Yes, I think people are just being purposefully obtuse. Here in Washington, DC, when people take the train through the Northeast Corridor, they don't just go from Washington to New York or Washington to Boston. Passengers go to Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Trenton, etc... Some passengers will travel the entire corridor but many others will go to intermediate stations.

This is entirely similar to how CA high speed rail will operate. Some passengers will go from LA - San Francisco but some will go from Irvine to Palmdale, LA - Bakersfield, Fresno - San Jose, etc...

Significant is subjective at this point. Most wrecks happen around the home because that's where most people drive. Sure, you are probably more likely to be killed going 70 on the highway than going 40 in the city, but I think the point still stands.

All I am saying is if you want to say that this will be a project to help reduce auto accidents, it needs to be like number 60 on any list. It's not enough to even mention, IMO.

You decide to build a train and take a decade to plan it, you finish it properly or else you are a laughing stock in my eyes. A stretch of HSR between two insignificant cities is a waste of money, it needs to go to a big city now. America still can't do rail like Asia or Europe do, it's pathetic they can't even finish what they start.

What happens when an invading military strikes our infrastructure first? -- Things like roads, bridges, seaports, airports and railways.


The reason we have what we have is because the military defends against this threat. Lol. Thanks for the laugh!!!

Invading military? Who would want to try and occupy this country with all the crazy armed people we have?

I appreciate the recognition that us crazy people would help keep out foreign invaders lol

Why should crazy Americans scare away armed soldiers when they can not scare away unarmed aliens?

It scares me that you are being serious in asking that.

One scenario would be an invading army where killing would be justified. While the other is a political issue that doesn't involve us learning a new language or being forced to live under a foreign government. Nevermind that most of those insane gun lovers you guys like to make fun of are following the law. Murder is illegal...

I felt dumb just writing all that out lol

Can we seriously get another thread just for political nonsense like this?

That's actually not true, though. Most Acela traffic is NYC-DC. There aren't particularly high Amtrak volumes anywhere but NY Penn, Philly, and DC.

And the CA corridor isn't analogous. The NE Corridor only works because NY is at the center, and NY is primarily transit-oriented. And the secondary CA cities are extremely sprawly and car-oriented, and impractical for HSR. There's no real market for Bakersfield, which doesn't have a corporate base, strong core, or transit orientation, where someplace like Wilmington or New Haven has all three attributes.

I didn't specify Acela but, yes, there are quite a few passengers who take Amtrak from Washington to BWI, Baltimore, Philadelphia, etc...

I expect quite a lot of trips from Fresno to San Jose. I also expect there will be some trips from both Palmdale and Bakersfield, where housing is significantly cheaper, to destinations in the LA Basin.

Why would sprawly, uncentered places like Fresno and San Jose, draw heavy train loads? I don't get it. What executive is spending $250 to travel between the two, requiring an Uber (which won't exist if the market crashes) on either end? How many Google or Apple execs are visiting Bakersfield, and why wouldn't they just drive or take a plane?

For the same reason people get up at 4 AM and commute 70 - 100 miles each way from the San Joaquin Valley. The average home price in Fresno is $243K. The average home price in Santa Clara County is $1,162M. That is a pretty big reason to commute via high-speed rail two or three days per week.

https://www.zillow.com/fresno-ca/home-values/
https://www.zillow.com/santa-clara-c...a/home-values/

I am sure we can do a similar exercise for average home price for Bakersfield vs. LA County.

Take a flight between Fresno and San Jose?

The same people who board the multiple flights every day from Fresno to the Bay Area.

No. Super commuters are generally lower wage workers who endure hellish commutes for their families. They have nothing to do with executives taking HSR.

If you're implying that Google workers are gonna live in Fresno to supercommute to San Jose for $250 daily (plus Uber on each end, including a hellish Uber on the SJ end, as SJ isn't really proximate to techie job centers), I'm not sure what to say. It would be cheaper to just buy in Mountain View or Cupertino. Why is no one doing this now, where HSR exists?

Also, the fare from Fresno or Merced to San Jose is not likely to be $250 round-trip. It will be a fraction of that. This LA Times article from 2015 notes that Acela and the high speed rail systems in Europe charge approximately 50 cents per mile. Fresno - San Jose is 150 miles, so this would be $75 one-way, $150 round-trip. As noted by the commenter above, employers would likely subsidize a portion of this cost, just as they now subsidize a portion of employees' monthly transit benefits and parking.

https://www.latimes.com/local/politi...510-story.html

Even at just 50% subsidy that would mean the company is paying 1,500 dollars a month just for transportation.

If a company is willing to give an employee that kind of money every month chances are they are being paid enough to live near work.

Am I missing something here?

Maybe one half of a wife/husband works in Fresno or Bakersfield and the other works in SF or LA. HSR makes a supercommute possible for someone who doesn't want to move.

There are many academic couples, for example, who teach at two different colleges that are a 1+ hour away from one another.

And before someone makes some smart ass quip about why someone would want to move from Fresno or Bakersfield or the Central Valley it's important to remember that a lot of factors keep people in homes in their community, top of the list of which is financial, i.e. not being able to afford a home elsewhere.

Yes-- I wouldn't expect people to commute via high speed rail every day. Perhaps two or three days per week. A 50% subsidy of a $150 round-trip fare for 2.5 days per week for 50 weeks is $9375. That seems like a pretty generous transit subsidy but maybe an employer would pay 1/4 of the cost of the high-speed rail commute.

And children attending schools and having a spouse employed in one location and the other partner employed in another city. As you mentioned, there are a lot of factors.

Why is that? Part of the budget goes to helping our veterans.

Is this sarcasm or do you really believe that the fact a big portion of our citizens have guns would stop a would be invading country?

It's tongue and cheek, though in a purely theoretical sense I have no doubt it would be a deciding factor in an enemies hypothetical invasion strategy. Haven't you seen Red Dawn?

I would guess any invasion from a foreign country on USA soil would mark WW3. Guns are no issue. We have nuclear weapons. This is one of my favorite quotes:

“I don’t know what weapons might be used in World War III. But there isn’t any doubt what weapons will be used in World War IV.”

That said I am done discussing the military. If you honestly believe our military should have its funding reduced to fund a transcontinental HSR system so it can be blown up than that speaks for itself and I only hope you never come near a position of power.

Who are you talking to? The conversation's moved on in case you hadn't noticed. Maybe you need to take a cue from the shame of the nation and take comments like that "seriously but not literally".

Not CAHSR specifically, but...

https://www.ktnv.com/news/high-speed...n-set-for-2020

The line is only going as far as Victorville for now, and there's no mention of it ultimately tying into CAHSR, but they expect construction to only take three years (I'm assuming most or all of the ROW already exists along I-15 and there will be far fewer properties to condemn).

I really hope they get phase two done sooner than later. Once phase two reaches Palmdale this becomes a viable choice for me. Have friends in Palmdale/Lancaster. Very much looking forward to this.

I really think they should work on a new HSR line through the Cajon Pass first. I hope I am wrong but I predict this route will see weak ridership stopping the route in Victorville. Maybe this will speed up construction of HDC freeway as it would make more sense to build it all at once.

To my knowledge they are trying to align with HDC freeway to get to Palmdale. Long term they wanted to use the CHSR ROW from Palmdale down to LA. I don't think Cajon Pass has ever been in scope for this project due to cost.

The Virgin route seems highly dependent on CHSR for its success. The use case is very weak for Victorville. At least Palmdale has the option of switching to Metrolink. At that point it really isn't a time saver. I think without CHSR build out in SoCal Virgin Trains is going to struggle.

Now if BNSF, UP, MetroLink, Amtrak and Virgin Trains pooled resources on Cajon Pass to secure two higher speed and capacity ROWs maybe Cajon Pass comes into play. I haven't heard of any serious proposal for Cajon pass of any of those. If you have any info of Cajon pass being looked at I would love to read about it.

I just find the Cajon Pass line a potentially valuable point in the rail system especially with a fully built HSR system. I am not familiar with freight movements but I am assuming cargo trains from Port of LA use this pass as well? I am unsure how many billions it would take to create a quad or even six track corridor through the Cajon Pass and I am not aware of any studies underway to study an expansion. We certainly don't want to build up the rail system to the point where we have unaddressed bottlenecks.

Not the super commuters I’ve known and I’ve known quite a few high salaried people commuting between their homes in Sacramento to and from San Francisco via train. Hell I have friend who commuted by plane from Sacramento (El Dorado Hills) to her job in Boston.

Most super commuters that I've read about are middle class people who want a semi-skilled job and a semi-affordable lifestyle. Like, an office clerk making 80k with a family.

I don't know where this fits into the discussion about HSR, but I thought I'd add it.

I assume that people who commute cross-country often don't commute every day, but more like once per week or stay in each location for a week + at a time.

In the UK at least Super commuters have to be on decent wages to afford the high cost of long distance commuter season tickets. The trade of on a train for more than hour on a high speed express is that for the price of so so flat in the suburbs of London they can get nice suburban home in some small town a long way from London. At the upper end of the scale they locate their family in some deeply attractive market town that's a couple of hours from London where they can something quite large for under a million, and often buy a studio in London, and then work 1 or 2 days a week from home. Some people for go this a studio's in inner London are no longer cheap and just put up with 2 hour commute three days a week. There has been a noticeable shift in passenger levels into London as Fridays and Mondays now have noticeably quieter trains. Tuesday to Thursdays are now the preferred days for meetings in London.

A new proposal by Metrolink in Los Angeles on how to use HSR funds.

https://www.latimes.com/california/s...et-train-funds

Basically, the central corridor already under construction would be finished but without electrification. High speed diesel trains would operate that route.

Meanwhile, the money that would have been spent to electrify those 119 miles would go instead to electrifying Metrolink's Burbank-Los Angeles-Anaheim route, which will be operated by EMU's, similar to CalTrain in San Jose-San Francisco.

This would not be considered a 'diversion' of funds because this route is scheduled to become part of the HSR network eventually.

I like the idea, and I'm glad that Metrolink is finally getting on board with electrification (if I remember correctly they turned it down a while back), but I worry that this will slow the process of getting the HSR line completed. It is one thing to say "we have the central valley portion completed - we just need to connect it at both ends!", but it is a completely different argument to say 'Let's finish the central valley segment, THEN connect it at both ends!'

It will be interesting to see this play out.

This is bullshit. If we don't electrify the central valley portion now, it will never happen.

This is a mess, but a politically expedient one. Hopefully this is all a contingency plan in case Trump or a Republican is elected in 2020.

California is posting gigantic surpluses and a return of a D to the White House in January 2021 would mean plenty of state + federal money to dig the tunnels and complete Phase 1 between SF and Los Angeles.

Trash country when it comes to rail and transit. Might as well think about emigration if you like HSR and want to enjoy it in your productive lifetime, unless your a kid. No way it happens in the next 20-30 years. Sad, but true. America is too in love with fracking and oil to care about "boondoggles" like HSR which the rest of the civilized world enjoys. Even morocco recently opened one, yes morocco, that impoverished north African nation. But the USA, the mightiest economy and nation ever to exist, can't even pony up for a single line and do it in timely fashion without this nonsense going on in Cali. Shame on all of them. Sadly most Americans have never experienced riding the HSR so they will never vote for pro-rail politicos. They have no emotional connection to the speed, comfort, and efficiency of rail travel.

Several Japanese high-speed trains were damaged by this past weekend's typhoon. Just imagine the talk radio/Fox News outrage if the same thing happened here!

https://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j...psb7764fvf.jpg

HSR in California is dead for the foreseeable future. California doesn’t possess the expertise to pull it off.

Tunnel Planned for California Bullet Train Under Burbank Airport
 

Tunnel Planned for California Bullet Train Under Burbank Airport

By Ralph Vartabedian
Los Angeles Times
December 3, 2019

https://h7f7z2r7.stackpathcdn.com/si...ankairport.jpg
A view of the Burbank airport. It sits in Southern California path of bullet train proposed by the California High-Speed Rail Authority. (Photo via the LA Times)

"The complexity of building a bullet train through Southern California’s urban maze is leading state officials to consider two major additions: a tunnel under the Burbank airport and a project that would help a freight railroad expand its switching yards in the Inland Empire.

Engineering studies reveal potential complications in the $80 billion project that have yet to be fully understood, even as the California High-Speed Rail Authority struggles to complete 119 miles of construction in the Central Valley that is over budget and behind schedule..."

https://www.ttnews.com/articles/burb...tunnel-planned

Yup. This thing is getting fully funded as soon as the next Dem President takes office.

Heck, If Bernie can get in with a D House and Senate, we'd get the extensions to Sacramento and San Diego, plus the High Desert Corridor all built by 2035.

Wow! I didn't see that before! What is happening?? Hopefully they will be just fine.

.

Joe wants to work with the GOP. He'd get compromised down to a shitty private medium speed diesel train and then get 0 GOP votes anyway. Obama 2.0

Victorville to LV train put on hold.

https://abc7.com/5856088/

I am hardly surprised and still stand by my original statement this won't work without a high speed connection to LAUS. A connection built first from LAUS to Victorville would be much more successful, IMO, as it would serve commuters as well as travelers to Vegas. Once the Las Vegas connection is built express trains could utilize that.

They have already revised the headline of the story, adding a comma and the words ”for now” at the end.

Typical news reporting today with headline catching headlines not reflecting the jest of the story following. Oh well.

Reporting has become lousy in general. Many news publications can not even get simple road numbers right.

This projects vote was delayed awaiting a decision from California?

There is already a thread for that private Las Vegas venture.

California High Speed Rail, this thread's subject, is a different project.