1. The blue line is the second busiest light rail in the country.
2. They have a fairly large network considering the last time I was there the subway was one mile long.
3. Considering their late entry into the world of rail (heh, says a guy in Seattle), it will take a bit of time to get high ridership – but it is growing. I’m sure the 2am ride will come when ridership is strong enough.
4. $1.25 fares?! Sweet.

Of course, things could have been much better…

The ridership on the CAHSR will not suffer from a “lack of feeder lines” because the ridership projections are to accomodate future population growth- that is to say, there are no alternate means of travel for the riders of the future, and the point of building the train is to not build those alternates.

That is the main point that Gertner could have, but failed to, make clear to the reader- that the population of California, and the need for transportation, will grow, and that the CAHSR is to be built instead of freeways and airports. And this is not just because the train will be cheaper and faster, but also decrease emissions, improving air quality and fighting AGW. California simply can’t meet environmental goals without building the train.

As to the extent that failure or success in California might affect other HSR systems in America, I would guess the effect will be small. HSR is becoming the transportation benchmark for the developed world at the same time that air travel and freeways are becoming dinosaurs. If America as a nation lacks the will and ability to build our own systems, companies from other nations will build systems for us, and, of course, for their own profit.

Gertner spent a full quarter of his article badmouthing rail travel as part of his role as a propagandist, implicitly presenting us with the choice of staying with the system we have that is working, or trying something new, which might be as as bad as the rail trips he describes. But that’s not really the choice we have.

Still, you’re right that SF has pretty good transit (better than Seattle, certainly). But I think there’s still a big gap, especially in all those inland empire cities (i.e. Bakersfield, Fresno), that have just finished building tens of thousands of vacant single-family homes that will likely need to be filled before more transit-friendly development takes its place.

Pick any city in New Jersey or Connecticut along the NE Corridor, and it’s likely more transit-oriented (both in terms of the urban plan and the actual transit options) than most cities along the CA route.

This nation has no experience with the past quarter century of HSR development. That could be an advantage, with us paying a small licensing fee for R&D that cost billions and took decades. Or it could be a drawback when anti-train zealots attempt to describe the HSR in terms of America’s poor intercity trains of today.

If he weren’t, he could have presented in a few paragraphs the rationale for CAHSR, which is so simple I can almost present it in a sentence: the CAHSR is one of the ways for California to meet the transportation needs of the future, and it’s cleaner, better, and cheaper than the alternatives it would replace. Because we’re talking about future needs, if you build it, they will come. Because we’re talking about very large numbers, they only need to capture 5% of the automobile market to make money.

Filling that out with some of the details would have made it possible for the reader to actually learn something from his article, which, as written, hardly contained any new information at all.

And his comparison trip to Sacramento? He should have made that trip in a 40-hp car with no air conditioning, the best that most people will be able to afford in 2020, and compared that trip with a French AGV over the same distance.

Basically, it was the AC that killed the GM electric car. If they could have test-marketed that thing in Puget Sound, all would have been sweetness and light.

One day I got curious about the CAHSR project and spent about an hour googling and reading, to develop an appreciation of the how and why of the thing. Presumably Gertner could have done the same thing, but for *some reason* decided not to.