High speed rail

[Dinner]

Coaster used to run from San Luis Obispo to San Diego so it passes (from north to south) through SLO county, Santa Barbara county, Ventura county, LA county, Orange county, and SD county.

It seems a couple of years ago they renamed that route "Pacific Surfliner" and made the coaster just in SD county. I used to take the Coaster from SD to SB all the time. I'm positive it is still heavily used though as the trains used to be packed when I used to ride them and gas has only gotten more expensive. It's the exact same route just with a new name.

[Dinner]

The Pacific Surfliner is a 350-mile (563 km) Amtrak passenger train route serving communities on the coast of Southern California between San Diego and San Luis Obispo. With 2.89 million passengers in fiscal year 2008, this is Amtrak's most heavily-travelled service outside of the Northeast Corridor.[1][2][3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Surfliner

[DanS]

The Pacific Surfliner brings in about $50 million a year in revenues. I think that easily qualifies for "nobody in California uses it."

[Kontiki]

Not to mention that's pretty low ridership. The Toronto - Montreal train route gets over 3.5 million riders per year servicing a far smaller population than southern California.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by DanS
The Pacific Surfliner brings in about $50 million a year in revenues. I think that easily qualifies for "nobody in California uses it."

Not even close. It is the second most popular passenger rail line in the US after the Acela.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Not to mention that's pretty low ridership. The Toronto - Montreal train route gets over 3.5 million riders per year servicing a far smaller population than southern California.

The main problem is that it's to slow. It takes 8 hours or so to go 350 miles. Bullet trains will fix that making it much more convient while the construction of local light rail will provide a feeder system upper ridership.

It really is a build it any they will come situation. Besides even the existing passenger rail system which is slow and covers the exact same route as it did in 1938 is still about 60% of costs covered by ticket sales. The rest of the funds are provided by CalTrans. Also by all reports ridership has been surging in the last year.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Theben
In English?

1/r^3 = REALLY REALLY SMALL

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Theben


I did exaggerate, but neodynimum magnets of that size would definitely pull on ferreous metals from several feet away,

No.

[KrazyHorse]

Too busy right now to work out exact soln. Will do later.

[DanS]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Not even close. It is the second most popular passenger rail line in the US after the Acela.

No, that's not true. It's third, after the Northeast Regional ($482 million in revenue) and Acela ($468 million in revenue). And you would have to exclude all non-intercity traffic on the Pacific Surfliner, because there are long commuter rail lines that have much more ridership than the Pacific Surfliner.

Each of these services on the Northeast Corridor has a scale of operations that is an order of magnitude more than the Pacific Surfliner.

In other words, nobody uses the Pacific Surfliner.

[DanS]

Regarding the HOT lanes decreasing infrastructure needs, another way to decrease needs is by introducing more advanced technology into cars. There is a lot of experimental work being done on autonomous cars, for example. This technology is within the general timeframe of the infrastructure being built.

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Coaster used to run from San Luis Obispo to San Diego so it passes (from north to south) through SLO county, Santa Barbara county, Ventura county, LA county, Orange county, and SD county.

It seems a couple of years ago they renamed that route "Pacific Surfliner " and made the coaster just in SD county. I used to take the Coaster from SD to SB all the time. I'm positive it is still heavily used though as the trains used to be packed when I used to ride them and gas has only gotten more expensive. It's the exact same route just with a new name.

The train goes though some beautiful unspoiled country.

[DanS]

So the recent stimulus package included $1.3 billion for general Amtrak infrasture upgrades and maintenance and $8 billion for high speed rail.

That's a lot of money, but it won't go too far if it's spread out over all of the different high-speed corridors. Naturally, everybody wants a piece of the action.

[Naked Gents Rut]

Missouri River Corridor (Bismarck --> Pierre -- > Omaha --> Kansas City --> Jefferson City --> St. Louis)

[Naked Gents Rut]

It only means that the State now has the authority to sell bonds in order to fund a high speed rail project linking Northern CA to Southern CA. It is not a done deal because the State has to successfully sell the bonds first.

Cant imagine they'll have much success now that Californian munis are the lowest rated in the country.