this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
140 points (99.3% liked)

News

23310 readers
5390 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
rjc@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
dezmd@lemmy.world
Tenthrow@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
gedaliyah@lemmy.world
Blackbeard@lemmy.world
little_cow@lemmy.world
jeffw@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
140
High-speed rail project bridging Las Vegas and LA receives $3bn in US aid (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 11 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
13 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The complete cost is estimated to be $12bn and is expected to be completed before the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics

High-speed rail in the American west has received a major new investment with the Biden administration pledging $3bn for a project connecting Las Vegas to southern California and $3.07bn to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Officials have described the ambitious projects as a “gamechanger” for tourism and travel in the region.

The Las Vegas to Los Angeles project aims to finish before the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

The California high-speed rail authority program, which has long been stuck in limbo, expects to start initial service as early as 2030, and aims to ultimately move travelers from San Francisco to the Los Angeles basin at speeds above 200mph (322km/h) in under 3 hours.

top 13 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 20 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I've been yelling about high speed rail between LA and Vegas for 25 years. It's so dumb to not have it. First off, that's mostly empty desert, so the biggest hurdle is environmental impact. Secondly, I would think the casinos would self-fund this, since it would be so much easier to get the rich people from LA out to Vegas than by flying. LAX fucking sucks to drive to/from (though it's pretty good once you're inside), so being able to hop on a train with no security and not braving traffic and be in Vegas in a couple hours would probably entice a lot more visitors.

That said, 15 years after we voted to fund high speed rail from LA to SF, they are 15 billion over budget with nothing to show for it.

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 14 points 11 months ago

Give it a casino car with gambling that opens right as you pass the Nevada border and the thing might actually pay for itself

[–] Genmjrpain@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Ah, so you're that person on the corner yelling about trains. Nice to meet you!

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip -1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

First off, that’s mostly empty desert, so the biggest hurdle is environmental impact.

I mean, that is a really big hurdle in and of itself. Or, at least, it should be.

But also? Assuming they go roughly as the crow flies (just dodging mountains), that is a LOT of territory where a train breaking down is a very serious issue. Not "death valley" bad, but still a case where rapid response is needed.

I personally think this is a good idea and will be a great way to demonstrate why improving rail infrastructure is a good idea. But there are a LOT of problems that need to be solved with this.

I don't know how many people are regularly going from LA to SF, but i think that is also going to be a much more realistic challenge. Because the area between those two cities are actually fairly populated. So you have the usual high speed rail issues of not being able to run at full speed for significant amounts of time, needing to use local tracks where available (ha, local tracks in the US?), etc. Which is probably why it is taking so long.

Also, nitpicks:

  1. There will be security after the first shooting. And considering This Is America, I expect that within the first month of operation
  2. LAX still fucking sucks even once you're inside. Still bitter about arriving from an international flight and being told I needed to walk to my terminal, along the street, because there was no walkway to it (there was...). And I guess they got rid of the god awful shuttle buses between terminals but ALSO have horrible signage so you basically have to use google maps to figure out what direction to walk along to get to your destination
[–] hobovision@lemm.ee 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They're building it in the median of the interstate.

You also have the CA valley high speed rail facts completely wrong. They're building 100% new tracks and it has to nearly all support insanely high speeds >220mph.

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

... Yes, because there are no existing tracks*. Hence the laughter. Apologies if I was too subtle.

And building in the median of the highway is going to be interesting for how much this angers people over the next few years. But better for responsiveness.

As for high speeds: Yeah, time will tell on that one. Because highway and road noise is already bad enough. And looking at the gold standard for high speed rail (the Shinkansen): When you are in "rural" Japan, you are going insanely fast and it is glorious. When you are in cities or even towns, you slow down considerably. Still faster than local trains, but (not having looked at the numbers) I would assume comparable to the express trains that skip a lot of stops. And that is perfectly reasonable. I spent a few weeks in Japan not too long ago and my hotel was literally next to some above ground tracks. I grew up in a city so it barely bothered me, but the person I was traveling with acknowledged she would not be able to sleep until the trains stopped for the night.

*: Just because I am inevitably going to deal with some pedants. Yes, there actually are a lot more tracks than people would expect. But, generally, there is nowhere near enough redundancy or flexibility for it to matter. Because if you need to clear out the cargo trains to pass some passengers through, it actively costs money. And if your passengers only have a ten minute window, same problem.

[–] mondoman712@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 months ago

Which is probably why it is taking so long.

I don't think any of the initial operating segment uses existing tracks. It's been taking a long time because funding is constantly being withheld so they don't have enough money to go any faster.

[–] franklin@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Every flight prevented is tons of CO2 prevented

[–] magnetosphere@kbin.social 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

True. As stupid as I think this rail idea is, I can’t argue with your point about pollution.

[–] ares35@kbin.social 8 points 11 months ago

just a hunch.. but i'm guessing that to be completed before summer 2028, the price tag will end up being 5x higher, and it won't all be 'finished' in time anyway.

[–] lori@cambrian.social -3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

@MicroWave I was enthusiastic about the prospects for high-speed rail, but then locomotives got the John Deere treatment (re. "intellectual" "property")...

[–] mondoman712@lemmy.ml 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Are you referring to that one thing that one company in Poland did?

[–] magnetosphere@kbin.social -4 points 11 months ago

Yes! Let’s build high speed rail to an unsustainable city in the middle of the desert! That will definitely prove to be a worthwhile investment!