If you can provide any credible source supporting your assertion that existing road and runway infrastructure shall, 20-30 years from now, adequately handle the increased intra-state travel produced by ongoing population growth then please do so.
Or is it that you are totally okay with spending nearly twice as much on freeways and runways as we will on high-speed rail, because you just feel better about one kind of government transportation spending over another--even if it costs more and pollutes more? We know electric trains pollute less than cars and airplanes
right now, and that electric trains will remain a clean technology regardless of what other modes can or cannot attain. You like to assert all cars will be electric by the projected opening of CAHSR, which is not obviously true, and argue the state must go all-in and commit to today's petroleum-based transportation modes without any certainty the airports and long haul freeways will pollute the air any less in the future than they do now. They promised us flying cars in the future, too, and we would have been stupid to stake our state's air quality and transportation infrastructure investments on such baseless fantasies.
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Originally Posted by pesto
Please!!! The California government is rock-solid Democrat (gov, lt. gov, senate, assembly). Nevertheless, the the state auditor, the inspector general, the legislative analyst and the UC Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies (as goofy left as anyone in the US) have ripped HSR a new one on the lack of any comprehensible business plan. Have you been reading the news for the last 2 years?
Your money comparisons are apples and oranges (again). The only likely candidate for expansion would be 5 and it is moving just fine; I drive it regularly and it does 80 the whole way. Money spent on other freeways around the state is not relevant to HSR.
As for air, Ontario is CLOSING a terminal for underuse; SJ has huge excess capacity; LAX is finishing an expansion; Burbank and OC move easily and are not crowded; Oakland has an advertising campaign since they have so much excess capacity.
I agree on the degradation and pollution; but they are in LA and the IE not in the CV. In any case, the contribution of LA-Bay traffic to pollution in the CV is microscopic. Not even measurable. Look to local city driving, local trucks, big rigs, industry and ag uses for the real culprits. And, as noted before, in 30 years when HSR is complete, commuter cars will be entirely electric or hybrid.
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