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July 10, 2008
California High-Speed Train Route Completed
What High Speed Rail could look like in Burbank | Image by CHSR
The California High-Speed Rail Authority announced the completion of the route yesterday. The project has been some 10 years in the making and this November, Proposition 1 (pdf) on the ballot will help determine the future of the project that would take passengers between San Francisco and Los Angeles in about 2 hours and 40 minutes by 2030. The last step was to connect the Bay Area to the Central Valley via Pacheco Pass.
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by 2030????
so the train will be slower than european(not to mention japanese) high speed trains that will be 40-50 years older than it at time of completion.
so what they are saying is its going to take them 21.5 years for one length of track?
shoot, by 2020 car manufacturer's(at least the european and japanese) will be producing that will do the trip with less fuel than the equivilant of today's 1 gallon of gas, if they even use gasoline by then.
i would love for this country to aim high again
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by 2030 we will either:
1. have a viable/renewable form of private transportation, ie spaceships
2. live on mars
3. all be of mexican heritage
4. all of the above: spaceship flying mexican martians
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2030 with trains slower than the Japanese and Europeans is dumb. Also, if they want to compete against the airlines, they need faster trains. Why spend all this money and end up with trains that are not the fastest possible?
I used to think high speed rail did not make sense with how cheap air travel was. But I now realize the other factor. That being how terribly polluting airtravel is. We need this alternative to airtravel for these intermediate distances.
Just make them faster.
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I just found this out. Japan will be building a maglev system from Tokyo to Osaka with expected completion by 2025.
The speed, 310 miles per hour.
Here is the link to the story:
http://www.hdrjapan.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=New-Maglev-Shinkansen-line-to-start-from-Shinagawa-Station-in-Tokyo.html&Itemid=67
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I too am saddened by the lack of ambition, we were able get to the moon in a decade when set as a goal, but it's going to take us over 20 years to build a decent train to San Francisco. However I am excited that this could really happen this time around. Yes we are behind the rest of the developed world on this, but we have to start somewhere and lets make it California.
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"we were able get to the moon in a decade when set as a goal, but it's going to take us over 20 years to build a decent train to San Francisco."
Great point!!!!
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Sorry to disagree about the point but sending a rocket to the moon is funded buy the Government which has deeper pockets than California alone. As bad of shape California is with the budget I'm surprised the train is even being thought about.
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2030? Really. 21 flipping years from now. Amazing. What vision.
This is meaningless and will likely be beset with mysterious delays and funding problems until it's abandoned, or just allowed to be completed with a crap final product.
5 years. That's a reasonable goal. 5 years. If they can't do it in 5 years, then they won't do it at all. Nor should they.
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To be clear...that the rail line is projected to carry 100 million people each year by 2030...it's a ridership projection, not a completion date. It was taken out of context.
The actual projected completion date is 2020.
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johnny,
the government subsidies Amtrak. hence why a complete rubbish train system has been allowed to exist. i would be quite suprised if the train was not subsidized as well.
and california has somewhere around the 5th largest GNP in the world, countries included, its our mismangement of funds(thanks arnold) is the primary reason why cash would be a factor.
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2020 is still ridiculously too far away. Jeeze, it only took 6 years from initial contruction to get the flipping chunnel operations. And somehow, high speed rail between LA and SF is more difficult that digging a tunnel under the English Channel?
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er, to get the chunnel operational.
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in 1869 track workers, working on the central pacific railroad were able to lay 10 miles of track in one day. Granted it was a record at the time but i think you get the point, improvements in construction technology in the last 150ish years.
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I read somewhere that the initial segment should be finished in 6 years. 4 years ago the estimate was "8-11 years from receiving significant funding" -- but in that time they've taken care of some of the prerequisites (the final EIR report is complete, for instance).