Quote:
Originally Posted by edale
I've lived in California for almost 15 years. Guess I can't share my opinion because I'm not actually from here, though. Guess you're a nativist? How long does someone have to live in California to offer an opinion?
|
You're obv free to offer an opinion, but in the 15 years you've been here, it's pretty clear you still haven't formulated a well informed one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by edale
My argument for using the 5 alignment isn't that it's just more direct, but that you could use existing state owned ROW for large portions of the route. That would have greatly reduced costs and time delays for land acquisition (and delays = more costs). It would have required way fewer grade separation projects. Basically every rural 2 lane road that CAHSR passes is being grade separated. Look at any of the construction update videos for evidence of this. We're talking about roads that maybe see a couple dozen vehicles a day in the middle of freaking nowhere that are getting underpasses or bridges built. There's way less need to do that following the 5 alignment because, shocker, construction of the 5 already addressed many of those conflicts.
|
This isn't actually true. See above regarding the HSR tunnel through the Tejon Pass/Grapevine from Santa Clarita vs the Palmdale/Tehachapi alignment. It's also untrue that a 5 alignment would be easier to construct. Land acquisition still would've been necessary to some degree, and it's not as flat or straight as the armchair experts on the internet would like you to believe. The terrain is more significant than anything the IOS actually under construction is dealing with. Take a drive on the 5 vs the 99 for yourself sometime and see the difference. The 5 has a lot more rolling hills, and as mentioned earlier, the Grapevine. The area around 99 is much flatter and level.
Quote:
Originally Posted by edale
CAHSR's focus should have always been connecting the two massive population and economic centers of the state- SF Bay Area and Greater LA.
|
The current alignment still does that, and there will be express trains, as there are in many other HSR examples throughout the world.
Quote:
Originally Posted by edale
In trying to do everything- i.e. serve every little town in the CV- we might very well end up doing nothing. Call me crazy, but I don't love that tradeoff.
|
It does not try to serve every little town in the CV. That's a factually incorrect misrepresentation. The Fresno MSA is over 1 million people. There are stops in smaller towns Madera and Kings/Tulare that I think aren't as necessary, but again they can be skipped by taking the express trains. Other than that, they are not serving "every little town in the CV".
Threaded Mode