Once you explain to a guy that a ticket for a high-speed run between LA and SD is around $160 round-trip....most folks will laugh and just say ‘no thanks’.
The Germans built a high-speed run between Frankfurt and Koln. It ended up stopping at the Frankfurt airport. They figured out the charge for a ticket and the only folks that might be interested in the trip were business travelers. In the last three years....they have been proven right.
I think the big dreamers need to explain the cost of tickets and how it relates to the economic part of this deal. At that point....high-speed rail is a dopey topic.
Not on Free Republic! Here money grows on trees and the hell with logic. There has never been a rail project that was not not worth building ever.
California is kinda bigger than Germany...
“Once you explain to a guy that a ticket for a high-speed run between LA and SD is around $160 round-trip....most folks will laugh and just say ‘no thanks’.”
Where do you get $160, idiot (just kidding). Try $800, for my family (ok, maybe a bit less for the kids, so $560). That’s really where the trade is. When taking a family on a train (and then renting a car) can compete with driving, please wake me up.
Low-baller! Boon-doggler! Rosy scenario person! A little while ago I figured that just a one-way ticket would be well over $100, and probably closer to $200, and that's just to cover the bonds used to build the thing, not operating expenses.
Oops, sorry, I read your “SD” as “SF”. You made an excellent point with the Frankfurt example as well.