Here are the corridors: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/18/map-of-potential-high-spe_n_167804.html
Yes. And they will be staffed by magical pixies, stay under budget and will operate with the razor sharp efficiency that is the state of California. Face it, its going to go over budget. Money is going to be siphoned off to special interest and this project will not see the light of day. Even if it did, the subsidies to keep fares at $55 would have to be so ridiculous as to further bankrupt the state. Its not sustainable. There is no reason for this train to stop in Fresno, Bakersfield or any other buttfuck towns in Central California. Waste of space. http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/24/news/economy/high_speed_rail/
Well, yes. There are two rather distinct conversations in this thread, one about HSR, and the other about commuting to work within the Portland metro area. I'm not sure Obama has said much about the latter. I wouldn't expect HSR to serve Bend (or Baker City, or Crater Lake, or ZigZag, or a million other places that are sparsely populated). The problem was not riding a bus. The problem was your wife was in Tigard. Never leave a loved one in Tigard. That's good, because public transportation is bound to remain scarce out where you are. Us city-folk have (or should have) different priorities. barfo
I believe the main difference in the HSR being so impractical is that on the West Coast, there is such a car culture that people are not willing to take public transportation. Here in LA or in San Diego, most people don't take the public transportation except for the working class. Everyone has to drive to get places. It works in Europe or Japan because so many people take public transportation. It'll be an expensive novelty.
LA once upon a time had an excellent and far-reaching streetcar system. Just because something is one way doesn't mean it will stay that way. People take public transportation in Europe and Japan because they've invested enough in public transportation to make it useful. barfo
Yeah. But more people live within the cities there too and spend their time in the cities all day and all night walking around. I doubt its effectiveness in urban sprawl. Its rather impossible to walk or take public transportation in LA. Everything is too spread out to make it practical. My parents do have a condo right on the Metro Rail line and they can kind of get around the city w/o a car. Its kind of hard to do unless you live right next to a station though. Those streetcars were back in the day when downtown LA was actually a place where people hung out and lived/worked. Its coming back but the riders of public transportation in the city are still students and working class people.
That is true, but we could make special cars with very wide doors, and have the platforms slope down steeply towards the car doors so that the people could just sort of roll in. Then the other side of the platform would be a chute leading down so that people could just roll off. Maybe combine it with a waterslide, and have a hot dog stand at the bottom. barfo
I love it in Japan they have those people that keep on pushing you into the trains until you're in there like sardines.
That's what's missing. Oil. If you filled the train with oil, the sardines would slip and slide against each other and you'd achieve much closer packing. barfo
New Yorkers are 'Murricuns too and they are fat as well - and they use their subway very efficiently.
No they haven't. andalusian just said I got them from Wikipedia, DOT, etc... It would take hours to verify these numbers. From my research I've found that WES ridership is up 15% over last year. It's projected to pay for itself by the end of the year. I don't know how you can't call that a success! LINK: the internet
The best are the Matutus in Africa. (Small Japanese vans from the 80s where they pack 18 people into one). They have a driver and a packer that shoves everyone in, he hangs from the outside of the sliding door to help the driver navigate and see from the sides and helps people shove and extract themselves. If you ever find yourself in Kenya or Africa(one of the best places in the world to visit) - you have to try it, it's absolutely amazing.
It certainly took a long time to find it. The numbers seem real to me however, since most came from the specific organizations that monitor them (TriMet, ODOT) and reputable news organizations.
Project officially shut down. They spent almost $6 billion on something that was never going to happen. https://abc7news.com/politics/gov-newsom-ending-high-speed-rail-project-between-sf-la/5134644/
I have to give CA credit, though. I fully expected them to be in about 10x that before someone had to cancel it. “Only” $6B is kind of a win. And they have a head start when the GND prohibits airplanes.
Only took them like 8 years to figure out. Wonder if they will repeal the gas tax that was passed to pay for this. Doubtful . fucking scammers.
High Speed Rails are awesome...I've traveled all over asia without needing a car or flying in country...Taipei was horribly polluted and congested when I first moved there in the early 80s...the French built their high speed rail system, 3 lines that allow you to go anywhere in a city of millions of people and keeps the air clean...it works...they also are really cheap to ride and when you buy a token you get a free bus link from the end of the line...now they have them crossing the entire island from each direction...they are fast and clean and efficient...I wish we had one in Oregon from Bend to Florence and one from Seattle to San Diego
