Posted on 03/14/2017 12:36:14 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
CalTrain is pretty good. From San Jose to San Francisco it is about 50 miles, and best of all serves as a connection between other local public transportation networks and two airports.
For short distances trains are a quite viable option. The subsidies are there for two reasons, congestion relief and keeps the costs less than for a single person in a car. For many large cities the trains transport large numbers of people who do not need to find somewhere to park in the central business district, and it allows them to travel somewhere other than the roads (buses both travel on the roads and are also subsidized). We can have an intelligent discussion about whether the benefits of remote parking are worth the subsidies.
The downsides of the proposed High Speed Trains are manifold, for long trips, planes are faster, can carry similar numbers and even with the subsidies are not much more expensive (ticket cost). High Speed Trains require straight track, few stops, and track maintained to a very high standard, which will bring issues of politics and costs.
Passenger rail only makes sense as a method of travel in a very narrow band, involving population density (enough people who want to use it) and distance traveled (travel time).
Cars are faster, more convenient and cheaper for trips of less than a day not involving central city to central city. For groups of more than two people even central city to central city may be cheaper.
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.
Solution is to raise prices.
$500 at least for a one way ticket
Los Angeles to San Francisco flight is about $117 by airplane.
Oh, I’m not jealous! I will be paying for this wonderful 7 hour* trip to San Francisco just like you! No longer will it be an 8 hour drive. Worth every billion I can help scrimp up to contribute to!
*1 hour just to get out of the city in traffic to reach the new station
Thank goodness we don’t have any dams that need repair. Plus we’ll never have a drought again.
“How many stops would this train make?”
Including breakdowns?
This is NOT a Dream, it is a Nightmare. Put the pipe down and try to stay sober tomorrow.
How about “Novitiates of the muzzleft cult”?
Except in the USA.
As I understand, it went up to 96 Billions, people scream then they were back down to 64 billions by using old rail road tracks instead of building a new one.
The difficulty with rail in the US is the lavish subsidies for mass motoring.
The only places I think high-speed rail can work is between heavily-travelled population centers that are not that far apart. There was some talk of an L.A. to Las Vegas train, but the last I heard, they gave up on the idea.
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