it's honestly pathetic how bad the US has become at building infrastructure

Somehow I find it very strange, that something like that "has to pay off". No one bats an eye, when building highways, but public transport has to be a profitable business.

This is an excellent unbiased report on CA HSR. One thing though that was only briefly mentioned was that early on consultants from Europe recommended a different route. Instead of the current route along old Hwy 99 using the I5 corridor was recommended since the land rights were already in place. Anyone who has ever traveled along these routes knows that Hwy 99 goes right through some of the most productive farmland in the world, while I5 goes through mostly barren country. The latest report from HSR contractors identify the land acquisition as the one of the prime factors for delays and cost over runs. Of course politics early one was a big driver for choosing the route unfortunately. Personally if driving I prefer Hwy 99 over I5. It's slower but much less boring than I5. If HSR is ever fully operational I doubt I'll live to see it.

It's all about the land for the tracks. The more land claimed for public transport the better. Hundreds of years from now people will still be riding on these lines. The more work done the happier I am, even if I might not get to benefit from it in my lifetime, because it's for the future.

America: believes they are the greatest country in the world Also America: Lagging behind in infrastructure, education, and healthcare

As a Californian resident (San Diego) who is interested in trains, thanks for the information! This will take a long time (if the public and the officials want it to happen), but if and when the California High-Speed Rail project is finished, I will be interested in riding on it! If not, I guess the alternative is more conventional rail!

I love how the question on the thumbnail is “Will it ever be completed?”

If this was a military budget the money would have been found. Stop short changing your citizens and give them something they deserve.

Opportunity costs would probably be difficult to show but would be an important part of this discussion. If a lot of people use the HSR instead of driving, roads will need less maintenance which will bring savings, but this won't show up on an HSR balance sheet. Balance sheets and notions of profitability in general tend to overlook extenalities, and environmental benefits aren't the only ones at play here.

The fundamental differences between China’s HSR and USA’s proposed HSR: China: build the HSR everywhere, charge reasonable price, and save the travel time and stimulate the economy as a whole in the long term. Central government will absorb the deficit after the revenue. They think the stimulation of the economy as a whole is more than enough to offset the cost. USA: we think private companies can do everything, including building HSR and charge enough so they can break-even or even make a profit. HSR is DOA.

I have been a supporter of High-Speed Rail here in California. For as many people who live here, it would be a huge asset in the long run.

Long story short is that US doesn't have high speed rail because of 100 years of auto (and more recently airline) industry propaganda and meddling. Preceding the Federal Highway Act, there were 3 decades of lobbying and cultural manipulation. There's a privately backed HSR project in Texas, but Southwest airlines is funneling huge amounts of money to state officials to hobble it.

(I am from Germany.) The reason for high cost of California HSR is the extensive usage of tunnels and bridges. From a worldwide point of view, the reason to build cost-efficient or non cost-efficient is not the landscape, it is the question of funding. With public money, there's no need to build cost-efficient. You can compare Brightline vs. CHSR in the U.S., and France and Germany in Europe. The first french HS line (TGV Paris - Lyon) has been 100% funded by private money, and it has zero tunnels even in very hilly landscape. In Germany, I know one case where a citicen initiative pushed a less expensive variant of a HSR section. To omit that the public money expires, indeed a long tunnel has been implemented in the neighbour section. I am totally convinced that in the Bakersfield LA section, where lots of tunnels are planned, a much cheaper route would be possible.

Starting with the section they are is a joke. They should have done the LA to SD section. If they had actually done that in the 80s maybe the system would have be done by now.

I was thinking the Berlin airport is a terrible done project but this topped it by miles

I'm a Californian and have supported this project for 20 years. I hate that we're still probably another 20 years away from having the SF-LA line full operational.

I am wondering if all those 12 lane motorways are profitable? And do they hold ballot measures before each motorway construction? I don't even dare to imagine the money and time they spent on building those motorways, it must have been hundreds of years and trillions of dollars.

It is a needed project for the people in California and the future of California. 1/6 passengers flying from the San Francisco area go to Los Angles and the San Francisco and Los Angles airports are at capacity. The train would be faster than the plane too. The San Francisco area has a housing crisis and the project opens up the Central Valley for more housing. Keep in mind the project includes CalMod and Altamont rail improvements.

If anything else the California HSR will be an excellent blueprint to learn from all the mistakes that have evolved and endured from it so that future HSR projects around the nation proceed without excessive delays, political bottlenecks and better budgeting and cost efficiency.

Wow! This video is awesome. Can't believe Arnold Schwarzenegger agreed to do the voice over!

by the time they finish this, flying cars will be out - _ -

This is a wonderful explainer. Thanks so much! 20:42 made me smile as a native Houstonian - missing my hometown and folks after a year of COVID time. For mile-by-mile coverage of this project, I recommend a channel called The Four Foot, shot independently by drone and from roadways. I'm truly amazed and grateful by the quality of citizen rail journalism on KZfaq.

100 billion dollars, aka 14% of the us military budget of 2020

This is by far the best overview of CAHSR that I've seen. Really detailed and well done, thank you!

massive infrastructure projects in the US were only built so that they can be used for war. the railway boom in America was during the civil war, when Pres. Lincoln realized that trains can transport a massive amount of troops to the frontline quickly and efficiently. the interstate was built because of the National Interstate Defense Act of 1953, to prepare for a all out war with the USSR. when all airports are destroyed, planes and land on highways. that's why in the US, no matter which interstate you are driving on, there is always portions of the interstate that are completely straight, and the reason for that is to help planes to land.

I’m a native southern Californian, and voted for Prop 1A back in 2008. I was in my 20s then. It was promised to connect SF to SD. Why the hell didn’t they work on the section between LA and SD first? It would have benefited the most amount of people first and generated the revenue needed to fund the remaining section? Seriously, if I want to enjoy the benefits of HSR, I better leave America, because at this rate, I’ll be dead before it comes to fruition. Can you imagine, I voted for it in my 20s and won’t see it in my lifetime?! Meanwhile China has built roughly 10,000 miles of HSR since I cast my ballot?

This is what happens when it becomes about popularity and politics as apposed to just getting the job done. That's why brightline in fl was started after and will be running profitably whilst politicians are still arguing over who is to blame. I want high speed rail everywhere as it's a great idea, just please do it correctly. Follow japan's, frances and FL example.

I like your opening chime....anybody who has ever used the train in Japan will understand!

the aviation, oil and automotive industries in the US will not allow such projects and play lobbying with local authorities even if it can be completed, the HSR project will take a long time & drag on until the point where the HSR ticket price sold will be the same or greater than the airline ticket price

Shame the American government and investors can never foresee the benefit it brings in 2060 at present. They only focus on short-term profits.

I first heard the project 30 years ago, and I'm pretty sure that it will be (at least partially) completed in another 30 years. NO KIDDING !!!

40 years and still waiting for any progress, but hope is low with eleven of corruption in the construction industry.

The last comparison of the cost of the HSR to the military spending is just too savage

They said it would be completed by 2021. It’s 2021 now and it’s only like what , 1% done

List of countries that managed to get HSR faster than the US (apart from the well known ones): Morocco, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey ...

The project is big pork barrel. The right way was to improve the Coast Starlight route with grade separated dedicated rail. This way the route is shorter and on existing right of way. Run express trains from LA Union Station to San Francisco without stops

I somehow feel this project, even though I'd like to see it completed, was not a good start for high-speed rail in the US. As mentioned, the benefits barely outweigh the costs, even if you take a more comprehensive view of the concept of "benefit". A project like this probably erodes much of the support for future projects in other parts of the country. I would say upgrading the NEC to become a true high-speed line could be more successful already. In California, the route Los Angles-San Diego (around 200 km) also seems a more feasible option, although I would actually just go for a high-performance commuter-style railway there to be better able to serve the areas in between.

"The rabbit sleeps in another bush" ... love it! Very nice report.

I will have no chance to see it will ever finished in my life.

USA struggles to build any sort of mass transit China: high-speed rail printer go burrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Minor errata: at 14:48 the red line seems to follow BART's ROW from SF to Millbrae rather than Caltrain's, which roughly parallels the US-101 highway and goes around to the east of the mountain between SF and South SF rather than west, as depicted.

They should’ve started phase 1 on a smaller scale. San Diego to Los Angles would’ve been the perfect plan. 1. It would’ve been quicker to complete 2. The cost would only be a few billion 3. It would’ve been profitable within 10 years 4. It would’ve built up my hype and demand for the rest of the rail to be expedited towards San Francisco. I think too many corrupt people had a say in the building process so at this point it will never be done.🤷‍♂️

Other countries around the world, build skyscrapers in just a fee years because they work 24 hours a day with three shifts throughout the day. Besides that, mostly everyone is in agreement with the projects and therefore there is no real political division.

When comparing the travel times for air and HSR, why did you count the time getting to and from the airport, but not the time getting to and from the train station?

I live near San Francisco. High Speed Rail in California isn't going to happen anytime within the next 50 years. It's not a high priority project and nobody here even talks about it anymore. I've ridden HSR in Japan, China and Europe. Most cities on the rail lines have very good public transit once you get off HSR. SF and parts of the SF Bay Area have good public transit, but LA doesn't. If I was to ride the train from SF to LA, I'd have to rent a car in LA. Rather than doing that, I'd just drive my car from SF to LA. The money allocated to HSR in California would be better spent on local transit systems like BART and Caltrain in the Bay Area, and Metro in Southern California. The only place I can see HSR working in the US is in the northeast, between Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.

They need to bring in construction experts from Europe. The ones here want too much.

Let me make a prediction now. I think it will be sooner for Malaysia to finish its high speed rail than for CA to finish theirs.

The train in the thumbnail looks like a train-shaped volleyball xD

I have never seen such a good summary of a complicated topic like this one! Really great job here! And yeah, HSR always looks like very expensive but: 1) it takes a good decade or more to be built (so it's basically less than 1 billion dollars per year...which is not much at all) 2) the benefits are enourmous as new business opportunities will pop-out 3) there are a lot of things in which we spend much more money (like military stuff as you said) So let's hope this projects goes through and wake up people around the US about the benefits of HSR!

By end of 2020 China have 37,900 KM of HSR & end of 2021 it will surpass the world circumference of 40,075 km !

Long story short... at construction costs somewhere in the range of $8.75million per mile.... it is no wonder there is little to no high speed rail being built in the US. Also if we diverted a fraction of our annual federal budget for things like the military to national infrastructure... we would be the envy of the world. Sadly too many politicians are dumb & or blind with greed.

From what I have heard this rail system will be the slowest high speed rail system in the world, the advertised travel time is a pipe dream because it will be speed limited to 70 mph for its first and last 100 miles, it will take longer than flying and cost more than flying. A round trip ticket for a flight from SF to LA and back starts at less than $100, and in 2015 the estimated 1 way train ticket cost was $86; it is probably higher now. I have taken the SF-LA flight corridor, your 5 hour flight time is about twice as long as it actually is, and it seems that your 2:40 advertised travel time by train doesn't take into account the travel time to and from the station as your 5 hour flight timeline appears to. The only advantage the train would offer is no baggage fees.

Awesome and relatively fast overview of the project. Thank you!

Greetings from a railfan from Malaysia.I have suggestions for future vids 1.ECRL(East Coast Rail Link)-Malaysia 2.Singapore MRT 3.Jakarta-Bandung HSR-Indonesia 4.Moscow Metro

The first segment they open will have insane operating costs and low ridership. Until they get either san Fran or la linked the operating costs will be hundreds of times the actual revenues.

Amazing video ! It's crazy how a powerfull country like the USA is not able to build a HSL. It's shows how democracy and private investments are not working for the railways.

I took the first high speed rail from Tain-Jin to Beijing at the speed of 320 km/hour., and now they have 30,000 km of high speed rail in operation/services. US has so called the “bullet train” from Modesto to Bakersfield, Ca. at speed of 60 mile/hour and won’t be finished till 2025. We keep saying that we will past them soon?

Why does it have to pass through the centers of Bakersfield and Fresno. That's where heavy infra costs are occurring since they have to reconfigure everything based on the grid of the cities. Why not just build stations at the periphery.

I swear my country will get its high speed rail finished first before this project ever completes Phase 1.

This video is an absolutely perfect explanation into the American way of doing things: Spend more money on wars, and less on improving the lives of its own citizens.

Please do a video on the planned Moscow-Kazan high speed railway line due to open in 2023.

It's like this has been set up to fail. They're building the central section that runs from nowhere to nowhere first, instead of starting with the heavily populated ends at the Bay Area and Greater L.A. then building the central section to connect them.

ah the Hotel California Railway You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave

One very important factor about train travel in the US that people rarely mention is crime. Riding a train from LA downtown, through Bakersfield, Merced, etc and arriving in SF downtown dragging a luggage, you'd be delivering yourself as free welfare to the Ghettos. It'd be a reality show how many times can I survive the hood. LOL

Can you imagine if it takes longer to finish then the transcontinental railroad? To those who don't know, the transcontinental railroad toke 6 years to build.

In France, the High Speed Lines building before 1980 and 2015, permit to save the financial situation of National French Railway, the freight trafic is out....the comuters railways is connected with them. The benefit is global for the nation, not necessary for the railway itself. Good luck for HSR California !

Great vid. Are you going to do a video on the HS2(High Speed 2) project in the UK?

My prediction is the Texas HSR will be completed before California despite the fact the project was only launched last year

It's incredible: in Brazil there is nor one quilometer of railway to transport people!

The inside California news that I've been mentally curating (red flag for opinion right here) is that a lot of the construction done for the California high speed rail is to support the construction executives. The same can be said for the homeless housing proposition.

The Caltrain corridor map at around the 15 minute mark is slightly incorrect. It looks like you followed BART for part of it, and then switched to the Caltrain corridor close to SFO. Caltrain does not go to Daly City, and more closely follows the Bay.

the values are frightening, but the cost of living in california is very high. High wages make the work expensive

Why the intro reminds me of train arrival in Tokyo station😂

This is so awesome 😮 I can't wait for it to be done. We need to build dams and reservoirs next. I mean they. 🤣

Been waiting for this one, keep up the good work!

Any chance to do one about Rail Baltica project?

It is an infrastructure project.so calculations of profit or loss need not be done.

Roads don't pay for themselves, everyone uses them for free..................why then should trains be profitable???? Stavros

I don’t think foreigners understand how extensive the areas of San Francisco and LA are. There are 3 airports in San Francisco, and it will take you .5 hours to drive from San Francisco to San José in good traffic. From LAX to Disneyland is about 1 hour in good traffic. There are 5 airports in the LA basin, and that does not include San Diego. You can manage to go around the Bay Area with public transit, but no LA due to the distances involved. The Central Valley of California is not a place with a lot of tourism.

By the time that it is done everyone in California will either be billionaires or homeless

Thid is all absurd, there are many entities that are against high speed rail, mainly airlines and the oil industry. There is no reason that this costs so much. This is the work of (corporate buffoon) big money interests making this as hard as possible.

If HS2 is anything to go by California has got no chance of completing this.

I don't know if California needs one, but I definitely know the East Coast needs one that connects Boston, DC, NYC and Philadelphia.

It’s ridiculous that they can’t plan and build this one line in 7 years. That’s bureaucracy at work. It should be half done.

Your estimation of the time needed to fly between LAX (all airports) and SFO (all airports) is way too high - total door to door time is more like 2hrs since the flight is less than an hour and it takes very little time to get to the airport, get through security, and walk to a boarding gate. Also be prepared the same security needed at the airport will also be needed at each train station - you will not be able to simply walk on the train without going through a TSA security line as well. The costs of this train are just too high, and it will require government subsidies every year just to operate (as HSR in Spain, Germany, France, and Japan also do). With a ticket cost comparable to an air ticket, and with a system requiring tax money just to operate every year, this boondoggle will never be able to recoup its cost and will always be a financial drain on the state. Airports are self-funded and require no tax money to operate, and there are no tax subsidies to air tickets either.

When Japan completed its first high speed rail line in 1964, its opening was timed to coincide with the Tokyo Olympics. I just think how incredible it would be if California could do the same and aim to complete the LA to SF high speed rail line by 2028 so its debut could coincide with the LA Olympics. In 2028 the world will have its eyes on the US and California for the Olympics, and they could provide the ideal backdrop to show on the world stage that high speed rail can and will work here.

I doubt this will ever happen , because the whole infrastructure is falling apart.

California High-Speed Rail: Will only work inside a Hollywood studio with great CGI team Even than it will be late

I get that it seems strange that the state built the route thru the central valley first since there is a lower population, but I think that is precisely why they are building that stretch first. Lower cost to build over farmland than to move whole neighborhoods to build a rail line.

The big wrinkle is that a California referendum isn't just a public vote. It's an amendment to the state Constitution. Things like the 2hr 40m L.A.-S.F. time table and the demand that the project be financially self-sustaining are baked into the Constitution now, and not so easily altered. The system blending decision was not cost saving, it was purely political. You have to consider that of all the progressive projects and ideas in California, this one probably has the least support. Local opposition in the bay area and L.A. basin would have made dedicated ROW in those areas nearly impossible, and the CAHSR Authority had to capitulate to that reality. Because of the time restriction between L.A. and S.F., this doomed the train to the necessity of running 200mph+ in the extensive tunnel network that is required. No other HSR system does this. CAHSR will do it for 57 miles. Because of the air resistance that builds up at those speeds, the tunnels need to be wider to allow the air to pass around the train more freely. Bigger tunnels means more expensive tunnels and that is where the vast majority of cost increase has come from. Your conclusion that the project can really only be funded by the federal government is correct. The problem is that once California's current funding runs out, you have around $60 billion of expense left, and about $500 million a year coming in from Cap-and-Trade. Apply 2% inflation to $60 billion, and you have $1.2 billion. So the dilemma is not only that if the project is not completed on time, the state by itself doesn't have the money to build it. The problem is that the state doesn't even have the money to cover inflation and can therefore never build it without additional funding. The fact that this is one of the least popular progressive ideas in the state comes into play there, because the likelihood that Californians would pass another bond measure is not great. He's the problem with the whole idea that this project is going to have a big impact on the state: California has about 13 million daily surface road commuters. Max capacity of CAHSR at any given point is 125,000 trips/day. Even at the extremely rosy CAHSR Authority ridership estimates, you have 40 million yearly trips compared to about 4.7 BILLION yearly trips on the road network. It's a drop in the bucket. Also very important is that the train is passenger only and does nothing to reduce freight traffic, which is currently an enormous burden on the road network. On the environmental end, the impact is minimal because again, we're only reducing road traffic by 1%. Additionally, by the time this project could ever hope to be completed, new combustion passenger road vehicles will no longer be available for purchase in California. The statewide road vehicle fleet transition to electric will already be well underway. Self-driving cars and investments in making the road network smarter will have FAR more impact on road traffic than this train could ever dream. Which goes back to the original purpose of the project: it's cheaper to build the train than to attempt to expand various airports around L.A. and S.F. indefinitely. Every other reason that has been concocted around this project is simply to try to bolster the image of a project which is massively behind schedule and massively overbudget.

Never heard of this! I like this long video

My friend lives in Bakersfield and has a kid but works in San Francisco and has to drive back and forth. Build the damn rail

Build that train! Build that train!

If technological progress in terms of public transport infrastructure were a civilization game, USA looks doomed to be lose the game only reaching the normal modern era while other civilizations would be in the future tech era.

Well, the California High-speed Rail Project is the ultimate California Dreaming. The Chinese started their High-speed Rail from Beijing to Tianjin, the second and third most populous cities in China, whereas the Americans start it at Central Valley.

It’s a great idea in theory, as a Californian who regularly goes between la and sf I’m sure that the railway would be economical and be used greatly, however it is not smart the way that they went about building this railway. First they should have built the railway in larger metro areas at first like San Diego to Los Angeles and that revenue should have been used to expand the rail network. Although the Central Valley is a large flat area and Fresno and Bakersfield have large populations, no one goes between the cities and there is no revenue that would be made specifically in the Central Valley, i hope that either a private company or the government can overhaul the project and get it done, it would be great

Now I am betting 600 to say Afghanistan is getting a H.S.R. before California.

To put how bad American railways are, using the numbers in the this video, I estimated that the average speed between San Francisco and LA.....was under 40 mph. To put that in perspective, UK intercity trains (which we pretend are high speed trains for some reason), are roughly double that. Hell, the car average speed on the route is about 1.5 times faster. Sure, investing in intercity trains wouldn't beat the plane, but add in some luxury, and maybe people would choose the slow route, just to enjoy the service. It would be a start.

High speed rail should be public private partnership like the space program is. san Francisco has beautiful sales force transit could start high speed rail or could start at cal train and travel thru central valley to Los Angeles and Las Vegas needs high speed rail from las Vegas to San Francisco and las Vegas to Los Angeles.

40 Miles to ??? (at least 700) Miles as minimum/maximum for the length of a highspeedroute that will earn money. You just need trains that can run a bit faster for more than 400 miles (something like 420 km/h [for new routes]). In China there are many people who use the highspeedtrain for more than 500 miles.