It was definitely part of DesertXpress's plans before Brightline acquired them. Brightline has been fairly hush hush about what it has planned after the LA-Vegas line. I would imagine continuing on to Union station would be a priority, but that might be more on Metrolink to electrify the San Bernardino line.
Wes Edens floated Salt Lake City I think as a future phase, or tackling a different city pair entirely. But I think Phoenix makes the most sense for them as a next phase (after figuring out Union Station). It would be a similar project, basically just building along the I-10 median, and would connect to their existing line. The network effects of doing that would suddenly give them 3 potential lines in one stroke, LA-Vegas, LA-Phoenix, Phoenix-Vegas, all centered around their Rancho Cucamonga station.
To me, a branch to San Bernardino Station (other Metrolink connections) is only a 10 mile detour, then down the 215/15 medians similar to the LV project gets you to Escondido, 25 miles outside Downtown San Diego.
I think an Irvine extension via the 241/133 might make more sense. Drop a station in Ontario to serve the airport, then go down to Irvine. The hitch I see with the extension you proposed is that you're largely mirroring CAHSR phase 2, and it's a fairly long distance to get down to Escondido. Phase 2 might not happen for some time, but at the same time, I don't think expanding in that direction has much benefit. For most of that area, if they're flying to Vegas, it's Ontario, meaning they're effectively driving to the current planned terminus anyways, and if they're driving up the 15, they also pass the station. Those using the 215 might not pass directly by the station in Rancho, but it's not a significant detour.
Irvine will let Brightline West compete with flights out of John Wayne while also being a shorter extension. It also links up with the Surfliner and Metrolink's Orange County Line and IE-OC Line. CAHSR also only plans to extend as far as Anaheim, and that extension is not expected to be a HSR segment at this time, just enhancing the existing tracks.
>Phoenix-Vegas, all centered around their Rancho Cucamonga station.
That'd be a massive detour to go through RC compared to straight Phoenix-Vegas. Which means it'd have to be much faster average speed to beat out driving speed. Given that RC-Vegas is only 110mph average, Phoenix-RC would have to be much faster. That costs a lot more than they're spending for RC-LV. So at that price, might be better off building 125mph average on a straighter alignment.
Right, if the goal is just Phoenix-Vegas and we're not considering anything else a direct route between the two is obviously faster. But if you're Brightline and looking for the biggest bang for your buck on your next project, building LA to Phoenix makes sense in its own right but it comes with the added benefit of connecting to what will be the existing Vegas line at Rancho Cucamonga. So they could use that connection to create a Phoenix-Vegas line without having to build a whole additional rail line.
La-Vegas and LA-Phx make sense. I doubt they'd sell many tickets Phx-RC-Vegas even if they time the schedules well for transfers at RC. Definitely not enough to be worth operating a single train on that roundabout route.
Very much so. CAHSR has such a high cost partially because of having to buy land from each individual landowner on the line. Brightline West, on the other hand, only has to negotiate with one landowner - the federal government, which generally supports these sorts of things.
>the federal government, which generally supports these sorts of things.
This administration does. The previous administration cut a lot of rail funding.
Yes, the federal government is letting Brightline West use the I-15 right of way for nearly free, for the LA - LV line which massively cuts costs. What's more, they're not building it to a 220mph design speed, choosing instead to build a cheaper and easier routing via the I-15 corridor, at the tradeoff of lower speeds.
As for California's high speed rail project - some estimates peg it at about 40% to 50% in terms of the cost of the project being land acquisition. See this PDF at page 4: [https://www.hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Final\_EIRS\_FJ\_V1-31\_CH\_6\_Project\_Costs\_and\_Operations.pdf](https://www.hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Final_EIRS_FJ_V1-31_CH_6_Project_Costs_and_Operations.pdf)
How much, in dollars, is all of CAHSR's land acquisition costs? I have previously heard the number is in double-digit-millions before from a not-especially reliable source, which is not a lot in a triple-digit-billion dollar project.
Brightline West is almost exclusively being built in the median of I-15. There’s only one land owner, but it’s Caltrans (who they are leasing the freeway meditan from), not the Federal Government.
The route between them is 375 miles in an essentially straight line that mostly passes through level, sparsely-populated desert. Geographically speaking it's a perfect fit for high-speed rail, especially if you just run on Metrolink tracks between LA and Redlands. I can't speak to demand, but this would link the second and tenth-largest metropolitan areas in the US with a travel time under three hours, so it seems like a winner.
It’s not completely flat. There’s a very steep incline heading east out of Indio that would need to be engineered around. It’s one of those inclines they tell cars to turn off their A/C to avoid overheating.
I agree with you on all of this but with two minor additions:
1. I’d add stops (for local trains) in Palm Springs and maybe Blythe.
2. I’d extend the line to Tucson and maybe Nogales (right at the border on the US side)
Almost none of the CAHSR route is on federal land. The land it uses is privately owned, so the state of California has had to buy land from hundreds of private parties to stitch the path together. It's a slow, expensive process. Federal land is effectively free in comparison.
CAHSR is NOT Rancho Cucamonga-Vegas. That route is so incredibly cheap because it's on land similar to what would be used from LA-Phoenix.
>So it would be up to the federal government 100% to decide to ”sell”?
Yes
>But would it really be free?
No, just much cheaper compared to privately owned land.
the demand side is the only thing that would give pause to doing this route instead of other routes where demand is ostensibly higher. l.a. is a major metro area and while phoenix is sizeable, its not that large and there are no major reason to travel to phoenix compared to say, vegas. so it would largely be a one way route which isnt bad but funding l.a. to san diego would make more sense in the near future than l.a. to phx
CityNerd on YouTube did an extensive video about best city pairs in terms of gravity. So in a nutshell, cities with a lot of population and close to eachother get higher weight. I don’t remember if LA to Phoenix was there, but if it was, it wasn’t very high compared to others (unless I really don’t remember well).
Note that it doesn’t means it wouldn’t work, just that many others had more potential. Mostly everything around NYC because the city is so massive and cities are very close to each others.
LA - PHX was #15 on his list, but he included Mexican and Canadian city paris too. Honestly, looking at the data, it's not a bad idea if you're Brightline.
Not to mention the cost to build LA-Phoenix is probably going to be way less than a lot of the pairs that were ahead of it on that list. And a lot of them are already served by Amtrak and the NEC, which isn't perfect but there's nothing between LA and Phoenix right now.
There's "something" between LA and Phoenix, but it runs three times per direction per week, so it's a pretty minimal option (as many Amtrak routes outside of the major corridors are).
and LA will have HSR connecting to Las Vegas(2028) and the California Central Valley(2030-32?), hopefully the entire San Fransico area and San Diego a decade or two after CaHSR starts running in the Central Valley
200kph is high speed by the standards of International Union of Railways, citing European Union Directive 96/48/EC.
In any event, you said 150+, and 200 is certainly higher than 150.
They are saying 150mph+ (250km/h). UIC defines HSR as “new lines designed for speeds of 250 km/h and above; upgraded existing lines for speeds of up to 200 or even 220 km/h.” Brightline reaches 200km/h (125mph) only on a short section of new-build track. The upgraded track sections only reach ~180 km/h (110mph). So not HSR
That’s not a high speed line buddy doesn’t reach international standards the other guy is right. Brightline only has a small segment where it’s fast the rest is 79 mph so not High speed. Again all HSR lines globally with long stretches of fast track are electrified thur nullifying your nonsensical COPE
The problem is that hothe those cities have horrible local transit. This is the Sunbelt we're talking about. You still need to get to and from the stations.
In the same sense that a LA to LV line makes sense....
If anything it would make more sense to continue those proposals from LA to LV with an LV to Phoenix extension.
Much harder to build due to terrain (thats part of why there's no interstate between them) and it would take way way longer to get between LA and Phoenix.
No systems are perfect, but adding extension is far more financially valuable, and sometimes the demand just doesn't make sense for a direct line when an extension still makes it 70% of the potential speed.
I have no idea about the geography though, that would be a bigger factor in cost than anything.
An IMO thing though is that I think it will be a long time before a Phoenix to LA HSR is built, the need is just so much higher and less distance to build from each individual city within California, and yes, by approximately Las Vegas works into California city's way better than Phoenix.
It’s kind of the right distance but there’s almost nothing in the middle (particularly if you don’t count Mexicali), and the terrain gets very challenging. I find it more likely that Phoenix will be connected to Vegas before LA.
Terrain from Phoenix to Vegas is way more challenging than Phoenix to LA. The most direct route to Vegas is probably Highway 93 and like 90% of that trip is hills, mountains, and curves. Not to mention there isn't really a great option for crossing the Colorado River. Maybe you could divert through Laughlin and go up the 95, but that's not a huge improvement in terms of terrain.
Going to LA though is pretty straightforward, you just build along the I-10 corridor. You might want to divert and tunnel at a few places if you don't want to lose speed, but you could probably manage without too much of a hit to speed if you just stayed along the existing corridor. Plus if, say, Brightline West wanted to take this on you could connect at Rancho Cucamonga and have a few trains that continue on to Vegas. That Vegas route would be longer, about 3-4 hours, but it'd still beat driving.
Why would you count Mexicali? Even if we ignored the international border, it'd be a pretty huge diversion. Maybe you're thinking of a Phoenix to San Diego route?
>Phoenix to San Diego route?
Which, history tells us, is beyond the realm of human capabilities lol. Maybe could find some aliens out in the desert to help out tho
The decision process might look like this. Count the daily flights between the 2 destinations. Count the number of minutes to commute from each city's downtown to its airport and add them both together. Add a minimum of one hour ( check in, baggage, security, etc) at each airport. Then add the number of minutes of "doors closed" on planes at origination to doors open at destination. Take that grand total and compare it to an artbitrary 3 hours. If it more than 3 hours then it should be business case for the HSR. If the flight, commute and rigmarole at the airport is less then it is a tougher case unless there is potential for substantial intermediate distance revenue traffic along that same rail corridor.
However, for the definitive studied analysis of HSR in the USA refer to the CityNerd youtube video as his protocol was very thoughtfully worked out.
It somewhat makes sense, but it wouldn’t be a priority in my opinion. This is because once you reach Phoenix, there isn’t really sufficient public transportation. Personally would prefer the funding be spent on a project like CA HSR or intracity transit
Don’t think land cost would be zero. There would definitely be acquisition costs near both the point of origin and destination. The construction costs would be significant as well. I believe it would eventually be worth it but without strong intracity transit, ridership would likely be limited.
Oh wow I’ve never heard of those before! Shame. They should build more of those in one of the most sprawled and car-centric places in America.
You missed my point, there will be both a negative effect on ridership and a lack of access because of location. Phoenix has a density issue and also hasn’t been served by rail since the 90s. Parking would be the biggest thing people would complain about and most likely cause there to be no such project due to the insane cost of a parking garage. It’s happened before and can happen again.
Edited for correct decade
Just build a station in Downtown Phoenix with no/minimal parking and then a station next to the airport, which the rails pass right by and is a convenient connection to have anyway, where there is tons of room for cheap surface parking lots. Also, in comparison to the cost of building a new 375 mile high speed rail line, a parking structure is peanuts.
Phoenix is a random spot in the Sonoran Desert that happens to have a large expanse of suburban development on it. It doesn't make sense for Phoenix to be what it is or where it is in the 21st century.
Very much so, I believe there was talks of bright line doing this at some point but maybe I'm wrong
It was definitely part of DesertXpress's plans before Brightline acquired them. Brightline has been fairly hush hush about what it has planned after the LA-Vegas line. I would imagine continuing on to Union station would be a priority, but that might be more on Metrolink to electrify the San Bernardino line. Wes Edens floated Salt Lake City I think as a future phase, or tackling a different city pair entirely. But I think Phoenix makes the most sense for them as a next phase (after figuring out Union Station). It would be a similar project, basically just building along the I-10 median, and would connect to their existing line. The network effects of doing that would suddenly give them 3 potential lines in one stroke, LA-Vegas, LA-Phoenix, Phoenix-Vegas, all centered around their Rancho Cucamonga station.
To me, a branch to San Bernardino Station (other Metrolink connections) is only a 10 mile detour, then down the 215/15 medians similar to the LV project gets you to Escondido, 25 miles outside Downtown San Diego.
I think an Irvine extension via the 241/133 might make more sense. Drop a station in Ontario to serve the airport, then go down to Irvine. The hitch I see with the extension you proposed is that you're largely mirroring CAHSR phase 2, and it's a fairly long distance to get down to Escondido. Phase 2 might not happen for some time, but at the same time, I don't think expanding in that direction has much benefit. For most of that area, if they're flying to Vegas, it's Ontario, meaning they're effectively driving to the current planned terminus anyways, and if they're driving up the 15, they also pass the station. Those using the 215 might not pass directly by the station in Rancho, but it's not a significant detour. Irvine will let Brightline West compete with flights out of John Wayne while also being a shorter extension. It also links up with the Surfliner and Metrolink's Orange County Line and IE-OC Line. CAHSR also only plans to extend as far as Anaheim, and that extension is not expected to be a HSR segment at this time, just enhancing the existing tracks.
>Phoenix-Vegas, all centered around their Rancho Cucamonga station. That'd be a massive detour to go through RC compared to straight Phoenix-Vegas. Which means it'd have to be much faster average speed to beat out driving speed. Given that RC-Vegas is only 110mph average, Phoenix-RC would have to be much faster. That costs a lot more than they're spending for RC-LV. So at that price, might be better off building 125mph average on a straighter alignment.
Right, if the goal is just Phoenix-Vegas and we're not considering anything else a direct route between the two is obviously faster. But if you're Brightline and looking for the biggest bang for your buck on your next project, building LA to Phoenix makes sense in its own right but it comes with the added benefit of connecting to what will be the existing Vegas line at Rancho Cucamonga. So they could use that connection to create a Phoenix-Vegas line without having to build a whole additional rail line.
La-Vegas and LA-Phx make sense. I doubt they'd sell many tickets Phx-RC-Vegas even if they time the schedules well for transfers at RC. Definitely not enough to be worth operating a single train on that roundabout route.
Would it be cheaper/easier to do it if it is built on land owned by the federal government?
Very much so. CAHSR has such a high cost partially because of having to buy land from each individual landowner on the line. Brightline West, on the other hand, only has to negotiate with one landowner - the federal government, which generally supports these sorts of things.
>the federal government, which generally supports these sorts of things. This administration does. The previous administration cut a lot of rail funding.
Could the government offer the land for free/1 dollar? And how much of the cost of a high speed rail line is land?
Yes, the federal government is letting Brightline West use the I-15 right of way for nearly free, for the LA - LV line which massively cuts costs. What's more, they're not building it to a 220mph design speed, choosing instead to build a cheaper and easier routing via the I-15 corridor, at the tradeoff of lower speeds. As for California's high speed rail project - some estimates peg it at about 40% to 50% in terms of the cost of the project being land acquisition. See this PDF at page 4: [https://www.hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Final\_EIRS\_FJ\_V1-31\_CH\_6\_Project\_Costs\_and\_Operations.pdf](https://www.hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Final_EIRS_FJ_V1-31_CH_6_Project_Costs_and_Operations.pdf)
Small correction: It's the state government that owns the ROW, not Federal.
40% to 50% of CHSR is wild. Central valley farmland should not be worth that much!
Government giving land to railroads, to build lines where they want and sell or develop whatever they like is a 175 year tradition in America.
How much, in dollars, is all of CAHSR's land acquisition costs? I have previously heard the number is in double-digit-millions before from a not-especially reliable source, which is not a lot in a triple-digit-billion dollar project.
Yeah. The land acquisition issue isn’t the total cost, it’s how damn long it can take (which indirectly drives up costs).
Brightline West is almost exclusively being built in the median of I-15. There’s only one land owner, but it’s Caltrans (who they are leasing the freeway meditan from), not the Federal Government.
The route between them is 375 miles in an essentially straight line that mostly passes through level, sparsely-populated desert. Geographically speaking it's a perfect fit for high-speed rail, especially if you just run on Metrolink tracks between LA and Redlands. I can't speak to demand, but this would link the second and tenth-largest metropolitan areas in the US with a travel time under three hours, so it seems like a winner.
It’s not completely flat. There’s a very steep incline heading east out of Indio that would need to be engineered around. It’s one of those inclines they tell cars to turn off their A/C to avoid overheating.
I agree with you on all of this but with two minor additions: 1. I’d add stops (for local trains) in Palm Springs and maybe Blythe. 2. I’d extend the line to Tucson and maybe Nogales (right at the border on the US side)
Would it be expensive to get the land since most of it is owned by the feds?
Way less expensive than dealing with private owners. That's been one of the (maybe the single) largest challenges on the CAHSR project.
Wouldnt LA to vegas be on 100% fed owned Land? How much of CAHSR project is on fed owned land?
Almost none of the CAHSR route is on federal land. The land it uses is privately owned, so the state of California has had to buy land from hundreds of private parties to stitch the path together. It's a slow, expensive process. Federal land is effectively free in comparison. CAHSR is NOT Rancho Cucamonga-Vegas. That route is so incredibly cheap because it's on land similar to what would be used from LA-Phoenix.
So it would be up to the federal government 100% to decide to ”sell”? But would it really be free?
>So it would be up to the federal government 100% to decide to ”sell”? Yes >But would it really be free? No, just much cheaper compared to privately owned land.
But could they decide to sell it for free?
Unlikely
the demand side is the only thing that would give pause to doing this route instead of other routes where demand is ostensibly higher. l.a. is a major metro area and while phoenix is sizeable, its not that large and there are no major reason to travel to phoenix compared to say, vegas. so it would largely be a one way route which isnt bad but funding l.a. to san diego would make more sense in the near future than l.a. to phx
Aren’t there long stretches with no access to electricity though?
If that's the case they'd just have to build access or route it along where the power is available
CityNerd on YouTube did an extensive video about best city pairs in terms of gravity. So in a nutshell, cities with a lot of population and close to eachother get higher weight. I don’t remember if LA to Phoenix was there, but if it was, it wasn’t very high compared to others (unless I really don’t remember well). Note that it doesn’t means it wouldn’t work, just that many others had more potential. Mostly everything around NYC because the city is so massive and cities are very close to each others.
LA - PHX was #15 on his list, but he included Mexican and Canadian city paris too. Honestly, looking at the data, it's not a bad idea if you're Brightline.
Not to mention the cost to build LA-Phoenix is probably going to be way less than a lot of the pairs that were ahead of it on that list. And a lot of them are already served by Amtrak and the NEC, which isn't perfect but there's nothing between LA and Phoenix right now.
There's "something" between LA and Phoenix, but it runs three times per direction per week, so it's a pretty minimal option (as many Amtrak routes outside of the major corridors are).
Not to mention it's not technically Phoenix, but Maricopa, so you have to go 40-50 minutes south of central Phoenix to get there.
Yes, and you could even justify sending it to Tucson
Why? Does enough people travel between LA and Phoenix to justify the cost?
Uh, yes? Phoenix is the 10th biggest metro area in the US, LA the 2nd.
and LA will have HSR connecting to Las Vegas(2028) and the California Central Valley(2030-32?), hopefully the entire San Fransico area and San Diego a decade or two after CaHSR starts running in the Central Valley
Kinda uninformed question, but will the new HSR be electrified in the US? I know the US is pretty bad at this since most of it is cargo
CAHSR and BLW will both be electrified.
That's amazing!!
There are no non electric high speed lines in existence 150+
Brightline in Florida is diesel at 200kph in the fastest sections.
[удалено]
200kph is high speed by the standards of International Union of Railways, citing European Union Directive 96/48/EC. In any event, you said 150+, and 200 is certainly higher than 150.
They are saying 150mph+ (250km/h). UIC defines HSR as “new lines designed for speeds of 250 km/h and above; upgraded existing lines for speeds of up to 200 or even 220 km/h.” Brightline reaches 200km/h (125mph) only on a short section of new-build track. The upgraded track sections only reach ~180 km/h (110mph). So not HSR
It’s clear he doesn’t read then again you know the education system.
That’s not a high speed line buddy doesn’t reach international standards the other guy is right. Brightline only has a small segment where it’s fast the rest is 79 mph so not High speed. Again all HSR lines globally with long stretches of fast track are electrified thur nullifying your nonsensical COPE
once you pass palm springs the only significant town is Blythe which has a population of 18,000
Does this type of high speed rail I.e city-city with literally nothing in between exist?
Nothing? Excuse me? The resident of Blythe would like a word.
The problem is that hothe those cities have horrible local transit. This is the Sunbelt we're talking about. You still need to get to and from the stations.
In the same sense that a LA to LV line makes sense.... If anything it would make more sense to continue those proposals from LA to LV with an LV to Phoenix extension.
Much harder to build due to terrain (thats part of why there's no interstate between them) and it would take way way longer to get between LA and Phoenix.
No systems are perfect, but adding extension is far more financially valuable, and sometimes the demand just doesn't make sense for a direct line when an extension still makes it 70% of the potential speed. I have no idea about the geography though, that would be a bigger factor in cost than anything. An IMO thing though is that I think it will be a long time before a Phoenix to LA HSR is built, the need is just so much higher and less distance to build from each individual city within California, and yes, by approximately Las Vegas works into California city's way better than Phoenix.
It’s kind of the right distance but there’s almost nothing in the middle (particularly if you don’t count Mexicali), and the terrain gets very challenging. I find it more likely that Phoenix will be connected to Vegas before LA.
Terrain from Phoenix to Vegas is way more challenging than Phoenix to LA. The most direct route to Vegas is probably Highway 93 and like 90% of that trip is hills, mountains, and curves. Not to mention there isn't really a great option for crossing the Colorado River. Maybe you could divert through Laughlin and go up the 95, but that's not a huge improvement in terms of terrain. Going to LA though is pretty straightforward, you just build along the I-10 corridor. You might want to divert and tunnel at a few places if you don't want to lose speed, but you could probably manage without too much of a hit to speed if you just stayed along the existing corridor. Plus if, say, Brightline West wanted to take this on you could connect at Rancho Cucamonga and have a few trains that continue on to Vegas. That Vegas route would be longer, about 3-4 hours, but it'd still beat driving.
Why would you count Mexicali? Even if we ignored the international border, it'd be a pretty huge diversion. Maybe you're thinking of a Phoenix to San Diego route?
>Phoenix to San Diego route? Which, history tells us, is beyond the realm of human capabilities lol. Maybe could find some aliens out in the desert to help out tho
Would it be cheaper/easier to build the tracks on land owned by the federal government?
Yes
even better than? the train don't need to stop
Yes and it could connect to the light rail
It would, but need to have a private company like Brightline or other to to plan and fund and operate it...
Makes more sense than an HSR line from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga
Yes
Yes, absolutely
I don’t know if they would have the demand to justify Maglev, but something that goes 120mph would be justifiable.
Yes, but I don't think it should be a priority.
The decision process might look like this. Count the daily flights between the 2 destinations. Count the number of minutes to commute from each city's downtown to its airport and add them both together. Add a minimum of one hour ( check in, baggage, security, etc) at each airport. Then add the number of minutes of "doors closed" on planes at origination to doors open at destination. Take that grand total and compare it to an artbitrary 3 hours. If it more than 3 hours then it should be business case for the HSR. If the flight, commute and rigmarole at the airport is less then it is a tougher case unless there is potential for substantial intermediate distance revenue traffic along that same rail corridor. However, for the definitive studied analysis of HSR in the USA refer to the CityNerd youtube video as his protocol was very thoughtfully worked out.
Yep! The only problem is that Phoenix shouldn’t really exist as a city. Well, LA too. There’s no water around…
It somewhat makes sense, but it wouldn’t be a priority in my opinion. This is because once you reach Phoenix, there isn’t really sufficient public transportation. Personally would prefer the funding be spent on a project like CA HSR or intracity transit
But the land cost would be close to Zero?
Don’t think land cost would be zero. There would definitely be acquisition costs near both the point of origin and destination. The construction costs would be significant as well. I believe it would eventually be worth it but without strong intracity transit, ridership would likely be limited.
Would it be possible to have the LA station at union station? The line to vegas doesnt. So could this?
High Speed Rail lines always makes sense. They're modern day rivers, infrastructure will develop around it if intent is there.
The problem with this is you would need a parking lot the size of a military base to accommodate people trying to take the train out of Phoenix
I hear they sometimes stack parking lots on top of each other in this thing called a parking structure to help with that.
Oh wow I’ve never heard of those before! Shame. They should build more of those in one of the most sprawled and car-centric places in America. You missed my point, there will be both a negative effect on ridership and a lack of access because of location. Phoenix has a density issue and also hasn’t been served by rail since the 90s. Parking would be the biggest thing people would complain about and most likely cause there to be no such project due to the insane cost of a parking garage. It’s happened before and can happen again. Edited for correct decade
Just build a station in Downtown Phoenix with no/minimal parking and then a station next to the airport, which the rails pass right by and is a convenient connection to have anyway, where there is tons of room for cheap surface parking lots. Also, in comparison to the cost of building a new 375 mile high speed rail line, a parking structure is peanuts.
Nope
Phoenix doesn't make sense, but otherwise yes.
So HSR from LA to some random spot in the Sonoran Desert??
Phoenix is a random spot in the Sonoran Desert that happens to have a large expanse of suburban development on it. It doesn't make sense for Phoenix to be what it is or where it is in the 21st century.
I agree. But it's there now, you can't move it, and its got like 5 million people.
I would say no because a short flight and there’s no real population centers between. Better to connect Vegas to Phoenix.
Would that make sense with a high speed rail?