Except that the average, one way and on-time, schedule on the Surfliners is nearly 3 hours, for a "whopping" "record shattering" average trip speed of just over 40mph.. Whoop deeee dooooo!

And yes, if you include Coaster and Metrolink, we are up to nearly 21,000 passengers per day, and it is distributed toward the OC SD IE segment, partially because we have much higher service frequency and higher population.

Of course, that is about 1/5 of the daily ridership that American High Spree Rail predicted using good old fashioned gravity modeling, with a 1 hour non stop, and 90 minute local schedule, for this 124 mile trip, And, they proposed to do it with non-stop, limited stop, and locals trains leaving about every 15 minutes, from early am to very late pm, from LA to SD and back.

Based on a fully achievable 2 hour run semi-express schedule and significantly higher service frequency, north to Santa Barbara, and the current and growing congestion levels of the adjacent 101- 118, alternatives, would likely make you very wrong about what could be the 20,000 trips for the whole corridor per day, a market share easily achievable on that segment alone, almost equal to the whole corridor today.....

Imagine....... Mike told me once that if we had $10 billion in bond money to blow, we'd be able to make CA look like Switzerland, for rail passenger services.

So just imagine, that the taxpayers gave someone competent, like say a Mike McGinley the 13 billion currently being pissed away in the Valley, and then just imagine a nearly completely fully grade separated, fully two tracked, 110 maximum speed capable segment, complete the run-throughs at LAUPT, on the LA-SD rail corridor, and then imagine a fully 1/3 Two tracked, fully modernized, grade separated LA-SB, with say only about half of that amount spent? Imagine.......

And, hell, for another 2 billion I'll throw in Palm Springs Indio, and service in an hour from LA to Palmdale to go onto Las Vegas from LAUPT in just 3 hours.

That would still leave the other 4 billion or so, for the Dumbarton Bridge and the Altamont long DT tunnel, grade separations, and the connections to the rest of the Valley.

Of course, under that scenario we'd actually be back to the old "north-south" split and Sou Cal might even get its fair share based on population again.....

Mike told me once, a few years back just on the dawn of when the High Speed hoopla started sucking taxpayer cash, that if we had $10 billion in bond money to blow, we'd be able to make CA look like Switzerland, for rail passenger services.

What kind of rail system do we need, what are the real rail markets shares that are out there, where is the demand the greatest, what kind of investments make the most sense to serve those folks, and where is that investment, the most cost effective for the most benefit we can derive, and where is that really needed? These critical questions have never been answered in the CHSRA's plans, they have never been answered in our dysfunctional "Division of Fail" State Rail Plans......

What are we doing and why are we doing it...?

The answer in CA is apparently that we're going to have something so we can show we can go real fast, just like China, to hire a lot of contractors and spend a lot of taxpayer money on, without any real regard to those costs or the likely limited travel or congestion relief benefits this investment will produce.... And, that is not an A answer to this taxpayer.

There are plenty of Metropolitan Airports with significant surplus capacity to facilitate LA-SF intraregional travel needs, meanwhile the I-5. from LA to SD, today, is already a nearly five hour trip LA-SD, as I write this, right now......

So where were each of you stuck in traffic congestion today?