“is not financially feasible.”

Duh. We have been saying that since the first dum dum proposed it !! We didnt need a stupid PANEL to tell us that.

Yeh I know; just shut up and enjoy the train wreck.

$98.5B construction cost

Assume the train is good for 20 years, at 365 days per year for that train (no maintenance, no operating costs, just construction cost amount):
$13.5 Million dollars per day over that 20 years needs to be recovered

So, at a cost per ticket of the following amounts, the following numbers of people need to ride the train on average per day over the next 20 years. Note: this is an average that would require that number of people, all day, every day 24/7/365:

$500 / ticket 26,986 people per day or 1124 people per hour
$250 / ticket 53,972 people per day or 2248 people per hour
$100 / ticket 134,931people per day or 5622 people per hour

Also note: this is just to pay for the initial cost of the train with an expected lifespan of 20 years. It does not pay for maintenance, upkeep, or operating costs. That’s a baseline number that have to be passengers just to pay the original cost.

I may be a rocket scientist, but it doesn’t take one to run the numbers and see that they just don’t work.

As an added sanity check, let’s make the outrageous assumption you get 100 people per train car, that says the following numbers of cars have to be in motion 24/7/365:
$500/ticket 112 cars (maybe do-able for two-way track, 56 cars going both ways)
$250/ticket 224 cars
$100/ticket 562 cars
That’s not looking very reasonable

… and this doesn’t even take into account load factors, queuing theory or any other real-world assessments that account for the fact that human behavior is not evenly spread over all hours of the day, every day of the week, all year. That would start looking even uglier.

I’m a native and it sickens me to see how my home has fallen so far from when it was known as ‘The Golden State.’ The Legislature and a series of stupid governors have spent the last 30 years destroying it and creating a welfare state for illegals that do nothing but drain its resources, leaving nothing but a desiccated husk. With businesses and (tax-paying) residents fleeing the state, California will be a high-tech dustbowl within 10 years, an unfinished, abandoned high-speed rail system serving as the headstone for its collapse while the illegals, their patrons in the Legislature,(along with the US Congress) and the idiots who keep voting them into office, all wonder where it went wrong.

I gotta get out of here.

Voters, on the other hand, might have other ideas of fiscal sanity — and perhaps start cleaning house in the legislature in the fall before the legislature cleans them out financially for good.

Don’t bet on it. California is the same state that keeps re-electing Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer.

Brown spokesman Gil Duran said in an e-mail that the Peer Review Group’s report “does not appear to add any arguments that are new or compelling enough to suggest a change in course.”

In other words, the Governor has already ignored these problems so there’s no point in an independent panel of experts reaching the same ignored conclusions.

Gee, Governor, if a consensus of experts is unconvincing in the case of high-speed rail, how come that same consensus is undeniable in the case of Global Warming?

China has a high-speed rail. That makes them look better than us. So WE need to have a high speed rail. See….that shows that America is a leader and our President is forward-thinking. It’s THE FUTURE!

If it’s good enough for Beijing, Canton, and Fouzhou…isn’t it good enough for America?

I always hear the complaint about illegals…that they should stay in their country and try to make changes before running away to the U.S. Same goes for California. We shouldn’t run off and leave this beautiful state to the unions and illegals. This is still the United States the last time I checked…we need to act like it.

Ditkaca on January 4, 2012 at 3:47 PM

This x 1000!

(CA native)

Instead of building the track from L.A. to S.F., just run a thousand feet of track off the Santa Monica pier and Pier 39 in S.F., out into the ocean. Load the trains full of liberals, democrats, progressives & illegals….full speed ahead.

Governor Moonbeam, the state legislature and the union leaders can all ride on the ceremonial first train. The rest of us can stand on the pier & cheer.

High-speed rail is not a grand solution to America’s congestion and mobility problems, as it is often alleged to be. While high-speed trains in Europe and Japan are technologically impressive, nearly all the routes in those jurisdictions lose money and need large subsidies to stay afloat. America’s geography is even less suited for a successful high-speed rail system than Europe or Japan because our cities are less dense and spaced farther apart.

Sigh… when will libtards realize THIS AIN’T EUROPE?