President Biden Announces Billions to Deliver High-Speed Rail and Launch New Passenger Rail Corridors ( www.whitehouse.gov )

ivanafterall , 6 months ago

Key selected projects include: building a new high-speed rail system between California and Nevada, which will serve more than 11 million passengers annually; creating a high-speed rail line through California’s Central Valley to ultimately link Los Angeles and San Francisco, supporting travel with speeds up to 220 mph; delivering significant upgrades to frequently-traveled rail corridors in Virginia, North Carolina, and the District of Columbia; and upgrading and expanding capacity at Chicago Union Station in Illinois, one of the nation’s busiest rail hubs.

Sweet.

admiralteal , 6 months ago

CityNerd did a pretty good theoretical on the LA/LV line: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11Noo855zyA

The unfortunate reality is that LA is a city with such insanely bad urban design that it's unlikely the corridor is going to be of huge benefit to someone making the trip, at least in the near term. Their city transportation options need wholesale revision to give intercity transportation a fighting chance; as it is now, you'll just be in gridlock congestion or hours of awful public transportation to get to the departure station, for most people.

LA, like so many postwar-design-pattern cities, have sabotaged themselves terribly. Which to me, weirdly, is all the more reason to just barge on ahead with projects like this. They cannot afford to NOT start fixing their brutally inefficient, totally car-oriented infrastructure. The existing system doesn't work. Can't work. Only de-emphasizing car trips can work.