kevin_standlee | (Reply)

From:

kevin-standlee.livejournal.com

I don't want a high speed train scaring away the birds....

You really believe it will do that? I was riding lots of high-speed (300 kph/186 mph) trains, and I saw plenty of birds along the right of way. Oh, sure, not on the ROW, but certainly all around it. I also don't see BART trains frightening away the birds from Quarry Lakes (the BART line runs right along the lakes), and even at twice the speed, I don't think it would make a significant difference.

Mega-airports - I don't see how you get this. There are plenty of flights from SJ to LA already, but no rail (except the ever-delayed Coast Starlight).

There is an estimated need for at least four new major airports in California if nothing else is done to relieve demand, particularly for capacity-hogging short-haul flights. LAX expansion alone is estimated to cost as much as the entire stage 1 of CAHSR -- $10Bn.

You can't pick up intermediate ridership if you don't stop at their station.

So some trains would stop at those stations and some would not. You don't really believe that they'd adopt an operational model of "all trains must stop at all stations, all the time," do you? Even existing Amtrak trains along the Northeast Corridor don't stop at all stations at all times. Local-Limited-Express isn't even something that Americans have completely forgotten to do. But maybe Californians have a difficult time grasping it, because I've replied to letters to the editor in the Fremont Argus that assume that of course if you build a station, every train must stop at it.

And Japan has their share of unnecessary Shinkansen stations built because powerful politicians wanted the stations in their districts, too. Those stations get very few stops.

There is no point in building a rail line through areas that don't have the population to support it. That's why the general routing for CAHSR runs via the Central Valley rather than the short route along the coast. It's not just a SJ-LA express.