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    <title><![CDATA[Discussion on California's high-speed rail as an energy lifeline ]]></title>
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    <lastBuildDate>2013-05-18T13:05:16-07:00</lastBuildDate>
             

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        <title><![CDATA[High Speed Rail]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-76259]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[The biggest drawback with any rail transport is that they are spinal, in that they go in one direction in a serpentine or in a sinuate run and connect only a few places. They lack sprawl. Railways can never form a network. When railways ran on steam there were frequent stops for water &amp; coal and these stops became nucleus for the growth of small towns where people built houses very close to the stops. Some of these towns became cities and now most people live far away from these stops which became stations with the advent of diesel &amp; electric trains. For people living far away from stations individually owned cars are a blessing since they enjoy doorstep delivery and also enjoy the freedom  of personal travel schedule. High Speed Trains are a great privilege for a selected few who live close to the stations but for those who have to surrender their land for building this luxury have only the pleasure of seeing the High Speed Trains whiz   past their houses with no hopes of ever enjoying a ride on this White Elephant. It is robbing Peter to pay Paul. HST is the work of modern day Robin Hoods. HST will make contractors, politicians, trade unions &amp; government officials rich. Agricultural land will be wasted and thousands of trees will have to chopped down. Any new transport system which focuses on Green Design needs to have the quality of encouraging cars owners to give up their addiction to personal cars and this is possible only when the transport system replicates the Network or Sprawl of the roads and also when the system has the design capability to provide individual transport without dependence on time table or schedules or routes. Any new transport system must guarantee the same autonomy which the personal car gives - personal mobility. A paradigm shift in thinking and a quantum leap in technology is needed to make a safe, green and cost effective personal mobility system available. In this connection a new technology is being developed which addresses all the problems of modern day transport especially safety and prevention of accidents. With this new technology the entire 880 mile project can be completed in 5 years instead of 20 years, $10billion instead of $68Billion, with offline stops at every quarter mile instead of 200 miles (giving everyone the opportunity to avail the facility and increasing ridership and also economic viability), with 1% energy consumption of the HST, suitable for short distance travel as well as long distance travel (increasing capacity utilisation with revenue addition). With no waste of agricultural land. No need to destroy forest cover. No land acquisition issues.Ofcourse the speed will be less (100/mph). But does speed matter when you have the choice of personal mobility and do not have to depend on the HST time table. The new technology is accident free (China already has had two major accidents in just two years). It enables zero pollution. This technology will be soon be available for commercialisation.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-76259]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[ilajnaaneem]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Tue, 14 Aug 2012 05:09:55 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[RE: Please Read]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-75933]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[And....steam was far more efficient (just harder on the tracks and roadbeds).]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-75933]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[GregGold]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Wed, 08 Aug 2012 06:58:58 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[HSR]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-75784]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[This will be a millstone around the necks of California taxpayers. I've been on Spain's HSR lines, and yes, they are nice, but also highly subsidized by sky-high fuel taxes. They also overcame the NIMBY crowds that California didn't, and their HSR lines go into central Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla, etc. California HSR is starting in the middle of nowhere almost 75 miles from 'Frisco, and it is going to end in the desert near Barstow, about 75 miles from LA. Start = end = nowhere, and the connectors to SF and LA will never get built means California HSR = boondoggle.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-75784]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[Starman35]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Mon, 06 Aug 2012 07:12:17 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[But...]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-75176]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[...do you want to pay for it?]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-75176]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[JohnMcGrew@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 26 Jul 2012 06:57:16 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[High speed train to Las Vegas]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-75150]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[I want to see high speed trains to Las Vegas]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-75150]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[Harry1941]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Wed, 25 Jul 2012 16:29:05 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[wide open nothing?]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74818]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[A good hunk of the LA to LV route is wide open nothing.You can extend out light rail/monorail lines to the edge, and then run HSR from there. Or just declare the HSR end points to be &quot;metro bus centers&quot; to insure that there is good bus service from most everywhere to the HSR startpoint.People will ride buses to specific destinations, provided they don't need to transfer.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74818]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[James.McMurtry]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Sun, 22 Jul 2012 16:13:27 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[You ignore the obveous.]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74758]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[The politics of doing what is needed to create inner city HSR for the California plan has already killed the LA to Las Vegas route because the land takings to run a track east were deemed too expensive and politically untouchable.They are the same NIMBY problems that killed track improvement for the Acela routes in the northeast corridor decades ago.  Amtrak gave up decades ago on improving the track in Connecticut and Massachusetts.They are once again talking about improving the NYC to DC tracks, but that has been brought up and discarded at least 4 times over the life of Acela with no progress being made.The fun fight will be seen after the first train runs.  People who fought and lost the land takings will have a fit when the first train screams past their house at 200 mph.This is another political reality Acela ran in to, especially in Connecticut.  Neighbor imposed speed restrictions have kept it to 80 mph on all but the most remote tracks.Yet another reason why HSR is perfect for the wide open nothing in the American southwest.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74758]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[Hates Idiots]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Fri, 20 Jul 2012 13:12:42 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Solutions exist.  Few will implement them.]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74762]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[For California's proposed HSR line, there will be many stops; a political requirement for the line.  Either the proposed train will never reach advertised speeds, or there will be a lot of bypassed stations that we'll be wasting billions on building.As for Europe, expansion of the low-fare carriers is expanding far faster then HSR ridership; so much so that the Europeans are trying to slow that growth by implementing carbon taxes to make trains more attractive.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74762]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[JohnMcGrew@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Fri, 20 Jul 2012 12:40:50 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Solutions DO exist to getting into city centres]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74741]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[HSR does indeed need a route past slow trains to reach city centres - but this has now been solved in loads of ways in the 12,000 miles of new lines built in the last 2 decades all over the world.  In most places there is an existing rail route that can be expanded with extra tracks, or a freeway that could have 2 tracks laid over it on a viaduct (as with New York's skytrain).  More typically the route is put into a tunnel for the final section to the city centre (as our HS1 line runs into London via the Stratford London Olympic site that you are about to see on TV).  The tunnelled route is the most expensive - but have no planning problems!As for stations, a HSR will have very few.  Your mass transit systems are supposed to get people to those HSR stations - which may be SOLELY in the city centre itself and just outside at a single park &amp; ride or airport hub interchange location (eg Frankfurt city centre and Frankfurt airport  or the central Paris stations paired with Paris CDG).   In Europe, trains have taken the place of many short haul air journeys and airlines now own some train companies.  Air France recently announced that it wanted to run trains instead of planes ]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74741]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[JohnJefkins]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Fri, 20 Jul 2012 08:12:48 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Great points.]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74701]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[You observation about communities opposing giving up land without getting a HSR station is spot on for one of the biggest flaws in the California HSR plan.HSR is not a metro rail.  A well designed HSR system has a minimum 200 miles between stops.  You want fast trains to go fast.  30 miles or less between stations is a gross waste of HSR best asset.  Speed.Regional rail, light rail, monorail, buses and anything else you can think of is what should handle the need for frequent stops and should feed into and out of centralized HSR stations.Regional rail running at 80 to 120 mph and light rail running up to 80 mph are more cost effective solutions for multiple stops.  Regional rail should stop no more often then every 20 miles.  It is for your larger regional markets.  Light rail can stop as often as needed to fill the gaps.  HSRs on dedicated tracks fits in to handle the 200 miles or more running between major metropolitan areas.  The desert southwest is the prefect place to start the US HSR system.Local system design is important to make it all work.  Local train schedules need to keep the number of stops reasonable.  A train stopping 12 times in 40 miles, like the MBTA does going north out of Boston, is almost useless to a commuter.  And contrary to popular myths, trains do run into traffic.  Little details like locating stations on side tracks to allow other trains to pass on the main line while a train is stopped loading can make a huge difference in day to day operations.  Another problem is most commuter rail runs on the same tracks as freight trains.  Commuter trains are often held up while freight trains stop to drop cars at train yards.All of these problems and the solutions are almost as old as trains themselves, but have been forgotten by the alleged experts behind the California HSR plan.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74701]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[Hates Idiots]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 19 Jul 2012 18:22:49 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[You ignore the section of HSR in the LA metro area]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74695]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[You are quite right about the costs of doing any kind of road or rail expansion in Southern California. Unfortunately, this includes the HSR section that will go between UC Riverside and LA, with a spur down to Anaheim (see http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/uploadedImages/Routes/Project_Sections/Preferred_state_map_FINAL.jpg ).I lived in Southern California from the '50s until the early '90s, so I remember the &quot;golden age&quot; of freeway construction there. Most of it was done by the '70s, and each project became more and more difficult as land became more expensive and people objected to the disruption. The biggest example of this was the Foothill Freeway. The western half was completed in 1976, and the land was purchased for the eastern leg to be built next. But people along that route objected, lawsuits were filed, and the freeway was not built. Caltrans struggled for years to keep the right-of-way on the eastern half. Finally, the need for the freeway outweighed all the objections and the eastern half was built starting in 1990. It wasn't completed until 2007, the eastern half being about 40 miles long in total.My point here is that it's going to be EXTREMELY difficult to get the right-of-way in the LA basin for the HSR. The route largely parallels the Foothill Freeway, so we already know it's going to face fierce opposition. Sure, some people will be swayed by the idea of HSR, but for many communities it will be just another wall dividing their city in two. Given that there will be only about 8 stations in the LA basin, most communities will see the HSR cut through their boundaries without any way to get on it except by driving miles to the nearest station. It's clear that the strategy to build the sections in the middle of nowhere first is to cynically justify the building of the HSR line later in the LA and San Francisco regions (who says bureaucrats are mindless sheep?)Note that including Palm Springs there are six regional airports in the LA area to fly to anywhere in California, and they are more widely dispersed.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74695]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[zackers]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 19 Jul 2012 12:06:39 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[totally agree]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74587]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[I agree, HSR will do nothing to address the congestion problem.The advocates of HSR are behind some &quot;car free&quot; utopia of their own choosing. When really, the pain reducer most people want is self-driving cars, so that traffic jams become some combination of &quot;less common, less painful&quot;. Seriously, self driving cars are legal in NV? But not CA? That's stupid.Even if I can't (legally) text or drive while my car manages the stop-and-go for a half hour, I'd prefer to just daydream a bit. (In reality, I'll whip out my Kindle and read while my self-driving car slugs through the traffic jam. I'll put the Kindle away for normal driving, done by me or the car).What's stopping this from happening right now? The tech? No, the tech is there. The cost? No. Google estimates this is a 5K feature, at most. The government? Yes. The government is stopping me from purchasing and using a technology that would make my life more pleasant and safer for all parties. Lovely counterpoint to the HSR boondoogle, where the government is taking my money and spending it on an elaborate scheme that almost no-one wants.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74587]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[James.McMurtry]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Tue, 17 Jul 2012 15:10:11 -0700</pubDate>
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    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[I left over a decade ago...]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74570]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[...just before &quot;rolling blackout&quot; became part of the lexicon.And they shouldn't have needed Brown's tenure at Oakland; his governorship 2 decades earlier that left the state billions in debt (suppressed and revealed the day after his failed re-election bid) should have been enough.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74570]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[JohnMcGrew@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:47:50 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[I left Ca almost 2 years ago]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74585]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[so I haven't kept up much with the goings-on there. Good to know that some of them are waking up (hopefully) from their idiotic celebrity worship (a problem which infects the rest of the country as well) and paying attention. Nothing new about the political establishment going against the will of the people. They've pretty much been doing that the entire 27 years (over three different periods) that I lived there. It's been steadily getting worse (they actually returned Jerry Brown to the governorship, I guess they didn't learn the first time or from his experience as Oakland's mayor). That's partly why I left.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74585]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[mudpuppy1]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:03:22 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[HSR has absolutely nothing to do with commuter congestion!]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74567]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[HSR is meant to compete with inter-city air travel, not urban freeway congestion.  Building this fraud will not solve LA's traffic.  If anything, it will make it worse by diverting resources from solving those problems.That this confusion keeps coming up is just a demonstration of the fact that most people pushing for HSR do not have a clue as to what they are talking about.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74567]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[JohnMcGrew@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Tue, 17 Jul 2012 12:26:38 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[The thing is that in California...]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74582]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[...even the sheeple are now against it, now that it's obvious to even grade-school dropouts that the math simply doesn't work.  (Recent polls have support below 40%)  It's the political establishment that is going ahead with the scam in defiance of the people, and the requirements of the bond referendum that started it.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74582]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[JohnMcGrew@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Tue, 17 Jul 2012 12:23:02 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[traffic congestion can be fixed in our lifetime]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74564]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[Googles self-driving cars are on the road right now.Designate some &quot;self-driving car only&quot; lanes, charge an extra toll for access, and then self-driving &quot;platoon driving&quot; (with no rubber necking) will solve quite a bit of the congestion we have now. With the extra toll and the reduction in accidents, it will be a net win financially. CA should lead the way with self-driving cars, instead of taxpayer boondoogles.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74564]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[James.McMurtry]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Tue, 17 Jul 2012 10:30:51 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[So true]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74528]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[Every time proponents of HSR talk about it, you can see the drool. PANT, PANT, PANT, GOTTA HAVE IT, GOTTA HAVE IT, GOTTA HAVE IT, PANT, PANT, PANT. NOW, NOW, NOW, PANT, PANT, PANT. I keep expecting to see a box of Kleenex near by. That kind of behavior just gets us boondoggles.They always tremendously understate the cost to lull the sheeple into saying yes. (Yes, it is deliberate). And most fall for it every time. I don't recall a major government program that ever cost what they said it would. It always costs 10-20 times more and ends up being a money pit forever.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74528]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[mudpuppy1]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Tue, 17 Jul 2012 06:56:45 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Hard to believe -]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74516]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[- but no one has mentioned that the overwhelming majority of California's traffic demands (and therefore the root cause of nearly all congestion) relate to East/West and not North/South-bound traffic, as this iteration of HSR would supposedly address.  One can only wonder who stands to benefit from this project (and why proponents had to lie about the true costs at the time of the ballot proposition).  As usual, the losers will be current and future generations of those tax payers still willing to reside in this politically dysfunctional state.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74516]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[sdrob04]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Mon, 16 Jul 2012 22:45:09 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[RE: Question Numbers]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74493]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[But we do have experience...look at the non-functionality of the east cost line and the $$ wasted, look at the waste of the RTD Denver's FasTraks...how many examples do we need?  The LA-Las Vegas line makes sense, maybe Las Vegas/Albquerque/Dallas, etc..all through very lightly populated areas.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.smartplanet.com/forum/discussions/1-11027-74493]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[GregGold]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Mon, 16 Jul 2012 08:31:52 -0700</pubDate>
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