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Comment by dailo10 | Hacker News Reader

"The line is due to open in 2012 and will halve the current travel time between the capital Beijing and Shanghai to five hours."

In the meantime, CA is spending billions to build a 54-mile high speed rail segment from Madera to Corcoran - aka the "train to nowhere".

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There is too much friction to build high speed rail in the US due to the democratic process. You have to get everybody along the way to agree which is pretty much impossible as you get to populated areas. In a place with a centralized government system like China, the nice thing is that things get built very quickly, but it sucks for the people who are affected negatively along the way.

Eminent Domain displaces people in the US all the time. When a developer wants a pretty lake by the highway to build a condo complex, guess where the trailer park that was next to the lake goes?

Kelo v. City of New London for just one example.

Kelo-style eminent domain is uncommon. The idea is that the land is taken for the benefit of the public, and usually that benefit is direct, like a new highway. In Kelo, the public benefit was the jobs and tax revenue from new private development, which is why it went to the Supreme Court.

How do you define uncommon? Here are just a few cases of Kelo-style eminent domain:

http://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/current/2010/04/11/from-the-e...

http://reason.com/archives/2009/10/13/private-developers-hav...

http://boortz.com/nuze/alabaster.html

http://www.castlecoalition.org/index.php?option=com_content&...

http://www.ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view...

http://reason.com/archives/2003/02/01/wrecking-property-righ...

Well, there's huge differences in the scale of eminent domain projects. A new rail line is likely to affect a huge area with a whole lot of people, many of whom vote. You have to get politicians on board representing many different areas of the state. How do you convince the guy who represents a district that is just "passed through"? It's a pure negative for his constituents.

Not saying it can't be done, but it's a whole lot harder than building a shopping mall, that displaces a handful of houses.

They're starting there precisely because there's nothing there and hence fewer obstacles (NIMBY and otherwise). Besides, that segment will have to be constructed eventually.

Starting in SF, SJ or LA makes more sense from a population standpoint, but you run the risk of the project being delayed or facing cost-overruns because of lawsuits and environmental concerns. If the CA HSR authority can get the starter segment up and running relatively smoothly, that might create more demand in the major metro areas and grease the skids somewhat.

With a ridership of approximately....0? And no one from any major city ever even seeing it, much less riding it?

I think there has to be a better plan.

Ah, they just plan to build the track, not even run trains on it. They're saying they won't run trains until major metro areas are linked. Which makes it even more dubious in my mind.

They're also going to use the track as a local test facility for rolling stock and ancillary equipment. Again, this is stuff that's easier done outside of a major metro area and this link will need to be built anyway. You may as well work out the kinks (and there will be kinks) in a cheap area were you only have to worry about engineering challenges rather than engineering challenges and NIMBY issues.

So why not Merced-Fresno? Then you'd at least have some population to move around, and all the track would be just as cheap.

Looking into it more, it emerges that they have to have an initial route approved in December in order to claim Federal money. So it's a panicked plan.

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