First off, I oppose the taxpayer-funded HSR scheme in California and I supported the privately funded French consortium that proposed building a sensible HSR along a far more direct route.
That said, the 'rail to nowhere' meme really needs to stop being repeated because it is a non-argument.
The Federal government mirrored the Interstate Highway Act when they came up with the funding plans for HSR and they required the rural portions of the routes to be built first and then the urban portions would be built.
This is because the failed US route system that was supposed to feature four-lane highways was typified by urban parkways being built that led to two-lane oil-and-gravel roads in the rural areas. The urban politicians saw no point in funding highways in rural areas so those highways were never built.
The first Interstate was #70 and it's first stretches were built in rural Kansas, Missouri, and Colorado. This ended up connecting Denver and St. Louis. when the US Route system had failed to provide a decent road between these major cities.
And in California the local politicias are wanting to make local HSR systems with a 'promise' that maybe someday they'll connect to something. Which is a lie and the Fed will never fund these local HSR systems because they really don't go anywhere at all.
I oppose taxpayer funded HSR, but if they're going to do it then the rural sections have to be built first otherwise the urban sections wil never conect to anything at all.
Thanks for reading.
“Thanks for reading.”
No. Thank you for writing that.
The so called rail system isn’t. Even the first portion is going to be a strip that end somewhere south of Visalia....that’s soooo close to LA/s
The Bay Area portion is covered by buses. The speeds at which the train will supposedly travel are around 60 mph tops. The whole thing is a travesty IF it can even have any portion built.
I still remember the fly over ramp from 101 to 680 that took DECADES to finish....it was a bridge to nowhere from nowhere. California is famous for this kind of nonsense