Would You Take a Bullet Train from Anaheim to Las Vegas?... Brightline West

[GimpYancIent]

Its use in this regards has been expanding over the last decade or so. Many countries are either developing the systems now or deploying them, China like many things is leading the way.

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As more and more countries add the capability it becomes more cost effective to go this route than traditional "slow" rail.

Propaganda pure and simple. Well presented, BUT propaganda.

 

[Disney Irish]

Propaganda pure and simple. Well presented, BUT propaganda.

Spoken like its coming right out of the mouths of the oil and automotive lobbyist.

Guess other countries haven't gotten that memo that its only propaganda. China for example has been expanding their HSR to be used for freight.

So if other countries can do it why can't the US, hmm again wonder why...

 

[DLR92]

There isn't much room to expand the highway system in many urban centers in this country, at this point its all effectively built out. The only way to expand more is taking land via eminent domain like you mentioned and knocking down living areas just to place more cars.

It is why I am so supportive of HSR in California. It will make traveling more streamlined. Allowing people to commute easier and find work and live in affordable areas without the need to move. If anything I wouldn’t mind if all major highways lost a lane for a HSR dedication on the median of the freeways. Something has to give. Cars are unreliable with affordability. It more of a luxury to have.

 

[Disney Irish]

It is why I am so supportive of HSR in California. It will make traveling more streamlined. Allowing people to commute easier and find work and live in affordable areas without the need to move. If anything I wouldn’t mind if all major highways lost a lane for a HSR dedication on the median of the freeways. Something has to give. Cars are unreliable with affordability. It more of a luxury to have.

Exactly, all we have to do is change thinking just slightly in this country. No one is trying to take cars away. But if we made it just a bit easier for those that don't want or need a car it would by in turn make it so much easier for those who do. Car ownership is no longer the status it once was, and many are starting to go without because its becoming prohibitively too expensive for what you get out of it.

And just so its clear, I say all this as someone who has a car, a regular gas guzzling car, and likes driving. But I'm also not self centered to think that just because I do that everyone else is like me. We need to stop focusing on cars as being the primary transportation method is the goal for everyone.

 

[chadwpalm]

So if other countries can do it why can't the US, hmm again wonder why...

That answer was given a couple pages ago and I agree with it:

Give me HSR between Vegas and LA at $50 a ticket and I’ll never drive that horrible 15 stretch again, at $150 a ticket I’ll keep driving.

My 47mpg hybrid can do a round trip from Vegas to Anahiem for $40-45 total. That's significantly less than a round trip on the train.......and on top of that it dumps me off 30 miles from the front gates as the crow flies, so I would have to spend even more money and time getting from Rancho Cucamonga to my hotel in Anaheim. At least if I drive I have a vehicle at my disposal while I'm there for a few days.

It is why I am so supportive of HSR in California. It will make traveling more streamlined. Allowing people to commute easier and find work and live in affordable areas without the need to move. If anything I wouldn’t mind if all major highways lost a lane for a HSR dedication on the median of the freeways. Something has to give. Cars are unreliable with affordability. It more of a luxury to have.

I don't know if you live in California or particularly anywhere near the Bay Area, but in the late 90's and early 2000's (and to a certain degree now), people from the Bay Area moved in droves out to the Central Valley to buy their $120,000 homes and live in a much cheaper cost-of-living area and commute daily back to the Bay Area to their tech jobs. If you drive that commute over the Altamont pass it's like 3 hours each way just to go 60 miles.

So they built the ACE train, which literally stands for Altamont Commuter Express. My friend took it from Lathrop to San Jose every day and it still took 2 hours to make the trip (it's obviously not high speed). Did that reduce the congestion on 580 over the Altamont? Not in the slightest. It did NOT make that commute more streamlined in any way.

Caltrain goes down to Morgan Hill and Gilroy where people also moved to find more affordable living.....and guess what......101 is STILL jam packed.

The Bay Area has BART, Caltrain, Lightrail, and buses, and are the highways less congested because of them? Nope. It still took 30-40 minutes to go 7 miles down 237 in the morning.......unless you want to pay like $75/month for Fastrack.

At my previous job before I moved, I lived right next to a Lightrail station. My job was across the street from another one. The monthly Lightrail pass would have cost more than gas and after one transfer would have still taken almost 2 hours to get there when I could drive it in 17 minutes.

Sure a lot of people don't seem to mind it, but I was never the "get home at 8pm, go to bed at 9pm so you can wake up at 5am and do it all over again" kind of person. The degradation on quality of life was never worth it to me.

It'll be several decades from now when people living in the cheaper Merced, Madera or Fresno areas will be able to take HSR straight into the Bay Area without having to transfer to something like Caltrain first.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I swear our phones eavesdrop

That answer was given a couple pages ago and I agree with it:

My 47mpg hybrid can do a round trip from Vegas to Anahiem for $40-45 total. That's significantly less than a round trip on the train.......and on top of that it dumps me off 30 miles from the front gates as the crow flies, so I would have to spend even more money and time getting from Rancho Cucamonga to my hotel in Anaheim. At least if I drive I have a vehicle at my disposal while I'm there for a few days.


I don't know if you live in California or particularly anywhere near the Bay Area, but in the late 90's and early 2000's (and to a certain degree now), people from the Bay Area moved in droves out to the Central Valley to buy their $120,000 homes and live in a much cheaper cost-of-living area and commute daily back to the Bay Area to their tech jobs. If you drive that commute over the Altamont pass it's like 3 hours each way just to go 60 miles.

So they built the ACE train, which literally stands for Altamont Commuter Express. My friend took it from Lathrop to San Jose every day and it still took 2 hours to make the trip (it's obviously not high speed). Did that reduce the congestion on 580 over the Altamont? Not in the slightest. It did NOT make that commute more streamlined in any way.

Caltrain goes down to Morgan Hill and Gilroy where people also moved to find more affordable living.....and guess what......101 is STILL jam packed.

The Bay Area has BART, Caltrain, Lightrail, and buses, and are the highways less congested because of them? Nope. It still took 30-40 minutes to go 7 miles down 237 in the morning.......unless you want to pay like $75/month for Fastrack.

At my previous job before I moved, I lived right next to a Lightrail station. My job was across the street from another one. The monthly Lightrail pass would have cost more than gas and after one transfer would have still taken almost 2 hours to get there when I could drive it in 17 minutes.

Sure a lot of people don't seem to mind it, but I was never the "get home at 8pm, go to bed at 9pm so you can wake up at 5am and do it all over again" kind of person. The degradation on quality of life was never worth it to me.

It'll be several decades from now when people living in the cheaper Merced, Madera or Fresno areas will be able to take HSR straight into the Bay Area without having to transfer to something like Caltrain first.

That’s why my earlier comment said for $50 I’d take Brightline, at the proposed $100+ I’ll keep driving, I don’t mind paying a little more to save some time and for the added convenience, but 2x3 times the cost isn’t “a little more”, and that’s as a single individual, for a family of 4 the train tickets likely need to be $25 to convince them not to simply drive, the financials have to make sense or it’s doomed to fail.

 

[networkpro]

Only if you're think of it as isolated to human transport.8

Goods are produced

Spoken like its coming right out of the mouths of the oil and automotive lobbyist.

Guess other countries haven't gotten that memo that its only propaganda. China for example has been expanding their HSR to be used for freight.

So if other countries can do it why can't the US, hmm again wonder why...

If you look at the finances of China's HSR it's all paid for by the central government and is all debt. . 850 billion and climbing.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Been talking trains all morning and this is the top suggestion on my YouTube, creepy what tech can do, in many ways this reminds me of the Cal HSR, the obvious choice was the airport to the downtown area but that’s the priciest bit so it was easier/cheaper to start with the section to Kualaka’i… and as a result ridership is really struggling.



I suspect when the CSHR finally opens its first phase it’s going to have the same problem, very few people are going to use a HSR that’s limited to the central valley, without a connection to LA and SF it’s never going to make sense.

The Skyline is hoping to be connected to downtown Honolulu in a decade, if they can accomplish that it’ll likely be packed all day long, if they could get it to Waikiki it would be incredible, we recently went to Vancouver and took the train from their airport to downtown and it was packed, and a very easy way to get to where we needed to be.

 

[Disney Irish]

Goods are produced

Sorry not understanding your point here.

If you look at the finances of China's HSR it's all paid for by the central government and is all debt. . 850 billion and climbing.

And? That is why I said a page ago this is why in most countries this a public works project. And it should be here too rather than solely private funding or even a combined public/private funding, just like the highway system. China is also building out almost as many miles of HSR as the US has in highways. And if you built out the US highway system today it would cost ~$2T. So China is building out their HSR for cheaper than it would cost to build out an equivalent highway system.

 

[Disney Irish]

That answer was given a couple pages ago and I agree with it:

If you posted something maybe I missed it sorry.

My 47mpg hybrid can do a round trip from Vegas to Anahiem for $40-45 total. That's significantly less than a round trip on the train.......and on top of that it dumps me off 30 miles from the front gates as the crow flies, so I would have to spend even more money and time getting from Rancho Cucamonga to my hotel in Anaheim. At least if I drive I have a vehicle at my disposal while I'm there for a few days.

Yes but not everyone can afford a hybrid or even wants the expense.

I don't know if you live in California or particularly anywhere near the Bay Area, but in the late 90's and early 2000's (and to a certain degree now), people from the Bay Area moved in droves out to the Central Valley to buy their $120,000 homes and live in a much cheaper cost-of-living area and commute daily back to the Bay Area to their tech jobs. If you drive that commute over the Altamont pass it's like 3 hours each way just to go 60 miles.

So they built the ACE train, which literally stands for Altamont Commuter Express. My friend took it from Lathrop to San Jose every day and it still took 2 hours to make the trip (it's obviously not high speed). Did that reduce the congestion on 580 over the Altamont? Not in the slightest. It did NOT make that commute more streamlined in any way.

Caltrain goes down to Morgan Hill and Gilroy where people also moved to find more affordable living.....and guess what......101 is STILL jam packed.

The Bay Area has BART, Caltrain, Lightrail, and buses, and are the highways less congested because of them? Nope. It still took 30-40 minutes to go 7 miles down 237 in the morning.......unless you want to pay like $75/month for Fastrack.

At my previous job before I moved, I lived right next to a Lightrail station. My job was across the street from another one. The monthly Lightrail pass would have cost more than gas and after one transfer would have still taken almost 2 hours to get there when I could drive it in 17 minutes.

Sure a lot of people don't seem to mind it, but I was never the "get home at 8pm, go to bed at 9pm so you can wake up at 5am and do it all over again" kind of person. The degradation on quality of life was never worth it to me.

It'll be several decades from now when people living in the cheaper Merced, Madera or Fresno areas will be able to take HSR straight into the Bay Area without having to transfer to something like Caltrain first.

But imagine how much more time could be saved with ACE if it was more akin to HSR? They are already working to get the speeds above 100MPH. So that should cut down the travel time from 2 hours to under 90 minutes. And once it does it make it more attractive to driving and would cut down on the number of cars on the road.

 

[networkpro]

Sorry not understanding your point here.


And? That is why I said a page ago this is why in most countries this a public works project. And it should be here too rather than solely private funding or even a combined public/private funding, just like the highway system. China is also building out almost as many miles of HSR as the US has in highways. And if you built out the US highway system today it would cost ~$2T. So China is building out their HSR for cheaper than it would cost to build out an equivalent highway system.

We have a highway system already that serves us well in spite of attempts that may or may not produce more results than a few instances. Trains for transporting people are political in the US ever since they became un profitable and were abandoned all except a government financed and unionized Amtrack.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

We have a highway system already that serves us well in spite of attempts that may or may not produce more results than a few instances. Trains for transporting people are political in the US ever since they became un profitable and were abandoned all except a government financed and unionized Amtrack.

Our highway system is barely hanging on in many cities, here in Vegas it was managing just fine 10 years ago when we had 2.3 million people in the metro area, now we’re at 3 million and it feels very similar to LA, and that’s despite continuous highway expansion.

I think highways work amazingly well until you cross into the multi-million person population range, at a certain point you have to switch to some sort of mass transit to keep up though, Houston is the perfect example, a 26 lane freeway and it still has traffic jams, at a certain population point you simply can’t pave yourself out of the problem anymore.

Edited to add… I could be fairly easily convinced we don’t need HSR between cities but we desperately need mass transit in our metro areas.

 

[networkpro]

Edited to add… I could be fairly easily convinced we don’t need HSR between cities but we desperately need mass transit in our metro areas.

Agreed that metroplitian mass transit is needed, but not necessarily the current political hot potato where unions can, upon a whim, terminate service. Its not somethingyou see in Japan, but they are decentralized and offer multiple modes and speeds of transit by many different companies. Implementation of any monopoly system is toxic as its used by various groups for control.

 

[Disney Irish]

We have a highway system already that serves us well in spite of attempts that may or may not produce more results than a few instances. Trains for transporting people are political in the US ever since they became un profitable and were abandoned all except a government financed and unionized Amtrack.

It serves us well in traffic jams, road rage, and overall health problems for the people that sit in many hours of traffic every day.

We have to stop this either/or stance when it comes to these discussions. Having HSR or other forms of transit doesn't mean outright dropping cars and the highway system. This is the boogieman fearmongering argument that gets pushed over and over, and it keeps being pushed by those that profit from it, and it needs to stop. There is no reason why people who love their cars need to feel threatened just because investments are made into alternative forms of transportation.

 

[networkpro]

We have to stop this either/or stance when it comes to these discussions. Having HSR or other forms of transit doesn't mean outright dropping cars and the highway system. This is the boogieman fearmongering argument that gets pushed over and over, and it keeps being pushed by those that profit from it, and it needs to stop. There is no reason why people who love their cars need to feel threatened just because investments are made into alternative forms of transportation.

Agreed, but when it comes to condeming private lands that have been in families for generations so Urbanite one can travel from one strip mall to another, there exists no sanity check or balance as one side has thier finger on the scales.

 

[Disney Irish]

Agreed, but when it comes to condeming private lands that have been in families for generations so Urbanite one can travel from one strip mall to another, there exists no sanity check or balance as one side has thier finger on the scales.

This is why using public lands already available is the quicker route, similar to what @Vegas Disney Fan mentioned Brightline is doing.

This is why I always thought the original CA HSR route was the best, it used mostly public lands with little need to uproot anyone. However too much NIMBY and other "things" caused it to be redirected and as a result needing to buy out private lands and causing costs to skyrocket. It would have been cheaper and faster had they just stuck to the original plans, but things being the way they are fingers got into the pie for political reasons and we are where we are now.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Agreed that metroplitian mass transit is needed, but not necessarily the current political hot potato where unions can, upon a whim, terminate service. It’s not somethingyou see in Japan, but they are decentralized and offer multiple modes and speeds of transit by many different companies. Implementation of any monopoly system is toxic as it’s used by various groups for control.

Politics is definitely a major problem for public transport, both pro mass transit and con mass transit.

When they built the monorail here in Vegas the taxi cab authority successfully convinced those in power that it it would have a negative affect on their industry and their employees so they voted against it going to the airport… even though anyone with a speck of common sense knew that was exactly where it was needed. Instead of building what made sense they spent a fortune building a monorail to nowhere that’s never made money and never has enough passengers to justify it… all because big money donors used their influence to kill the initial plan that made sense.

CHSR had similar problems, the common sense route didn’t happen because the only way they could get enough support was by routing it through smaller cities, which added billions in cost and years in delays, and didn’t really make sense for ridership, they needed the votes though so that’s what they proposed.

Between NIMBYism and outside influence in politics I’m amazed anything gets built anywhere.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

This is why using public lands already available is the quicker route, similar to what @Vegas Disney Fan mentioned Brightline is doing.

This is why I always thought the original CA HSR route was the best, it used mostly public lands with little need to uproot anyone. However too much NIMBY and other "things" caused it to be redirected and as a result needing to buy out private lands and causing costs to skyrocket. It would have been cheaper and faster had they just stuck to the original plans, but things being the way they are fingers got into the pie for political reasons and we are where we are now.

Funny we were writing similar posts at the same time, outside influence is the death of most public projects here, I watched a show on CHSR not that long ago where they said approximately 75% of the cost would end up going to litigation and only 25% would actually go to construction. What a huge waste of money.

 

[networkpro]

Sorry not understanding your point here.

My apologies. I was having a mediocre Boma dinner and got interrupted. What my point was supposed to be was goods in the majority of the US are not produced or imported anywhere near where they are consumed. It requires a myriad of methods to keep logistics even at a bumpy stage. Back to the original topic of the Brightline from the burbs of LA to Las Vegas, a single line can't support the needs where everything comes from somewhere else. I use to live in Arlington VA and reverse commuted to Quantico. All food, fuel, and utilities came from at least 100 miles away.

 

[Disney Irish]

My apologies. I was having a mediocre Boma dinner and got interrupted. What my point was supposed to be was goods in the majority of the US are not produced or imported anywhere near where they are consumed. It requires a myriad of methods to keep logistics even at a bumpy stage.

And this is my point as well. Goods come in on ships for example into Los Angeles, Long Beach and other ports on the west coast and get shipped all over the country. No reason that shipping once it reaches the ports can't be done via HSR from the ports to a distribution hub where it then gets trucked out to the local regions for that "last mile". Basically you just replace slower rail with HSR, same network just different vehicle for doing it much faster. Again many countries are moving in that direction, the US is just so far behind in that because of political reasons.

The logistics behind it make sense for so many reasons, we just lack the political will in this country to make it happen.

Back to the original topic of the Brightline from the burbs of LA to Las Vegas, a single line can't support the needs where everything comes from somewhere else. I use to live in Arlington VA and reverse commuted to Quantico. All food, fuel, and utilities came from at least 100 miles away.

No one is saying a single line is the answer for supporting everything. But if you don't start with one the rest never come. It has to start somewhere.