“China HSR with a maximum speed of 350 km/h has a typical infrastructure unit cost of about US$ 17-21m, (RMB 100-125m) per km, with a high ratio of viaducts and tunnels. The cost of HSR construction in Europe, having design speed of 300 km/h or above is estimated to be of the order of US$25-39 m per km (see table 4 & 5). HSR construction cost (excluding land, rolling stock and interest during construction) is estimated to be as high as US$ 52m per km in California.”
I think the biggest problem of HSR in CA is not necessarily cost, distance, or speed. The biggest blocker to sustainable rail is the low population density and limited regional mass transit.
If you look at the Chinese cities connected in the article, those inland secondary cities are as big as SF or LA and probably have higher population density.
Take Nanjing (11.7M) , just NW of Shanghai (34M)
2600 people/mi2 and 9900-20k/mi2, respectively
Let’s look at SF and LA
SF 4.7M – 1341 people/mi2
LA 18.7M – 550 people/mi2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Los_Angeles)
So basically you have higher cost/mi of rail, with higher operating cost, over longer distances to service fewer people (total and by population density). It just doesn’t make sense. it’s only really useful to go from downtown to downtown – Anyone that’s been to LA know’s that it only services a tiny fractional of the metro area since there’s limited mass transit once you get there.
