California attempts to build world’s most *optimistic* commuter rail

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California attempts to build world’s most optimistic commuter rail

Monday, October 20th, 2008 | Economics |

or,

THIS IS YOUR TRAIN ON DRUGS

Reason - California is Headed for a Real Fiscal Train Wreck:

Another rosy assessment comes in estimates of annual ridership. The Rail Authority says the trains will carry 65 million riders each year. But the Reason Foundation’s study gives a much lower estimate—23 million riders annually—after looking at Japan and France, which have the world’s strongest markets for rail. Neither country has achieved the kind of ridership California is predicting and both countries have far higher population densities in the cities served by their bullet trains than Los Angeles and San Francisco.

To attract riders, California’s rail will have to out-compete cars and airplanes by keeping a lid on commute times and fares. To keep commutes short, the state legislature has put statutory limits on travel times. The Los Angeles-San Francisco commute, for instance, is legally required to come under two hours and 42 minutes. This is probably impossible because it would mean that the train will have to post average (not potential) speeds of 200 miles per hour, something that has not been achieved anywhere in the world, even in places whose flat topography allows for far straighter routes.

And as for fares, the Rail Authority is promising a $70 ticket between Los Angeles and San Francisco. This is about half of Japan’s Tokyo-Osaka ($135) and France’s Paris-Marseille ($140) train and far less than the $172 Amtrak charges riders traveling between New York and Washington—all of which are shorter and, with the exception of Japan, heavily subsidized.

It seems that California is promising to build a train that is faster, cheaper, more efficient, and serves more riders than any high-speed train in the world. And all it has to do to pull off this miracle is defy the laws of economics and physics.

Modern commuter rail projects seem to be triumphs of hope over experience, and this is a crowning example.

Previously:
- Local Rail Revisited in Light of High Gas Prices?
- Everything You Need to Know About Mass Transit

3 Comments to California attempts to build world’s most optimistic* commuter rail*

BobG
October 20, 2008

“There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.”
-Edward Abbey

DirtCrashr
October 22, 2008

I blogged about it too, but simply because it’s so patently and obviously stupid - and barking mad too. It’s like the Stupidslature in Sacatomatos can’t figure out we have some problems on hand to take care-of first? It reminds me of a meeting we had with Disney people when I was at the on-screen Guide company…sheer madness. We have a “light rail” toonerville trolly that runs through town and nobody uses, and those who do needen’t bother to pay since there’s no real compliance made and it’s subsidized anyhow - somebody’s expensive play train-set.

Those wacky ballot initiatives | Les Jones
November 5, 2008

[...] Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act. It’s the wildly optimistic bullet train I blogged about a few weeks ago. From the ballot description (emphasis [...]