[hiram112]

They allocated $150M according to the article.

I can't see that being enough to even break ground on a single mile of track.

If California boondoggle is any indication, it will be enough to staff an army of middle managers, bureaucrats, and environmental impact and DEI staff for a year, and, of course, pay out some political kickbacks.

[bombcar]

California's spent something like $9 billion and they hadn't a single mile of track by 2022.

Maybe we should do a crawl/walk/run instead of jumping directly to HSR.

[djcapelis]

This is what zero miles of track looked like in 2022: https://youtu.be/gAZqaESaZLg

This is what zero miles of track looks like a year later: https://youtu.be/luX35wVJt84

You can today in the Central Valley look at large construction sites and structures, some of which are finished. Go 100 miles up the alignment, and see construction and structures there too. None of those sites have laid track yet, but there’s hundred of miles of trackway under development.

Track comes last.

[hifromLA]

Yeah but they’re actually making progress. The project has plenty to criticize but it’s way more of a punching bag than it needs to be. The hard part is land acquisition, lawsuits, grade separations, etc. once you have that tracks are a piece of cake.

CA also is walking with basic train service. The Pacific Surfliner (3rd most used Amtrak route) and the San Joaquin (5th most used Amtrak route). Literally the 2 most used Amtrak routes outside of the northeast.

[foota]

Sounds like construction started in 2015? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_California_High-S....

[jeffbee]

“Single mile of track” is one of the dumbest memes ever. Yes, they lay the tracks last, because that is by far the easiest part of the project and there’s a machine that can poop out HSR tracks at 1km/hour.

[leemailll]

China high speed rail costs about US$ 17-21m per km in China, which has a substantial low cost for labor. This much can't make much