Because we said so and there's nothing the dumb redneck states can do about it. :cool:

So I guess the Texas HSR didn't get matching federal funds? Its almost like we need a pro/anti CA hsr thread. Are other transportation threads like this littered with this many naysayers? It seems like for the other projects, people say "oh cool" and "lets see some renderings".

There were two separate threads not long ago, one for construction updates and one for the politics. They were merged together, for better or worse.

It definitely is tiresome. Up here in the North Bay, there were many naysayers who said the SMART commuter rail line would flop. Of course it’s been a success. :haha:

Stop peddling false numbers again. Re-read your source. Your $134 billion figure is actually the top 2-4 spending elements and should be in euros ($165 billion). The actual total of all spending shows the French budget is 424 billion euros ($522 billion USD), or 314 billion euros ($389 billion USD) if you exclude tax refunds.

The residents of France and the companies in France pay most of their taxes to the French central government.
The residents of California and the companies in California pay most of their taxes to the US central government.

Excellent points you made.
The top line was 109 billion euros, which is $134 billion.

Sorry I mislead the web page that badly. I thought the top line was the total last night, but it's not. But at least I did provide a link so you can check it out....and point out my error.

Adding up all the lines listed on my link does not come close to your number, only to ~ 290 billion Euros, which converts to $357 billion. Where did you find the 424 billion Euro number?

But the point that France collects and distributes tax revenues differently than the USA is true. But California does not have to finance national defense nor national society security retirement benefits - which consumes a major part of the USA's budget. So not only do the two countries collect revenues differently, they also allocate the revenues differently.

Which, to keep this reply on topic, should bring us back to the question on how France finances HSR projects? Does it have a budget and is it expected to keep to it? Has it ever faced 200% cost overruns? How close operationally is it at making a profit?

I do it all the time in Europe, and don't see why it's so difficult. If your destination isn't near a HSR line, it makes little sense to not take a car. Obviously if you're going city center to city center, it makes total sense. Obviously you aren't driving to Bordeaux because it's a super-far and there's a super-fast train right to your destination.
I would be surprised if this were true. 2nd class HSR in Europe is dirt cheap, and I've had the "pleasure" of sitting next to folks who seemed to be borderline destitute (migrants with dufflebags of smelly foodstuffs, people with obvious cleanliness issues, etc.). It's like the Greyhound crowd in the U.S. I only ride 1st class now just to avoid annoying fellow passengers.
But an Angeleno visiting SF isn't headed downtown, and a San Franciscan visiting LA isn't headed downtown. That's that biggest reason why HSR in CA is destined to fail. Fixed point transit only works when people are headed to a concentrated geography. In Europe, most folks are traveling between cores.

SF (the city alone) has much higher car ownership than any city in Europe, BTW. And it's only 10% of the Bay Area, which is more car oriented than any metro on earth outside the U.S.

The only reason the Acela even works is because NYC is at the center. If NYC were positioned where Boston or DC were located, even Acela would fail, because you wouldn't have millions of transit-dependent folks at the hub of the line. The U.S. is much too decentralized to draw comparisons with Europe.

California is like 100x more sprawled than anywhere in Europe. If you think CA is "centralized" and Europe is comparatively "sprawled" you have obviously never been to either place.

Something like 5% of jobs in LA CSA are in/around downtown. Like 90% of CA lives in postwar sprawl; in Europe the share might be 10%.

Relative density has nothing to do with anything. LA is indeed dense for U.S. standards, but it's meaningless. Rail transit share in LA CSA is basically 0, and overall transit share has actually dropped in recent years, despite megabillions in new lines..

The idea that this will magically change and LA becomes Paris if you spend $100 billion on another line is pretty much crazy.

How much did it cost to build a single HSR line in France? Was it more or less than $100 billion?

I'd say they are NIMBYS but look at their locations....either not in the state or not in the current areas with construction. Instead of people going out and taking pictures of contstruction (like what normally happens here!) we have people saying "it won't get built". Even though there's 100+ miles of construction, not including the electrification of Caltrain.
SMART deserves a thread of its own :yes:

Add up all the lines and you get 424365 (424 billion):
108834
70012
42098
40591
26949
19515
18345
17845
15458
10861
9620
8543
6308
3436
3346
3106
2912
2605
2537
2067
1880
1465
1266
1098
991
729
706
649
569
24

As to your other questions. I'm no expert on French government operations. I just don't enjoy seeing people throwing out fake numbers all the time.

But the numbers I was adding are different from yours. (in million Euros)
Tax repayment and abatement 108834
Education 70012
State Financial commitments 42098
Defense 40091
Research and higher education 26949
Security 19515
Territory housing and urban equality 18345
Solidarity, readaptation, and equal opportunities 17845
Work and employment 15458
Public finances and human research management 10861
Environment and sustainable development 9620
Justice 8543
Pension and social plans 6308
Relations with local and regional authorities 3436
Agriculture, fish, food, forests and rural affairs 3346
General and territorial administration 3106
State's foreign action 3006
Culture 2912
Public development aid 2605
Veterans, memory and links with the nation 2537
Overseas 2607
Economy 1880
Government action supervision 1465
Health 1266
Immigration, asylum and integration 1098
Public authorities 991
Sports, youth and volunteer sector 729
Territory policy 706
State's council and control 649
Media, book, and culture industry 569
Provisions 24
Obviously we are counting from two different lists from the same link???

The number look the same, so lets recheck the math.....
Okay, your sums are correct. :tup:

My argument, however, is that things like Uber help mitigate the lack of regional transit infrastructure.

If my cousin in Hancock Park wanted to get to San Francisco, it would be much faster and easier to take a bus or Uber to a rail terminal in DTLA and take a train north, than to either drive it OR get to LAX for a flight.

Right, this is the argument we are trying to make; that the lack of density in the California cities means rail is much less practical.

The issue probably isn’t just the lack of density, it is the overall connectivity. Yakumoto’s earlier point that California is more centralised than most of Europe is mute when the infrastructure and connectivity in those urban areas is worse than most rural areas in Europe.

exactly!

All of this pseudoscience being thrown around using LA's lack of robust transit connectivity or relative low density as evidence of why HSR won't succeed here/HSR won't be built/HSR won't have riders/HSR will be a failure, take your pick, misses one glaringly obvious fact: None of those perceived incompatibilities prevent people from flying in very large quantities between LAX-SFO. Why would a trip to [more than one] CHSR stations be any different than making it to LAX to fly in and out of LAX?

How many people fly this route in a day? Is it really enough to justify spending $200,000,000,000 on a rail line to carry more people? That's the flip side of your statement; if the airports work so well why spend so much money on a rail route that will cost more and go slower?

The riders of CHSR will not be just LA Point A - SF Point B. They will be going to Bakersfield and from Fresno to San Jose and from Bakersfield to SF and from Merced to LA and from San Jose to Palmdale and on and on. Multiple point-points start to add up. That is what makes the investment in HSR infrastructure pay off. The capacity is enormous.

That's not my experience, in general its people traveling for business or regular leisure travellers, you might get the occasional person who has spent all week camping at a music festival or some drunk guy but that's no different to the mix you get when walking the street or taking a plane, that's just a sample of society, not really the end of the world if they are on the train.

It's pretty unlikely that many are taking HSR because they can't afford a car, you can pick up used cars for next to nothing. The poorest people probably don't do much inter city travel at all compared with higher income people, I'd say situations like that are more common on local buses, subways and rail services than on long distance HSR. If they didn't have a car then slower but cheaper buses are the way to go if they want to minimise costs I think.

E) it doesn't matter

LAX makes a ton of sense for drivers; CHSR makes little sense for drivers.

The vast majority of non-poor Angelinos are drivers, and LAX is actually more convenient to the most desirable business, tourist and residential districts, all of which accommodate drivers.

I'm talking the Continent, where train travel is dirt cheap. The UK has comparatively expensive train travel so the rider demographic might vary. Leisure travelers paying 30 EUR for an intercity train will not exactly be a posh demographic.
Again, Europe, not the UK. It costs thousands to just get a license in Germany. I don't know any legal cars you can pick up for "next to nothing", given that the govt. forces worn-out cars to be discarded.

We should be investing in the hyperloop not this obselete rail technology

:haha::haha::haha::haha:

Not saying they are posh, just normal people rather than carriages full of homeless. Some might be posh of course, it's a cross section of society that uses trains. In terms of prices there's a huge range of tickets, you'll get people travelling on the same train that have paid 10x more than the person sitting next to them depending on when they bought the ticket etc. There are plenty of cheap tickets on UK intercity rail but that doesn't mean they are all bought by homeless people, everybody loves a cheap ticket if they can get one.

Plenty of cheap used cars available in any European country I know of.

Eg

https://www.autoscout24.fr/resultats...tandard&desc=0

https://www.coches.net/segunda-mano/?or=1&fi=Price

https://www.gebrauchtwagen.de/suche/...preis-bis=2000

Most adults in Europe drive, those that don't are often in urban areas where they don't need to. I very much doubt its an income thing very often that they can't afford to as you find rural areas with lower incomes where 95% of households have a vehicle.

Yes, anyone can buy a cheap car, but they can't use it. Poor people know this.

In Germany, you cannot drive a car into cities without an Abgasuntersuchung (AU). Junker cars will never get the AU certification. Therefore, there are basically no road-legal junk cars in Germany, because they can't go anywhere.

And, you can't drive your junker anywhere without a Hauptuntersuchung (HU). The HU is only given for cars in reasonably good mechanical condition. You could buy a junker and fix it, but until then, it can't be legally driven, even in the countryside.

Other countries have similar regulations. That's why you rarely see junkers on the Continent like you see in U.S., Canada and Australia, even though incomes are lower.

Hmm, I don't know, I seem to recall seeing a good number of older, low value cars on the roads in various European countries on my travels, especially in more rural areas. Of course they do need to be roadworthy, that's no different in the UK either, but people seem to manage to keep them in a reasonable mechanical state even if they are older and cheap to buy.

The average age of cars on the road in the EU is 10.7 years, and as that is the average there are a lot significantly older than that.

http://www.acea.be/statistics/tag/ca...ge-vehicle-age

But going back to the original point, I don't think Inter City high speed rail is particularly used by poor people, its used by all sectors of society (including some poor people of course). Being predominantly used by people with low incomes is maybe more characteristic of local bus services but even there it is a mixture of people using them.

Are you saying that mass transit rail, in general, within cities in California, is less practical, or that California high speed rail is less practical?

Again, I'm an advocate for high speed rail in California. It makes sense to connect Los Angeles' Union Station (probably the busiest train station on the west coast) to the future Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco with high speed rail.

My point of comparing Paris' Metro to LA's Metro Rail scale-wise was simply size. I've used Paris' Metro to go everywhere, and everyone, including myself, always says that Paris' Metro takes you everywhere you want to go in Paris---but apparently, when you compare LA and Paris on the same scale, "everywhere" in Paris is a small area.

Lack of public transport connectivity beyond the hub stations for California HSR will be a drawback I think that limits its usefulness. But I think on the plus side that will then be a big incentive to build better urban transport links in the future using those stations as focal points, they can use the fact that it will give easy quick access to LA or SF as a selling point to build those local systems.

I think by the time the HSR is completed, both LA and NY will have a decent enough transportation system to take the passenger where they need to go. The other cities have low enough traffic that ride-sharing and hailing services from the stations can do the job.

It has been said repeatedly but if people fly LAX - SFO (or OAK or SJC) they don't have an immediate car. Why is a train different? And those skies are crowded btw which is why we need the train. The cost structure is ridic tho fr

HSR can't deliver miracles by itself, it needs to be part of a wider strategy to integrate regions, rather than just the areas surrounding stations. As it is, the SFO-LAX route apparently carried just 2.2mn people. Less than 11mn journeys were made on Metrolink.

The Paris Metro operates across a small area, but Paris also has two additional high-capacity rail networks; the RER and Transilien which operate across a wider area. You’ve then got the TER network which sits below the Intercités and TGV networks.

Most people making long-distance rail journeys in the UK tend to book in advance, where fares are very cheap which gives a broad demographic base.

Keep in mind that the UK has had a deregulated coach market since the 1980’s (something France and Germany have only just got around to sorting out) and a far more aggressive low-cost carrier market, which forced the intercity rail operators to become leaner and smarter. Despite the absence of a HSR network, more people travel by intercity train in the UK ahead of Germany (ICE) or France (TGV and Intercités). Virgin Trains East Coast (the intercity operator out of London King’s Cross) carries more people than the entire Spanish AVE network.

Booking in advance does make a huge difference, many European operators have variable fares but in the UK the differences can be especially big.

Just looking at tickets from London to Leeds (190 miles / 305km, journey takes just over two hours)

Turn up now to travel this afternoon and the cheapest single ticket is £109 ($152.50)

Buy now for travel tomorrow afternoon and it's £66 ($92.50).

Buy now for travel next Monday afternoon it's £44 ($61.50)

Buy now for travel on the afternoon of April 18 and it's £29 ($40.50).

Buy now for travel on the afternoon of May 9 and it's £22 ($31)

Buy now for travel on the afternoon of June 21 and it's £16 ($22.50)

HSR in Europe is dirt cheap? Could have fooled me. I paid nearly 50 euros last year to travel 1 hour by TGV from Paris to Lille. I could have travelled almost all the way from Shanghai to Beijing for the same price in China.

50 Euros = $61.50 USD

LAX to SFO, on a Wednesday April 25th on American Airlines [or affiliate]- $35.

To be fair that same day you can get a train from Paris to Lille at €22 ($27)

https://s31.postimg.org/l7gpa7va3/15...Snip_Image.jpg

If you are booking further ahead into May the are plenty of days with tickets available at €15 ($18.50)

It looks like €50 is the walk on fare for that route, ie the maximum fare that you'll only pay if you don't book ahead.

It's irrelevant what it costs in France because what it costs is based on the capital costs and total number of riders. These will be very different in California.

Yeah that's a great price, but that's not what it will cost in CA. It is going to be much more expensive whenever HSR opens for passenger service. The current Amtrak prices are more expensive than those European prices for far worse service.

Anaheim to Santa Barbara is currently $37 for the Saver seats, the lowest possible ticket. For a Flex seat it's $63 one way.

Highly unlikely this train ever gets built. Which honestly, at this point I really wish it would as I would be interested to see how it would perform and a lot has gone into it already. But again, I predict this thing will never see the light of day and freeways will always rule California, as they should. Freeways and cars are superior in every way except efficiency but most people don't want to be packed in like sardines, which is the only way to make transit work without designing it for the rich with high fares.

What? In 2056? Is that still the target date? Watch some asshole(well, at least in the eyes of California HSR supporters) invent a teleporter by then and make all of this obsolete. Why even plan that far out??

They need to just hand this thing over to Elon Musk and say 'figure it out'.

I think he's too busy figuring out how to produce the Tesla Model 3 in sufficient numbers to meet the orders he's taken at the moment to take on any other big commitments.

The most unbearable experience is being packed in like sardines on an airplane, after being forced into queue after queue. Rail has a real opportunity to compete if it can ever get built.

A timed competition between LAX to SF and LA Union Station and the SF Transbay Terminal only exists for those who live west of Union Station. So for upwards of half of the LA region, if not more, physically driving to Union Station is significantly faster than physically driving to LAX. Plus, the entire rail transit network converges on Union Station, with LAX only being reachable, eventually, with a transfer or two.

So even if an airplane travels 650mph and the train only travels 200mph, the actual door-to-door travel between much of LA and San Jose or San Francisco will be similar or even better.

Come on. Paris acts as a hub with links to various cities that are much smaller. LA and the Bay Area are each as big or much bigger than Metro Paris. There are far more people linked by regional rail to LA Union Station and the future SF Transbay Terminal than are in Paris plus the various Sacramento-sized cities the TGV serves.

Plus, the benefits to the Central Valley will be immense. Fresno and Merced will become commuter towns for San Jose. And the secondary city that will benefit the most of all will be San Jose.

If it doesn't get built (which is silly because construction has started in Fresno and the Peninsula) it will help local systems and freight anyway because they can use the completed stuff.
Oh and Metrorail will be connected to Bakersfield so....yeah..in 2022. Part of the goodies associated with the project that will happen before build-out.

My main issue with this project is not whether or not it's useful, but it's high price tag. I hope that it is reasonably cheap, though, now that it is being constructed.

LA is bigger yes, but I don't think the Bay Area is bigger than metro Paris by a long shot. Metro Paris is 12m or so people, most of whom are linked pretty well with central Paris by rail.

Wouldn't this be an argument against CA HSR? You're arguing there are tons of people in CA, yet no ridership.

LA is bigger than Paris, but rail ridership is almost zero. The Bay Area has like 9 million people and one of the biggest centralized cores in the U.S. and rail ridership is very low. Both regions have spent megabillions on transit and are very pro-transit both culturally and through public policy, yet rail is practically irrelevant.
This is all fantasy nonsense. Putting aside the odd idea of HSR as an engine for exurban sprawl, has never happened anywhere on the planet. No one is going to be commuting from the Central Valley to San Jose (or anywhere) by HSR. It's for intercity travel, not daily commuting.