First, you have to deal with the security boondoggle. Add 30 minutes for that, because you never know what you are going to get.

Because of how SFO was built and the fact that they can't use both runways simultaneously with even a hint of bad weather, good luck leaving on time. Pad at least 30 minutes to your destination arrival time to be safe (but I've had plenty of early morning flights get delayed an hour or two waiting for fog to lift).

And then when you get into LAX… good luck getting out. Add an hour just to get out of the airport traffic. Unless you want to go north, you are better off flying into SNA… but tickets into SNA cost $175.

On a good day you can do it in 3 hours. On a bad day it's 6. The cost is $50-$200, and it's always a stressful and shitty experience.

I just recently took the Amtrak all the way down. I took 12 hours and cost $93 for a business class ticket. Yeah, it took forever. But it was really pleasant. It just takes forever. It be nice to have something in-between.

Last time I was in Japan, a typhoon hit, and was working its way up the islands. My flight up to Tokyo was already cancelled due to high winds, but I was able to get a Shinkansen ticket and arrive in time to catch my flight before Narita was affected by the Typhoon.

The flight would have been 90 minutes (not including travel time to the airport), and the train was 5 hours, but still, it was a comfortable journey and I'd do it again. If I were traveling from downtown to downtown, the airplane time would be more like 4 hours (60 minutes to get to airport with padding to get to gate on time, 90 minute flight (scheduled time is over 2 hours, but usually the flight is around 90 minutes gate to gate), then at least 90 minutes to get off the plan and catch an express bus to Tokyo.

That one does certainly depend on the amount of money the rail operator(s) invest in maintenance and upkeep, as well as how much area on the sides of the track they bought. In Germany, rail has three major issues with weather:

- during cold times, railroad switches freeze because they lack heatings and so they become stuck, and special maintenance teams have to be at standby across the country (source: was part of such a team for one season, well paid but shit that was cold)

- during storms, stuff gets blown onto the rail. Mostly dead trees, the problem is when the area next to the rails didn't get cleaned up (trees so high that they could fall into the rails are cut to a safe height or removed altogether). This can be caused either by a lack of upkeep - or because the surrounding area is not owned by the train operator

- during hot periods, the running gag in Germany is "how many trains will fuck up today?". The trains are either not properly maintained (due to a lack of funds) or simply have not been ordered with strong enough air conditioners.

tl;dr: getting rail immune from weather-related influences takes serious money. The Swiss and Japanese railroads did the proper investments and thus have next to zero weather related problems, the German railroads are seen as a cash cow ready to be milked by the politicians, consequences be damned.

But the German experience is that lack of funding is usually exaggerated as a reason. It's caused by many things, but mostly underappreciated is zoning, eminent domain (or lack thereof) as well as just basic technology.

The three main reasons for delays in Germany are:

1) suicides (up to two per day in the whole of Germany)

2) trees/branches falling on cables/tracks

3) train system overheating

Also rail is affected by

4) catastrophes that are happening next to the tracks: As rail tracks usually are next to industrial areas a burning industrial plant usually brings all train traffic to halt.

5) Germany being densely populated: Cars get stuck on crossings and trucks get stuck under rail bridges constantly.

6) forced interruptions, e.g. by people who steal power lines.

(4), (5) and (6) have nothing to do with rail funding. (1) Suicides are not caused by a lack of funding. (3) System collapses are caused by money restraints, but those trains were designed decades ago and the Bahn usually manages heating issues pretty well by shutting off single wagons.

On 2 (wood interrupting trains): A problem that would disappear if the Bahn could enforce a buffer zone around its tracks, where trees are to be cut off. But due to environmentalists, noise and zoning restrictions, the Bahn has to play gardener and spend millions on cutting trees each day.

Oh yes they do. There is a total lack of redundancy in the German network, which was only recently shown when that Rheintalbahn tunnel caved in during construction and took out the major traffic artery above for months.

1) Suicides: they can be prevented by walling off the tracks, which is thankfully done for the new high speed routes and as rework to existing routes. In addition to preventing suicides these also prevent wildlife accidents (a herd of sheep, for example, caused an ICE to derail in a tunnel once).

Ad 5) this could be solved by removing at-level crossings (and remotely supervising those which cannot be removed) and by reworking those bridges that get often hit by cars. This is a lack of funding.

Ad 6) walling off the tracks would help there too. Or providing enough rail service even at nighttimes...

Yeah we get these too, but that's just delays, not the complete shutdown of the entire country's railroad system for sometimes days like last autumn after storm Xavier.

I think I was lucky since I avoided the worst of the latest storm. I just had a lot of delays on my first day of work this year: they had a tree fallen on the tracks, but they had managed to keep a few trains rolling.

http://www.caltrain.com/Assets/__Agendas+and+Minutes/JPB/Boa...

http://www.caltrain.com/projectsplans/CaltrainModernization/...

As long as you're still alive in 2022 (and there are no more funding issues caused by the tie-in to HSR), it will happen within your lifetime.

Should have happened a decade or more ago, but Caltrain is the underfunded stepchild with the bulk of transit dollars going to BART.

It's not particularly feasible in the US to convert freight-dominated lines to electric. Modern freight generally uses the double-stacked container as its loading gauge, and electric catenaries would sit several feet below the top of the double-stack container--the standard height for a bilevel in the US is 14.5 ft, but the double-stacked container runs to 20 ft.

http://testplant.blogspot.dk/2013/09/electrification-clearan...

Currently not feasible because of high battery prices but realistic in 1-2 decades. And losses are lower than for electrified rail.

Busy routes are still better electrified but the huge US freight rail network would likely be cheaper to convert that way.

It would be... unpopular... to have an electrified third rail, at ground level, that you have to step directly over at a station or running directly through a city street. Somebody would surely trip on it or it could get touched by a little kid.

Third rail systems are usually only used when the tracks are physically inaccessible to passengers or other pedestrians.

Absolutely -- IMHO for mid-distance (200 mi to 500 mi or so) trips, Amtrak is a really underrated option. I travel semi-often from Pittsburgh to NYC (450 mi) and choose train over flights because it's actually not that much slower (consider to/from airport, security, and (de)boarding, as you say) and it's much more comfortable: I can walk up and down the whole train, with no fasten-seatbelt sign to stop me; there's a cafe car; I have about 2 feet of legroom; there is reliable AC power and functional wifi. I just make it a work-from-train day and all's well.

Boston to DC doesn't really make sense though unless I've just decided to work on the train for the day so I don't need to deal with the airport (and probably pay more to do so).

Other than that, it's hard to justify train from Boston. I looked at it once to Chicago and it made utterly no sense either in terms of time or cost given that I'm going to get a sleeper on a trip like that.

That's assuming euro-style cities where you probably want to go from one urban center to an other though: plane requires going outside the city (to the airport) in advance due to security procedure, waiting for security and boarding, then at the destination going from airport to city center.

With HSRs, the stations are in or relatively close to city centers (usually easily accessible through public transportation), you can arrive 5mn (or less) before departure, delays may be somewhat less common (though the justification differs e.g. suicides on the track is not an issue for planes) and you arrive at the city center with better travel comfort. Especially for people sensitive to air pressure.

If you want to spice it up, check out Southern Airways Express[0]. You can fly between Pittsburgh and Lancaster for as little as $30 on a tiny little 8-to-10-seat plane, which is a really unique and scenic experience. Catch a ride to the Lancaster Amtrak where there are a lot more options for getting to NYC.

I've done Megabus and Greyhound on return trips. You get what you pay for. But if you happen to live in the North Hills, the bus depot for Megabus is in Ohio Township and if you ask nicely they'll let you ride up there.

[0]: https://iflysouthern.com/

The only downside is that it's on a once-per-day schedule (Pgh->NYC at 7:30am and NYC->Pgh at 10:50am). It's 8-9 hr downtown-to-downtown (vs. ~5-6 when flying) so you'd really want to do Fri/Mon for a weekend. FWIW, there are three or four Megabuses per day too, including an overnight bus in each direction, for when the train schedule doesn't work.

Also, flying to NYC from Pgh is oddly expensive, like $400 roundtrip expensive. Amtrak is about $150 RT if far enough in advance.

Anyway, welcome to Pittsburgh! I hope you're surviving the snow...

In all fairness, how many incidents will it take before boarding a train means 30 minutes of security theater?

In fairness, I believe there's no indication the TSA will appear anywhere but airports anytime soon.

That lasted like two days.

But yeah, planes have a nasty habit of offering to amplify an attack of a certain magnitude by falling out of the sky and killing everyone on board, and potentially quite a few not on board. Trains just doesn't do that. The 7/7 attacks in London (bombs on three trains and a bus) resulted in probably an order of magnitude less loss of life than the same bombs on planes would have.

But I don't know about high speed trains. The first and last coaches are often first class, I'm not sure I've seen them on the inside.

But, much like I am not a lawyer, I am also not a train engineer. Or even a railfan. So I am probably completely wrong.

I do appreciate Amtrak keeping TSA out, in any case.

I have found the term for the more modern type: "Multiple Unit" [0]. Smaller motors are installed on many axles, the same as a metro train. It seems they're more reliable and cheaper to run (less wear on the track due to a better distribution of weight), but I agree with the noise issue — I prefer it when I travel on a locomotive-hauled train, since the interior is close to silent.

A site like [1] has a few train interior (and exterior) photos aimed at foreign tourists in Europe, rather than railfans. [2] will get boring quickly, but shows a European view of modern intercity trains.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_unit

[1] https://www.seat61.com/France.htm

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-u1a2WswpI

If aircraft are any guide, until someone on the train drives a high-speed train off of a track into a skyscraper, national defense headquarters, and/or something similar causing massive non-passenger casualties and economic damages, it won't happen, even with lots of incidents, some of which result in complete loss of passengers.

Blowing up a train somewhere is not more dangerous than blowing up a car in the middle of a motorway.

But I like the train when I have the time. I took Amtrak when I moved to California. And I've taken it up to Portland and Seattle, but flew back, as it's much faster and cheaper.

It's fun to sleep on the train in your own cabin. Just very expensive. And that is subsidized by the government to a degree.

e.g. if you're in Silicon Valley, won't you still need 1 hour to drive to SF? Even if there's a station in, like, Mountain View, isn't it still 30 minutes from places like San Jose? Once you arrive in LA, isn't likely that you'll need a car again from the station to your destination? And also for eating, commuting and other daily necessities?

You seem to be talking like the security theatre in airports is never going to come to rail? Have you ever been on the NY subway?

Have you ever been on the NYC subway? Has something changed recently?

Once the land is purchased, levelled, and conditioned you now have a space that can have trains running on it for the next fifty, one hundred, or more years. Look at the UK's railway lines, some of them have been operating for two hundred years and counting.

This type of short term thinking is why infrastructure spending in the US is at an all time low. Instead of spending for tens of years into the future, we only evaluate the costs relative to the next five years and therefore make decisions more valuable to tomorrow than next week.

Once CA buys this route, they own this route forever. And in a state gaining more and more people every day, cutting out land for infrastructure is only going to get more painful in time.

Look at the route California's HSR takes [1]. That's a map drawn for short-term political gains, not long-term utility.

Unless we develop technology that cancels out inertia, that track is speed limited for much of its route. Comparing non-American infrastructure costs and benefits to American infrastructure is misguided because American infrastructure costs unreasonably more [2].

[1] http://www.ushsr.com/images/632_CA_HSR_Phasing_632.jpg

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

It did feel like this to me at the time (and was widely discussed as such) but having used the HSR Japan and Germany I reflected and realized they really helped the smaller cities to thrive. Tying Fresno and Bakersfield into the economies of LA and the Bay Area will be great for all concerned, relieving pressure on the megalopolises and expanding he economic opportunities of the Central Valley.

Can you elaborate why you believe the comparison is misguided?

It costs more because it costs more is self evident, but doesn't suffice as an explanation in depth.

I linked to a New York Times article [1] that analyses the issue well. For a shorter, bloggier read try this CityLab piece [2].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

[2] https://www.citylab.com/life/2014/04/7-reasons-us-infrastruc...

That doesn't explain why you believe a non-US comparison is misguided, rather it supports the notion of a non-US comparison.

US infrastructure projects cost more because the US isn't Japan or Europe would be a neat summary.

So you skimmed one article and didn't read the other. Here:

"The Times observed construction on site in Paris, which is building a project similar to the Second Avenue subway at one-sixth the cost."

Most of the factors in the CityLab piece are uniquely American. We pay more for the same infrastructure. Something that makes economic sense for one country may not for America, just as a tractor may make sense for a farmer at $100,000 but not at $10 million. Our inflated costs throw out of whack the balance of costs and benefits that makes certain infrastructure value adding abroad.

TL; DR We can't automatically assume infrastructure that works abroad works here.

The issue is in the absence of effective controls on corruption, it's in the self-interest of those holding the reigns to buy a $3 billion tunnel for $12 billion if the latter nets them $10 million in "campaign contributions"

I’m not interested in starting a union/anti-union fight. Please.

I'm not taking issue with the fact that similar infrastructure projects have different costs in different countries, nor that there are reasons as to why this is.

I'm trying to understand why you think the comparison is misguided.

Only by way of comparison are we able to ascertain that the US is, probably, paying too much for infrastructure.

I mean, this whole conversation is predicated on the comparison.

It's not that the similar infrastructure can't work in the US; it's that for reasons-known similar infrastructure may be untenable. If the infrastructure was built anyway, say by an Act Of God, it would probably still function as expected.

Can you explain why? For example comparing NYC's subway to Paris' subway. Why would one be more expensive than the other, since I don't think the base cost are that different

(I'm not from the US, I'm just trying to understand your point)

Critical qualifier: in the United States. The British rail system, as I understand it, runs with significantly lower variable costs than e.g. Amtrak or BART.

You're right that short term thinking and underinvestment in infrastructure is a problem. But you have to choose your projects intelligently: things like revamping BART and New York's MTA, and taking better care of the most-used roads and bridges are far far better uses of public money.

Part of the reason we underinvest in infrastructure is that people see these pointless multi-billion-dollar boondoggles and cry out their money is being wasted. If you really want more spending on infrastructure, give up on your dream projects and spend on things that will actually make a big difference in people's lives.

This desperately needs the support of at least one such “well thought out” cost/benefit analysis.

Good point. The government may not run all the trains[0], but the rail companies help with congestion and up-keep as well. And that is just the trains running on the National Rail, not including private rail lines.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_operating_tr...

That could be the reason why flying is 4x cheaper than trains there.

Most of Europe pays less for a superior experience. Reasons: Europeans literally rebuilt their networks from scratch post-WWII, and used the chance to electrify and modernise most of them - whereas Britain, that was bombed much less, just kept using very old lines (most of them are STILL not electric, in 2018, which is absurd). That's investment failure #1, driven by short-sightedness.

Then you have the privatisation shenanigans from the 90s onward. This is investment failure #2: in order to reduce running costs and avoid having to deal with running trains, every few years taxpayers end up paying huge one-off sums that basically offset any potential savings. In the rest of Europe, despite attempts at privatisation, the old state-funded companies still dominate, achieving economies of scale and efficiencies that private competitors will never be able to match.

So maybe it would be worse with one or more private companies, but public companies are no silver bullet and will fail sometime.

Where did you get your info about train production? I would be interested how the figures vary from country to country.

But then there is some local knowledge to add, like the fact that pretty much all factories left are just tweakers for the internal market (narrow-gauging and so on), afaik the only one with significant production and occasional export is Bombardier in Derby - which got very close to shutting down around year 2000 and is basically run from Berlin anyway. Most European factories, despite some consolidation after the EU common market reached full gear, still pump out trains sold around the world - and then you have Japan and China that play on a different level.

Afaik the best trains in the UK are all bought from abroad at the moment. Things might change with the HS2 (high-speed) project that should be tendered out this year [1], but note how the main candidates are basically just reselling Japanese tech.

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38684010

Mythbusters already tried this experiment, and they were able drive from SF to LA door to door in the same time it took to fly, end to end, 5 - 6 hrs.

If you've ever traveled between cities in France or Japan on high speed rail you know its infinitely better than an airport. I can arrive at an Shinkansen 5 minutes before departure, travel a similar distance between SF->LA in 2.5hrs or less, in a super comfortable train, that I'm free to walk around it. At my destination, getting to/from the high speed rail is also super-convenient, hassle free, doesn't require driving, and overall, is cheap.

Short distance air travel is majorly annoying no matter the cost. I hate the airport in/out experience.

- You always know how much the ticket will cost, no matter if you buy it the same day.

- If you had a reserved seat but you missed your train, just take the next one and go to the free seat area. Also, if you didn't have reserved seat and the free seat area is full, wait 15 minutes and take the next train.

(And yes, you can fly Tokyo - Osaka for cheaper than a Shinkansen ride, but the convenience of the Shinkansen is really higher than any flight.)

- While it's completely acceptable to eat fermented fish out of a bento box using your phone to make calls is a comlete no!no!

That leads to a very quiet, peaceful and smooth train experience.

Also, if you visit Japan as a foreigner look at JR Rail Pass. A three week pass for the green car (1st class) will cost ~80'000 yen ($720) and is a comperative bargain if you make use of it.

For example: Tokyo to Sapporo [which is Shinkansen to Hakodate only] and back is more than 92K.

OMG I regret so much that I didn't take advantage of that when I was on a tourist visa... :'/

This doesn't make a lot of sense in LA; you're going to a need a car wherever you end up -- it's huge sprawl; and most people aren't visiting to go to downtown LA, so they probably need a car. Can I rent a car at Union Station? Maybe (if I get there before 5pm), but do they have room to accommodate a larger facility needed if the volume increases? I can rent one at LAX, LGB, SNA, BUR, or any of the other LA area airports I forgot about.

If only someone had thought to include regional transit improvements alongside and coordinated with HSR.

Oh, wait, wait, they did.

I expect HSR money is going to get Caltrain grade separation and electrification done, which seemed like it would take 30-50 years otherwise, even though it was planned to finish in 10 years for the last 20 years.

I typically show up roughly 60-45 minutes prior to flight time, so 15-30 minutes before boarding. By the time I get through security the plane is typically just starting to board and I walk right on.

I have gotten my door to door times between MSP and ORD to just over (sometimes under if I get lucky on train to city) 3 hours including a 20 minute Uber on one end and a 40 minute train ride into the city on the other. Pretty similar distances involved. That's basically 2 hours from dropoff and pickup at the airports for an hour flight.

> going through onerous security

I imagine that in the US, this will be much the same. Or will be the moment after the first attack on a train. I don't see any long-term security gains here, the US is simply not Europe.

Not that I think air travel is a decent replacement for high speed rail though, it's not. The security and time delays related to that I simply think are a long-term red herring within the US. Mostly because I remember air travel prior to 9/11.

I also think comparing a single high speed rail line built in isolation to Europe or Japan isn't all that great of a comparison. In Japan or Europe I arrive in a train terminal and transfer to the local rapid transit that pretty much covers every city and every neighborhood I'd ever want to go to in a reasonable manner. The US... doesn't.

Even in Israel you don't have that kind of security check before boarding a train.

I don't know that we're making the right trade from atmospheric pollution co2 vs the pollution of throwing away batteries.

Traveling from city center to city center is also a far less stressful way to travel, and you can do things like work on a train that make TAXI -> AIRPORT LINES -> TERMINAL WAITING -> PLANE -> BAGGAGE CLAIM -> TAXI annoying.

But if you built a major infrastructure that could make SF or LA a morning commute, it'd sure do some interesting things to population distributions and land prices.

This is what we are competing with: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KM7B_auaBgE/UNr_iYv1v-I/AAAAAAAAAY... This is unlikely to get us there: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Fresno_C...

Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka is the busiest rail line in the world and there are a lot of stations between these two cities. The fastest train, Nozomi only has 6 stops and runs every 15 minutes.

The market size for SF to LA and back is not large enough to justify rail with no stops. Its not even close, even assuming monopolistic market shares. And airlines have shown extreme willingness to compete with rail on price grounds, and they could take half that market easily even with trains going top speed.

Sorry if that burns your dreams of fast rail to the ground, but it is objectively the most financially responsible way to build. It can actually pay for itself that way, whereas it would be America's biggest boondoggle if they took your advice.

https://traintimes.org.uk/KGX/EDB

These are high speed trains, but Britain hasn't upgraded the tracks, so they run at less than full speed. But the door design and number of passengers is what matters for the duration of a stop at a station, and as you can see, it's around 1-3 minutes.

It's certainly a factor, but it's not like the long distance Amtrack train I once used, which stopped for 5-15 minutes at most stops.

Which would be useless without the billions spent in maintenance every year for the roads and other maintenance. Its such a silly argument. If you include the full cost of airport construction it wouldn't be so pretty either. Having heterogeneous forms of transit is an intrinsic benefit as each are better under certain weather conditions and use cases.

You need to consider capital investment required for that air travel: How much does it cost to build the airports, repair centers, specialized land equipment, etc. to enable 640 billion passenger miles, and buy all the land required? Then you need to add airplane purchase costs - that's not optional either; before you even get to operating costs.

You need to of course include airports for each city on the trains' route. The train goes through a massive population corridor across dozens of towns and cities, not just SF and LA. What's the capital cost of connecting these people to air travel?

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/The-Great-Race-car-vs-pla...

Additionally there's the problem of airport expansion. There aren't a lot of palatable options as filling in the bay is (rightfully) a non-starter for most people. High speed rail wouldn't replace air travel but it would complement it (especially with the related regional improvements like electrifying Caltrain).

I've already invested into making flying comfortable. Lounge-access credit cards, Global Entry (which grants TSA Pre-check), upgrade-giving status, et cetera. I'd need trip time or cost cut in half relative to air travel to make switching worth it.

I'm not the median consumer. But weighted by likely usage, I'm closer to the average.

Anecdotally: people where I work do a lot of traveling between our NYC and DC offices. Only one person flies rather than taking Amtrak...

Train is easy, consistent and comfortable. Always power, Wi-Fi and cell signal too.

Fair enough. I'm an infrequent NYC-DC commuter. And my preferred mode to JFK from the city is via the LIRR, a rail route. It takes longer, most of the time, but less time on average. Most importantly: it's consistent.

* How often you travel

* How much you will be able to take advantage of perks

* How close you are to various terminals/airports

* How far you regularly need to go

* How you like to travel (fast & cramped, slow & spacious)

etc.

The train will stop at SFO and BUR -- if the train's last-mile delivery is better then we should focus on that last-mile rather than the stretch in the middle that is already well-solved.

Make sure you put a winged pony on the shopping list too. They're a great fashionable match any time you're making fantasies of acquiring things that don't exist.

The high-speed rail project is a shit show, but more cars is not the answer either.

Only rich people and people in and out of a car all day (full time parents, car-based workers, etc) will buy them.

If the cost of the ride is less than the cost of gas, how is the operator making a profit? Especially since they have to cover more than just the cost of gas.

(an Uber-style "use VC money to subsidize below-cost services" model is not sustainable in the long term, by the way)

LA is so spread out that departing from LAX or Union Station doesn't make a big difference. Most people are going to have to fight traffic to get to either location.

The secret? TSA precheck and the Global Entry program.

Also I do not check in any luggage.

"His prints were ... taken ... when he joined the military. He became the prime suspect because of his conversion to Islam and because he had represented one of the Portland Seven...

The FBI described the fingerprint match as "100% verified". According to the court documents in judge Ann Aiken's decision, this information was largely "fabricated and concocted by the FBI and DOJ".

This is why I'm reluctant to give the govt. my fingerprints, but my friends think I'm overreacting.

$2M in taxpayer money is nothing to them. Just like the expense of incarceration didn’t bring down jail terms for minor offenses. Or settlements for police brutality haven’t affected that one iota either.

I try to be there about 30 minutes before the flight now, but with boarding pass ready on my phone. The only reason I give 30 minutes is in case of traffic or if I want to grab a quick bite. If I could guarantee my arrival time at the airport it would be even less.

Granted this rail project does not really allow for high speed either, but it's still going to be reasonable.

Regardless, I'm not talking about what's ideal or perfect; even if HSR could get me there in 2-3 hours, that's not a meaningful enough improvement over 3-3.75 hours to justify a $64B+ price tag in my book.

I doubt they are going to succeed, but in other areas it has worked.

For me it's ~20 mins driving SF to SFO, ~10 mins for TSA junk and walking to the gate, ~30 mins for waiting and boarding, then the 90 minute flight, ~15 minutes for deplaning, walking, and getting a ride, and then then anywhere from 15-60 minutes depending on where I'm going.

More airplanes doesn't increase capacity to the extent it's limited by airports. You'll need to add expanding the airports and maybe building new ones. Also, what about the stations between SF and LA?

Or, if you use cars, then you need to include widening the highways in congested areas.

Of course bus lines would be much cheaper, if we can convince people to use them. How often do you take a bus between SF and LA?

Pretty easy - electric buses with seats that resemble business class instead of Ryanair.

Why not spend (a small fraction of) that money to improve Caltrain and service between Caltrain and the central valley in a different manner?

I'm not convinced that the current HSR project is the best way to do it, but I'm also not aware of any serious counterproposal -- and it's hard to even imagine one that wouldn't also be a huge, expensive undertaking with limitless opportunity for missed schedules, cost overruns and undue optimism.

Most criticism boils down to a "perfect is the enemy of the good" problem. Anything that isn't the most perfect possible solution from a given critic's viewpoint is attacked as a "boondoggle" while ignoring that opening up the corridor and making it easier to travel between SF, LA, and smaller cities in between will be a good thing (and that there's plenty of evidence for it in similar rail lines elsewhere).

(hint: some of the money is going to be used to improve existing transit systems!)

And even if it does, this doesn't improve VTA, BART, SF Muni, etc.

The main justification for HSR is reducing freeway construction and maintenance costs that will be needed to keep up with expected travel without it that will be reduced by it.

Not dealing with pollution impacts of travel or buying cars for the freeway travel, but reducing the freeway construction and maintenance costs.

Buying a bunch of Teslas doesn't address that at all. (Actually, the state buying more cars increases the problem.)

the travel time listed is 1:30 compared to 2:30 (from numbers I heard) so you do chop off one hour of ride time.

however, air port security checks, being kicked from your seat, sf airport not directly in the city, the one hour starts to mean a whole lot less

* Trains ultimately require close to 1 staff member per 4 passengers, much more than a budget airline.

* Unions and legacy salaries further add to those personnel costs. The average Amtrak employee ($75K/yr) nearly makes as much as the average commercial pilot ($77K/yr).

* Since train journeys take longer, the labor cost per trip is considerably higher, especially for long haul routes. When you're doing a long trip like Chicago to Los Angeles, a train takes a lot longer than a plane, so you're paying for yet more labor for that trip. 44 hours of labor for the train versus 4 hours for the plane.

There's a good video that breaks down the costs that make up your train ticket: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjwePe-HmA&t=29s

Err, why? I've taken my share of commuter and Acela rides in the Northeast and there is nowhere near that level of staffing.

Maybe in the US. In Europe, a train with 500-750 people capacity has one train driver and maybe 3-4 staff (plus on-board restaurant but that's run at a profit). No staff at smaller train stations and only minimal staff at many larger ones.

Maintenance needs staff but that's the same at airports.

The author has some other really interesting (with cited sources) videos about many other transit topics, including how hub-and-spoke/direct played out in the aircraft marketplace, how budget airlines have such great profit margins, long haul aircraft economics, airline schedule methodology, etc.

Amtrak employs ~20,000 people. When you get to the number of annual passengers, and how many trips they operate a year, it breaks down to ~4 passengers per employee per trip.

Jeez! You know Tesla batteries and you don't know that high speed trains are electric?? WTH

http://cahsr.blogspot.com/2009/10/la-sf-nations-second-busie...

HSR between LA and SF would be able to handle 15+ million people per year, on top of providing routes between other cities in CA, some of which don't have anything except for bus/car routes, and it would also free up capacity for more long distance domestic and international flights.

That money could be so much better spent in ways that have an actual impact on lower income people.

HSR is not "public transit." Public transit helps lower-income people commute to their jobs. Lower income people don't travel regularly between SF and LA--they have no need to. They might do it occasionally, but they don't do it often enough where the convenience of a train is going to mean much if the train isn't any cheaper than flying.[1]

The folks who really benefit from HSR are business travelers. They're the ones who need to travel city center to city center regularly. They're the ones who really have a reason to prefer taking a train, because they can work more comfortably en route.

[1] Also, the target price ($86 one way) is a completely fantasy. At that price, it would be one of the cheapest HSR trips per mile in the world. https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/fare-cost-ride-california-b.... There is no way California is going to run the cheapest anything.

What's worse is that French, German and Dutch national rail operators have subsidiaries running rail contracts in the UK. So in a way we help fund the fantastic continental rail services...

But I understand that rail services on the continent are also heavily subsidised.

I'm in NYC and would never, ever fly to Boston or DC. For what that's worth.

1. I'm not sure how that affects my point.

2. In my experience the price difference for last minute on Amtrak has been at most about 20% (though I'm not a frequent Amtrak traveler).

Sorry but I'm super confused... 147 planes that cost $435 million each, would total 64 Billion dollars. And that appears to be 64 Billion on top of the 64 Billion you already plan on spending from above.

That cost of the project in the article has jumped to 10 Billion. Where are you getting your number from?

The total cost SF-LA is $64 billion: https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/13/confidential-report-c...

And how do I magically get from the airport to the city and city to the airport? Is it free? Is it instant?

Personally I’d much rather take a form of transit where I can bring a water bottle and avoid being groped by security for literally no rational reason at all.

Actually, the initial estimate was close to $100B. But when the public reacted with shock, they handwaived and said the cost would now be $68B. Just like that: poof! $32B knocked off the budget. Of course we all know that the initial cost was more accurate; and the final cost will be a lot more than $100B.

Southwest airlines does not solve the problem, because it does not give politicians or public sector unions or public sector unions' pensioners control over money. Only a train project can do that for them.

Highspeed rail was projected to cost less than expanding highways and airports. Not sure what it looks like with the increases. OTOH, the budgets for those other modes also tend to balloon over time.

Besides, sf to la has an additional hour+ wasted with Security and 1 hr travel time to the airport (if you live in SF).

HSR doesn't just serve the endpoints, and the passenger volume from that Cartesian set of city pairings vastly exceeds the passenger volume from the endpoints. It's not even in the same ballpark.

This doesn't improve the situation for travel between NorCal and SoCal, but I think this is already pretty well-served by air travel, as you point out.

This also doesn't help people who live in, say, Modesto or Fresno get to SoCal (they'd have to train up to SJ and fly down to LA or SD, or drive), but is fixing that really a high priority need when compared to the rest?