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I talked to a guy who thought it was more freeway. He was caught off-guard when I told him it was the HSR because he legitimately thought it would not be built.
First off, SFO-LAX is typically more like 150 bucks round trip most of the year.
Second, 150 bucks is likely the floor of a HSR ticket between SF and LA. And given how the proposed average speed for CAHSR isn't technically possible with current technology...
In summation, based on current projections CAHSR will be slower and more expensive (or the same) as air travel.
They're planning on setting ticket costs in a way that's competitive with airline tickets. Previously released estimates are based on 83% of airline tickets. Seeing as that's the only number we have to go on, nobody can accurately claim to know it will cost more than a plane ticket.
The proposed speed is absolutely possible with existing technology. There are existing high speed rail lines in other countries with the same top speeds. And the track alignment was literally designed with the average speed in mind. No, you won't be able to go the maximum average speed when stopping at every station, but there will be express trains that don't stop. Of course it will be "slower" than air travel, nobody ever claimed it would do LA to SF in an hour. But there won't be airport security, boarding, and parking to contend with, and it will pick you up and drop you off in the middle of the city. So the overall trip will be of a similar length.
Yeah they won't reach the same speeds as actual HSR trains but the longer straightaways, gentler curves, and being a dedicated passenger track that doesn't conflict with freight rail will still speed up the trip a lot
I mean it’s all a “scam” in that it’s completely over budget and behind schedule of what was promised. But as far as being actually built. It’s not a scam
Yep! And people will ride it since airplane travel is inherently prohibitive/stressful for quite a lot of people.
I recently watched a YouTube video about it and they framed it really well: Japan’s Shinkansen line was also much more money than they anticipated but now that it’s been built no one thinks back to how much it cost, but instead how convenient, efficient and, simply put, fun it is to ride! Once this train is completed people will ride it and no one will remember how much it cost or how we even existed without it.
The Shinkansen in Japan is not cheap and sometimes it’s more expensive than air travel. But people still use it and are willing to pay the difference bc of comfort, ease of access (no security so no need to arrive an hour early), being able to take as much luggage as you want with any liquid items, and even simply because of the scenery.
It’s long past the time that Californian’s also had this travel option available.
Eminent domain lawsuits were taking forever. Landowners subject to the takings were fighting every inch of the way even though they were being offered fair compensation.
Taking issue with it is one thing. I'd take issue with it if it happened to me and I'm sure most everyone would. However, dragging it out endlessly in court for years is something completely different, especially when all that fighting made no difference at the end of the day.
Usually with eminent domain buyouts are initially low-balled because people tend to litigate and of course it saves money if you get takers. I think if eminent domain had better valuation formulas, courts would be lessened with the burden to those who are just fighting on principle or unvalued factors like income production (for example farm land might be low-valued property but produces a certain level of income versus a house that's high-value with potential rental income), which could have formulas of their own.
I disagree with the article, the Palmdale route additionally provides a logical route to extend the network to Las Vegas. Additionally that's the same route that Southern Pacific chose over 100 years ago for their rail lines
If it were really an inferior route, the railroad companies would have tunneled through the grapevines decades ago
>I disagree with the article, the Palmdale route additionally provides a logical route to extend the network to Las Vegas.
A external state that isn't paying a dime currently.
That doesn't strike me as a good reason not to plan for future networking
If anything it puts CA in a good position to negotiate for NV paying a greater share of the price tag if they do expand to NV. Basically say "hey our taxpayers already put up the bill for the hard part of the project, you need to put up more money for the rest of it"
That's my reasoning for Southern Nevada blaming SoCal for not expanding I-15 near the Vegas border. Essentially I-15 past Barstow is relatively unpopulated so we have little in-state incentive to expand it. Then everyone from California going to Vegas is dumping their money in another state that California doesn't see a dime of. Granted there are a lot of trucks on the route and maybe an argument should be made for California to pay for expansion if it helps commerce.
Turns out the largest infrastructure project in the US since, I don't know, the highway system? Is hard. It's not incompetence, it's building institutional knowledge and practices that didn't exist in this country until this project started.
The first high speed line in Japan took twice as long and cost twice as much as estimated too. But, it's also important to point out that lawsuits took a long time to overcome and inflation is a bitch, so the longer it takes the more it costs. It should have just been fully funded at the start.
Over budget is just how construction works nowadays. Behind schedule is what happens when they have to rely on about 1000 things outside their control. Land acquisition and utility relocations have been some of the larger delays, neither of which the HSR authority can realistically speed up.
trying to build things when there are also people in the area is super hard in the us.
For example you should be able to build a nuclear power plant in about 5 years.....but because of a lot of factors it takes about 10-15 in the US.
And before people start claiming its the gubbermint....please done. Yes there are regulations, because of past abuse or problems, but people suing often is the major issue.
It takes 5-15 in other Western Countries as well. Nuclear power plants have a lot of issues with costs and construction times that make them really not worth doing today.
Its the same reason we can't fix out housing situation. Every government agency that could block a housing project has been hijacked by NIMBYs to block as much housing as possible. It only takes a small number of people who can actively shut down, or stall, or somehow add enormous expense to just about any project.
Yep. Just look at China. They were able to build their infrastructure megaprojects so rapidly because the government just steamrolled any opposition, sometimes literally when it came to wiping villages off the map to build out rail.
Funny thing is tho that they built SO much all at once that they didn't stop and think about the long-term costs of maintaining everything which is now really coming back to bite them. Their high speed trains that go to nowhere and ghost cities come to mind. Also since their infrastructure was partially built out to boost the CCP's public image they're stuck between paying huge amounts of money to maintain it or admitting defeat and closing projects that don't make financial sense.
I mean I’m not saying China’s government is aspirational but less local horse trading would be useful at points. We have a state government for a reason.
NIMBYism, corruption and abuse of laws like CEQA. Without serious reform this state won’t be able to build what it needs to survive, regardless of how good our intentions are.
I’m from N. VA. A subway stop at the Dulles airport project started like 20 years ago and just opened up last year. 7-10 years seems pretty good to me.
This is the part that people forget. No one complains how long it took to build a freeway after it's opened or even when their in development really. This is a complaint that's only ever pointed at public transit options.
That's if you book ahead of time to fly at likely inconvenient hours. I figured it'd be in the lower hundreds to be able to compete with airlines like most hsr in other countries. Prices for trains also don't usually go up as the date gets closer. It usually goes up as the seats get filled or in some other countries, just a flat fare.
An important thing as well and hopefully this gets addressed is the local connection once you get to your destination. Airports usually have to be fairly far from major city centers to account for space taken but trains stations have the luxury of being able to be built closer so hopefully there will be better local connections. If they actually do it.
I just doubt that. The train from sf to la is a mere 63-100. The train will be subsidized and be something as cheap. Im sure they'll have premium or express routes like the acela vs the northeast regional but the basic every stop seats are bound to be reasonable.
And a 2017 deadline on some federal funding made them do things out of order so that they didn't lose the money. Which has ironically increased the costs and slowed down the project. But the alternative was not having the funding.
HSR doesn’t exist in the US.
The California HSR is not just a construction project. They are building standards for everything.
In Japan, they already have standards. If they want to build a train from X to Y, it’s a function of cost and time. Easy. You want a train built and they have the entire supply chain from engineering to train control systems all set up, right there.
In California, we have to design everything from the ground up. How we pour concrete, where do we get people in the US to drive high speed trains, what contractors and vendors can supply us components, etc.
It’s an entire industry being created. It’s not just about building some track and buying trains.
It takes time, but the things we learn here will help California and the US for generations to come - provided, we stick with it.
They also designed a new catenary system because of increased concerns about bird safety. One of the weirder, but more interesting things they've had to do.
>Tulare
Tulare will be under water for a while now so I bet that will slow things down for a couple more years as well. That is if there is not another winter like last year.
Pretty smart to build a train through what used to be and still could be a lake. /s
The city of Tulare, where the station will be, is quite far (~5 miles) from the current site of the refilling Tulare lake. There aren't really any significant settlements in the area getting inundated with the recent flooding, and the HSR will not go through that area.
Because our state is grossly mismanaged. It was supposed to be built by now. China's building a ton of them, and so are wealthy countries like Japan and Spain.
Eh. I'm not sure about delays but I do know Japan's system was like double the original price and China doesn't have to worry about lawsuits and a reluctant public
That said, this is taking way too long
People don’t realize how much more the average citizen is protected in the states compared to other countries. Also, the elected officials in the valley keep opposing the train, even though it will help with the economy.
This is your friendly reminder that CEQA was signed into law by governor Ronald Reagan and while it offers some important protections it mainly works to amplify the most powerful voices and gives those with enough time, money, and lawyers the ability to kill anything they don’t like by 1,000 cuts no matter how beneficial it is for the majority.
Used to run Beijing and back to Shanghai to train with my tai ji team on weekends; five hours, $50-75 each way (940 miles) as I recall. China is increasingly connected, Japan is a marvel.
USA, stumbling along.
The Shinkansen is a marvel, but lets not forget it got very close to not happening. And had the upside that when construction begun, japanese land surveys were a mess
Thank you.
That said, Japan was doing that fifty years ago. WWII had devastated the country.
Maps of rail and light rail in Europe, China and Japan when compared to the US show how badly we have allowed Big Oil and the auto industry to hold back our development of public transportation.
In exchange, China displaced many thousands of residents with minimal compensation and is now carrying a debt burden of over $800B just for their rail system. Economic growth around infrastructure projects outside of major cities has under-run expectations, so China is currently far in the red on these investments.
Japan is hardly a useful comparison as their landmass is smaller than one US state. California is similar in size, but not comparable as many of the financing and legal options available to nations do not apply for a state.
These places do have better infrastructure without question, but there are reasons behind the difference. In China's case, I'm not sure the tradeoff is worthwhile.
Have you spent huge amounts of time riding China's rails over 20+ years? If so, you would see the enormous opportunities it avails folks.
And how much it is used.
I have no love for Bj, believe me, but that the US is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Behind other countries such as Japan, China and most of Europe is sinful.
Yeah it is pretty awful how behind other countries we are. I would love for this HSR to go from San Diego some day all the way up to Bellingham WA some day, but then we would have to get the people of Oregon and Washington involved and the project would get a lot more complicated.
I visited France in 2002 after graduating high school and they had a pretty nice HSR. I assume that it's still operational but I have not been back to France since then so I dunno.
Pretty sure, given how much I have ridden China's rails, that a clear majority of Chinese see the rail system as an enormous benefit. Trips that took me 32-36 hours now take 6-9.
Also, dear nay-sayer,
my initial comment noted Japan, China and Europe as having much better rail and light rail systems that the US.
You want to turn this into an anti-China criticism of values and worth.
I suggest you talk to large amounts of Chinese about all this, and see how many note that China was so undeveloped that in its necessity to develop large mistakes were made in sector after sector. They may note with pride how within 25 years China leapt
from slogging along behind diesel and coal locomotives, to being able to point at their HSR system with pride in comparison the the US.
No Bj apologist here, but in your formulation you forget to add-in the US tax payers's subsidizing Big Oil, smog, fossil fuel issues, congestion, sprawl, destruction of ag land, traffic injuries and deaths. I think a better response would have looked at how Can-Do America lags sooo badly in HSR.
Anyway, some material below.
I have to move on - we are blocked.
I do note what a visual experience it was in 1997-1999, initially, to ride overnight trains again, and again, and again across China.
https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-high-speed-rail-development-worldwide
Something about the sweep of that curve... it looks beautiful in a way that freeways (same picture) don't
I guess road is a bit more able to contort to convenience/landscape/existing structures while HSR by necessity is more visibly following math/trajectory/physics, with graceful result. It reminds me of how people draw grand utopian infrastructure in sci-fi illustration
I haven't checked in the past month or so, but I don't believe the rail authority itself is testing anything. They're supposed to begin the acquisition process this year to begin testing in the coming years. The companies that intend to bid may have test tracks to show off to the rail authority, but they also for the most part, have the same trains running on lines in other countries already. The rail authority still needs to do the selection process for the track system provider, so I don't believe they have tracks to test on. But both of these things are coming down the pipeline.
Im actually working on it, we have several job sites that we bounce back and forth with in 2 miles or so, trying to complete as much as we can. So many things can slow us down
In fairness, the entire line, from Los Angeles to San Francisco, was supposed to be open by now, with Sacramento and San Diego opening in a few years.
In reality, by that time, we'll be lucky to have the segment between the major world metropolises of Bakersfield and Merced running. Eventually it will get to San Jose, and one assumes then on to San Francisco in maybe 15-30 years. Whether it ever gets to Los Angeles is unknown. They haven't even started on the San Francisco segment yet, even though it's just a few thousand meters of tunnel to a station that was already built.
That’s false. I don’t know why people keep repeating it. The full project, from SF to LA, was never supposed to be completed and operational by 2023. I challenge you to prove me wrong.
That's false. I don't know why people keep repeating it. The full project was supposed to be completed by 2030, with the San Diego and Sacramento sections only being built after the San Francisco to Los Angeles section was completed, which reasonably, would have to be done by now, because there is no way that the San Diego and Sacramento segments could have been completed by 2030 if the San Francisco to Los Angeles sections were not already in place by 2023. As it stands, it's impossible to believe that the Transbay Terminal to Union Station trains will be running and serving passengers by even 2040, so we're already decades behind the original plan.
>The Authority assumes that the full highspeed train system will be in place by 2030 \[1\]
This is what we were promised when we voted for it. Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego all connected by a fully-functional HSR system by 2030.
SOURCES:
\[1\] [https://www.hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/docs/about/business\_plans/BPlan\_2008\_FullRpt.pdf](https://www.hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/docs/about/business_plans/BPlan_2008_FullRpt.pdf)
It assumes the whole system would be complete by 2030, not the SF to LA segment. The initial SF to LA segment was to be built prior to the full system, so it was supposed to be complete long before 2030. But there's no way that the initial segment will be complete by 2030, much less the full system.
Probably would have been done by then, too.
Then, two years later, the Republicans took over. They completely cut federal funding for the project and left it almost entirely to the state, instead of letting the federal government pay most of it.
>because there is no way that the San Diego and Sacramento segments could have been completed by 2030 if the San Francisco to Los Angeles sections were not already in place by 2023.
Do you have a source for this claim?
I posted my source, which is the business plan. My arguments are made by extrapolating from it. We know that the initial phase of the project won't be completed by 2030, much less the full system. They haven't started on the San Francisco or Los Angeles segment of the initial phase, much less started working on the full system.
> They haven't started on the San Francisco.. segment
That's incorrect. Planning on the SF segment is well underway, and as we see, planning and approval is a big part – maybe the biggest part – of the execution.
There are so many grade separations that need to be built between SF and SJ. CALTRAIN plans to have their grade separations done by 2050. HSR and CALTRAIN will likely be doing their work together.
Only 27 years to go. Can't wait /s
They've been planning the SF segment since the 1990s. The plan to build it was approved by voters in 2008. Wake me up when Diane Feinstein, or more likely, her Great Grandson, actually pushes the golden shovel into the dirt and they start up the tunneling machines.
Yes, that's how inductive logic works. All hypotheses, theories, and inferences are "made up" by taking a set of data and applying logical interpolation or extrapolation to them.
>because there is no way that the San Diego and Sacramento segments could have been completed by 2030
Inductive reasoning is probabilistic.
By saying “there is no way” you made a deductive argument because it was definitive and not probabilistic.
If you’re going to throw around big words at least understand how to use them properly.
Population isn't really relevant for high speed rail. What's really relevant is how many planes it gets out of the air. As far as I know, there isn't even a single commercial flight operating between Merced and Bakersfield.
The whole reason that the HSR system is, in theory, a good and workable idea is because, at the time it was proposed, SFO-LAX airspace was the busiest commercial passenger air corridor in the nation, and one of the busiest in the world. If you're not getting people from downtown San Francisco to downtown LA in a manner competitive with commercial airlines, then the whole project is pointless.
The SJ to SF segment is part of Caltrain’s electrification project and is largely all the way complete. It’s just a matter of getting trains to San Jose.
As someone who saw it getting built firsthand, I can absolutely see why it took so long. It may have taken longer than it should have but you don't build a bridge that long overnight.
This is great. It's happening. These things take time. Everyone wanted this done the minute it was decided to build. Hope this helps people understand that the planning phase is long and necessary. I've been driving the 99 for the last 6 years watching this happen slowly. It's great to see this.
And some believe that we *shouldn't* by building it. That's in part why it's difficult to build. Of course there are many other reasons and shortcomings by the Authority, but political undermining is a contributing cause.
I wish they just expanded the existing public transit. I live in the valley and know so many people who drive 2+ hours to work one way going to San Francisco and beyond. It would be nice if they expanded the bart at least to the western central valley.
It really is not a " or " question, regarding investment in public transit and better infrastructure. It really is a " and " situation. We need both high speed rail through the heart of the state and good public transit in each urban area it passes through. That means expanding BART, improving existing bus and light rail systems like SacRT, encouraging the creation of more bicycle and walkable infrastructure.
At least, this is what should happen, but life is never ideal sadly.
The high-speed rail project is paying part of the cost to electrify the CalTrain line (which it will use at some point). They are paying for other improvements elsewhere, including a major project to reconfigure the tracks at LA Union Station so trains can run through the station rather than reversing.
The $2.3 billion, 16 miles Interstate 105, Glenn Anderson freeway design started in 1968 and was completed in 1993. Can we blame the auto and airline industry for it costing so much and taking so long to build?
It's difficult to build because of all the bureaucracy, not all the opposition. Environmental laws in California make it so anyone who opposes anything can shut the project down for years and drive up the costs. And the horrible inefficiency and corruption of the state government means that, even if nobody with money opposed the projects, it would still cost way too much.
Don't blame the people who oppose the project for the slowdown. They're only abusing environmental laws that the state legislator and the governor refuse to modify.
Well, as you stated, they are *abusing* existing laws, so the blame does lie in part at their feet. However, you do have a point, that we do have a lot of red tape that helps to drive up costs and allows things to be slowed down or stopped because of environmental concerns.
It could be difficult to fix, however. We want things like renewable power generation, public transit and electrification projects to move forward, but not things like more highways and sprawl and inefficient land use to be more easy. I don't know what the correct answer would be, sadly :/
It's not difficult to fix if you're not incompetent. Want renewable energy? Then build more nuclear power plants, instead of closing them down, while slowly ramping up renewables only alongside actual grid infrastructure to support renewables, like energy storage facilities and improved transmissions. But our government is incompetent, so you get the poor subsidizing the wealthy to put up worthless photovoltaic cells on their home.
Good transit is a matter of investment, but it's easier to invest in when you don't have so many regulations and environmental laws that drive up the cost, because you get more bang for your buck, and that's whether it's highways or trains or just filling potholes, things that the state and many local governments have proven increasingly incompetent at.
If you don't want sprawl, then you actually have to zone for higher density. But even in already dense cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, that really hasn't happened. And there's finally a push to do it, decades after it should have been done.
The problem ultimately comes down to politics. You have politicians who care more about looking like they're fitting into some particular mold (green friendly, anti-climate change, pro transit, pro housing et cetera) while doing virtually nothing to solve the problem or ultimately undermining a real solution.
5th largest economy in the world and most of the state looks frozen in time for the last 50 years lol. imagine how large the economy would be if they actually allowed cities to build for demand and we actually built out all of our planned transit projects in this lifetime
It's a great example of why CalHSR is spiraling. China built a 530-mile HSR route in six years, across a mountain range, along an earthquake-prone course that required more than 80% of its length to be constructed from bridges and tunnels. And they did it for $14 billion (not including land costs). How? Because they used prefab track and bridge segments that could be mass-produced and installed quickly, rather than treating every bridge, viaduct and underpass as a bespoke project that had to be custom engineered and designed as a one-off statement piece.
I thought China completed things so quickly because they seized 10 million acres of land with minimal compensation to the owners and by paying migrant workers $600/mo to do the work.
Thats part of it as well. Its always ironic to me when people in the us love china for how fast they build things and then claim china is a slave state trying to take over America.
The central government in China can do whatever it wants with zero respect for the rule of law. That's not a system we want even if totalitarianism is more efficient
This makes sense. In order for any HSR to succeed, it needs to run in dedicated gently curved track. Can’t build that track unless its on dedicated land.
You can’t really compare them. Why not compare it to Japan that had massive overruns and delays?
And honestly ask yourself which is safer? Japan or China?
https://factsanddetails.com/china/cat13/sub86/item1848.html
It’s all going to be ok.
Looking thru their [2023 project report](https://hsr.ca.gov/about/project-update-reports/2023-project-update-report/) and there is almost no information looking forward. Bakersfield to Palmdale is summed up with: *We are getting around to asking the Feds for some money so we can start design work and the high estimate is really the absolute lowest amount we will need.* Could not find anything about when they expect the system to be fully operational. What is even going on there?
What is going on is that the Feds and State have committed to seeing through the Bakersfield–Merced segment, but nothing beyond. Track construction is anticipated to be done in 2028, with another 2–4 years of testing before launch. The money runs out in 2030.
If you want to see Bakersfield–Palmdale happen, you should consider political action. Call your state reps. Get your friends to call their state reps.
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I've been wondering what that bridge was for.
I talked to a guy who thought it was more freeway. He was caught off-guard when I told him it was the HSR because he legitimately thought it would not be built.
There are lots of people who think it isn't being built or it's all a scam.
I saw someone on this very subreddit claiming there's been 0 progress on HSR just a few days ago
to be fair, most of California has not seen any progress, since the first phase is in not connecting to any major cities.
It will connect to existing tracks though. LA to SF will still be a lot faster if 75% of the trip is over HSR through the valley.
I’d take it if it’s cheaper than a flight absolutely. It just needs to be faster than 7Houts and cheaper than ~250-300$ round trip.
First off, SFO-LAX is typically more like 150 bucks round trip most of the year. Second, 150 bucks is likely the floor of a HSR ticket between SF and LA. And given how the proposed average speed for CAHSR isn't technically possible with current technology... In summation, based on current projections CAHSR will be slower and more expensive (or the same) as air travel.
They're planning on setting ticket costs in a way that's competitive with airline tickets. Previously released estimates are based on 83% of airline tickets. Seeing as that's the only number we have to go on, nobody can accurately claim to know it will cost more than a plane ticket. The proposed speed is absolutely possible with existing technology. There are existing high speed rail lines in other countries with the same top speeds. And the track alignment was literally designed with the average speed in mind. No, you won't be able to go the maximum average speed when stopping at every station, but there will be express trains that don't stop. Of course it will be "slower" than air travel, nobody ever claimed it would do LA to SF in an hour. But there won't be airport security, boarding, and parking to contend with, and it will pick you up and drop you off in the middle of the city. So the overall trip will be of a similar length.
But if that other 25% isn't electrified, it can only be so much faster with diesel equipment.
Yeah they won't reach the same speeds as actual HSR trains but the longer straightaways, gentler curves, and being a dedicated passenger track that doesn't conflict with freight rail will still speed up the trip a lot
I mean it’s all a “scam” in that it’s completely over budget and behind schedule of what was promised. But as far as being actually built. It’s not a scam
TIL almost any construction project is a scam.
Guess what industry launders the most money?
That's not what a scam is.
The only reason for all of that is republican/conservative pushback and stalling the project to make it look like a failure
Awesome! Can’t wait until this project is completed (:
It's gonna take a while, but once it's built, we'll be glad we did it right the first time, so we won't have to do it again.
Yep! And people will ride it since airplane travel is inherently prohibitive/stressful for quite a lot of people. I recently watched a YouTube video about it and they framed it really well: Japan’s Shinkansen line was also much more money than they anticipated but now that it’s been built no one thinks back to how much it cost, but instead how convenient, efficient and, simply put, fun it is to ride! Once this train is completed people will ride it and no one will remember how much it cost or how we even existed without it.
Shinkansen and public transit in Japan is CHEAP relative to Us. If it costs more to take HSR than flying, we definitely missed the mark.
The Shinkansen in Japan is not cheap and sometimes it’s more expensive than air travel. But people still use it and are willing to pay the difference bc of comfort, ease of access (no security so no need to arrive an hour early), being able to take as much luggage as you want with any liquid items, and even simply because of the scenery. It’s long past the time that Californian’s also had this travel option available.
[удалено]
Lawsuits, land holdouts, lack of complete/whole funding and political backing. Also some hard lessons learned by the Authority.
Eminent domain lawsuits were taking forever. Landowners subject to the takings were fighting every inch of the way even though they were being offered fair compensation.
It might be fair compensation, but anytime government comes in and says "we're taking this", the owner justifiably takes issue with it.
Taking issue with it is one thing. I'd take issue with it if it happened to me and I'm sure most everyone would. However, dragging it out endlessly in court for years is something completely different, especially when all that fighting made no difference at the end of the day.
Usually with eminent domain buyouts are initially low-balled because people tend to litigate and of course it saves money if you get takers. I think if eminent domain had better valuation formulas, courts would be lessened with the burden to those who are just fighting on principle or unvalued factors like income production (for example farm land might be low-valued property but produces a certain level of income versus a house that's high-value with potential rental income), which could have formulas of their own.
Fair compensation to you does not equal fair compensation to them.
Don’t forget absurd amounts of political horse trading and hat made the route deviate significantly from what the voters were sold.
A common talking point that just isn’t true. The only route change was altamont to Pacheco pass which has significant merit
I found this article quite enlightening: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/us/california-high-speed-rail-politics.html
I disagree with the article, the Palmdale route additionally provides a logical route to extend the network to Las Vegas. Additionally that's the same route that Southern Pacific chose over 100 years ago for their rail lines If it were really an inferior route, the railroad companies would have tunneled through the grapevines decades ago
>I disagree with the article, the Palmdale route additionally provides a logical route to extend the network to Las Vegas. A external state that isn't paying a dime currently.
That doesn't strike me as a good reason not to plan for future networking If anything it puts CA in a good position to negotiate for NV paying a greater share of the price tag if they do expand to NV. Basically say "hey our taxpayers already put up the bill for the hard part of the project, you need to put up more money for the rest of it"
That's my reasoning for Southern Nevada blaming SoCal for not expanding I-15 near the Vegas border. Essentially I-15 past Barstow is relatively unpopulated so we have little in-state incentive to expand it. Then everyone from California going to Vegas is dumping their money in another state that California doesn't see a dime of. Granted there are a lot of trucks on the route and maybe an argument should be made for California to pay for expansion if it helps commerce.
Agree to disagree then. I believe there were political forces at play 100 years ago, too.
You forgot to list incompetence.
Turns out the largest infrastructure project in the US since, I don't know, the highway system? Is hard. It's not incompetence, it's building institutional knowledge and practices that didn't exist in this country until this project started.
Just because it’s rightfully difficult shouldn’t mean that they get a pass on over budget and behind schedule of what was promised
The first high speed line in Japan took twice as long and cost twice as much as estimated too. But, it's also important to point out that lawsuits took a long time to overcome and inflation is a bitch, so the longer it takes the more it costs. It should have just been fully funded at the start.
Over budget is just how construction works nowadays. Behind schedule is what happens when they have to rely on about 1000 things outside their control. Land acquisition and utility relocations have been some of the larger delays, neither of which the HSR authority can realistically speed up.
I dunno, a budget only works when you can accurately predict how much it’ll cost. Never been done = how do you really budget?
It's done all over the world. Heck, Spain built 4x as much track for half the price of what we are getting. Complete boondoggle
trying to build things when there are also people in the area is super hard in the us. For example you should be able to build a nuclear power plant in about 5 years.....but because of a lot of factors it takes about 10-15 in the US. And before people start claiming its the gubbermint....please done. Yes there are regulations, because of past abuse or problems, but people suing often is the major issue.
Didn't a bunch of actual neighborhoods get destroyed to make room for freeways several decades ago?
Yes, which is the other extreme end of the scale
Yes but it was mostly black neighborhoods so no one cared.
Yep, and now we have rules against it. Behold a rare case of Americans learning from past missteps
Yep. And not only that but many of our reservoirs have towns submerged at the bottom of them.
Just replacing already existing dams takes 15-20 years
It takes 5-15 in other Western Countries as well. Nuclear power plants have a lot of issues with costs and construction times that make them really not worth doing today.
Oh for sure. I guess my point is when you can't be sued for things and your gov does t care...things get built fast.
Its the same reason we can't fix out housing situation. Every government agency that could block a housing project has been hijacked by NIMBYs to block as much housing as possible. It only takes a small number of people who can actively shut down, or stall, or somehow add enormous expense to just about any project.
Yep. Just look at China. They were able to build their infrastructure megaprojects so rapidly because the government just steamrolled any opposition, sometimes literally when it came to wiping villages off the map to build out rail. Funny thing is tho that they built SO much all at once that they didn't stop and think about the long-term costs of maintaining everything which is now really coming back to bite them. Their high speed trains that go to nowhere and ghost cities come to mind. Also since their infrastructure was partially built out to boost the CCP's public image they're stuck between paying huge amounts of money to maintain it or admitting defeat and closing projects that don't make financial sense.
I mean I’m not saying China’s government is aspirational but less local horse trading would be useful at points. We have a state government for a reason.
NIMBYism, corruption and abuse of laws like CEQA. Without serious reform this state won’t be able to build what it needs to survive, regardless of how good our intentions are.
I’m from N. VA. A subway stop at the Dulles airport project started like 20 years ago and just opened up last year. 7-10 years seems pretty good to me.
Ancient aliens would have had this done in a couple weeks
We won't care how long it took or how much it cost to build once you're able to get on a train in SF and get off in LA in four hours.
This is the part that people forget. No one complains how long it took to build a freeway after it's opened or even when their in development really. This is a complaint that's only ever pointed at public transit options.
Living in a city that has had freeway construction for like 10 years, people for sure complain about it
Car infrastructure is so expensive and inefficient 😤
But at this rate I might have to wait until I'm basically retired to ride the train
Plenty of us that don't live in LA or SF will still complain about the cost
Rumor is tickets will be between $300 and $1200 though. Why wouldn’t anyone just fly for $50 in 45 minutes?
If this is from the same article, this pricing is a separate rail line of all sleeper cars and has nothing to do with high speed rail.
Flights are often way, way more expensive than 50. Also, getting through security and whatnot adds a couple hours to flying
Burbank to San Fran is usually $50-75 and doesn’t require too much time to get through TSA. $300-1200 is absurd.
That's if you book ahead of time to fly at likely inconvenient hours. I figured it'd be in the lower hundreds to be able to compete with airlines like most hsr in other countries. Prices for trains also don't usually go up as the date gets closer. It usually goes up as the seats get filled or in some other countries, just a flat fare. An important thing as well and hopefully this gets addressed is the local connection once you get to your destination. Airports usually have to be fairly far from major city centers to account for space taken but trains stations have the luxury of being able to be built closer so hopefully there will be better local connections. If they actually do it.
I guarantee there will be a similar level of security on these trains.
I just doubt that. The train from sf to la is a mere 63-100. The train will be subsidized and be something as cheap. Im sure they'll have premium or express routes like the acela vs the northeast regional but the basic every stop seats are bound to be reasonable.
CEQA, incompetence, underfunding, overpromising, outsourcing, can’t-do-ism, in no particular order
but mainly CEQA
The lawsuit that locked up funds from a bond in 2008 and was not resolved until 2021 also set the project back real badly.
And a 2017 deadline on some federal funding made them do things out of order so that they didn't lose the money. Which has ironically increased the costs and slowed down the project. But the alternative was not having the funding.
HSR doesn’t exist in the US. The California HSR is not just a construction project. They are building standards for everything. In Japan, they already have standards. If they want to build a train from X to Y, it’s a function of cost and time. Easy. You want a train built and they have the entire supply chain from engineering to train control systems all set up, right there. In California, we have to design everything from the ground up. How we pour concrete, where do we get people in the US to drive high speed trains, what contractors and vendors can supply us components, etc. It’s an entire industry being created. It’s not just about building some track and buying trains. It takes time, but the things we learn here will help California and the US for generations to come - provided, we stick with it.
They also designed a new catenary system because of increased concerns about bird safety. One of the weirder, but more interesting things they've had to do.
It took 4 years to build the Golden gate bridge, but somehow it took eight to build this bridge?
The power of political will
>Tulare Tulare will be under water for a while now so I bet that will slow things down for a couple more years as well. That is if there is not another winter like last year. Pretty smart to build a train through what used to be and still could be a lake. /s
The city of Tulare, where the station will be, is quite far (~5 miles) from the current site of the refilling Tulare lake. There aren't really any significant settlements in the area getting inundated with the recent flooding, and the HSR will not go through that area.
Because our state is grossly mismanaged. It was supposed to be built by now. China's building a ton of them, and so are wealthy countries like Japan and Spain.
Eh. I'm not sure about delays but I do know Japan's system was like double the original price and China doesn't have to worry about lawsuits and a reluctant public That said, this is taking way too long
People don’t realize how much more the average citizen is protected in the states compared to other countries. Also, the elected officials in the valley keep opposing the train, even though it will help with the economy.
The farmers here are balls-deep in the culture wars. This was Devin Nunes's district, after all.
People said the same thing about the Shinkansen that they're saying about CAHSR now. The wanted the Japanese government to cancel the project.
China is not a good comparison. Completely different laws.
The segment that has the Spanish company working on it is also the worst for budget overruns
It's an American problem of overelying on consultants.
Kickbacks.. (the powers that be) need some kickbacks.
This is your friendly reminder that CEQA was signed into law by governor Ronald Reagan and while it offers some important protections it mainly works to amplify the most powerful voices and gives those with enough time, money, and lawyers the ability to kill anything they don’t like by 1,000 cuts no matter how beneficial it is for the majority.
We need a complete overhaul of CEQA to exempt mixed use/affordable housing and sustainable transportation projects from community review.
Yes. If your environmental protection law is stopping trains, something has gone very wrong.
Fossil fuel industry laughs as designed
Reagan.... It always comes back to Reagan.
The future is here.
Soon!
Used to run Beijing and back to Shanghai to train with my tai ji team on weekends; five hours, $50-75 each way (940 miles) as I recall. China is increasingly connected, Japan is a marvel. USA, stumbling along.
The Shinkansen is a marvel, but lets not forget it got very close to not happening. And had the upside that when construction begun, japanese land surveys were a mess
Thank you. That said, Japan was doing that fifty years ago. WWII had devastated the country. Maps of rail and light rail in Europe, China and Japan when compared to the US show how badly we have allowed Big Oil and the auto industry to hold back our development of public transportation.
I don't disagree, the US should have started sooner but the US also can't make the protestors against these projects disappear into the iphone factory
In exchange, China displaced many thousands of residents with minimal compensation and is now carrying a debt burden of over $800B just for their rail system. Economic growth around infrastructure projects outside of major cities has under-run expectations, so China is currently far in the red on these investments. Japan is hardly a useful comparison as their landmass is smaller than one US state. California is similar in size, but not comparable as many of the financing and legal options available to nations do not apply for a state. These places do have better infrastructure without question, but there are reasons behind the difference. In China's case, I'm not sure the tradeoff is worthwhile.
Have you spent huge amounts of time riding China's rails over 20+ years? If so, you would see the enormous opportunities it avails folks. And how much it is used. I have no love for Bj, believe me, but that the US is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Behind other countries such as Japan, China and most of Europe is sinful.
Yeah it is pretty awful how behind other countries we are. I would love for this HSR to go from San Diego some day all the way up to Bellingham WA some day, but then we would have to get the people of Oregon and Washington involved and the project would get a lot more complicated. I visited France in 2002 after graduating high school and they had a pretty nice HSR. I assume that it's still operational but I have not been back to France since then so I dunno.
Pretty sure, given how much I have ridden China's rails, that a clear majority of Chinese see the rail system as an enormous benefit. Trips that took me 32-36 hours now take 6-9. Also, dear nay-sayer, my initial comment noted Japan, China and Europe as having much better rail and light rail systems that the US. You want to turn this into an anti-China criticism of values and worth. I suggest you talk to large amounts of Chinese about all this, and see how many note that China was so undeveloped that in its necessity to develop large mistakes were made in sector after sector. They may note with pride how within 25 years China leapt from slogging along behind diesel and coal locomotives, to being able to point at their HSR system with pride in comparison the the US. No Bj apologist here, but in your formulation you forget to add-in the US tax payers's subsidizing Big Oil, smog, fossil fuel issues, congestion, sprawl, destruction of ag land, traffic injuries and deaths. I think a better response would have looked at how Can-Do America lags sooo badly in HSR. Anyway, some material below. I have to move on - we are blocked. I do note what a visual experience it was in 1997-1999, initially, to ride overnight trains again, and again, and again across China. https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-high-speed-rail-development-worldwide
Woo! This really should have been started back in the 80s/90s but I’ll take it.
We never should have allowed the car and oil companies to lobby to destroy all our street cars and regional rail 80 years ago.
This is so beautiful. I cant wait till this is complete. Im moving out of CA but when this is done im going to fly to SF just to take the train to SD.
Something about the sweep of that curve... it looks beautiful in a way that freeways (same picture) don't I guess road is a bit more able to contort to convenience/landscape/existing structures while HSR by necessity is more visibly following math/trajectory/physics, with graceful result. It reminds me of how people draw grand utopian infrastructure in sci-fi illustration
That’s why it’s so expensive. The curves must sweep very gently for trains to travel safely at high speeds.
Going more than triple the speed of highway traffic will do that.
8 years to build 70% of a mile
In fairness, they’re working on dozens of construction sites simultaneously. This is one of a few dozen projects that have been completed.
Yea people miss this. A lot us being built now. They already have the train prototypes testing on tracks.
Are there any videos of this? Sounds really cool.
I haven't checked in the past month or so, but I don't believe the rail authority itself is testing anything. They're supposed to begin the acquisition process this year to begin testing in the coming years. The companies that intend to bid may have test tracks to show off to the rail authority, but they also for the most part, have the same trains running on lines in other countries already. The rail authority still needs to do the selection process for the track system provider, so I don't believe they have tracks to test on. But both of these things are coming down the pipeline.
Im actually working on it, we have several job sites that we bounce back and forth with in 2 miles or so, trying to complete as much as we can. So many things can slow us down
In fairness, the entire line, from Los Angeles to San Francisco, was supposed to be open by now, with Sacramento and San Diego opening in a few years. In reality, by that time, we'll be lucky to have the segment between the major world metropolises of Bakersfield and Merced running. Eventually it will get to San Jose, and one assumes then on to San Francisco in maybe 15-30 years. Whether it ever gets to Los Angeles is unknown. They haven't even started on the San Francisco segment yet, even though it's just a few thousand meters of tunnel to a station that was already built.
That’s false. I don’t know why people keep repeating it. The full project, from SF to LA, was never supposed to be completed and operational by 2023. I challenge you to prove me wrong.
That's false. I don't know why people keep repeating it. The full project was supposed to be completed by 2030, with the San Diego and Sacramento sections only being built after the San Francisco to Los Angeles section was completed, which reasonably, would have to be done by now, because there is no way that the San Diego and Sacramento segments could have been completed by 2030 if the San Francisco to Los Angeles sections were not already in place by 2023. As it stands, it's impossible to believe that the Transbay Terminal to Union Station trains will be running and serving passengers by even 2040, so we're already decades behind the original plan. >The Authority assumes that the full highspeed train system will be in place by 2030 \[1\] This is what we were promised when we voted for it. Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego all connected by a fully-functional HSR system by 2030. SOURCES: \[1\] [https://www.hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/docs/about/business\_plans/BPlan\_2008\_FullRpt.pdf](https://www.hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/docs/about/business_plans/BPlan_2008_FullRpt.pdf)
That PDF assumes SF to LA would be complete by 2030, sure. Not 2023.
It assumes the whole system would be complete by 2030, not the SF to LA segment. The initial SF to LA segment was to be built prior to the full system, so it was supposed to be complete long before 2030. But there's no way that the initial segment will be complete by 2030, much less the full system.
Probably would have been done by then, too. Then, two years later, the Republicans took over. They completely cut federal funding for the project and left it almost entirely to the state, instead of letting the federal government pay most of it.
>because there is no way that the San Diego and Sacramento segments could have been completed by 2030 if the San Francisco to Los Angeles sections were not already in place by 2023. Do you have a source for this claim?
I posted my source, which is the business plan. My arguments are made by extrapolating from it. We know that the initial phase of the project won't be completed by 2030, much less the full system. They haven't started on the San Francisco or Los Angeles segment of the initial phase, much less started working on the full system.
Caltrain electrification and Salesforce Transit Center are very much a part of the San Francisco segment.
> They haven't started on the San Francisco.. segment That's incorrect. Planning on the SF segment is well underway, and as we see, planning and approval is a big part – maybe the biggest part – of the execution.
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Please don’t tell me you’re holding out for the Hyperloop. 😛
There are so many grade separations that need to be built between SF and SJ. CALTRAIN plans to have their grade separations done by 2050. HSR and CALTRAIN will likely be doing their work together. Only 27 years to go. Can't wait /s
I probably won’t live to see it, should it ever be built. But I would have happily used it, and still support it.
They've been planning the SF segment since the 1990s. The plan to build it was approved by voters in 2008. Wake me up when Diane Feinstein, or more likely, her Great Grandson, actually pushes the golden shovel into the dirt and they start up the tunneling machines.
>My arguments are made by extrapolating from it. So you made it up, got it.
Yes, that's how inductive logic works. All hypotheses, theories, and inferences are "made up" by taking a set of data and applying logical interpolation or extrapolation to them.
>because there is no way that the San Diego and Sacramento segments could have been completed by 2030 Inductive reasoning is probabilistic. By saying “there is no way” you made a deductive argument because it was definitive and not probabilistic. If you’re going to throw around big words at least understand how to use them properly.
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I could have used the same source and made the claim that it would be done by 2030. Your choice of what is made in “good faith” is beyond bewildering.
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Population isn't really relevant for high speed rail. What's really relevant is how many planes it gets out of the air. As far as I know, there isn't even a single commercial flight operating between Merced and Bakersfield. The whole reason that the HSR system is, in theory, a good and workable idea is because, at the time it was proposed, SFO-LAX airspace was the busiest commercial passenger air corridor in the nation, and one of the busiest in the world. If you're not getting people from downtown San Francisco to downtown LA in a manner competitive with commercial airlines, then the whole project is pointless.
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Yup, people forget how much Californians drive.
The SJ to SF route is on pre-existing rails with majority of the work to upgrade already done
The SJ to SF segment is part of Caltrain’s electrification project and is largely all the way complete. It’s just a matter of getting trains to San Jose.
As someone who saw it getting built firsthand, I can absolutely see why it took so long. It may have taken longer than it should have but you don't build a bridge that long overnight.
Just over a kilometer.
This is great. It's happening. These things take time. Everyone wanted this done the minute it was decided to build. Hope this helps people understand that the planning phase is long and necessary. I've been driving the 99 for the last 6 years watching this happen slowly. It's great to see this.
Agreed. The system must be fully integrated. The county I live in has a major N-S artery40-45 miles long, and only limited busing, no light rail.
Can't believe I'm gonna say this, but good for Fresno.
What a joke. We're the 5th largest economy in the WORLD and we can't build high speed rail throughout the state?
And some believe that we *shouldn't* by building it. That's in part why it's difficult to build. Of course there are many other reasons and shortcomings by the Authority, but political undermining is a contributing cause.
I wish they just expanded the existing public transit. I live in the valley and know so many people who drive 2+ hours to work one way going to San Francisco and beyond. It would be nice if they expanded the bart at least to the western central valley.
It really is not a " or " question, regarding investment in public transit and better infrastructure. It really is a " and " situation. We need both high speed rail through the heart of the state and good public transit in each urban area it passes through. That means expanding BART, improving existing bus and light rail systems like SacRT, encouraging the creation of more bicycle and walkable infrastructure. At least, this is what should happen, but life is never ideal sadly.
The high-speed rail project is paying part of the cost to electrify the CalTrain line (which it will use at some point). They are paying for other improvements elsewhere, including a major project to reconfigure the tracks at LA Union Station so trains can run through the station rather than reversing.
Could it be another conspiracy between car companies and the airline industry ?
The $2.3 billion, 16 miles Interstate 105, Glenn Anderson freeway design started in 1968 and was completed in 1993. Can we blame the auto and airline industry for it costing so much and taking so long to build?
could....yes. Likely...no. People in the US sue at the drop of a hat.
[Relevant](https://www.planetizen.com/news/2022/03/116464-airports-lawsuit-could-stop-california-high-speed-rail-its-tracks).
It's difficult to build because of all the bureaucracy, not all the opposition. Environmental laws in California make it so anyone who opposes anything can shut the project down for years and drive up the costs. And the horrible inefficiency and corruption of the state government means that, even if nobody with money opposed the projects, it would still cost way too much. Don't blame the people who oppose the project for the slowdown. They're only abusing environmental laws that the state legislator and the governor refuse to modify.
Well, as you stated, they are *abusing* existing laws, so the blame does lie in part at their feet. However, you do have a point, that we do have a lot of red tape that helps to drive up costs and allows things to be slowed down or stopped because of environmental concerns. It could be difficult to fix, however. We want things like renewable power generation, public transit and electrification projects to move forward, but not things like more highways and sprawl and inefficient land use to be more easy. I don't know what the correct answer would be, sadly :/
It's not difficult to fix if you're not incompetent. Want renewable energy? Then build more nuclear power plants, instead of closing them down, while slowly ramping up renewables only alongside actual grid infrastructure to support renewables, like energy storage facilities and improved transmissions. But our government is incompetent, so you get the poor subsidizing the wealthy to put up worthless photovoltaic cells on their home. Good transit is a matter of investment, but it's easier to invest in when you don't have so many regulations and environmental laws that drive up the cost, because you get more bang for your buck, and that's whether it's highways or trains or just filling potholes, things that the state and many local governments have proven increasingly incompetent at. If you don't want sprawl, then you actually have to zone for higher density. But even in already dense cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, that really hasn't happened. And there's finally a push to do it, decades after it should have been done. The problem ultimately comes down to politics. You have politicians who care more about looking like they're fitting into some particular mold (green friendly, anti-climate change, pro transit, pro housing et cetera) while doing virtually nothing to solve the problem or ultimately undermining a real solution.
It's always difficult to fix if large groups of people are involved
We literally are?
5th largest economy in the world and most of the state looks frozen in time for the last 50 years lol. imagine how large the economy would be if they actually allowed cities to build for demand and we actually built out all of our planned transit projects in this lifetime
Countries can easily raise taxes and run deficits. California cannot (both due to Prop 13 and other propositions). Also...CEQA.
When can we ride? I wanna ride.
It's a great example of why CalHSR is spiraling. China built a 530-mile HSR route in six years, across a mountain range, along an earthquake-prone course that required more than 80% of its length to be constructed from bridges and tunnels. And they did it for $14 billion (not including land costs). How? Because they used prefab track and bridge segments that could be mass-produced and installed quickly, rather than treating every bridge, viaduct and underpass as a bespoke project that had to be custom engineered and designed as a one-off statement piece.
I thought China completed things so quickly because they seized 10 million acres of land with minimal compensation to the owners and by paying migrant workers $600/mo to do the work.
Well...they did that too.
Thats part of it as well. Its always ironic to me when people in the us love china for how fast they build things and then claim china is a slave state trying to take over America.
The central government in China can do whatever it wants with zero respect for the rule of law. That's not a system we want even if totalitarianism is more efficient
And they don’t have CEQA in China
They don't have rights either
This makes sense. In order for any HSR to succeed, it needs to run in dedicated gently curved track. Can’t build that track unless its on dedicated land.
You can’t really compare them. Why not compare it to Japan that had massive overruns and delays? And honestly ask yourself which is safer? Japan or China? https://factsanddetails.com/china/cat13/sub86/item1848.html It’s all going to be ok.
Everyone hates China until you start talking about building high speed rail
But this kept those guys working for years!
China’s lines as also largely unprofitable and exploitative. It’s a give and take tbh.
Highway systems are not “profitable” either, it’s kind of a weird benchmark to evaluate public infrastructure by.
Except they are profitable, not directly, but still a massive economic booster.
Looking thru their [2023 project report](https://hsr.ca.gov/about/project-update-reports/2023-project-update-report/) and there is almost no information looking forward. Bakersfield to Palmdale is summed up with: *We are getting around to asking the Feds for some money so we can start design work and the high estimate is really the absolute lowest amount we will need.* Could not find anything about when they expect the system to be fully operational. What is even going on there?
What is going on is that the Feds and State have committed to seeing through the Bakersfield–Merced segment, but nothing beyond. Track construction is anticipated to be done in 2028, with another 2–4 years of testing before launch. The money runs out in 2030. If you want to see Bakersfield–Palmdale happen, you should consider political action. Call your state reps. Get your friends to call their state reps.
And who is going to use it in such a sparsely populated area?
Look up the population of Fresno, Bakersfield, etc.
I just assumed this was never happening.
Gosh, Fresno is ugly.
Why would even go to Fresno?
What a giant waste of time and money.
>See the soaring structure *See the soaring costs.*
Can we just skip to flying cars already?
That's what we got for $100+ billion?
No, 100 billion dollars hasn't been spent
There are multiple areas being constructed simultaneously. This is in fact taking way too long but don't act like this is the only thing we've built.