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ChineseDaily Transit Links Roundup
Contributed by Fred Camino on March 4th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Photo courtesy of Roadsidepictures.
- Mark your calendars! National Train Day (hosted by Amtrak) is coming on May 10th!
- High-speed rail in California? You may be able to vote on it soon.
- Inland valley residents have the opportunity to give their two-cents about the distant Gold Line.
- CurbedLA discovers the flashy new passenger information displays in Metro Rail stations.
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
CA-AHSR is dead. Before somebody does something stupid like put it on the ballot they might go to the muni debt market and price the issue.
The $10.6b bond is to pay for approx 1/5th of the segment from LA to Oakland. The rest of the money comes from “someplace else.” Those someplaces include private investments and localities like Bakersfield buying and donating rights-of-way, etc.
We should hire burt Rutan to design and build STOL 250 passenger whisperfan commuter aircraft and put the rest into close-in pocket airports. A fraction of the cost and ready decades sooner. But let’s face it. This isn’t about innovative public transit.
I’m wondering if high-speed rail shouldn’t be tried interstate between Los Angeles and Las Vegas first. Then after people use it, there would be more willingness to support it intrastate.
How about LA-San Diego first? I’m not so sure LA-Vegas would be a good idea to build first, maybe after the rest of the line is complete, but I do agree that there should be a smaller segment built as a test. LA-SD is the busiest rail corridor in the country outside of the northeast. More importantly, there are population centers all along the route. Between LA and Vegas is the IE, but after that theres Victorville, Barstow, and Baker, over a distance of 200 miles. People need to realize that rail doesn’t just connect two places like air travel, but connects all points in between. I think the current proposal for HSR between LA and SD really needs to include a link south from Anaheim to SD. Maybe that option hasn’t been included because they don’t want to compete with existing Amtrak or they’re afraid of angering folks at camp Pendleton.
That’s a good suggestions. A West-Coast Acela train makes sense to me. San Diego to Anaheim to Los Angeles would be a great start. A high-speed branch to Las Vegas from either Anaheim or LA can come later.
I’m wondering if high-speed rail shouldn’t be tried interstate between Los Angeles and Las Vegas first. Then after people use it, there would be more willingness to support it intrastate.
Excellent idea. If I recall correctly, Kym and I have a standing bet on this prospect. I’ll let you ask her.
An Ontario to LV gambling junket train would be a great idea. $4 gas this summer would make it a no-brainer. I’m talking about making money not just justifying the effort.
I’m thinking the following stops:
San Diego, Anaheim, Los Angeles, Fresno, San Jose, San Franciso, Sacramento
I like Anaheim to LV, but that works too. There could even be gambling in the Las Vegas station. Last time I was at the Las Vegas Airport I won $250 off a quarter slot machine.
Ah, Las Vegas Airport, it’s sad the Las Vegas Airport monorail works better than the Las Vegas Monorail, which would actually be useful if it connected to the Airport on one end and to downtown on the other.
CAHSR is not dead, and LA to SF is the best possible alignment. The two biggest metropolitan areas in California.
The time for these other proposals here are dead. If approved, it’s going from from LA to SF first, and I hope that no one here can stop that.
A West Coast Acela? That’s a joke, we don’t need another baby HSR in America.
I wasn’t aware the others were dead. I fully support a LA-SF HSR.
However, I don’t think Acela is a joke. It’s quite popular on the East Coast. When I lived in NYC, I took it from NYC to DC and it was a brilliant way to go. The Acela goes from Boston to New York to Philadelphia to Baltimore to DC and if we had HSR on the west coast that ran as well as the Acela I’d be thrilled.
Acela is too slow and is much heavier than it needs to be; something better should have been built for the NE Corridor.
I’m pretty sure that all the EIRs are done, and even if other options were available, it seems to me that LA to SF is the best by far.