they'll take it further with their dirty politics.

We NEED high speed rail in California. It will be a game changer in this state for how people get between our major cities. We need one to Las Vegas as well, but the hotels & casinos should pay for it. The traffic going East would change tremendously.

P.S. Governor Brown, please don't build it in China!

Many question why L.A.-S.F., but if you think about it, this keeps a second state legislature from killing it off.

The north/south line could eventually expand to Seattle, and an extention east to Las Vegas would be very profitable, and could follow existing rail line right of way to Chicago.

If we could get a L.A. Chicago line built, a nation wide bullet train system would be inevitable.

Plus an LA-SF line or including San Jose would change everything for commuters in this state. Our two major cities are disconnected needlessly. Unfortunately, San Franciscans might suffer as everyone from LA moves up there. And maybe, just maybe, we can put a real metro into our major cities, starting with connecting the eastside with the westside of LA and the damn airport.

I also agree about an LA-SF-Portland-Seattle. Connect the entire West Coast. I have taken the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto and it was wonderful, could not feel the speed at all.

And Nevada should pay for the line to Vegas, because it will be a windfall of epic proportions. They should make Steve Wynn pay for it.

I don't think estimating a bullet train pulling 25% of these travelers out of their cars much of a reach.

If you assessed a $10 construction fee per round trip, or $5 per leg, it would take 50 years to recover all costs if you could build the leg for say, 2 billion. 25 years if you assessed the casinos an equal fee per head.

Every person I know has said on numerous occasions they don't go to Vegas very often because of the hassle of getting there. If there was a bullet train (with a bar car) many people would make it a regular weekend trip. People want to go to Vegas to lose all their money, they just don't have the time to fly or drive. The additional hours getting through airport security has made it too big of a hassle. It's difficult to get there and back in a weekend without flying.

Add to that the amount of tourists we have in LA. Most people don't realize how incredibly boring a Hollywood vacation is. I've seen it first hand, the disappointed looks when they can't even go up to the Hollywood sign, realizing the Walk of Fame goes by basically a Pep Boys. Yes, they are gentrifying a few blocks and have the center for shopping, but it's really boring. A day at the beach and Disneyland is about the best you can hope for. How many of those people, if given a chance, wouldn't just jump on the bullet train? Quite a lot.

All the cash will be flowing toward Nevada. It's not like the millions of people that live in Vegas will come to LA for no reason. California will get the advantage of easing the traffic, but that's about it.

This is why I like the idea of "President Biden".

You just KNOW we would get Bullets from "Amtrak Joe".

They consider that "socialism" and therefore are against it.

All of the usual "blame-everyone-except-climate-change-for-the-water-shortage" farm signs have been replaced with "train-hate" signs. It's goofy.

Just thinking outside the box and doing something forward thinking is so much better than trying to destroy the country for the sake of a few hundred billionaires.

Thanks for the thread, alp.