US high-speed rail

[RyanF]

That makes a lot of sense too, I was just thinking "if it weren't for that damnable border, would Buffalo be absorbed into the Golden Horseshoe and maybe Rochester too"

Why stop there? There's an entire Great Lakes megalopolis to absorb.

 

[Francisco Cojuanco]

Los Angeles-San Diego has significant service present between both and could be seen as a major area. The Surf Line however as the name implies, runs along the coast and would be... inadvisible for upgrading for full HSR service and would likely necessitate looking at a more inland one, which does pose its own issues.

Yeah, the problem is Orange County is in the way, so you'd either be dealing with suburbanites pissed off at a huge train line in the middle of their suburb, or through various state and national parks, some of which can be pretty hilly, which will piss off environmentalists, or through a military reserve, which will piss off the USMC.

Political issues aside, the OC is prime commuter rail country, but not HSR country.

 

[Roger II]

Political issues aside, the OC is prime commuter rail country, but not HSR country.

Yea, I think the idea is that you do HSR to get LA-SD trips faster (and capture mode share from longer car trips and short-haul flights) and you run a commuter (or better, a regional rail*) service in addition to that to capture local travel. The commuter service could be on existing tracks (doesn't have to be as dead straight as HSR because you're running slower trains and stopping more often *anyways*) or with the HSR right of way (quad-track or doing clever things with 2/3 tracks). Plus you can throw in a few HSR stops for the suburbs and use regional rail as part of the package to sweeten the deal for said suburbanites.

*the distinction I'm making here is more about service patterns-do you run *really* peak oriented service where you do a ton of trains at rush hour and very little the rest of the day or do you do a more even service pattern, running some trains that aren't going to get as many riders per trip because it's better to capture some of that demand with relatively little additional cost and build preference for taking the train?