Quote:
Originally Posted by edale
Oh please. $15+ billion is not 'sofa-money leftovers'. The entire D Line subway extension under Wilshire Blvd in LA cost $10 billion.
CAHSR had to acquire 2295 individual parcels because they didn't go with a sensible route following the existing I-5 ROW, which would have made land aquisition much faster and cheaper, and resulted in far fewer grade separation and utility relocation projects.
In 2028, it will have been 20 years since the project was approved, and by then close to $20 billion will have been spent. And at that time (if current schedules hold), we'll still be 4 years off from an opening date with service going from...Madera (population 69,000) to Wasco (population 27,000). 119 miles between two small cities no one cares to go to. Great.
And work began in the Central Valley because it's the *easy* part of the route. If this is the easy part, how long should we expect the difficult parts to take? We're talking about 60 miles of tunnels through the mountains just to get to the edge of the LA area. Do you have any confidence this will ever get done in our lifetimes?
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The I-5 route is absolutely not sensible. It still would have major hurdles acquiring the land, would have added topography to contend with, and wouldn't serve anyone except for the metros at the end. Following the 99 corridor (with over 2.3 million people along it) ties the entire state together in a way it never has been before.
And you conveniently left out Fresno in your population calc. The population of the areas served by the IOS is more like 1.25 million people (Fresno metro, Hanford, Wasco). But that's besides the point anyway, because it's just a fucking starting point, it's not supposed to be useful in itself.
Yes the project has been poorly managed, but the political, funding, and legal issues it has faced have always been the biggest hurdles and continue to be. That doesn't make it not worth continuing.
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