"... and think cars are destroying the planet whereas trains can save it.
High-speed rail is to transit what windmills are to energy — an environmentally correct, futuristic technology that will always under-deliver.... The current focus is a line between Merced (pop. 93,000) and Bakersfield (413,000).... The original estimated $33 billion cost is now $35 billion for just the scaled-back line, and more than $100 billion and counting for the whole shebang.
There is no reason that the feds should pour good money after bad supporting a preposterous project that doesn’t have any national significance.
California governor Gavin Newsom — too embarrassed to admit failure or too drunk on visions of European-style rail — remains fully committed. In a statement, he said Trump’s defunding decision is a 'gift to China,' as if Beijing cares whether people get to Bakersfield by car, plane or high-speed rail...."
Why don't people who care about the environment simply stop traveling? Even if the line did connect L.A. to San Francisco, as it was originally sold, what is the need to go back and forth between these 2 cities... or any 2 cities in America? The high-tech solution is not high-speed rail. It's virtual connection. The amorphous interest in appearing somewhere in the flesh does not deserve a taxpayer subsidy.
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102 comments:
Merced to Bakersfield. It is to laugh.
It's a future bicycle trail.
no way it would have come in under $500 Billion. Look at the big dig.
"It's a future bicycle trail."
For $35 billion.
it was a sinecure, a botella, that a small group did very well with,
Feds should have forced the first section from SFO airport, South through Silicon valley. When that could not be started, the project would be dead. And if it overran and ended, they still would have had a rail route to SFO
"But, mommmm! All the European kids have high-speed rail!"
I've always thought that the biggest problem with high speed rail in America is it being a sitting duck for terrorism or vandalism resulting in a horrible loss of life. It would not take much and access is right there at ground level
I think I read somewhere that the project cost would be enough to buy every commuter 200 round trip plane tickets.
I think I read somewhere that the project cost would be enough to buy every commuter 200 round trip plane tickets.
Not every commuter. Every RESIDENT of both SF and LA.
I want to see an every-dollar audit of where this money went, and vigorous prosecution of all the union thugs and left-wing NGO leeches who consumed it.
"Feds should have forced the first section from SFO airport, South through Silicon valley. When that could not be started, the project would be dead. And if it overran and ended, they still would have had a rail route to SFO.
If they were serious, this is what they would have done. When they punted to Merced to Bakersfield, it was clear this was never going to be built.
Remember when Netflix used to send you DVDs? By mail? And it was cutting-edge?
There was a running gag on Jack Benny's show of Mel Blanc announcing "Train leaving on track five for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cuuuucamonga".
But how many of you who sit and judge me, ever took the high speed rail to Bakersfield?
For me the erotic appeal is the tunnels more the the train, if you know what I mean.
"Why don't people who care about the environment simply stop traveling? Even if the line did connect L.A. to San Francisco, as it was originally sold, what is the need to go back and forth between these 2 cities... or any 2 cities in America?
Here, let me help you.You see, Ann ... In Los Angeles, you can't parade down the street with your boner out in the presence of children. They'll arrest your ass for that.
But you can do that in San Francisco. You have to travel there to do it.
Does it all make sense now?
Those with a good memory will remember Althouse posting about this shortly after Trump won in 2016 when the the cost overrun for just the Merced-Bakersfield portion was predicted to be just 4 billion dollars and it was supposed to be open for business this year. Trump should have killed the federal part in 2017 shortly after taking office but I think he still had that same dream about trains that loser progressives have still today.
Where did the money spent go, and what accounts for the tripling of the cost? Seems like there has to be some illegality there.
Mercedes to Bakersfield is 164 miles, and can be driven in 2 1/2 hours. Once in Merced, you are still a 2:15 drive to SF and more than 2 hours to Silicon Valley. Driving directly from Bakersfield, you can get to Silicon Vallet in less than 4 hours, or to SF in a bit more than 4 1/2 hours. Likewise, from Bakersfield to LA is 1 hour and 50 minutes, while you can drive straight from Merced to LA in 4 1/2 hours.
Meanwhile, the estimate for the high speed line between Merced and Bakersfield is 90 minutes. So by the time you park, get your tickets, board and unload, probably close to 2 hours, and you are still 2 plus hours from your destination with no car (and that is not counting the commute to the Merced or Bakersfield station from you home). So you literally save NO time and spend a ton of money. Who would ever make that trip?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
the simpsons knew once upon a time
High speed rail in a low population density was, ironically, always an orgasmic conception without a viable evolution. An a priori orgiastic truthy with selfie-profit motives.
DIA - Denver International Airport = the same thing. They ripped it apart and then all the contractors skedaddled out the back door with their big money - leaving the place in a complete state of disarray.
DIA is a total shit show.. Local democratics are to blame, and known for pocketing money on insider real estate deals.. (Mayor Mike Johnson) - the same local democratics all line up to dutifully blame Trump.
Bagoh asks what we all ask - where did the money go?
When Democratics lose/waste/pocket our money - they never have to answer for it.
did that start with frederico pena, who ended up in transportation because reasons,
Remember the movie Singles, set (and made) in grunge-era Seattle? In which the leading man was a city planner lobbying hard for a high-speed rail line from the northern suburbs (if memory serves) into downtown, saying that if you gave people great coffee and great music (the crazy thing is, he meant grunge, which even grunge-lovers must admit is not the best choice for getting you into that 9-to-5 mood), they'd leave their cars behind?
Even his environmentalist girlfriend, whose entire life is committed to inventorying marine mammals or some such thing, rather vaguely tells him, "But people love their cars..." (She herself drives a massive gas-guzzler.)
Furthermore: I lived in Seattle in that exact era. Already some of the worst commutes were across the lake to and from Bellevue and Redmond, and to and from Renton and Kent and even Tacoma. Those commutes have not improved a whit, as far as I can tell, even adjusting for the population growth - the roads are the same as they ever were. (Ok, there's been a little improvement on the bridges, but now they're toll roads too.)
They have a rail line, though! So people in the Northgate area can get down to the airport in only like an hour and fifteen minutes in the middle of the night, instead of the half an hour it would take at the same time by car. During rush hour, the rail line is probably faster, but there is the whole "lugging" part of "luggage" to deal with.
I loved living in Seattle back then. It was this scrappy little place filled with strivers. We were there for seven critical years, during which it became very very self-conscious, and thus has it remained ever since.
Progressives are the new Amish. They only want to use technology that existed in Marx's time. Hence the obsession with 19th-century transportation (trains) and the distrust of cars and airplanes.
Narciso - Yes- Frederico Pena pushed for the new airport back in the day.
According to chatGPT driving between the two cities takes 6 - 7 hours. If there was high-speed rail the trip would take 2 - 3 hours. So, your spending billions of dollars to reduce the travel time by 1/2 to 2/3rds. Why? How many people are traveling between those two cities and how often?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taJ4MFCxiuo
I suspect one reason California is gambling on high-speed rail has less to do with tech workers or tourists but with getting poor service industry and office support workers into the cities they serve but cannot afford to live in, or even near, safely. If any of these lines are ever created, expect subsidized ticketing to follow.
This is evidence of California's housing and crime crises and unwillingness to maintain and grow their highway system.
And indeed, choo-choo trains are a progressive fetish. They won't invest (far more rationally) in buses, because that means committing to better highways.
You can't clean an office building remotely.
People worried that their travel harms the environment should not travel. That will make it faster and less crowded for the rest of us.
Architect CW Fentress design. Not a fan. many CW Fentress projects in Denver have not weathered the test of time.
I believe the old tinker-toy looking Convention Center was one of many poorly conceived visual mistakes by Fentress.
Funny - we all grumbled about the billion dollar big top at DIA- but now, to many, one aspect locals have grown to like is the glowing tent that sits atop the main terminal building. It's the rest of place that is poorly designed and now poorly updated. the updates are incomplete and already look tired. You walk forever to get anywhere. There are not back-ups if the trains are not working... The roads are ripped up.. Security is screwed up... I could go on... it really is a complete mess.
@Jamie: I almost took a position at that other UW, in Seattle, back in the 80s. I am so glad I didn't.
I suggest thumbing it.
Environmentalists must travel by air to exotic locales. Fuck everybody else. Trains and rabbit-warren housing will be a nightmare in a pandemic. And our scientists are trying to bring about another pandemic. There is so much to learn.
"If there was high-speed rail the trip would take 2 - 3 hours."
Now, add the time it takes to get to the departing train station from your home and to arrange transportation from the arrival station to your actual destination.
The high-tech solution is not high-speed rail. It's virtual connection. The amorphous interest in appearing somewhere in the flesh does not deserve a taxpayer subsidy.
Less likely to show up on the Coldplay Kiss Cam virtually, too, although Jeffrey Toobin managed a related offense.
Hence the obsession with 19th-century transportation (trains) and the distrust of cars and airplanes.
Cars are also 19-th century transportation and the airplane was invented in 1903, and the first commercial flights started in 1919.
"but with getting poor service industry and office support workers into the cities they serve but cannot afford to live in"
Sounds like a bus service. How "high speed" can the rail be, if it has to keep stopping to pick up riders?
Still a win for the crooks, the money was tasty while it lasted.
Sing it with me now. "In the US trains are for freight, airplanes are for people."
I know that area of California very well. It's 99% agriculture, with towns and cities based on agriculture and traveler support services. People mostly drive through on the way to SF, LA, or the mountain National Parks such as Yosemite. The mountains are far away from the rail line and rail would never make sense. The valley small towns are often populated by 80% to 99% Spanish-speaking farm workers. The larger cities like Fresno and Bakersfield are...pretty small cities...
Travel from SF to LA has been served by air flights for a long time, and from driving on Interstate 5. This route bypasses the farm cities by hugging the western side of the Central Valley. It's the shortest route to and from the major metros. So, the HS rail route (politically) added travel time between the major metro areas just to serve the dinky farm cities.
California should have focused on urban rail in the dense LA and SF regions, and instead found a way to better support the water needs of this (fantastically productive) agriculture region. Get rid of the rail line taking up useless space, and turn it back to farms too. Then they might grow more tomatoes and grapes and peaches and almonds...
I've been a light rail skeptic for years. Every light rail system starting with Bay Area Rapid Transit, then WMATA, then Atlanta, and the San Diego Trolley has been oversold from the beginning gleam in the planner's eye. The truth about all light rail projects--they will take twice as long to build as planned; they will cost twice as much as projected; ridership will be half that was projected, and revenue will be--at best 1/3 of that projected. They are colossal boondoggles one and all.
So I wasn't impressed in 2008 when Democrats like Jerry Brown "sold" the public on a high speed rail project--and got an election approving it. The voters were told that the high speed rail would link downtown San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles with a three hour train ride.
Where to begin with how big a lie that was. Cal Train already runs commuter trains up the San Francisco Peninsula on tracks it shares with occasional freight trains. There was then, and there is now, no way in Hell that you can build a dedicated high speed rail track up the peninsula to downtown San Francisco. There's more land but different physical and political problems at the Los Angeles end.
California's Brylcreem Boy Governor is suing Trump and the Feds demanding more federal taxpayer money for this choo choo to nowhere.
"You can't clean an office building remotely."
By the time they got it built, would there even be office buildings? That's a problem with these huge projects. By the time it gets built, the rationale may have evaporated.
I watched a documentary on skyscrapers once. The claim was made that what limits the height of skyscrapers is not engineering but finance. You have to borrow money to build a skyscraper, and that skyscraper needs to start providing revenue in the not too distant future so that you can start paying the money back. If you build one too big it takes too long to complete and you can make the finances work. Governments don't have that problem, I guess, but you should still worry about if a project's rationale will still make sense once it's completed.
"The idea of high-speed rail has a nearly erotic appeal to progressives, who love other people using communal trains over individualized autos..."
I notice the main proponents seldom give up their individual cars and private planes.
High Speed Rail in the US is basically like a cargo cult. HSR isn't going to turn places like LA or SF into Asian or European metropolises.
If it worked, it would be great! I used the Shinkansen recently for a quick day trip from Tokyo to Himeji (to see the castle), and I was able to buy the reserved seat ticket that morning from a vending machine and hop on the next train. No security line or anything -- just walked right in. And when I arrived in Himeji, I just walked to the castle (maybe 20 minutes). Much easier than a plane flight.
But also, much easier than a US train trip. I did a day trip from DC to NYC using Amtrak earlier this year and while the train time was about the same, the Amtrak trip was much more expensive and much less comfortable (especially without assigned seating). I do not believe an HSR product managed by American transit personnel would be anything like what you can get in Japan/Korea/China, or even Europe.
"and you can make the finances work."
That should be CAN'T make the finances work.
When I lived in Atlanta, I didn't know a single progressive, even the environmental lobbyists, who took the bus system. Those who used the trains were glancingly few. The train to the airport, which ends inside the terminal itself, is useful.
The "historical trolley to nowhere" that opened a few years ago is useless. It is three miles long (or was then) and doesn't stop close enough to the main train depot, the hospital, or all but one convention hotel to be useful to senior citizens or conventioneers (who can walk to the convention center faster). It must have taken an enormous amount of work by countless government planners to accomplish so little with so much.
The future is a high-speed electronic? Electric highway powered by renewable bluster and roast.
“what is the need to go back and forth between these 2 cities?”
Why, to riot and to defecate. It’s that simple.
It's about creating opportunities for graft.
People like their mobile cubicles, their offices more, but would prefer to work from home. The isolation of the first, the privacy of the second, and the Earthly comfort of the hearth.
"Trains are for moving freight and communists." - David Burge
“ Peachy said...
DIA - Denver International Airport = the same thing. They ripped it apart and then all the contractors skedaddled out the back door with their big money - leaving the place in a complete state of disarray.
DIA is a total shit show.. Local democratics are to blame, and known for pocketing money on insider real estate deals.. (Mayor Mike Johnson) - the same local democratics all line up to dutifully blame Trump.”
I came here to mention the DIA fiasco. A lot of Democrats made a lot of money off of it, so by that measure, it was a big success. In Colorado Springs, we joked that DIA stood for Democrats In Action. IIRC, they had to delay the opening for a year due to the failure of the high tech luggage handling system.
Massive overruns, corruption, and delays are SOP for big ticket Democrat projects. It’s who they are and what they do. No doubt a deep dive into the California high speed rail project would similarly show big bucks going to politically connected land owners (who likely bought the land once the route was determined), contractors, cronies, family members, and consultants, with lavish “campaign contributions” going to Democrat politicians.
The opportunities for graft are huge with high-speed rail, which is why the Dems keep pursuing it. That and the Federal cash, which can be spread around to the various graft receptors.
The project won't stop until it gets too expensive for the state to fund on its own. Might even take a GOP Governor to do it.
GPT estimates that a desalination plant with its own nuclear power plant to run it would cost $5B. So for the amount of money the state has thrown away, we could have had six water generators, processing water from the largest ocean in the world .. which would mean full reservoirs for things like, oh I dunno, FIGHTING FIRES CAUSED BY HIGH WINDS.
I wonder how much better the roads in L.A. would be if we could have spent $10B on road-widening projects instead of on a choo-choo to nowhere?
The opportunity costs of the high-speed project should be studied by California college students in the future.
Go head and build it without help from the US Treasury, California. No way. It’s just another wealth transfer scheme to fund leftie projects they would never be funded if they admitted where the money was going.
Remember that estimate we gave you to get the project approved? Well, we were waaaayyy off! Wow…
This isn't a high speed rail project. At least that hasn't been the main function of the project. It's a slush fund for bureaucrats, consultants and politicians. All (rail) roads leading back to the D party.
We are pouring money into a hole with no bottom.
NO mass transit program is supported at the fare box. So, even if - poof - the project was miraculously complete tomorrow at zero additional cost, it would be a drain on taxpayers for the life of the project.
Finally, why is the project a Federal concern? Don't give me the green new deal crap. Let's assume the GND is necessary and urgent. Is the HS rail a good way to combat climate change? Of course not. For a tiny fraction of this cost you could do a lot more to "save" the planet.
"which would mean full reservoirs for things like, oh I dunno, FIGHTING FIRES CAUSED BY HIGH WINDS."
Why would Democrats want to do that when they can, instead, let everything burn and hold up efforts to rebuild long enough to get people to sell their property to the government so the government can (they say) build low-income housing? Plenty of graft to be had there, you can be sure.
bagoh20 said...
“…what accounts for the tripling of the cost?”
There was no tripling - the public was simply never told what the real cost might be.
Drill SGT said...
“no way it would have come in under $500 Billion”
Probably a good guess. One reason the actual engineering for the LA-to-Central Valley section was never done is because it would have shown how fantastically expensive it would be. Michael Hiltzik of the LA Times used to write about this. He talked to actual engineers and designers.
It will never be built, but that doesn’t mean the money will stop flowing. The courts have already ruled that the money spigot can’t be shut off just because the original proposition was a lie.
"GPT estimates that a desalination plant with its own nuclear power plant to run it would cost $5B."
Yeah, think about that.
The love that dare not speak its name...A desire named Streetcar.
Good God - Rich Lowry. This is just the sort of tepid, harmless, "True Conservatism" he represents. He's against a railroad thats turned into a expensive boondoggle. Wow, edgy.
Do a search and try to find Lowry going after war in the Ukraine, Genocide in gaza, open borders, or affrimative action. You won't find much. That's why he's on TV shows as the "reasonable" conservative.
Some people have good reasons to travel between LA and SF. It costs about a hundred bucks by car or plane. 6 hours by car and roughly 3 to 4 hours by plane, including airport nonsense. High speed rail will not be materially faster or less expensive. This is a textbook instance of the inferiority of top down decision making.
I agree with JAORE. The whole point isn't to build a railroad, its to hand out graft. Just like the real point of USAID wasn't to help the 3rd world, but fund Leftwing NGOs and put money in the Democrat pockets.
I just imagine how many $billions in the "Build the Railroad Fund" have gone to Consultants, legal firms, Real estate firms, and others who push paper, and not lay down RR ties and rails.
When the RR is complete, people will finally be able to go from Fresno to Bakersfield in style. That alone is worth $100 billion.
True, high speed rail doesn't work in America. It's liable to be an inefficient, expensive boondoggle. France, Japan, China, and Korea have done (so far as I know) great things with it.
The futuristic ideas of the past may not work out (yet -- or ever) but it's a pity if they become slogans in our political wars. Self-driving cars and voyages to Mars when we have so many problems here on earth - right-wing. High-speed trains and making food out of algae or insects - left-wing.
"The idea of high-speed rail has a nearly erotic appeal to progressives, who love communal trains over individualized autos... and think cars are destroying the planet whereas trains can save it."
It's not about saving the planet. Never was. It's about restricting travel, and individual travel is freedom.
Would seem that HSR would be competition for airplane rather than automobile travel.
Same frequent flyers/commuters who travel by air would use the HSR if it were faster , cheaper, and more convenient.
Infrequent visitors might prefer driving to avoid airport/train station hassle, along with transportation aggravation and cost to and fro.
“ When I lived in Atlanta, I didn't know a single progressive, even the environmental lobbyists, who took the bus system.”
Economists define public transportation as an “inferior product”. Meaning that the higher your income the less of it you consume.
I would not want to be in a train if the San Andreas fault decided to cut loose.
Take my word for it, none of these people who are big supporters of this high speed train will actually take this train. They'll drive or fly. The biggest customer for this service will be cargo, which doesn't really need to go that much faster than regular freight trains. Also, we already have regular speed train tracks that go from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Seriously, you can take a train today from Los Angeles to San Francisco. A high speed train would only be a little bit faster and if you want to get there quickly, the airplane wins hand's down.
With center cities dying, this is an especially inauspicious time for high speed rail.
Successful high speed rail/urban mass transit doesn't fail in the US for lack of $$$, resolve or engineering talent - it fails because of "turf", greed, and The BIG ONE - Culture/Demograpics!
If you magically dropped Tokyo's wonderful system into the LA Basin and adjacent areas, it would become a shit show in no time, at all. In Japan, EVERYONE knows "the rules" and EVERYONE plays by "the same rules".
Not compatible with DEI, Unions, NGOs, attorneys and the "Justice System".
Diversity is like herbs and spices in a recipe - you let salt, tarragon, garlic, tumeric or cayenne have "equity" and you end up with something nobody's gonna eat.
Meanwhile, Brightline is building passenger rail between population centers and tourist hot spots. With private money. They have a reasonable chance of making a profit.
Definition of a Progressive: someone trying to solve 21st Century problems by using 20th Century fantasies and 19th Century technology.
19th century called and wants their technology back, regressives.
Having taken the high-speed trains in France, I can see much to envy, but their setup wouldn't work here, least of all in California.
There are about 2000 flights between LA and SFO every week. And a high speed rail should be able to capture this flight traffic.
However, LAX is an American Airlines hub and SFO is a United airlines hub. So it is likely some percentage of the flyers between airports are continuing on to other destinations. So hopping on a train first is actually a big hassle and a hinderance to their travel plans.
Even IF they completed the train from LA to SF...it wouldn't really be environment saving. Commuting to either place....once there, you still need a car to get around. Public transportation is not adequate to take you to where you want or need to go. In the US we have very limited public transportation for lots of reasons, mainly distances needed to travel . We are not Europe.
I fly to SF International Airport from LA. My meetings are in Palo Alto and then Richmond. I need a bus, cab or rental car. Outside of SF proper, there is limited public transportation. Plus...no one!! I mean no one wants to take the bus in SF after dark.
As others have noted, when Progressives get involved with infrastructure projects like this one, the bigger the 'vision', the more it turns out to be a graft and jobs program. Isn't it funny how they never wind up with a deep-dive forensic accounting exercise so the taxpayers can understand exactly where their money ended up? Looking at you, Gavin, but thinking also of Solyndra.
Some cowboy-hat-wearing visionaries had a similar concept for Houston-to-Dallas, but it looks like that one is slowly dying too, albeit without the embarassment of so much money spent and a short length of empty bridge to show for it. Will Gavin quietly demolish the bridge, so they'll stop printing pictures of it?
Round trip airplane ticket from LAX-SFO-LAX is $117. Each leg is 1.5 hours. Is any train going to beat that?
"Round trip airplane ticket from LAX-SFO-LAX is $117. Each leg is 1.5 hours. Is any train going to beat that?"
You think the gubmit is going to let you keep flying?
"You think the gubmit is going to let you keep flying?"
Especially when they don't even want to let you keep driving.
Progressives are the new Amish. They only want to use technology that existed in Marx's time. Hence the obsession with 19th-century transportation (trains) and the distrust of cars and airplanes.?
Au contraire, did we not learn anything from the COVID fiasco? Leftists are dazzled by the Chinese government's ability to use AI and social credit scores to punish thoughtcrime and deny mobility to selected enemies of the State, and have an unbridled lust for the technological power to do likewise to the rest of us.
Bridge to Nowhere, Boston Big Dig, Build Back Better law, One Big Beautiful Bill, Boeing Starliner, Navy and Air Force procurement, Air Force 1 replacement, Afghanistan withdrawal, etc etc. All government at all levels is incompetent.
Maybe there's a way to make high speed rail work in the United States, but it won't be any government that figures it out.
There’s the unmentioned bit more or less unsolvable problem of all the new road/high speed rail crossings and right of ways, rendering high speed rail not so high speed.
monorail! monorail! monorail!…mono-doh!
Look at it on a map. Merced to Bakersfield is the easy flat part along low cost right of way. Bakersfield to Los Angles goes across (or under) a 5,000 foot pass and crosses the San Andreas fault. Merced to San Francisco crossed the Silicon Valley where right-of-way is much more expensive. It also crosses a smaller range of hills. Merced to Bakersfield is 165 miles, Merced to San Francisco is 131 miles. Bakersfield to Los Angeles is another 113 miles. If the Merced to Bakersfield is $35B, then those two segments are easily more than $35B each.
With San Francisco declining the way it has been, there's no way that enough people would travel there anyway.
I much prefer "beam me up, Scotty". I'll wait (and pay) for that.
- Krumhorn
"The opportunities for graft are huge with high-speed rail, wh"
There it is.
There is only one country with a high speed rail system that pays for itself. That is Japan. All other high speed transit is subsidized. That is why California wants high speed transit.
In Spain we have high speed trains, the AVE system. At this point it has become essential. Madrid to Sevilla and Madrid-Barcelona are vital tourist routes and also serve as essentially business commutes. High speed rail CAN be an economic multiplier.
The argument I find valid is that of indirect economic benefit. It is visible in Spain, in spite of subsidized fares.
You can of course drive (on excellent highways) from Madrid to Sevilla but it is a chore and finding parking at either end is a true PITB.
Fascists need to have trains otherwise how will the make them run on time.
"When I lived in Atlanta, I didn't know a single progressive, even the environmental lobbyists, who took the bus system.”
When in Atlanta years ago on business, I took the rail system from the airport to Buckhead (something like that). And was able to go from my hotel north of atlanta to "Downtown" in safety.
Parts were "Mr. toad's wild ride" including a run-in with a white pedophile, but mostly it seemed clean and safe. Given my bus systems is other "less diverse" part of the USA, I had no desire to hop a bus.
We rode the train from London to Paris and from Paris to Normandy in back. Highly recommended.
https://www.jalopnik.com/1914105/brightline-train-deadlier-than-we-thought/
182 people killed by Brightline trains- and (only?!) 75 were ruled suicides.
TBH- you have to be extremely careless or stupid to be killed by a train.
I agree with Buwaya that a good rail system is an economic multiplier - the AVE, the AV in Italy, the TGV in France are all good examples. One reason they are so successful is that you arrive in the center of the city, not in the airport boondocks. You have a good transit system awaiting you when you arrive in Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Paris, Sevilla. It would take a trillion dollars and a hundred years to duplicate that in Los Angeles.
According to perplexity...
"The California High-Speed Rail Authority’s current intermediate goal is to connect Gilroy (70 miles south of San Francisco) to Palmdale (37 miles north of Los Angeles) by 2045, contingent on additional funding and partnerships."
There are four stops between Gilroy and Palmdale, about 300 miles apart. "High speed", anyone? As far as a nonstop LA/SF trip goes...
"Full nonstop San Francisco to Los Angeles service remains unfunded and without a committed completion date, and is unlikely before 2045 under present conditions."
What was the original estimated completion date for nonstop travel from LA to SF?
"The California High-Speed Rail project was first approved by voters in 2008, with the goal of creating a direct, high-speed rail connection between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The original estimated completion date for nonstop high-speed rail service between Los Angeles and San Francisco was 2020."
Spending the money is the point.
FormerLawClerk said...
"Why don't people who care about the environment simply stop traveling? Even if the line did connect L.A. to San Francisco, as it was originally sold, what is the need to go back and forth between these 2 cities... or any 2 cities in America?
Here, let me help you.You see, Ann ... In Los Angeles, you can't parade down the street with your boner out in the presence of children. They'll arrest your ass for that.
But you can do that in San Francisco. You have to travel there to do it.
Does it all make sense now?
7/19/25, 10:46 AM
But in LA you can forcefeed grade school children your own semen in cookies if you are a teacher union scum, and the wicked NEA affiliate will defend you to the hilt, so there's that.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/perverting-justice
“TBH- you have to be extremely careless or stupid to be killed by a train.”
TB Hag reporting for duty, sir!
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