High Speed Rail

California has a ballot measure for a high speed rail system linking up SF, Sacramento, LA and San Diego. The price tag is $40 billion. Pretty expensive, which is maybe why there are not many private companies doing HSR on their own.

Its interesting to note that Taiwan's HSR cost US$ 15 billion for about 200 miles of track. Taiwan had massive cost overruns and did not run nearly as many passengers as they initially claimed, so the critics of the CA plan are probably correct that it will actually cost more and not be as busy as envisioned, but despite that, the Taiwan system is supposedly profitable.

The logo for the California HSR looked sort of familiar...so either Obama will support the HSR network, or sue them for copyright violation.







Of course, not just California is interested in high speed rail...Texas is too. Their proposed network is called the T-Bone. That is not a joke.

Why can't we drive our cars onto the high speed rail and then drive them off when we arrive ala the French "motorail" concept?