Comments on: Green Light for California High-Speed Rail Network

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:11:00 +0000

the 101 train alternative is beautiful, but it is certainly not what you want to ride if you want to get somewhere fast.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:10:00 +0000

they can eat up space or they can share lanes/space. but they also are documented to shape development, drive development that drives more pedestrian/bicycle activity, more transit, and thus less traffic.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:09:00 +0000

and there’s actually a lot of research on the “build more highways” strategy that shows it doesn’t take long at all for those new lanes/highways to fill up — they induce driving and auto-oriented development that is the root problem.

but anyways… some are going to hate on rail until they’re blue in the face.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:07:00 +0000

trains drive denser development and more transit-friendly cities. if you have to drive to another city, are you going to then switch to public transit? if you take a train, are you going to waste your time and money driving?

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:05:00 +0000

remove the insane traffic externalities in the state and i think you’d have a diff opinion.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:04:00 +0000

my master’s was in city planning, but the basic point is so painstakingly obvious that i really wonder about humanity’s ability to tackle big problems:

if you have a lot of people in a relatively small space (in other words, a city) and you try to move most of them around in a big vehicle of their own, you’re going to end up with horrible traffic. Americans, for the most part, don’t seem to get this at all. and, to be honest. after being in Europe for ~4 years, many Europeans don’t either — they’re just blessed with cities build on the human scale more.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:01:00 +0000

it’s amazing how we compartmentalize things. one second complaining about the insane traffic in CA, the next second complaining about a rail plan that could remove that headache from your life.

and so common.

amazing.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 21:54:00 +0000

”
101 has a train alternative, and it does not address the issue.”

That is not a credible argument.

Furthermore, how many years do you think it would take to widen the freeways and expand airports? That sort of thing happen overnight? With 0% interest bond funding?

By: Solana_vida

Solana_vida — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 19:25:00 +0000

101 has a train alternative, and it does not address the issue. Bullet train will provide a much more expensive alternative. Will it solve the problem? My intuition tells me that, most likely, not. Plus, remember, that it will be completed not tomorrow, but 10 years from now.

The bottom line: there is no long term plan, just a cool idea of spending somebody else money. I am just curious what will be the interests for those bonds, considering that California already has the lowest rating.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 16:53:00 +0000

Sort of. But trolleys and trams eat up road space.

I’m a big fan for Bangkok’s Skytrain. A dedicated people mover stuck up over the road system, able to zip from one end of town to the other with stops in between.

No traffic jams. Really quick. And electric.

By: Akbweb2

Akbweb2 — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 10:24:00 +0000

Bring back trolleys and trams!

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 04:41:00 +0000

If you say so.

However, when I’m trying to get somewhere and get bogged down around cities it becomes very clear that we’re going to have to do something to either reduce use of highways or build more highways.

Try driving down 101 from northern CA to SF and dealing with the Santa Rosa traffic jamb. I think they’re up to six, perhaps eight, lanes now and it still slows to a creep.

HSR would take some of the ‘drive on by’ folks off the highways, leaving existing lanes for the shorter drive folks.

The population of California is going to increase. It may increase even faster than expected as people flee drought and excessive heat in other parts of the country. Making highways through cities wider is tough. You’ve got to kick people out of their houses.

HSR would also replace a lot of air travel. Train stations tend to be in the center of the city, not out in the boonies like airports. There’s no “get there two hours early so you can get your junk fondled” stuff.

Take away the commute to/from the airport, the security delays, the waiting for baggage times, and you can go as fast or faster on HSR for moderate distance travel. And do it with electricity.

By: Solana_vida

Solana_vida — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 04:24:00 +0000

It is a short commute that causes most of the traffic. Most of the pollution also occurs during those short trips. High speed train does not address this issue. By replacing 2 mln cars with zero emission vechicles you do solve the problem.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 03:06:00 +0000

Did you include the cost of adding lanes to the highways?

By: Solana_vida

Solana_vida — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 02:46:00 +0000

Financial suicide. It costs 45 cents per mile per passenger, not including security cost. It makes more sense to buy 2 mln electric vechicles and give them out to people. The same amount of money spent, much higher environmental impact.

By: Akbweb2

Akbweb2 — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 02:07:00 +0000

Every time I visit a major city, I’m amazed, and amazingly frustrated, at the gridlock…How can people put up with it? I couldn’t imagine having to sit through that day in, day out as commuters do!

All the wasted time, energy, the frustration that builds up, the unnecessary, unhealthy pollution! What’s that worth?

By: Scienceguyorg

Scienceguyorg — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 01:15:00 +0000

People I have coffee with were complaining about this today, for them it is all about the money. I said that I think we have to think about the future also. One person had just been on a trip that included California and they could not believe the gridlock of cars.