There seem to be some problems with the transmission. From upthread…
The company’s recommendations for a direct route out of Los Angeles and a focus on moving people between Los Angeles and San Francisco were cast aside, said Dan McNamara, a career project manager for SNCF. The company pulled out in 2011.
“There were so many things that went wrong,” Mr. McNamara said. “SNCF was very angry. They told the state they were leaving for North Africa, which was less politically dysfunctional. They went to Morocco and helped them build a rail system.”
A big part of why the cost of doing big things has gone up so dramatically is because many more layers of the cost are primarily for political patronage compered to previously. Back in the heyday of NASA, sure, some of the top jobs were awarded based on political patronage or “connections”, but nearly all the actual “do the work” jobs, and nearly all the subcontracting contracts were awarded mostly based on merit. Today it is just the opposite. Today, almost all the jobs and contracts are awarded based on political constraints, heck, they literally HAVE TO specify who gets what (which companies get to do what) in advance based on political districts to get representatives of those districts to vote for a particular funding bill. And to go further, entire project segments are created out of thin air to create jobs for those favored by politics, or by other things. And even at lower levels, the people that get hired as consultants have to be “connected” in various ways. Take the CA HS rail project for example, they have spent the vast majority of the money on “studies”, all sorts of studies. And many of those studies are primarily created to provide well-paying jobs to people rather than to further the progress of the project. Like the aforementioned snail study (Morro shoulderband) on one of the proposed segments of the CS HS rail. And they spend millions on each study, environmental studies, impact studies, repeated civil engineering studies (not to further progress of the project, but rather to hinder progress of the project), etc. That’s how you spend tens of billions before even laying much useful track. But it provides jobs to favored segments, so the goal is to keep the project going and funded for as long as possible. If a HS rail eventually happens at the end, that’s a nice bonus, but the primary purpose is to keep the money and jobs and patronage flowing. The same applies to the MTA in NYC, their primary purpose of existence is to provide really good jobs, really good benefits, and really good retirements to people politically favored over the decades. Their secondary purpose is to provide public transportation in the NYC area. Back when the MCTA/MTA (really its predecessors) was formed, sure the top jobs went to politically connected people, but the rest of it had the main purpose of getting public transport up and running
Stands to reason. The interstate project benefited almost all the states in the country, so it was reasonably favored by the vast majority. And thus did deserve to be federally funded. But rail lines almost entirely on the west coast, and on the east coast, and perhaps joining the 3 or 4 largest cities in Texas, only benefit a few states, so it doesn’t make sense for the federal government to fund much of it.
Charge steadily increasing taxes for the GCC provoking jet exhaust, make all but the cheapest seats of high speed trains into workable internet connected small work stations or etc., provide good sleeping closets for 1st class, and high speed trains would be as loved as in Europe and Japan and China and, uhm, the rest of the modern world, and there would be much stronger demand and a sensible source of additional funds. And, oh hey, our descendants might still be able to think we were anything but instant gratification raving lunatics.
Thinking and planning (painful for many) longer term (huh??!), possibly including subsidies for sensibly placed dense new towns along lines under construction, and the investments suddenly make obvious sense because most of the payoffs take place over time. (Yeah yeah, I know that by long established customs only huge or very special corporations are allowed to think so far “out of the box” as to account for long term payoffs.
It is time to dump the traditional placement of major transportation hubs in the most expensive ancient urban centers. We can build co-located greenfield transit hubs very near cities with far better connection times for most of the populace. Rapid automated mutually communicating cooperating transit in dense areas with good connections to urban surround fits perfectly with high speed rail transit.
I’m pretty sure that one reason train travel works so well in Europe is because they have the main train stations INSIDE the cities. If you have to travel to a hub just outside the city and then transfer to a “local” then some of the advantage of taking the train is lost. I used to travel to Italy and work there very often in the late 90s and early 00s, and I purposely chose a hotel near the main train station in Milano for ease of travel. In Zurich as well, it’s a pleasure that the hauptbanhoff is right in the center and I can walk or take a short tram ride to anywhere I need to be. And the airport connection is a dream.
@MarkR I have almost no disagreement! However, most USA cities have less central density, quite different levels of sprawl, and Europe went through radical urban destruction, redesign and rebuilding in the 40’s - 70’s, that often included thinking through and improving rail transit. Milano is one of my favorite European cities partly because its main rail center is usefully located.
At the same time, let’s look at Los Angeles (definitely not a European layout). Let’s say you live in Sierra Madra, a suburb next to Pasadena, and you wanted to visit your friend jaagu who lives in Petaluma north of San Francisco. Now this is a couple of decades in the future when the California high-speed rail project is actually running.
You have a couple of transportation options, since “short-range” intra-state flights have been banned in California.
You can rent or use your own FSD EV to go doorstep to doorstep. No fuss, no muss, you can use your time in the car to work, relax, etc.
You can use your vehicle or call an Uber-equvialent to take you south to the light rail Gold Line in Pasadena. After hauling your bags to the platform and waiting for the next train you go to downtown LA. There you take your bags to the high-speed rail train (if it’s close) and wait for the next train north. If the high-speed rail line actually goes to downtown San Francisco (currently plans are for a train transfer) you take you bags with you and get an Uber-equivalent to carry you across the Golden Gate Bridge and then north to Petaluma.
The various future travel times are unknown at this point, but autonomous driving is going to be a killer for rail transport except for those who live/work downtown.
Good analysis but wrong conclusion. Most of the youngsters replacing us are not nearly as enamoured of private vehicles of great cost used for minimal time each day.
True, but you can (mostly) only go with what you know. In your example high speed rail would be irrelevant anyway, wouldn’t it?
It’s possible that high speed rail will be obsoleted by something - although for longish distances it will beat even self-driving cars (assuming convenient stations, departures, etc.) But you never know.
In the late 17th and early 18th centuries there was a frenzy of canal building, not unlike the buildout of the Interstates, and the financing not unlike the dot-com era. The Erie Canal was the most obvious and the benefits so huge, but there had been smaller & shorter before and most people saw the advantages.
So it came as a shock when the entire canal building industry collapsed because: railroads. So it’s possible the era of high-speed rail has already come and gone, but since we have not a single entrant (I don’t count the Acela as anything but pretend) it’s hard to know if it ever might have been.
We wasted a lot of asphalt on the US Route highway system before the interstates made them largely obsolete (at least for long distance travel) but that’s the way it goes. Likewise, BTW, Space Shuttle, the Superconducting Supercollider, the Yucca Mountain waste depository, and lots more. Maybe it’s a loser. Maybe not. Seems not to be for so many others tho, eh?
But they are enamored with electronic car hailing services. So much so that it (“uber”) has become a verb already. And in areas with driverless ride hailing services, they are even more enamored with it!
Understood, but you notice I included the options of transportation as a service. Uber was mentioned, and I think that self-driving vehicles will eventually become easily available to rent (Autonomous Avis?) for trips to visit jaagu et al. (not to mention going to a community concert a few miles away).
I’ve had some big city experience with the ride share service, in NYC and SF area. In NYC, just got out of Yankee’s game, and didn’t want to take subway ( actuall, I was fine with the subway, but got outvoted ). We waited about an hour. It was a zoo, seemingly everybody else had the same idea.
In SF, flew into Oakland airport, but staying in SF. BART did not run at that time of night from the Oakland airport. If we had flown into SF airport, there would have been service. Rookie mistake. Ended up waiting about 90 minutes for a ride, and were lucky to get that.
The rest of the time in those areas, either used public transportation, or walked. Uber was really expensive during peak usage. But, just the price of traveling, not a big deal.
The theory is that since the concert start time is known, the robotaxis will gather in the general area for that event. In practice, when large numbers of resources are needed, the logistics become more and more complicated. But they surely can manage more than 200 of them, especially since they are all coming from different places within, say, a 50-100 mile radius of the event.
The even bigger issue is going home from the concert. ALL 10,000 people are leaving at about the same time, and they all have to find their particular robotaxi. In the end, just like is done at some crowded airports, it’ll be more like a taxi system - you line up, and then in order take the next available robotaxi and only tell it where you are going AFTER you have secured that vehicle. This is different than the usual robotaxi system where you specify your destination at the time that you “hail” the vehicle.
Car service pickup, dropoff at a big concert is a new kind of h3ll since uber.
Everyone is so happy when you try to jam 200 vehicles in a space that fits 20.
One we were at, the officer directing traffic was so grouchy I thought he was going to arrest our poor driver.
Because it’s dark, poorly lit, a small paper sign smashed that identifies where to go, and cars and people everywhere, of course the driver would know exactly where to go.
Still laughing.
This makes me want to go back to the Tesla threads and test out some jokes.