Posted on 10/03/2009 6:18:08 AM PDT by Willie Green
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced on Friday that his state would build the first bullet train in the nation, a project that would provide a 10-billion-dollar economic boost to the state.
"I think it is disgraceful for America to be so far behind when it comes to infrastructure," Schwarzenegger told a press conference.
"In Europe and Asian countries, they're traveling now up to 300miles or 480 kilometers (per hour on bullet trains), while we're traveling on our trains at the same speed as 100 years ago. That is inexcusable. America must catch up," he said.
The governor added that to build the 800-mile (1280-kilometer) fast-speed rail from San Diego to San Francisco, California had applied for 4.7 billion dollars in federal stimulus money.
If built, the train can whisk people from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 2 hours and 40 minutes, create hundreds of thousands of jobs and bring in revenue of billions of dollars.
Schwarzenegger said California deserved to get more than half of the 8 billion dollars in federal stimulus money set aside for high-speed rail development because it was further along in planning than other states and is ready to break ground in 2011, a year before the federal deadline for getting the money.
"Those stimulus dollars will go further in California than in any other state because California has pledged to match -- dollar for dollar -- all money received (from the federal government), " Schwarzenegger promised.
In November, California voters approved issuing 9.95 billion dollars in bonds to fund construction of high-speed rail. More money would come from state, local and private matching funds.
Well, what can you expect.... better late than never, I suppose.
Railroad to nowhere, with no riders.
I sure would hate to be going 300 mph on that when the big one hits!
Cost per passenger mile will be exorbitant.
what an idiot.
What market does this serve? Are there not enough flights between SD and SF? Are they too slow? Are they too crowded?
What are they gonna use to pay fot it? Grapes? Feelings?
Just for fun, go get a Google Earth pic of Southern California, and look at the population centers between San Diego and San Francisco. It is essentially one big massive urban area that would be completely bypassed by a high speed rail link between those two endpoints.
Is there really enough rail traffic between Sand Diego and San Francisco to warrant that kind of investment??
What happened to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi’s high speed rail project between Disneyland and Las Vegas?? Did they send Ahnold a copy of that memo??
If there are other stops planned, then how “high speed” can it really be??
Compared to daily jet service between those two cities, which is cheaper, faster, more fuel efficient, less of a carbon footprint, produces les CO2, etc, etc, etc,...??
Since Kally-Fornea doesn’t have two red cents to rub together, just where will they get the money to build and operate this marvel??
Since the ChiComms and the Japanese aren’t buying our debt any more, don’t tell me that the Federal Government is going to pay for this marvel either.
Of course airplanes travel nearly twice that speed with about one percent of the friction. Are they going to pack rail passengers in like sardines the way airlines do? If not I don’t see how rail can ever bee more efficient.
Don’t kid yourself, bullet from LA/SD to SAN FRAN will have pleanty of riders. This is a 500 mile trip, if it pulls it off in 2.5 hours or less, it will have pleanty of passengers, provided the cost is at or below plane fare.
In air flight time for such a trip is about 1.5 hours. With additional overhead that flying takes in terms of time on the ground etc, you are looking at absolutely comparable travel times.
I don’t know if I agree with building a bullet train vs say a maglev, since bullet trains are already 40+ year old technology, but I have no doubt that high speed rail of some sort between those 2 points will be successful.
Of course had Cali not squandered countless wealth on insane social programs over the last 40 years, they could have built the damn thing themselves hundreds of times over.
You can fly from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less time and for potentially less cost.
I would not want to be on that during an earthquake.
Then why doesn't private enterprise build and operate the train? Either it will be profitable or not. If not, then it shouldn't be built. If so, then a private entity should build it. Government should not be involved.
This is from the Chinese news agency. They must be providing the rail. They used to make it in Pittsburgh.
BTW, there's an older Freeway that connects a lot of points in Southern LA county, and Northern Orange county called CA 91, or Artesia Freeway. It would be possible to DOUBLE the highway capacity here by widening 10 or so overpasses about 20 feet.
The energy savings available from eliminating 8 hours a day of traffic jams on this one highway should be enormous.
A "bullet train" would not benefit anyone currently using Artesia!
The title should read, “California, which is, like, superbroke, on track to build a really huge and expensive mess.”
Geez! The Johnny Cab driver has more sense than the Jerkinator not to build this thing using porkulus money.
I’ve taken the train between LA and SF.
I suppose this new technology requires replacing all or building tracks along side the old. Land acquisition will be the biggest cost.
Train travel is Europe is great. The US however might be too politically correct to do it right.
Poeple just don’t know how to behave anymore.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.