California has dropped a lawsuit officials filed against the Trump administration over the federal government's withdrawing of $4 billion for the state's long-delayed high-speed rail project.
Tunnel Vision: An Unauthorized BART Ride is a neat little documentary that discusses the history of the Bay Area’s train system. One of the striking things an interview mentions is how a project of this size and complexity was extremely difficult to complete even in the less developed and less crowded Bay Area of the 70’s, and would be nigh on impossible today. The original design took 8 years of planning and cost 1.6 billion in 1970’s dollars. If built today, it’s estimated it could take over 12 billion just for the original layout without even accounting for the land required to snake all that track through dense urban sprawl.
CA’s high speed rail system was approved in 2008 and currently estimated for completion by 2031 at the earliest and estimated at 36.7 billion dollars for just 35% of the layout. If it ever begins reliable service it would be an incredible achievement of engineering, economics, and cooperation among all levels of government.
The Trump administration’s decision to cut funding to a technology that most other nations have long since achieved and mastered is telling of their corrupt stance on the American people and their lack of understanding of the benefits of this technology. We do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard. We work and invest taxes towards an expensive and grandiose vision of the future because of the possibilities and the promise it offers. Today, it is hard to imagine the Bay Area without BART. I imagine the same for a high speed rail system of the future. They think we can’t do it, but we will do it despite them because we must.
Tunnel Vision: An Unauthorized BART Ride is a neat little documentary that discusses the history of the Bay Area’s train system. One of the striking things an interview mentions is how a project of this size and complexity was extremely difficult to complete even in the less developed and less crowded Bay Area of the 70’s, and would be nigh on impossible today. The original design took 8 years of planning and cost 1.6 billion in 1970’s dollars. If built today, it’s estimated it could take over 12 billion just for the original layout without even accounting for the land required to snake all that track through dense urban sprawl.
CA’s high speed rail system was approved in 2008 and currently estimated for completion by 2031 at the earliest and estimated at 36.7 billion dollars for just 35% of the layout. If it ever begins reliable service it would be an incredible achievement of engineering, economics, and cooperation among all levels of government.
The Trump administration’s decision to cut funding to a technology that most other nations have long since achieved and mastered is telling of their corrupt stance on the American people and their lack of understanding of the benefits of this technology. We do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard. We work and invest taxes towards an expensive and grandiose vision of the future because of the possibilities and the promise it offers. Today, it is hard to imagine the Bay Area without BART. I imagine the same for a high speed rail system of the future. They think we can’t do it, but we will do it despite them because we must.