There's more controversy over California's Bullet Train to Nowhere™! The proximate issue is whether the train should be powered by overhead electric lines, like every other high-speed train in the world, or whether we should consider powering it via batteries or hydrogen fuel cells. Either of these, you see, would save money because we wouldn't have to build all the electrical lines. And that would get us ever closer to—
The bullet train project is attempting to build a 171-mile operating segment between Bakersfield and Merced for $22.8 billion, which would consume nearly all of the existing funds for the project through 2030. The project is short $80 billion to execute the original vision of a 220-mph train from Los Angeles to San Francisco, which voters approved by passing Proposition 1A in 2008.
Oh, right. This whole thing is literally a nit compared to the vast funding gap that nobody has the slightest idea how to fill. But if we all clap our hands loudly enough, somehow everything will be OK.
Two points:
1) If you want to gather support for the broader Democratic ideology (‘government can make your life better’) then you need to provide tangible evidence of government working…hmm
2) US infrastructure costs are dramatically too high when compared to other OECD countries…see point 1 above
Your point is irrelevant. The voters passed a law. The state government is having trouble enacting the law due to resource limitations. Either sacrifice something or shut up.
Spadesofgrey - respectfully I must disagree. HOW government accomplishes a task (think website challenge at the onset of the ACA, length of time/cost overrun for Boston's big dig etc) matters.
Sure, California might be able to find robust new funding (note the word might) and complete some version of this train project: however, I would contend, one would have to be naïve to think politically huge cost overruns/delays don't matter.
There is a huge difference between the Big Dig and a fast train connection between two no-name towns. the Big Dig achieved its goals at too high a price but it achieved them. This train line does not achieve anything, even if finished.
It needs to be re-designed from scratch. My tip: Buy the whole thing from the French and get French engineers to design the route.
We need to just not do it.
United Airlines has announced it is interested in buying electric airplanes for shorter trips. This technology is the ultimate answer for green transportation from LA to San Francisco.
The geographic obstacles to the bullet train were always way too high.
The fact that it will take $100+ billion and 20+ years to build a 400 mile railway shows just how dysfunctional America has become. Honestly, I expect the project to spend $30-40 billion and then be shut down before ever opening.
Apollo Program, Space Shuttle and International Space Station.
While I have every confidence in CA HSR continuing to blow past its budget and schedule, and the Shuttle was a great achievement, the Space Shuttle wasn’t exactly exemplary in meeting either nor the expectations for it. (Eg per -launch costs and turnaround time)
Apollo and the Space Shuttle were back in the good old days, when America still built things. Apollo was 5 years from start to first launch, Space Shuttle 7 years. ISS would not have been launched if it had been a US-only project, and it never really got completed.
My state government is still working on the same 15 mile stretch of highway for the last 16 years. That same state government took 19 months after construction began to widen a .75 mile road from 2 lanes to four - and that was after four full years of planning. As a nation, we've become dysfunctional.
I listed those as failed transportation projects.
Actually, Texas, if it wanted to, could probably build a successful Houston to Dallas high speed train.
It happens that the state with the desire to do it was also the one with the steep mountain passes and earthquake faults, which couldn't do it at any reasonable cost.
Nationalism is what could build it faster. But America likes to be lazy slob, like Russians.
National-Conservatism. National Unity. Papa J--... Hawley-Gabbard 2024.
Curious if it's possible to use the much abused and derided California initiative process to shut this down and spend the money on buses and subways instead.
Seems the key problem is the politicians have got their pride wrapped up in this and need an exit strategy.
i would think so but the corporations making billions off this fiasco would surely spend immense amounts of money to defeat such an initiative.
Wildfire smoke spreads across US in striking images from space,
https://www.livescience.com/wildfire-smoke-satellite-images-us-canada.html
I'm just inside the edge of some of that orange but the haze here has been impressive for four or five days.
Smoke has finally come to Donner Lake. Pooh!
The best solution would be a hybrid one
Batteries and overhead lines
In most engineering projects there is a 20/80 relationship
20% of the overhead lines will eat 80% of the money
So by using a "Hybrid" you don't need the overhead lines everywhere - and you also don't need huge batteries
Put the overhead lines in the places where its cheap and don't put them where its expensive
This is ridiculous: If batteries were cheaper than overhead wires: don't you think the French or the Chinese or the Japanese or the Germans would have figured this out long ago? Why do they allure their trains on overhead wires?
It is sad. High speed trains in the US could have the potential to bring a lot of traffic back to earth, thus relieving the congestion in the skies and also to reduce the CO2 impact of mid distance travel. This is why I don't like Kevin's sneering tone that he seemingly has developed specifically for this topic. But he is right: This project is dead, no matter how much money is spent on it.
There's no particular safety hazard pf having a lot of planes in the sky.
There IS a big issue with global warming. HSR is great on global warming. We should build it in areas where it makes sense. This just wasn't a route where it did.