt on Cali high speed rail initiative

[Steve McDonald]

Originally Posted by pch1013

So the solution to increased transportation demand is to do nothing.

Forget NIMBY: you cons are BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone).

Time to revive this thread. All these "high-speed anything" proposals are just boondoggles, that benefit no one, but the politicians and their builders. They don't provide any service that is better or functionally faster. The "high-speed" bus service in our region has actually added time to reaching many destinations and usually, people have to walk farther from the fewer stops, to their homes. They add another bus and a wait in the middle of previously continuous routes.

Part of this project was bitterly opposed by the entire business community along its route. Huge amounts of money were spent, in legal battles, tearing-up parts of the streets and chopping down many trees, to establish separate lanes for these buses. These special lanes are not necessary and add a huge amount to the cost. In fact, more than 3/4 of their routes are on regular streets. The big hybrid buses look fancy, but they don't carry as many passengers, as some of the articulated standard ones, which cost only a fraction as much. A route I regularly rode, that went all the way to another city, was intersected by a "highspeed" route. I timed how long it took me to ride the full length on many occasions, before and after the switch. It turned out, that on the average, I spent 11 minutes more afterwards, with the extra bus added in the middle.

[2nd trick op]

Iacta aiea est! / The die is cast!

For better or for worse, the dirt is flying on a project that will build about 300 miles of the best rail roadbed, track, and electrical catenary in America (but not the entire world), from the fringes of of the Los Angeles basin to the fringes of the Greater Bay Area.

It will eventually operate at speeds substantially higher than the East Coast's (necessarkily) hand-me-down Northeast Corridor, but in the meantime, it's likely to disappoint just about everybody, and getting it into the downtown terminals is going to involve another round of delays and likely cost overruns.

Nevertheless, if and when it can be completed in (or close to) the form originally envisioned, it can serve its purpose for a very long time; the catch is that very few of us are likely to still be here.

That's just how it goes in an over-politicized post-industrial world.