Thread: California is totally fucked

Originally Posted by Viva

The middle section's fucked because there's now going to be stops in Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced and Sacramento. Bakersfield to Fresneck is about 150 miles. Fresneck to Merced (a town of approx. 80,00 souls) is 50 miles, Merced to Suckramento is about 120 miles. When exactly is this magic train going to achieve top speed and for how long?

Why? French, Japanese and Chinese HSR all have stops closer together than that. It doesn't take that much distance for a HST to get up to speed...maybe 2-5 miles approx. Check out how close Le Mans is to Paris, yet they have HSR between the two...similarly Lyon is only like 160 miles from Paris, but that works just fine, oh and these both have intermittent stops at other towns.


Japan example - Tokyo to Nagano: 145 mi with stops along the way at 8 or 9 cities

You need to have stops to pick peoople up/drop people off to increase ridership. I think what you're getting at is that it cant' stop too much...which it won't. It still gets you from the Bay area to LA faster than flying, even with the stops.

Originally Posted by Viva

The most logical and cost-efficient design would be to use the I-5 right-of-way with no stops between LA and the Gay Area. Re-routing this up the Hwy 99 corridor has not only driven up estimated costs substantively, but it now highly unlikely that the transit times requirement (i.e., legislated) will be met.

Why would using a roadway right of way with no access for riders and without any rail infrastructure, let alone what it would do to I-5 itself, be a "logical" route? You're better off using existing rail right of way, like they're doing, than trying to purchase a shit ton of right of way to slap the HST in the middle of a freeway and then move the freeway and/or reconstruct overpasses/bridges to accomodate the train.

Looks like the bill for that grand HST network in France is about to come due. How unprofitable is it?