There are nearly 8 million people in the SF Bay Area and 18 million in the greater LA area.
Population
7.15 million
en.wikipedia.org
Population -
12,828,837
en.wikipedia.org
The Japanese metro areas have over 70 percent more people in them (and a lot more people in between, that area is the heart of Japan's population, and Japan has over three times as many people as CA in slightly less area).
And we have much cheaper gasoline. And they also have bad traffic, and probably higher tolls. And the Japanese line's construction started in 1959 when costs where lower (in real, not just nominal terms). Also the Japanese cities are slightly closer (the difference isn't huge, something like 70 miles, but the further the cities are the more aircraft beat out HSR).
Still if any area was going to work for HSR in the US, LA to San Francisco would be one of them (the other possibilities would be the North East Corridor, and maybe connecting the big cities in Texas). But its far from a slam dunk that would be cost effective. More like a very small possibility. Its nearly certain to be a big money loser (unlike Tokyo-Osaka which makes money), but there is some small chance the losses could just be large, rather than enormous, and if that happens someone might be able to spin it in to some sort of success. Maybe if the line is fanatical about cutting construction and operating costs, it could actually become reasonable at some point, but construction in CA usually isn't cheap. |
