# California Approves High-Speed Rail Project



## EVDL Archive (Jul 26, 2007)

State Senate voted Friday to approve the first $8 billion allocation for the project

More...


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

Oh, joy. Job security for future Aamtrak subsides.


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## danh818 (Dec 14, 2011)

And 10 Billion of our hard earned dollars going to waste.


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## njloof (Nov 21, 2011)

As long as they don't frisk me before I can get on the train...


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

njloof said:


> As long as they don't frisk me before I can get on the train...


You haven't heard? The TSA is now monitoring both train stations and even bus stops. The madness never ends.


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## njloof (Nov 21, 2011)

PhantomPholly said:


> You haven't heard? The TSA is now monitoring both train stations and even bus stops. The madness never ends.


If they frisked the folks I rode with on the Greyhound back in the day, the bus would have been mostly empty


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

I wonder what they mean by "High Speed"...in UT they spent half the DOT budget on a 55 mph High Speed Rail that ran alongside the 80 MPH hwy, cost more than gas to ride, and was used by ~.01% of the commuting population.


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## Caps18 (Jun 8, 2008)

If it goes from San Fran to LA, and then later to Las Vegas and San Diego from LA... It could work if it takes you to the airport in each of these cities (to the strip in Vegas, stupid taxi lobby preventing a monorail from the airport to the strip...). All flights would be switched to train rides, and people could come and just take the train as well.

The issue is the price and convenience. It is a 4-6 hour drive and it only costs *"$40" because you aren't counting the price of your car. You can take a few people for that rate too. Adding an extra passenger to your car doesn't cost another "$40". And you leave when you leave. You don't have a clock to check and you can't be late. And you can go whereever once you get there. Vegas has taxis, but they will cost you quite a bit instead of parking for free and driving someplace else. In LA you will have to wait for a taxi and everything is spread out a long distance.

Train pricing has to factor in a bunch of stuff if they want to remain profitable and be better than airlines or driving your regular car. Now, if they allowed cars to get transported quickly, cheaply, and easily on the train. It isn't just the speed. I would rather go slow and pay $20 for my car and myself to go to Las Vegas or SF from LA, and if I had some friends, they would have to pay $12. And that is the hard part to solve. They will raise the rates to match supply and demand instead of being a great deal even if automobile gas prices shoot up.

*$40 is a made up number, but it is the price it costs in fuel to get there and back.


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## McRat (Jul 10, 2012)

There is not enough demand to justify the costs. 

Do they think it takes no energy to build a rail system? Net carbon footprint will make it a poor decision.

But understand, SF and LA run California. Anything they want, they get, and will make the rest of the state pay for it.


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## njloof (Nov 21, 2011)

I promise to wave at y'all through the window 

Hey, I'd drive an EV from LA to SF if I had the range...


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## danh818 (Dec 14, 2011)

McRat said:


> There is not enough demand to justify the costs.
> 
> Do they think it takes no energy to build a rail system? Net carbon footprint will make it a poor decision.
> 
> But understand, SF and LA run California. Anything they want, they get, and will make the rest of the state pay for it.


You said it MCRat. I Agree 100%. The really terrible thing is that the general public doesn't get much of a say in the matter. If people knew the real 'cost' it would have never made it this far.

I've lived in LA all my life and watched as perfectly good train tracks have been pulled up, land left dormant, only years later to be paved over to build special bus lanes. Buses are more than half empty, traffic collisions have gone way up, and the city combats this by installing traffic cameras that only exacerbate the problem so now they have to post humans to stand in the intersections and direct traffic. Now we're going back to trains? Insanity!


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## Coley (Jul 26, 2007)

Gee. Here in Illinois, I can't wait for this dumbass state to copy Cal and vote to spend billions more THAT WE DON'T HAVE!!!!!!!!!!!
Really makes you wonder what they are using for brains.........
Vote cautiously this NOV.


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

PhantomPholly said:


> You haven't heard? The TSA is now monitoring both train stations and even bus stops. The madness never ends.


You mean the Totally Stupid Assholes are feeling up grandma again but targeted the bus stations? Holy Crap.


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

Coley said:


> Gee. Here in Illinois, I can't wait for this dumbass state to copy Cal and vote to spend billions more THAT WE DON'T HAVE!!!!!!!!!!!
> Really makes you wonder what they are using for brains.........
> Vote cautiously this NOV.


We all know who is GOING to win. It is not by your vote either. He won't be getting my vote. Puppets are running against him as a public distraction. None of the puppets are president material either. Again a public distraction. Brown has gotta go AGAIN.


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## njloof (Nov 21, 2011)

Of course, with low interest rates the incentives for public and private investment alike have never been greater...


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

onegreenev said:


> You mean the Totally Stupid Assholes are feeling up grandma again but targeted the bus stations? Holy Crap.


Yeah - and it slows down things even more when granny goes through the line twice just to get squeezed...


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## jeremyjs (Sep 22, 2010)

I'm curious how California is paying for it. Are they going to start writing more IOU's? I like the idea of high speed rail, but with the way the economy is and how tight federal, state and local budgets are, I have a hard time seeing how it makes sense right now.


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

jeremyjs said:


> I'm curious how California is paying for it.


You kidding? It comes from our pockets. High Speed trains are a cool idea but only if they actually work out for transportation. If its done for PR then it is totally wrong. It must be usable and viable. Knowing about the Light Rail in Sacramento it could work. But keeping the riff raff out is going to be tough.


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

jeremyjs said:


> I'm curious how California is paying for it.


That was the first thing that popped into my head too.

"A few billion here, a few billion there and eventually you'll have to start spending real money."


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## Caps18 (Jun 8, 2008)

I wonder if they did any studies on what people wanted before they started this project.

I would rather have a train segregated on income, although the price you pay for a ticket would be the same. The wealthy might have spent more in taxes though. Controversial, but it is true and the reason this won't get anywhere. The rich won't ride it when they can spend a few bucks on gas. The middle class don't want to deal with the homeless riders. The poor just want a free ride from jumping the gate.

Next, I think people would rather have slow, frequent, and cheap, than fast and expensive. It also has to be just as easy and efficient as airline travel. I have sat in many airports and it is amazing how good they are at moving people and luggage around the world. If a train could go from LA to Vegas or LA to SF, while being electric and hauling cars for the price of a few gallons of gas, it could work, even if it took longer than the high speed rail.

The train also has to have sports bars, kid cars, fast food choices, and a high end quiet lounge. It needs to have car-wash type of automatic loading of cars and trucks. And it needs to have general passenger compartments that can carry a lot of people.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Caps18 said:


> It also has to be just as easy and efficient as airline travel.


Have you flown in the last 10 years? One of the reasons for interest in high-speed rail is that it can be faster for trips under 500 miles.


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## Caps18 (Jun 8, 2008)

Ziggythewiz said:


> Have you flown in the last 10 years? One of the reasons for interest in high-speed rail is that it can be faster for trips under 500 miles.


I fly quite a bit. But like I said, I am interested in cheap not fast if I am paying for it. I have only paid for maybe 1 flight out of 100 that I've taken though. Anyways, I get to the airport early and flying is the one time I get paid for relaxing and sleeping. 

For trips in the 200-500 mile range, trains should be the way to go. I went all over Europe on a train, except for the Barcelona to London leg was much better and faster to fly.

For me to get to Chicago it takes 6 hours driving. To get to DC it takes 10 hours. The train takes just as long or longer to get to DC, and to get to Chicago it isn't much better. But the issue is the cost compared to driving my 40mpg car. And the fact that I can leave when I am ready to leave in a car. So I would need to get my car and myself to DC for under $70 to break even. I'll say $125 might be ok with the ability to relax on the train actually. But $70 would get more people taking pleasure trips.

Chicago has to be under $40.


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## danh818 (Dec 14, 2011)

Ziggythewiz said:


> Have you flown in the last 10 years? One of the reasons for interest in high-speed rail is that it can be faster for trips under 500 miles.


Maybe, maybe not. 

I found myself in an interesting predicament a couple weeks back. I wanted to get from Los Angeles to Salinas Ca. (about 300 miles) for the 2012 REFUEL time trials at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. I could talk for hours about the event itself, it was so cool getting to watch EV's run the track up there. I really would like to make it there with my 944 next year but, on to my point: How to get there? Mind you, the race was on a Sunday and I would need to be back in LA Sunday night for work on Monday. So my options were; fly, drive, or train.

You would think a flight would be fastest, but likely the most expensive. And you would be right if it were any other day of the week. You see being Sunday there were a minimum of flights available. Getting there would not be a problem, flight time is just over 1 hour, but getting home would be another story. There were no flights out of any neighboring airports that would get me home in time for work Monday morning, some would be as long as 14 hours with a layover. Ridiculous! Not to mention the exorbitant cost of over $500

Option two, drive. 
My 944 isn't done yet, so that was out. My Toyota FJ needed an oil change and I need to do the brakes, so a 600 mile round trip would not be the best of choices for the health of my only running vehicle.

Option three, train
On the surface not a bad option, but lets look deeper. The one way journey leaving from LA would take 8 and 1/2 hours. So for a round trip I would be stuck with my ass on a train for over 17 hours! WHAT!! Why so long? Well, because the train makes an astounding number of stops along the way. Even if I could have found one that worked with my schedule, which I couldn't, the train doesn't leave from my front door and go directly to the track so I would have still had to have arranged either a rental car or found a bus or taxi to complete the journey.

So what did I do you ask?
The only logical thing: I called up a local luxury car rental agency and reserved myself a Porsche Cayman. They were kind enough to pick me up late Saturday evening, brought me down to the agency, signed a couple slips of paper, and I took the Cayman home. I packed a day bag, tossed it in the boot and proceed to drive the shit out of that car all the way up Highway 1 until I hit that track. What a great drive. I hung around the track all day, watched a Tesla Signature 100 Roadster kiss the wall after spinning out in turn 11, chuckled a bit to myself and hopped in the Cayman and blasted home, topping out at 141mph at one point. I made it home faster than both the plane or the train. And the cost was really about the same as a flight. No joke.

High Speed Rail my ass!

If any of you have ever watched the UK Top Gear tv show, they routinely pit cars against other methods of transportation. Although their 'races' are usually quite outlandish the cars mostly win.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Yeah, I wouldn't consider a 8+ hour trip within a state to be "High Speed" For as much as we love to speed on the hwy, the Hill loves to misuse those words. It should have to do at least 200+ to get the label.


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## Mark C (Jun 25, 2010)

I don't agree with the slow is okay if it's cheap part, mostly because I don't believe it will ever price out cheap enough to be worth it to a person who owns a dependable vehicle. 

My wife and I made a trip on Amtrak to Washington DC from Birmingham, AL last year. It took 23 hours to get there because it was behind schedule {that I admit was not Amtraks fault}. The return trip was on schedule at 19 hours. The distance traveled by train was about 750 miles each way. The roundtrip fare for the two of us was just over $900.00. This wasn't high speed rail as the avg speed for the trip was 40mph. Eating on a train isn't cheap, either.

To compare, if we drove our least fuel efficient vehicle, a 2004 Silverado p/u that would return 20 mpg on the trip, we would use 37.5 gallons of gas each way. At $4 per gallon {it was actually cheaper than $4 last year}, $150.00, for a roundtrip fuel cost of $300.00. We would have gotten there faster, but I wanted to try train travel. Well, now that I have the train trip out of my system, unless something in this equation changes a good bit, Amtrak doesn't need to worry about me riding again any time soon.


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## njloof (Nov 21, 2011)

For good or ill, the model for high speed rail in the US is the Acela: 6.5 hours from Boston to DC; that's averaging 68 mph, stops included, through some of the most congested parts of the East Coast. You could maybe hit that in a car with a lead foot, but not during rush hour. The train itself goes 145 mph, which would do quite well in the California desert.


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## Caps18 (Jun 8, 2008)

Mark C said:


> I don't agree with the slow is okay if it's cheap part, mostly because I don't believe it will ever price out cheap enough to be worth it to a person who owns a dependable vehicle.
> 
> My wife and I made a trip on Amtrak to Washington DC from Birmingham, AL last year. It took 23 hours to get there because it was behind schedule {that I admit was not Amtraks fault}. The return trip was on schedule at 19 hours. The distance traveled by train was about 750 miles each way. The roundtrip fare for the two of us was just over $900.00. This wasn't high speed rail as the avg speed for the trip was 40mph. Eating on a train isn't cheap, either.
> 
> To compare, if we drove our least fuel efficient vehicle, a 2004 Silverado p/u that would return 20 mpg on the trip, we would use 37.5 gallons of gas each way. At $4 per gallon {it was actually cheaper than $4 last year}, $150.00, for a roundtrip fuel cost of $300.00. We would have gotten there faster, but I wanted to try train travel. Well, now that I have the train trip out of my system, unless something in this equation changes a good bit, Amtrak doesn't need to worry about me riding again any time soon.


I agree that for that distance, the prices are crazy. And the time it takes is way too long. It is the same with trying to get from Ohio to DC.

But, what if you want to go down to Mobile, AL for the weekend? What about going to Disney World in Orlando (trains would need a family rate)? How about Mardi Gras in New Orleans? That type of trip is where the train would be good, but I don't know if those routes exist or are quick. And if it was cheap enough, it should beat out the cost for gas for your truck. And if it was $20 roundtrip, it wouldn't matter to most people if it took 1-2 hours longer. People have laptops with movies, they can have stuff to do on the train, or they can just relax.

The only two routes I have looked into is Indianapolis to Chicago and Tucson to San Diego. Both of those by train would beat trying to rent a car and driving. Since I know people who have a car there, I can rent a bicycle, or Chicago metro system is good.


On a different note, I wonder if the train industry adopted the airline spoke and hub model if things would work better. They would need smaller trains, but more of them. There would be two types of trains, one that would take you short distances and to a hub with a few stops in neighborhoods nearby. But the long haul train would go non-stop from major city to major city.


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## litholas (Mar 2, 2012)

Again no maglev :/


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