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by diordiderot 1096 days ago
> would be bogged down by the US regulatory agency

Oooooh buddy, you mustn't be familiar with some layers French bureaucracy.

Imagine a unionized DMV.
1 comments
inglor_cz 1096 days ago
I am a Czech, so no dog in this particular fight barks for me.

But the French train company SNCF abandoned the Californian high-speed rail project, citing local political dysfunctionality and comparing it unfavorably to ... Morocco.

https://www.businessinsider.com/french-california-high-speed...

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runarberg 1096 days ago
That is a bit ironic now isn't it. Now that Morocco has high speed rail, but California doesn't.
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pfdietz 1096 days ago
The California high speed rail project never made any sense, even before political dysfunction.
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diordiderot 1096 days ago
Made perfect sense. Uncomfortable length to drive, and end to end trip time would be shorter (and more comfy) on a highspeed train than on a plane (getting to the airport early, security, baggage collection, taxi to the city, etc).
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pfdietz 1096 days ago
It made no economic sense at all.
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runarberg 1096 days ago
Like any transportation projects it won't make economic sense if you ignore wider societal impacts. Highway expansion or airport expansion would neither ever make any economic sense at all if you'd apply the same narrow model. Now if you include climate impacts and the true cost of the climate catastrophe HSR is really the only transit project on this corridor that does make sense.
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pfdietz 1095 days ago
I'm sure if you looked at the cost per unit of CO2 emission avoided the CA HSR project was still completely ridiculous.
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