Vote Yes On Prop 1A – High Speed Rail

I drive to San Jose a lot. Other than getting to listen to a lot of music, it sucks. (Watching the fog roll over the mountains onto 280 is pretty cool though.)

I would love nothing more than to take Caltrain, but it is just too slow. Given the time it takes to get to and from each station, I’m looking at a 2.5 hour trip each way, vs a 45 min to 1 hour drive. 79 mph? Baby bullet my ass. (And it doesn’t stop in Santa Clara — what’s up with that?)

At no point should I be able to drive faster than its top speed. Trains were going 79 mph 100 years ago. This is embarrassing for California – take the Shinkansen or the TGV and see what I mean. My best trip ever? Paris to London through the Chunnel in the bar car. I got more work done than I ever do on airplanes. Plus, the bar car.

Anyway, I am a big fan of a true bullet train (200 mph+) down through San Jose to LA. 20 minutes to Palo Alto, 30 minutes to San Jose, under 3 hours to LA. And one day it will go up to Sacramento, another drive that sucks. (Could the Capitol Corridor Amtrak be any slower through Richmond to Benicia?)

I love the videos on this page of the train whipping by cars on the highway and the existing Caltrain:

http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/map.htm

If I saw that zooming by, I would be annoyed enough to take the train. And I am sure we could add a good taco truck car.

Some good analysis over at the Transbay Blog:

Anyway, vote yes on 1A and bring California trains into the 20th century.