High Speed Rail

California's high speed rail will take 13 years to build, has already tripled in price, will (initially) only connect Bakersfield with Fresno, won't actually be high speed and does a 120 degree dogleg as it leaves LA in order to stop in Palmdale and Lancaster. It's a direct high speed train that doesn't go direct and uses old slow commuter tracks to save money (even so the estimated price of the project has tripled over the original estimates on which it was sold to the voters).

The Chinese, in contrast, just opened a 300 kph high speed rail in the time it took California to merely complete it's environmental impact report. It's not as if all the extra time we're taking will result in anything better. In fact, when complete, it will be a lot like the Los Angeles subway/streetcar system, in which you have to change trains to get to LAX and then when you are 9/10's of the way there you have to get off the train, stand in an empty parking lot and wait for the connecting bus to carry you the final mile. Total transit time from LAX to downtown LA on three trains and a bus--2 1/2 hours. Since  you can do it in a cab or a non-stop express bus in 30 minutes or so, I fail to see the value of our rail system. But without a subway we wouldn't be a modern cutting-edge, world-class city, which of course we aren't anyway.

Despite such problems Jerry Brown is pushing ahead full steam--against the apparent wishes of a majority of Californians. In a story in Wednesday's LA Times, Ralph Vartabedian reports that a majority of Californians want the project canceled, given that 69% of them would "never" or "almost never" ride the train.