[editor-surveyor]

An 80 billion dollar train from Pixley to Hooterville.

How do I sign up for some of this?

[Jim Robinson]

Idiots! Dump the boondoggle!!

[MeganC]

The only way high speed rail can be built in the USA is under the umbris of government. A Texas consortium tried to build a HSR line and Southwest Airlines spent millions to lobby against it - not unlike how some interests are lobbying aganst the Keystone Pipeline.

With California it makes sense to build HSR because with environmental rules there is a ZERO chance that a new north-south freeway can be built to link SoCal and NorCal. And adding additional airport space is all but impossible for the same reasons. Rail, on the other hand allows travelers to go from city center to city center in far less time than can be done via a combination of freeway and air.

Given the population of the state will expand to probably 50 million by mid-century and to as much as 80 million or more by 2100 having an alternate means of transport in place for all of those people is responsible governance.

As to the opposition to HSR? The HSR plan mirrors the 1956 Federal Interstate Highway Act because that method of building transportation infrastructure is proven. You build in the rural areas first and then build in the urban areas so you can keep the political momentum going. God bless their pointy little heads, but the French, Germans, and Britis built their HSR systems the same way we did our Interstates because that model worked.

That’s what failed with the US Route system of the 1920’s.

The urban areas got their US Route expressways built and then those expressways terminated into gravel and dirt roads in the rural areas. At best those roads were mere two lane ribbons in rural areas. The Feds learned from their mistakes and despite huge Republican opposition the first Interstate construction was started not in NYC or Boston or LA, but in rural Missouri and Kansas on I-70.

If HSR was built the way critics want it built it would not link up to anything and would only be a series of regional or urban rail systems that did not link urban areas.

What irks me about the opponents of the program is that most of them will go out of their way to ride on this thing once it’s built. Another group will say they supported it all along just like so many do with the Interstates now.

[JPG]

Little Choo-choo Barry is enamored with trains. Will someone please buy him a train set for Christmas?

[GonzoGOP]

What nobody seems to consider is the maintenance costs. Not only is high speed rail prohibitively expensive to build, it is hideously expensive to maintain. The cost of maintaining class six track (110 mph) is 26% higher than class four track (80 mph). And that is from the USDOT so it is probably underestimated if anything. And if you run freight on the same line, to try to offset the construction costs, the maintenance costs get even worse because the heavy freights put more stress on the track. Costs will be between 33-80 thousand dollars per track mile every year. And the line is double tracked so when calculating the cost remember to double the mileage.

And that is just tack. The higher the speed the higher the equipment costs as well. And the cost of less than perfect maintenance is literally life and death at the speeds the trains are expected to travel. Just look at what happened in China to see all to graphic evidence of the consequences of cost cutting on track and maintenance.

Even if by some miracle they got this monstrosity built, they could never afford to run it.

[BlazingArizona]

California is not going to get any item of major infrastructure built, public or private, until the law is changed to shift the burden of proof on permit approvals of known-good, standard technology from the builders to the opposition. If the liberals can;t build high-speed raill their own favorite project, then what hope is there of building new power plants or highways?

[BlazingArizona]

California is not going to get any item of major infrastructure built, public or private, until the law is changed to shift the burden of proof on permit approvals of known-good, standard technology from the builders to the opposition. If the liberals can;t build high-speed rail, their own favorite project, then what hope is there of building new power plants or highways?

[denydenydeny]

Even the latest Field poll found that two thirds of Californians want a new referendum on the project. And by a two-to-one margin, they say they’d vote to derail it.

Sorry, suckers, but your masters know better.