Posted on 03/14/2017 12:36:14 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
In 2008, Californians approved a high-speed rail project that has become one of the largest infrastructure projects in the nation. The dream of taking a train from Southern California to San Francisco in about three hours is chugging along, but facing new barriers.
The original plan voters opted for in 2008 was titled the Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century. When voters approved the measure, the estimated cost of the project was $40 billion. The 2016 business plan reviewed by the Legislative Analysts Office estimated a cost of $64 billion.
WHAT IT WOULD TAKE TO BREAK EVEN
If the high-speed rail system averaged 10,000 passengers per day it would take 203.8 years of passengers paying $86 for a ticket to break even with the current $64 billion cost estimate.
Note: Estimates do not include the yearly maintenance of the rail system after it is finished.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Sure was.
The first budget was a joke, and most thinking people should have seen it for that.
All you can do out here is vote no, and hope for some strange reason (in California), that folks actually agree with you.
Even the commuter trains here are very complex, having to serve far-flung suburbs on multiple branch lines to make it all work.
I do like my commuter train though. Instead of fighting traffic, I get to open a book to read and on the way back, I can even get a beer for the ride home.
At some point, we are going to have driverless transportation using public roadways. That is probably most efficient way to go. Recently my wife and I drove from Connecticut to Florida and it took us three days. But it was much more pleasurable than taking Amtrak, which would have required multiple transfers and taking a much longer indirect route. We would have arrived tired and aggravated. Had we rented a driverless vehicle, we could have gotten there in less than a day and spent the whole time watching movies and reading books. Not to mention getting a good night sleep as the car did the driving for us.
People are going to have to get past the hurdle of getting into a driverless vehicle. I think it will happen sooner than we think. Eventually, we will have vehicles that will fly (like in science fiction) and you definitely will want those to be driverless.
HSR is a compelling mobility solution which works all over the world.
California? Maybe not so much unless the government banned air travel and even then, would that fill the trains?
Cross country in a nation the size of USA? No nation roughly our size (China, Russia, Canada, Australia, Brazil) has attempted such a thing.
Yea, but you don’t understand. Along with this super train from no-where to no-where along the San Andrious fault, very scenic ride, we are about to get free health care, via governor Jerry Brown, and free college tuition along with books, room, and board. You guys are just jealous.
I have a cunning plan.
When (if) they get this boondoggle finished, when the train is running, prohibit direct commercial flights between SF and the points along the rail route.
I should be careful, that’s just stupid enough for them to do.
Practically every transit system in the SF Bay Area is two-thirds subsidized by taxpayers; the fare box returns less than one-third of the annual operating costs. Same may be true for most transit systems in the country, but just guessing at that. They periodically hike fares, ridership drops, and taxpayers pay more to bail out transit systems. That's just operating costs, not including replacement costs of buses and train cars, nor does it include building costs.
As for high-speed rail, cheaper and quicker to fly between SF and LA (because I don't believe they'll charge less than a plane ticket). Takes about 45 to 50 minutes for actual flight time, vs more than 3 hours for the train (they promise 3 hours but it will be actually longer to transit close to SF or LA).
The difficulty with rail in the US is the lavish subsidies for mass motoring.
Gas Taxes and fees pay for less than 1/2 the costs of highways.
It hard to compete when the other guy gets a 50% subsidy
Well, if they say $64B, you can just double it for the actual cost.
Y’all have to remember that California “High Speed Rail” is not about High Speed Rail or transportation at all.
It is about distributing graft to favored groups and individuals.
Short distances maybe. But has anyone explained why there is a supposed need for a high-speed train between SF and LA? People really don't need to transit it often, and for those who do, they can take air flights. There is no need for high-speed rail for the masses. Try taking a train from the SF Bay Area to LA. It's noisy, bumpy, and horrible. Making it faster is not the solution. CalTrain is a nice ride but expensive to operate; my daughter used it daily commuting from San Jose to SF. Nice for commuters but heavily subsidized; taxpayers not using it shouldn't have to pay for it.
...and even if it wasn’t a scam, the cost alone should have prevented any sane soul from buying into it. So apparently the only sane people living in CA are those that are here at FR.
...and even if it wasn’t a scam, the cost alone should have prevented any sane soul from buying into it. So apparently the only sane people living in CA are those that are here at FR.
I basically agree. Commuter train is a different animal as it’s an everyday thing and not much more than an hour. High speed rail across the USA doesn’t make a lot of sense because of the enormous distances involved. Just makes more sense to get on a plane. Maybe a BOS-NY-WASH route would work. I’m not sure if the Accela can be considered high speed rail. It doesn’t seem to move much faster than the commuter train I’m on.
Agree too. I’ve used the commuter train between Trenton, NJ and NY during rush hour and thought it was very efficient. Short distances okay. High speed rail over long distances doesn’t make sense as one would fly on a plane.
If the cost was only 64 billion, that would make every California family, billionaires many times over. So why would anyone spend that kind of money on a guaranteed loser boon dogle. I guess sharing the bounty wasn’t in the cards.
...and if you were a billionaire wouldn’t you buy your own private jet and fly.
Yeah, duh! What government program doesn’t cost more and deliver less than promised? It’s true of every single one. Government can’t manage a 2-car funeral, let alone health care, education, transportation, or anything else. The only legitimate functions of government are the police/legal system and national defense. And it doesn’t do such a great job at those.
I like your theory. Has 1 shovel of dirt been moved to build this thing?? I am not sure.
I call it Jerry Brown’s Kooky Train.
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