USA: The California state budget for 2014-15 includes a commitment to provide a further $250m for the planned San Francisco – Los Angeles high speed rail project.The contribution would be provided... More...
That is absolutely not a fair statement and ignores the actual realities. 1: Outside the Northeast Corridor, the biggest Amtrak Ridership gains have been Amtrak California, The Surfliner, the Capital Corridor and the San Joaquins are 3 of the highest ridership routes in the country. 2: San Diego and the Bay area have extensive and well regarded transit systems that get heavy use. The Bay area obviously is the biggest with BART, Muni, The Santa Clara Light rail system and CalTrain, but San DIego's light rail along with the coaster are well regarded. 3: LA has Metrolink which has big ridership and the transit system is also getting good ridership numbers. LA suffers from its very layout. There is no central LA, no hub and spoke. So it is a Rail transit nightmare, but that is NOT the same as saying that LA residents can't be pried from their cars. Routes get big ridership numbers. 4: Even SAC, which has the worst Light Rail system in California...has a lightrail system. California Car Culture is an excuse, not a reality.
I didn't want to upset anybody with that statement. I have quite a few friends who live in California and have to travel great distances to get to work and spend way too much time commuting reducing their family time. A few of them do wish that there was rail service available to them in order to save wear and rear on their vehicles and save on high gas prices thyy have out there. Unfortunately in many cases rail service is not available to them. On the other hand, I have heard from friends that do know people that will not give up their cars, even when public transportation is available. I have also see studies that were made by the state about high speed rail systems and their own studies stated that there wouldn't be a high enough ridership to justify the system. I can't remember where the rail system was that the study was on. I don't live there thankfully, but this is what I have heard from some residents of the state.
not trying to suggest you were intending to upset anyone, but I'm a midwesterner who moved to California and I had those same biases when I moved and they are for the most part simply untrue. Very few Californians are so wedded to their cars as that. Especially in the big Cities which after all is all that really matters in this argument. Their traffic jams don't so much have to do with an unwillingness to take public transportation as it does with city planning, Geology/Geography and tax money. And even if we ignore that, the fact is that the High Speed Rail effort has almost nothing to do with it. We're talking about a region train LA to SF with minimal stops in between. While certainly many people do that drive, myself inbetween, many others are already flying that route with no interest in a car. The real issue is going to be the feeder network in LA. Once I'm at LA union, how do I get where I need to be. If/When they push through to Anaheim, that problem becomes less challenging. Please point me to those studies. The California HSR association has it's problems, but they aren't so corrupt as to suppress ridership surveys.
In a way I do feel bad for people who live in large metropolitan areas. Thankfully I never lived in an area like that, except for 7 years in the Miami, FL area when I was a State Trooper. It really wasn't bad there in the early 70's, but when we were visiting there a couple of years ago, I had no idea of where I was. We do quite a bit of traveling and do get into large cities and I just can't imagine having to put up with their rush hours. I live in southwestern Montana and in recent years it has grown and I am whining. I have to go 12 miles to work, and it takes me about 15 minutes. A while back I would only have one intersection with a traffic light until a road upgrade to multi lane included three more lights. I cuss them every day. I think I'm spoiled.
