[WS:] I used to work as an aide for a country supervisor in San Jose, and from what I heard back then - anything involving any kind rail passing through San Mateo county was DOA due to visceral resident opposition over "property values." Maybe that changed, but I doubt. A more realistic scenario involved rail alignment on the eastern side of the Bay, connecting San Jose and Oakland. I would imagine this would work with high speed rail as well, especially if it was extended to Sacramento.
On a different note - it is sad when lefties start talking about
'economic viability' which is a code word for profit potential of a
project. We live in an era of unprecedented productivity. Our
economy can produce virtually all good things that can be produce, yet
we talk as we lived under a condition of utmost scarcity. I
understand that this is a result of neoliberal brainwashing, but we do
not have to fall for this hogwash. Why not talkin about project from
the point of view of what is good for the humanity and environment?
>From that pov, high speed rail is far more beneficial than short
distance flying, so it does deserve deployment of resources. And who
gives a flying fuck if someone cannot make a profit our of it?
Wojtek
Wojtek
On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 12:08 AM, Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote:
> michael perelman writes:
>
>> The idea of using existing connections could work, but it
>> would make more sense if BART or Caltrans could ensure connections
>> with short wait time.
>
> I'm sure that could get worked out. But the real issue is very few of the
> projected passengers would be going to an area that's close to downtown San
> Francisco, anyway. San Francisco is not Paris[1]: the vast majority of
> people in the Bay Area live in the location called "not San Francisco" -- so
> if you arrive in downtown San Francisco, chances are very good you have to
> connect to some other transit anyway. Why not transfer early, to an
> integrated grid, at the periphery?
>
> We're not talking about going to Hoboken because you can't afford to build
> the final 2 miles of track to penn Station; Livermore is 40+ miles from San
> Francisco; San Jose is 50 miles. Go 50 miles from Paris and you're way
> outside Ile-de-France, in the sticks.
>
> /jordan
>
> [1] The Department of Paris (75) is about 40 square miles and contains 2.1M
> people; the City of San Francisco is about 50 square miles and contains less
> than 800,000 people. Paris and the "inner ring" is about 300 square miles
> and contains 6.5M people; the Bay Area is commonly referenced as ~7000
> square miles with a total of slightly more than 7M people. Paris is one of
> the most densely populated cities in the world: it is the largest-densest
> city outside of India (which has four cities that are larger and more dense:
> Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, and Mumbai). San Francisco is nothing like it. San
> Francisco isn't even the largest city in the Bay Area: San Jose is.
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