Tony, sounds like LA would be better off with ANY rail, be it slower trolleys or middling trains or whatever gets butts out of cars. Oily's article sheds light on America's problems with HS rail, geographic, legal, political, and too many consultants.... but it might be possible to have middle speed systems in dense urban corridors that are still way better than driving in gridlock. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Also decreasing obesity will help. If people are okay with walking a few blocks to a station, then transit lines are more feasible even if they don't go everywhere. Walking, as adjunct to mass transit, should be promoted by communities. When i have been in Europe, I've seen thinner healthier people walking way more and going on foot to transit stations.
Biggest problem with US Rail is the system is backwards. Freight companies own the right of ways and rails. Feds operate the passenger system. Freight companies have no incentive to upgrade their right of ways to 21st C tech as opposed to 19th.
Here is a list of the freight train companies in California...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_railroads Which means if we want to get the freight companies on board with building high speed trains, then we have to win over guys like Warren Buffett...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkshire_Hathaway And we have people in the train business such as Richard Branson and Virgin trains, Richard is getting involved in the USA...
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High-speed trains are finally coming to the US
Lilit Marcus, CNN • Updated 25th December 2018
(CNN) — Japan has its famed Shinkasens, Russia its Maglevs, France its TGVs.
But what about the United States?
One train company has high hopes of bringing high-speed rail travel to America. Brightline Trains, which bills itself as "America's first new major private intercity passenger railroad in over a century," has just gotten a major vote of confidence from Richard Branson's Virgin Group.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/virgin-trains-usa/index.html-----------
So, with the help of Richard Branson we can make some progress in the field of high speed trains in the USA. Maybe Richard Branson can win over Warren Buffett. And if we can have a combination of federal money for infrastructure, and state money, etc, combined with business power-houses like Richard Branson and Warren Buffett, maybe we can make progress on high speed rail.
And Elon Musk wants to build underground subways, maybe we can combine tax money with private money to advance subways in Los Angeles and in other areas where subways are needed. We have a couple of subways already, and many more are needed.
We can make progress with mass transit, including subways, and high speed trains, if we can get the public and private sectors to work together as a team. And we have brilliant people to design everything, and great people to build everything.
We need to keep dreaming, maybe we can make high speed trains happen still. It is just a shame that we will not finish the California high speed train that was already being built, it would have been great to get that done, and then expand high speed rail to other routes.
Salute,
Tony V.
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