Living between Shafter and Wasco and having to look at the lunacy everyday all I can do is shake my head at the ideocracy of all this. The destruction and engineering alone have created an unsightly landscape. The incompetence of the Contruction and re do's we have observed have to have been tremendously costly and inefficient (of course you don't hear about those things in the MSM). The boondoggle continues. And all of this with more budget deficits, reading now how our great state now has a projected $68 BILLION deficit. And Gruesome wants to be President; what a joke. He and the Dems are/have ruined the once great state of California!
Is there ridership at all in the Central Valley? Don't most of those folks own cars and wouldn't they want that independence? Are there that many that would even justify transit from the Central Valley to either LA or the Bay Area? The first time I heard of high-speed rail was over 20 years ago and even then I thought, this can't possibly be true. Besides all of his other goofball proposals, Gavin Newsom seems entirely enamored of pie-in-the-sky projects with very little chance of success. How did he get to a place of making decisions for an entire state?
Actually, the AMTRAK "San Joaquin" service - from Bakersfield to Oakland or Sacramento - carries about a million people a year with rather frequent service - six trains going up, six going downstate every day. It's also cheap and will be half the price if/when (giggle) the high speed rail system - which practically parallels the existing system - opens.
When he was first elected, Gavin actually made a noise about cancelling the project - the unions that had just given him buckets of money to run for governor put an end to that kind of talk real quick.
Oh, okay. But, that means high-speed rail isn't necessary unless the high-speed component is what makes it attractive. A few years back I went to a local discussion on what the impact would be to the community in the Bay Area if and/or when HSR would come in. At least I believe it was HSR. Burlingame wanted nothing of it because of the noise (is it noisy?). There were discussions of the existing rails (along the Peninsula) and whether they would be modified for HSR. I don't use the train so it could be a good thing. But, looking around and knowing just how many passengers there are now on Caltrain, I'm somewhat skeptical.
Yup - it's even stupider than you thought because it is replicative.
The only new-ish bits would be from LA to SD via Riverside/IE because there already is an LA to SD train called the Surfliner.
There is even a train from LA to SF (well, Oakland and then take the bus) called the Coast Starlight - once a day north to Seattle from LA, once south, though Portland, Sacramento, and then down the coast via SLO. It's a beautiful ride and has great service (it's kind of AMTRAK's intentionally nicest train) and costs - with a roomette - about 600 bucks for two people, food included.
And on the peninsula, high speed will, again, nearly parallel CalTrain - there was even a thought of just upgrading CalTrain track to use that but it didn't work out - technical and scheduling issues; remember, high speed will run at peak times about every 11 minutes from SF to LA - really.
So, only peak times from SF to LA? Well, I suppose on Mondays and Fridays it could be of value, depending on the duration of the commute. Still, I think most people would opt for flying. Could be wrong. I do recall that the track upgrade involved some sort of physical modification along the Caltrain route. I have to laugh when I think of Gavin beholden to the unions. Wasn't there a "rumor" about organized crime involvement in materials procurements somewhere around Bakersfield? Gavin and the Don, huh? Not Trump, of course.
The Endangered Species Act may have something to say about all this. As in, No Way, Jose.
Living between Shafter and Wasco and having to look at the lunacy everyday all I can do is shake my head at the ideocracy of all this. The destruction and engineering alone have created an unsightly landscape. The incompetence of the Contruction and re do's we have observed have to have been tremendously costly and inefficient (of course you don't hear about those things in the MSM). The boondoggle continues. And all of this with more budget deficits, reading now how our great state now has a projected $68 BILLION deficit. And Gruesome wants to be President; what a joke. He and the Dems are/have ruined the once great state of California!
Is there ridership at all in the Central Valley? Don't most of those folks own cars and wouldn't they want that independence? Are there that many that would even justify transit from the Central Valley to either LA or the Bay Area? The first time I heard of high-speed rail was over 20 years ago and even then I thought, this can't possibly be true. Besides all of his other goofball proposals, Gavin Newsom seems entirely enamored of pie-in-the-sky projects with very little chance of success. How did he get to a place of making decisions for an entire state?
Actually, the AMTRAK "San Joaquin" service - from Bakersfield to Oakland or Sacramento - carries about a million people a year with rather frequent service - six trains going up, six going downstate every day. It's also cheap and will be half the price if/when (giggle) the high speed rail system - which practically parallels the existing system - opens.
When he was first elected, Gavin actually made a noise about cancelling the project - the unions that had just given him buckets of money to run for governor put an end to that kind of talk real quick.
Oh, okay. But, that means high-speed rail isn't necessary unless the high-speed component is what makes it attractive. A few years back I went to a local discussion on what the impact would be to the community in the Bay Area if and/or when HSR would come in. At least I believe it was HSR. Burlingame wanted nothing of it because of the noise (is it noisy?). There were discussions of the existing rails (along the Peninsula) and whether they would be modified for HSR. I don't use the train so it could be a good thing. But, looking around and knowing just how many passengers there are now on Caltrain, I'm somewhat skeptical.
Yup - it's even stupider than you thought because it is replicative.
The only new-ish bits would be from LA to SD via Riverside/IE because there already is an LA to SD train called the Surfliner.
There is even a train from LA to SF (well, Oakland and then take the bus) called the Coast Starlight - once a day north to Seattle from LA, once south, though Portland, Sacramento, and then down the coast via SLO. It's a beautiful ride and has great service (it's kind of AMTRAK's intentionally nicest train) and costs - with a roomette - about 600 bucks for two people, food included.
And on the peninsula, high speed will, again, nearly parallel CalTrain - there was even a thought of just upgrading CalTrain track to use that but it didn't work out - technical and scheduling issues; remember, high speed will run at peak times about every 11 minutes from SF to LA - really.
So, only peak times from SF to LA? Well, I suppose on Mondays and Fridays it could be of value, depending on the duration of the commute. Still, I think most people would opt for flying. Could be wrong. I do recall that the track upgrade involved some sort of physical modification along the Caltrain route. I have to laugh when I think of Gavin beholden to the unions. Wasn't there a "rumor" about organized crime involvement in materials procurements somewhere around Bakersfield? Gavin and the Don, huh? Not Trump, of course.