California Building 220 MPH High-Speed Train from San Francisco to LA
Imagine a high-speed rail line that could get you from San Francisco to LA in 2 hours and 40 minutes.
That dream appears to be coming true, thanks to work by the California High-Speed Rail Authority. After getting a green light by State environmental impact assessors, they’ve begun implementation of an 800-mile bullet-train system that will connect Sacramento, the San Francisco Bay Area, the Central Valley, Los Angeles, the Inland Empire, Orange County and San Diego. Trains traveling at 220 mph on the systems are forecast to carry up to 100 million passengers per year by 2030.
While 2030 is a long way off, at least things are moving in the right direction. Having a high-speed rail system connecting (eventually) the length of the West coast is a good idea for a number of reasons, including greenhouse-gas emissions reductions, improving public transportation and reducing congestion, and creating half a million new jobs. While our aging standby Amtrak is still around (believe it or not) and bearable for short distances, it’s more expensive and takes twice as much time to travel the same distance when compared to driving (non-California example: 15 hours from Portland, OR to San Francisco).
The State will have a bond measure of $9.95 billion on the November 2008 ballot, which requires a simple majority vote for approval. The measure allocates $9 billion for the high-speed rail system and $950 million for improvements to other rail services that connect to the high-speed service.
For more information, see the website of the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
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This story was also reported at EcoLocalizer: A Train as Fast as a Plane: The Plan for High-Speed Rail in California Moves Forward
Photo Credit: NC3D, provided by the California High Speed Rail Authority
Now this… I love!! Man, I have to be there for the vote in November!
…The west coast is more than California. Still, a good start.
what the hell took so damn long?
every metropolitan area in this country should be connected by bullet trains.
duh.
Japan!
Europe!
Trains.
A really, really BAD idea. Does anyone really believe that this monster will cost any less than 4 - 5 times the budget allocated for it at a time when the state is facing a 10+ billion dollar deficit? Does anyone really believe this monster will be fully utilized when there is no evidence that there is some invisible mob of people who can’t afford a plane ticket? This isn’t the east coast — rail died here for a reason — it can’t compete. Unlike airlines that can alter routes, once the rail is laid, that’s it. If population shifts, the rail line gets abandoned, just like it already has all over the west.
Mark my words, this thing will turn out to be a multi-billion dollar fiasco of epic proportions and you will all be paying for it at the cost of less funding for education, prisons, roads and other infrastructure.
Nice to see this country catching up to the rest of the world with technological innovation being applied domestically instead of being implemented in a strictly military or multi-national project overseas.
Right on the heels of Argentina’s announcement of their plans to become the home of the first high speed train in the Americas.
If it won’t be more expensive than a plain, I am in
Can’t wait till we implement something like this in every state. Europe’s rail systems are amazing, and the United States system sucks balls. took me 24 hours to get from Cincinnati to Washington DC, it’s ridiculous
This is a totally misleading headline. There has been very little progress on this, only talk. I will believe this when I’m riding on it. These idiots should have built the thing 30 years ago, but bureaucracy and general American ambivalence have kept it from happening for decades. Kudos for talking about it, but that’s all this is for now.
Surrre…. let’s see if that $10 Billion dollar figure doesn’t actually move to something like $20 Billion+ IF this thing actually happens
It’s about time, but what happens when there’s an earthquake? This needs to be implemented nationwide with a network of high speed electric trains. But, this will be crushed by the lobbyist for the airlines in Washington.