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Comment by niftich | Hacker News Reader

HSR is California was always a bit of a gamble because there's three mountain chains to cross between LA and SF, which makes for expensive mountain crossings. But I'm perplexed as to why they're having cost overruns in the flat Central Valley.

After the NE Corridor, a Chicago hub network would make the most sense for high speed rail. The Northeast Corridor is already profitable (in isolation), but is also the best spot for HSR, so for another network one shouldn't expect profitability from day one.

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I've lived in New York or Boston my entire life, and travel from Boston to NY and back again about 6 times a year. I've only ever ridden on Amtrak once (from Albany to NY) and it was slow, uncomfortable and expensive. To drive from Boston to NY in a 15 mpg pickup truck costs about $50 in gas and tolls, and takes a little over 4 hours under normal traffic conditions. My car is comfortable and has all my stuff in it, and it costs the same if I travel by myself or with my family of 5. The same trip by high speed rail is 4 hours 11 minutes, and costs $200 per person, and I have to get to the train station early so I don't miss my train. HSR in the northeast corridor is terrible.

'under normal traffic conditions' -- this is the problem, you never know if your trip up and down I-95 will take 4 hours or 6+, because of some traffic incident. Acela has a dedicated right-of-way and a (more so than automobiles) predicable timetable, enabling citycenter-to-citycenter travel for business folks. You don't fit the target market. I don't either. But for the usecase that it's for, it works very well.

Acela isn't really HSR for most of the route: average speed NY-Boston is ~70 mph (>150 mph is just in southern Rhode Island, IRC). Averages on most TGV and Eurostar lines are at least twice as fast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acela_Express

> I'm perplexed as to why they're having cost overruns in the flat Central Valley.

The land is extremely valuable farmland, plus the Central Valley leans fairly right politically.

It's valuable farmland, but most of the right-of-way is next to existing railroads and the surface area of the track is small. But how does the second point relate to cost?

I imagine there's perception of issues similar to what plagues the bay area transit systems: in order to pass through an area you have to win the approval of every political unit of every size along the way (this is why BART ends where it does, for example, because San Mateo county refused to allow or participate in BART).

My guess would be lack of eminent domain to force buyouts at reasonable market rates, or a lack of political will to make use of that ability.

This times one million. I get the sense that most people who are in love with HSR have never actually driven between LA & SF or LA and Las Vegas.

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