Kerry JacksonEditor’s note: This is excerpted, with permission, from the Pacific Research Institute’s Right by the Bay blog.
With a grand high-speed rail project struggling to lay its first track nearly two decades after voters approved it, California seems to be moving on to its next transportation fiasco: A high-speed bus system connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco that reaches an implausibly brisk 140 mph along the way.
It seems more likely that we’d see a city bus driven by Sandra Bullock jump the unfinished gap in a freeway ramp and land it like a 747.
But CalTrans sees high-speed bus travel “as a potential enhancement to the state’s public transportation network.”
At a recent hearing, Sen. Dave Cortese of San Jose, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, said “high-speed buses are not a bad idea.” They are, in fact, “a good idea” and “certainly an option to rail.”
The hearing explored a recent CalTrans proposal for running high-speed buses in exclusive lanes.
The proposal reads as if someone took plans for the high-speed rail and substituted “bus” for all references to the train. For instance, “achieving safe, high-speed operation requires dedicated infrastructure, substantial vehicle redesign, and advanced safety and communication technologies.” But unless hills are flattened, sharp curves are smoothed and “specialized vehicles” that travel at hyper velocities while also avoiding crashes can be produced, speeds will be lower than promised.
Read the rest here.
Now that is funny. I guess the the politicians haven’t wasted enough money on a Bullet Train, so lets spend even more money on Bullet Busses! Hahahahaha. Tickets for the Bullet Bus are going to have to start at $200+ a pop just to cover the fuel costs. At 140mph the trip will take, what 4 hours? I’ve never understood why California absolutely insists on doing things azzbackwards. The idea of making a system of planes that do nothing but fly back and forth between the two cities. No, don’t use LAX or SF Int, but external “feeder” airports (Orange County, John Wayne airport) with 6 flights a day (3 up, 3 back). You’d have to have a fleet of Gulf Streams at an $80 million price for the fanciest, but 3 million for a used craft. You’d need a feet of 10, so that would be $800 million for the planes (a drop in the bucket spent for the “train” idea so far). The idea is to keep the ticket price in the $200 per seat. Comparable to the bus price. But would you rather ride in a bus at 140 knots for 4 hours or a Gulfstream for 2 hours?
What are the odds the next “brilliant” idea will be a bullet subway?
How will they accomplish this?
#1: Speed differential. 140MPH vs 70 MPH seems to be inherently unsafe.
#2: Tire maintenance and tire pressure has to be monitored closely. Call me skeptical on this.
#3: Are they proposing E-buses? What is the energy cost at 70MPH vs 140 MPH.
#4: Reaction times of drivers. Will race car drivers need to be hired? I will guess this is not DEI compliant.
#5: Will special roadway need to be constructed? Will crash barriers separate the bus lane(s) from the car lanes?
just adding the dedicated lane will sop up tons of millions for democrat fraudsters.
how’d you like to drive that thing? tests on the autobahn in Germany showed that long straight stretches at over 100 mph cause fugue, fuzziness, fatigue and accidents: they had to design-in some curves just to avoid that.
how is it financially logical to take such high-development technology and use it to drag 40 jerkwads up and down the state?
it’s like the democrats’ in-your-face theft of the Primary Election in California a few weeks ago: can you believe they do it in bright sunlight? and this is another fraud-ridden plan to steal more from us…in bright sunlight.
if you’re still voting for that organized crime racket, you just ain’t trying.
Only in california…
Can you imagine the death toll when (not if) one of these cattle cars crash?
Scamafornia.