Like it or not California, it's about time you folks ponied up for a serious rail system. With the recent passage of Proposition 1A, the wheels have started to churn on a sophisticated bullet train system that will eventually link San Diego in the south with Sacramento in the north, with stops at most every major city in between (LA and San Francisco included). The 800-mile network of trains would operate at upwards of 220mph and cost around $45 billion to construct, but it'll create 320,000 permanent jobs by 2030 and reduce the state's reliance on fossil fuel by 12.7 million barrels of oil per year. Unfortunately, there's no set time frame for completion just yet, but we wouldn't be surprised to see this one finished before that
Anaheim - Las Vegas maglev project even gets off the ground.
[Via
BoingBoing]
posted Nov 8th 2008 4:37PM
No love for the central coast? Dang :\
seriously, whats up with that
I think that central coast you speak of is the part that scientists are predicting will fall off into the Pacific.
Waste not, want not.
;)
@miko:
lol nice.
for the time being, us Californians only have to worry about California breaking off from the united states. to go hang with Hawaii. alaska can come too..
THEE END!
Look at the political map... Nobody wants to pay taxes... Draw the conclusion...
This will be great to link back-ass backward towns like Merced with the rest of the real world. Maybe we won't have such dumba** questionable votes in the future.
now we just need Top Gear to race a ZR1 from sac town to la ;)...in the next decade when it's done ;)
@Steve
You're from the Merced area as well?
Seriously! I live on the central coast and voted against this money pit.
Cali nearly ran into serious cash flow problems last month before they were able to sell $8 billion in bonds for short-term financing. All the billion $ bond measures on November's ballot are gonna sink us even further into debt. WTF people!?!?!
http://www.purple-twinkie.com/FlashMovies/EndWorld.asp
In case anyone was wondering what user "a ham sandwich" was talking about. Very old animated short. I just watched it again a couple months ago in fact.
can somebody run through this article and tell me how many times my precious phanbouy commented? he is a man on fire, i am losing count. i think we're right around "getting pathetic" or 20 or so.
i guess it's just not worth the cost. the central valley's gonna experience a ton of growth in the coming decades - way more than the central coast.
oh maglev where art thou ??
fast
In your face, Japan! USA, USA!
What if you spit out the window at top speed? Could it kill a man?
yes and 45 billion dollars on the line it damn well better be. Damn 800miles is like 1 300 km thats seriously epic we need that in Australia.
The Las Vegas plan will get under way WHEN HALIBURTON DAMN WELL FEELS LIKE IT! K?
In your face, Japan? What did you drink?
The fastest trains are still in Japan, France, China and Germany.
The likelihood is that California is going to purchase a train from a company like Kawasaki who recently announced a 350kph(217mph) efSET train to be designed for the US and China markets specifically, and it'll be ready by 2010.
So its really not in the face of the Japanese.
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/09/japans-new-bull.html
"An efSET network in the United States would revolutionize train travel. A trip between Boston and New York would be cut to less than an hour. Los Angeles to San Francisco would take less than two hours and a run from Miami to Atlanta would be done in three hours and change."
Cali is broke as hell and they want to build 45 billion train???!! Guess everyone is lining up for their Obama entitlement...
I have been waiting by my mailbox since Wednesday and Obamas check still has not arrived.
holy off topic batman!
haha does anyone else see the o_O face in his name... so epic... perfectly describes my reaction to his comment
Oh, is it January already?
also...
1) it will create 320,000 jobs. jobs = better economy = money
2) its not about free hand outs and "entitlement" as you put it. its about creating jobs, making sure everyone can get medical help and what they need so that crime and poverity is reduced. lower crime and poverity = better economy = money
3) bet you were all in favor of that $300 bush gave us all this year. hypocrite
4) the elections over, america has decided. give the guy a chance to prove himself instead of assuming you know how things are going to play out. unless your looking for sarah connor you know nothing more than anyone else does.
sorry for feeding the troll
I'm with you o_0 America sold out......literally sold the presidency. Totally hoodwinked the entire country without ever having Obama ever having to answer a single question. Now the liberal media will begin to do their jobs to show how "balanced" they are. There needs to be a new word for liberal now because liberal doesn't cover what this character is. I love how they made fun of President Bush for hiring his "friends" to high positions........who did Ob just choose for Chief of Staff......yeppers, an 'ol buddy from IL. Where's the "Change"......I laughed the whole election at those idiots holding "We want change" signs......in about 3 years those people will be on the streets holding signs that say "I need some spare change".........then the final year of his term "sukyourdickfor a dollar". What a black mark on this country....no pun intended.
California is so broke and i really didn't like the though of bonds paying for this, this means we're borrowing more money to pay for this project. The problem with this proposition, there are no set date of completion and no exact cost to this construction. So I'm seriously going to bet this thing will be over budgeted and will pass any set projected deadline. That's government for ya, government projects rarely fall below estimated cost.
Too bad we can't ban Stupid... but we can ban gay marriage... lame.
No no I mean during the night, when theres no sun
I'm struggling to figure out how they're going to create 320000 jobs let alone permanent ones. The line doesn't seem big enough to make that many.
@ilh
At the moment there's this idea going around, which has become quite popular, that we can miraculously solve both the economic and environmental crises through massive government spending on green infrastructure projects. One of Obama's campaign promises was that he would create 5 million new jobs through renewable energy projects. People are eating this up since it is such an easy answer. All we have to do is build more trains and presto! No more global warming, no more recession, brilliant! Unfortunately most of these projects are more like snake oil rather than miracles cures. That's not say they're all bad, though.
This train might have been a good idea if California wasn't completely bankrupt. I voted against it. Personally, I'd rather have schools and prisons, but I guess this train will have to do.
Obama and the government do not owe you money. The government owes you social services - schools, police, etc. That's what taxes are - your subscription to social services.
that's only 3 years of the windfall oil industry profits from the recent spike in gas prices. Put that into perspective... 3 years profit (not costs) to reduce the stranglehold they have on us.
By 2030 We wont be using fossil fuel. We will probably have a solar panel on every roof of everything and a battery that stores the power for when theres no sun.
and it's trains like this that make it possible...
Yea so lets have EVERY state spend 45 billion on a train system. Smart..
I'm with Mike. I want everyone on Earth to die because of global warming if it means I can save a quick buck :-)
@who?
If you die, what exactly will that buck do for you?
We are not saving a quick buck, more like 2,500,000,000,000 And thats saying IF it actually is 45 billion a state. By the time 2030 comes we might not have a United States to live in because it filed bankrupt..
@ Ash
He was being sarcastic.
Even if we are using different fuels by the time this is finished, we could switch the train to run on whatever the fuel de jour happens to be by then
Also, no matter what happens, it would be bitchin' to travel in a train at over 200 miler per hour!
@Mike
Are you saying that the sun is gonna die soon?! And that batteries are gonna replace it?!!?
No I mean at night when theres no sun.
Human life on Earth will become unsustainable well before the sun dies out....
The sun is currently expanding, not dying.
"By 2030 We wont be using fossil fuel. We will probably have a solar panel on every roof of everything and a battery that stores the power for when theres no sun."
Uh. Maybe where you live, dude. But here in Ireland there's a semi-permanent cloud which blocks out the great ball of fire. You won't be able to get enough juice to power a wrist watch, let alone a car.
I surely hope so, but then again, there were many in the 70s who said we'd be off it at this point as well. Yay bullet train! There's a real transportation issue in the state, and it needs to be FIXED. FIX IT!
"Yea so lets have EVERY state spend 45 billion on a train system. Smart.."
@Mike: You're forgetting that California is one of the larger states in the US. Out east, you would need to have pretty much all of the East Coast state governments collaborate on one giant long bullet train (think Miami to Boston, which is Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, maybe DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts...) and the odds of that many governments agreeing on this project not just in principle but in how to split up the costs is pretty much nil. If the Feds decide to partially fund the results of Prop 1A then that gives precedent to the Feds (at least) partially funding a similar system running up and down the East Coast - and yeah it'll take 70 years, but such rail systems could eventually extend along the other borders of the US and through the Midwest as well possibly, until we pretty much replace the antiquated, broken system that is Amtrak.
"We are not saving a quick buck, more like 2,500,000,000,000 And thats saying IF it actually is 45 billion a state."
Well, if totally building a high-speed nation-wide passenger rail network is only 2.5 Trillion, thats a much better use than the ~3 Trillion estimated total cost of the Iraq war and the several trillion (and counting) on bank handouts this year.
Hell, if we apparently can just print unlimited amounts of dollars, trillions at a time, might as well spend them on something worthwhile, that actually builds useful things and gives people jobs.
I hope this doesn't wait too long. We could eliminate so many airlines with high speed rail and it'll be really hard for terrorists to cause a California train to skip off its tracks and hit the Pentagon.
It'd probably have to be going a lot faster than that.
There's no need. The airlines are doing a perfectly good job of eliminating themselves at the moment.
Shhhh, don't give them any ideas!
Yes, exactly! But is Amtrak better?
Not to mention the fact that these trains are all going to be electric (something North America in general should have gotten on 20 years ago) so they won't be adding to the problem of pollution.
Um... North America has been using Electric trains for the greater part of those 20 years (or all of it?) Just because they carry their generators with them doesn't make them any less electric. Trains are the most energy efficient way to transfer goods from one side of the country to the other because they are hybrid electric. Just like all these cars being spouted as "new technology" these large diesel engines are used to power generators that power the wheels.
Please, do research, read, and think about what you are posting before you do so.
The reason the US is not covered in Electric RAIL trains is because the cost of powering and keeping power to the millions of miles of rail and cable would bankrupt the rail industry and actually cost MORE energy than they would save powering only the locomotives. You do know that energy is lost in transmission of electricity, right? All transmission media has resistance.
There's one thing people keep forgetting when they talk about "America being behind" in public transportation and communication is the fact that we have so much more land mass than any other country out there providing such services. The same goes for Hospitalization. France, rated #1 on the World Health meter, is just slightly bigger than California, yet smaller than Texas. It's going to cost us a LOT more to cover the US in Rail, Power, Health care, and Telecommunications than any of those other "more fortunate" places in the world. The 300 million people will have to pay much more than the 60 million French for such services. 31 people per sq km in the US to the 108 per sq km in France. We'd be paying roughly 3 times as much as France simply for the infrastructure to equate coverage.
That looks like a lot of turns for a high speed train.
I predict this will make a great backdrop for an action movie.
A lot of it looks like it's just paralleling pre-existing freeways. It won't be too bad, except maybe in that stretch between Palmdale and Bakersfield.
there is no reason why Texas should not be taking on a similar project! At these speeds you could travel between the 4 major cities in Texas in incredible time and save an insane amount of gas. If you could take the country boys with gas guzzling lifted trucks of I-35 in favor of a modern and fast train system, you'd be doing the entire world a favor!
12 million barrels of oil per YEAR isn't squat. California uses like 2mil barrels of oil a DAY currently. I'm glad they are building a train system and adding jobs in the process, but acting like that's some huge green movement is total bs.
2% is 2%. It's a start.
BARACK OBAMA should cut loose the $45 BILLION he wants to donate to Bob Lutz and his buddies in their FAILED auto industry and redirect it to this project instead. Much more worthwhile, in my opinion.
I agree. Maybe this slap into the face at Detroit would stir them to provide more creative alternatives.
Funny how they don't bother to draw a line from Irvine to San Diego, even though there is a preexisting rail line there right now...
And that's going to help people outside California how?
@ Randy
Not going to happen. Propping up America's failed auto industry is one of the Democrats' favorite hobbies. It looks like Obama's planning on pumping billions into Ford and GM while they bleed away even more. We should just let them die already. Unlike the banks, they are not too important to fail.
redring:
McCain promised to do it too if he were elected.
Don't get all worked up over nothing. Neither party is going to let about 12M people go out of work.
Why ride a high-speed train when you can ride a rocket-powered skateboard?
Don't you know hoverboards don't work on water?
@Artie: unless...you've got POWER!
Ah... finally some public transportation. Pain in the ass driving to NorCal, takes like 8 hours, with this if you wanna go to Apple's Headquarters for an iPhone you can in a couple of hours! iPhone sold out at said store? Just take the train to the next Apple Store. But seriously, this is pretty cool. Kinda excited for this.
How about we extend that thing north up to Portland and Seattle?
Extending it to Portland and Seattle is probably not a cost effective solution. Consider the amount of people who need to get to Portland from the Bay Area or Sacramento. These people could instead take the train. The problem is that from SF to Portland or Sacramento to Portland, it's 600 or so miles, which means over 3 hours on this train (top speed is 220, not average). Right now, you could fly it in about an hour, plus the time it takes at the airport. Most people will still choose flying.
Seattle to Portland is a different story, a very manageable 1 hour (compared to roughly the same for flying).
In case you were wondering, this path looks like it's about 350-400 miles from San Jose to Los Angeles, which would probably translate into a 2 hour and 15 minute ride, which would be a bit slower than the planes.
Now THAT would be frickin' sweet.
The actual trip would be slightly slower than planes, but you wouldn't have to show up two hours early.
You'd actually be able to take care of business for those 3 hours, unlike at the airport. You can't do much standing in line and you're laptop is not guaranteed to even make it through with you. Those first and last 10-15 minutes of no electronics on the plane is a real killer for trying to get anything done.
What makes you think that rail security won't be as restrictive as airline security? A multi-billion dollar train is a very tantalizing soft target. Its only a matter of time before TSA airline regs are applied to rail.
Have you ever looked at most rail stops? They're wide open. You can walk onto a train from right off the street. Airports were easy to revamp for tighter security because they already had the security squeeze points in place.
@Artie- Japan's had this in place for over 40 years already with an impeccable (no deaths ever) safety record. If the California system is similar they should have no need for TSA regs. Heck, just bring in the Japanese to operate this line if they're that worried.
What's the point of going high speed if you stop every 8 minutes?
If you take a trip from London to Paris on a high speed train it stops at 2 intermediate places at most (usually 1, sometimes 0). And that trip is only 50 or so miles shorter than from SF to LA.
Modesto? Merced? Gilroy? Palmdale? Sylmar?
And Palo Alto doesn't make sense since you can just take Caltrain 20 minutes to San Jose Diridon and then get on there. I'm sure Norwalk and Anaheim can be served similarly.
There would be express trains that would bypass lesser stations. For example, you could have a train that did San Diego, LA, San Jose, and San Francisco, and skip everything else.
Three words...Kodama...Hikari...Nozomi...
The three classes of bullet train in Japan. Kodama makes all stops, Hikari makes less, and Nozomi makes none (between it's destination and departure stations). I assume the same would apply in Cali, and the PA station would likely be Kodama, and possibly Hikari, only...or at least their equivalent...
As a Californian, I can't believe that people actually voted yes for this. This State is broke as broke an be, they want to raise the sales tax to almost 10%(up 1.5%) for the next 4 years, add a 5 cent liquor tax on every beverage purchased.
The final cost of this project has not even be determined and estimates actually are pointing at almost 100 Billion and the company who is in charge of construction? The same guys that did the Big Dig in Boston.
Let's also leave out the fact that for probably way cheaper you can get on a plane and be anywhere in a quarter of the time.
Another thing that would freak me is out, is how easy is it to make a high speed train derail? Lots and lots of open track easy to sabotage. I would imagine this would be a high priority terrorist target.
Yeah, because California is full of terrorists >.>
And @ No_Obama, if you want to blame someone, blame Bush, not Obama.
I voted against it because we're broke, but you have to remember two things:
1. The sales tax thing didn't come around until a couple days after Cali approved this.
2. Our Governator took office 5 years ago by explaining to our populace that he could cut taxes, and instead pay for everything through bonds, presuming fairy money would show up at a later date to pay the bond costs back. People stupidly believed him.
You voted for the Governator and he racked up debt faster than Davis.
oh noes! 5 cents beverage tax! holy horror and shock batman!
btw, the express train will take less than 3 hrs from DOWNTOWN SF to LA. that's significantly faster, more convenient, and ultimately cheaper than flying; especially once Uncle Sam stops bailing out failing airlines and the true cost pricing gets built into stuff
Then bring in one of the Japan Rail companies to do it. Look at them, 40-odd years and only one derailment (and no deaths), even when they get more earthquakes than CA does.
how the hell can California afford this?
Ummm:
* Budget Cuts
* Increased Sale Tax
* Increased Services Tax
* $12 increased tax on Vehicle Registration
You get the point
/dreams/ Legalize and tax certain natural crops?
Really i get low ranked for a budget question?
I thought Engadget posters were more classy than that.
Im just sayin', California has already posted a 3 billion loss just this year without a 45 billion in additional debt...
wah wah wah wah wah wah wah
Simple! Tax increases! (Your avatar should have tipped you off.)
I think that this is a great idea, but I think California should wait until it gets its finances in order first. It's not like they're going to be commuting in this economy anyway.
This 9 Billion bond (LOAN) does not build one mile of track. It is just to study the possibility to build high speed rail. Allot of private consulting firms are going to make allot of money on the tax payer's dime to do nothing. Also, it will take 30 years and 22 billion to pay off this loan. People, bonds are very expensive loans that take a very long time to repay. Borrowing on the backs of future tax payers is never a good idea. Why should my kids have to pay off something that will never be built or if it does, will never use.
Hey, relax. Your kids won't *pay* for it; they'll just cover it with more bonds...
i live in murrieta, its a cool place the train will go right through my neighbors back yard
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of flexible transportation but when things are done through the government sector, you can rest assured that a few billion will go to waste versus if it was privately built. There is no need for this train. Japan does this but it has a good reason to, and was able to afford it. They estimate this project to begin by 2016 (early estimates) so perhaps the funding will be available by then. But at the same time, have you seen the mock up concepts of this train? *shrugs* Call it the ugly blue-bee. Also for $45billion, you would expect it to be a bullet mag-lev train. LEVITATE ALREADY!
Wow!! Go..Go..Go!! Build it, Do it already. Go..Go..Go!!
A good thing? The article acts like this is the best thing for California since sliced bread!
Give me a Break!
We've sprung for a high speed rail system when BART doesn't even go from San Francisco to San Jose. That plan is continually shot down, but people are willing to spring for this?
The state university system is going to loose over $60 million dollars in funding because there "isn't" any money in the state in this upcoming year alone...
Get real!
Uh, just like Marin I believe San Jose did not want to pay the "tax" involved in getting bart to San Jose at the time... Now that Bart seems to be a convenient and cost efective way to get around the Bay Area then these cities want to hop on board (research it for yourself if ya don't believe me ;-p).