01-30-2010, 07:22 PM
Rail or Fail
The alternatives would cost more.
Getting California’s train up and running will be expensive. But doing nothing would cost two to three times more. Why? Currently, gridlocked lanes waste $20 billion in fuel and productivity annually. And it’s only going to get worse. The Golden State is growing — quickly. By 2030, another 12 million people could be calling it home. Without an infrastructure overhaul, drivers can expect a 10 percent congestion increase every year. To accommodate the billion trips between cities that residents and visitors will make annually, the state would need to build 3,000 more miles of freeway lanes, five more commercial airport runways, and 90 more airline departure gates. The price: at least $100 billion. Oh, and all that construction wouldn’t alleviate traffic; it would simply keep pace with it.
When I was living in Los Angeles, newspapers were predicting that gridlock on the 405 would finally reach 24 hours a day by 2010.
They also wrote that traffic fatalities would be down to nil by that time because nobody could drive fast enough to get hurt in an accident.
Did any of that happen?