BOB2 Wrote:
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> A great look at what Brightline did and why they
> did it...
>
> Brightline used well documented travel demands to
> test alternative investment scenarios for ones
> that offered the best cost/benefit ratio (both to
> builased and operate)and refined technical and
> design parameters to get to a system that would be
> most likely to meet the observed demands, with
> fares, travel times, and freqencies to make a
> potential postive "return on investment" (aka
> "profit").
>
> The CAHSRA ignored all of that sound market/demand
> based cost benefit (cost versus travel demand
> trade off's) analysis to "create" a "high speed"
> alternative, regardless of CA's many various
> observed travel demands in north south travel.
> CAHSRA's fiasco is based solely on an arbitrary
> travel time assumption, with no regard to
> cost/benefit (to ride, operate or build), or to
> real fare elasticity, freqency, and travel time
> tradeoffs, to determine that it must "a priori" be
> the most expensive and fastest "technology and
> design" as the first and only criteria, and then
> design a system where neither the costs nor
> "return on investment" were (and still aren't)
> even a passing consideration.
>
> The lesson that should be learned, from the
> differing experiences and outcomes of Brightline
> and the CAHSRA, regardless of if it is a public or
> private investment in infrastucture, is that bad
> planning (like the "private" project in
> Indiana...) almost inevitably leads to bad
> projects... Plenty of poorly planned, bloated,
> and costly highway and transit projects could
> learn the same lessons from these contrasting
> examples "case studies" in HSR...

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