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Reply to BOB2 -- HSR, air travel, etc.
Author: Margaret (SP fan)
Date: 08-19-2017 - 02:25
BOB2 --
Thanks for your excellent reply.
You wrote --
> Unlike you I support a well planned "high speed",
> high frequency, high quality, reliable passenger rail
> system in CA in some form.
What, exactly, do you define as "high speed"?
A train operating at more than 150 mph for most
of its run?
That -- HSR in CA -- is the only thing we differ
about. As a matter of fact, I do support the "high
frequency, high quality, reliable passenger rail
system in CA in some form" that you support. Really.
And I have been thinking (Ooooh -- can't do that!
Might come up wit ideas or views that someone might
not like!) -- about HSR in our beautiful state, and
at first, I was thinking HSR in CA would be OK --
but only after all other non-HSR passenger rail
systems had gotten plenty of funds to run frequently
and reliably and safely and were truly affordable,
and went to places where people needed and wanted
to go to.
Then I started to think about exactly where those new
(off in the future some time) HSR tracks would be put,
and saw that some of those tracks might have to go across
valuable and essential farmland -- at ground level in the
San Joaquin Valley.
When I realized that, I thought, "Wait a minute! Aren't
we facing a looming worldwide food shortage, caused by
climate change? (Climate change has changed weather
patterns in such ways that long droughts are happening
in places all over the earth where droughts had been very
rare, and the oceans are greatly polluted with plastic (the
Pacific Gyre which contains a gigantic amount of plastic
trash, is larger than the state of Texas! and that plastic
is ingested by various marine creatures, after it has broken
up into very tiny pieces, and the fish and other marine
creatures that eat this plastic residue end up starving to
death because their stomachs get full of -- plastic residue,
so they never get enough food into their systems to stay alive.
What does all this have to do with real, well-managed and safe
real HSR in California? Lots! If these JSR systems are going
to be built in California, it would make the most sense if they
ran where the land is fairly flat and there is a long straight
route it could take. The only places like that in California are
the San Joaquin Valley and the Sacramento Valley north of
Sacramento, and both of those places are very important
agricultural areas, none of which should be used for anything
but growing food. By the way, my anti-HSR argument applies
also to non-HSR rail systems that would expand by using
farmland in the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys.
Feeding people is far more important than enabling people to
get from place to place very, very fast.
You wrote --
> Unlike you, I question the focus on LAX SFO as
> the most important or deficient travel market
> where such a need might really exist.
I only focused on LAX because you seemed to be including it
in the airports you said were quite under capacity. I read
the first sentence in your most recent post on this thread:
> I said unused excess intrastate regional airport capacity
> didn't I?
Yes, you did, And LAX does not have any unused capacity.
Other, smaller airports are being used for intrastate air travel.
But there is a market for SoCal to Bay Area air travel, and that
is why Surf Air started up in 2013, a mere 4 years ago. Yes, it
seems -- for now -- to be a small player tapping a niche market --
people who live on one of those two metro areas and work in the
other -- but it is expanding fairly fast. The big surprise to us
up here in northern California is that it exists and flies out of
former GA-only airports, such as San Carlos Airport (KSQL). It
began as a charter operation with a few Pilatus-12 turboprops, and
was a Part 135 airline -- charter only, no scheduled flights. Well,
it has become so popular that it now has scheduled flights -- still
from and to San Carlos Airport, as well as other small airports in
northern California it had not used previously. I think they are now
Part 121 -- scheduled commercial.
I do not know what percentage of intrastate air travel is between
LAX and SFO, rather than between any other two airports in this state.
That is all for now. Will reply to further posts later.
Thanks for your excellent reply.
You wrote --
> Unlike you I support a well planned "high speed",
> high frequency, high quality, reliable passenger rail
> system in CA in some form.
What, exactly, do you define as "high speed"?
A train operating at more than 150 mph for most
of its run?
That -- HSR in CA -- is the only thing we differ
about. As a matter of fact, I do support the "high
frequency, high quality, reliable passenger rail
system in CA in some form" that you support. Really.
And I have been thinking (Ooooh -- can't do that!
Might come up wit ideas or views that someone might
not like!) -- about HSR in our beautiful state, and
at first, I was thinking HSR in CA would be OK --
but only after all other non-HSR passenger rail
systems had gotten plenty of funds to run frequently
and reliably and safely and were truly affordable,
and went to places where people needed and wanted
to go to.
Then I started to think about exactly where those new
(off in the future some time) HSR tracks would be put,
and saw that some of those tracks might have to go across
valuable and essential farmland -- at ground level in the
San Joaquin Valley.
When I realized that, I thought, "Wait a minute! Aren't
we facing a looming worldwide food shortage, caused by
climate change? (Climate change has changed weather
patterns in such ways that long droughts are happening
in places all over the earth where droughts had been very
rare, and the oceans are greatly polluted with plastic (the
Pacific Gyre which contains a gigantic amount of plastic
trash, is larger than the state of Texas! and that plastic
is ingested by various marine creatures, after it has broken
up into very tiny pieces, and the fish and other marine
creatures that eat this plastic residue end up starving to
death because their stomachs get full of -- plastic residue,
so they never get enough food into their systems to stay alive.
What does all this have to do with real, well-managed and safe
real HSR in California? Lots! If these JSR systems are going
to be built in California, it would make the most sense if they
ran where the land is fairly flat and there is a long straight
route it could take. The only places like that in California are
the San Joaquin Valley and the Sacramento Valley north of
Sacramento, and both of those places are very important
agricultural areas, none of which should be used for anything
but growing food. By the way, my anti-HSR argument applies
also to non-HSR rail systems that would expand by using
farmland in the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys.
Feeding people is far more important than enabling people to
get from place to place very, very fast.
You wrote --
> Unlike you, I question the focus on LAX SFO as
> the most important or deficient travel market
> where such a need might really exist.
I only focused on LAX because you seemed to be including it
in the airports you said were quite under capacity. I read
the first sentence in your most recent post on this thread:
> I said unused excess intrastate regional airport capacity
> didn't I?
Yes, you did, And LAX does not have any unused capacity.
Other, smaller airports are being used for intrastate air travel.
But there is a market for SoCal to Bay Area air travel, and that
is why Surf Air started up in 2013, a mere 4 years ago. Yes, it
seems -- for now -- to be a small player tapping a niche market --
people who live on one of those two metro areas and work in the
other -- but it is expanding fairly fast. The big surprise to us
up here in northern California is that it exists and flies out of
former GA-only airports, such as San Carlos Airport (KSQL). It
began as a charter operation with a few Pilatus-12 turboprops, and
was a Part 135 airline -- charter only, no scheduled flights. Well,
it has become so popular that it now has scheduled flights -- still
from and to San Carlos Airport, as well as other small airports in
northern California it had not used previously. I think they are now
Part 121 -- scheduled commercial.
I do not know what percentage of intrastate air travel is between
LAX and SFO, rather than between any other two airports in this state.
That is all for now. Will reply to further posts later.
