This is the kind of spin I would expect from state-controlled media organs like Pravda, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
"We have always been at war with Eastasia "
I sense the smell of desperation in the air.
Because you just can’t get to Merced fast enough...
Willie Green, is that you?
Had the idiots in California and in Texas simply allowed the original private consortiums to build high speed rail with private funds then both projects would now be up and running and (GASP!) they’d probably also be profitable.
Instead both states have proven the Reagan Axiom that if it moves tax it, if it stops moving subsidize it.
Ping :)
Round-trip airfare between SBO and LAX is $200.
There are about 3.66 million passengers annually between SBO and LAX per wikipedia. Assuming they're all round-trip passengers, that comes to $732 million in annual revenue generated by this route.
Assuming no inflation, and assuming all that air traffic would opt to take the high-speed rail line at the same price point (a truly heroic assumption), it would take about 100 years to break even on this boondoggle. This excludes the costs/unemployment etc. associated with zero airline traffic.
Article doesn’t appear to address profitability.
in other words, wormy little Newsom is looking for a reason, any reason, to keep the fed grant instead of returning it to the Treasury. So a 1/2B link becomes $3.6 B overnight. The consultants and experts and assorted other ‘special interests’ must be delighted the cash cow can still be milked.
Except Newsom forgot - that debt can be deducted from any disaster relief requested.
A short tune comes to mind: “Look for the Union label”
Bakersfield to Merced? Guess you need high speed rail to move all the legal farm workers around. Stupid.
You could have a real rail rally!!!
“The Central Valley segment is and always has been the foundation .for the whole vision of high-speed rail in California.”
I can find nothing that goes into the daily costs and expected ridership that will justify a high speed rail line from Merced to Bakersfield. It will at most, from all I’ve read, achieve maybe six trains a day each way. Six trains a day cannot pay for such an expensive line, when in very much more populated rail corridors, like New Jersey, local rail transit is a money losing operation.
What is HSR really about? Its about local boosterism (as having a “train stop” has ALWAYS been”, and it’s about the cromyism. lobbying and political corruption at the intsection of the “infrastructure” builders and the politicians. When they are all done, the contractors will have made their billions, the politicians will be out of office, and both classes will be retired leaving the public to complain to the next class of politicians about the bills.
High seep rail, low speed intelligence...
From Merced to Bakersfield?!?
Millions can hardly wait to ride this train!!!!! Millions!!!
Bwah hah hah hah !!!!
With high-speed rail receiving new attention in Congress, and climate change moving rapidly to the center of political debates,
If you look at the map of the construction projects under way they are not quite to Merced or Bakersfield.
https://buildhsr.com/interactive_map/
I wonder if we’ll live long enough to see even a ceremonial run on the tracks.
Provided, of course, that they don’t run out of money before buying any, you know, track.
Just five minutes from Bako to Merced Cross the sea by rail...