* How often do people travel between LA and SF anyways?*
According to the WSJ, 6 million people per year travel between LA & SF via air every year. I can't find highway numbers, but I gotta believe it's about the same order of magnitude, if not higher.
Improve BART, VTA light rail and CalTrain (in the Bay Area), and I suspect it will have a much larger positive impact on the lives of more people.
All of the above need to be done, both will have a positive impact of even more people.
Cal-HSRA predicts that by 2040 the train will reduce highway miles traveled by 10 million miles a day[1]. For comparison, in May 2013, there were 15.3 billion miles of travel just on California highways[2]. A reduction of 10 million miles a day would be about 2%, and assuming people continue to move into the state, the number of highway mile traveled per day will likely be quite a bit higher in 2040 than it is today.
I don't know, it just doesn't seem like a very compelling argument to me. The state doesn't have unlimited resources. Spend the money where it will do the most good.
A reduction of 10 million miles a day would be about 2%,
In highway terms, that's a significant reduction. A reduction on the order of 1-3% (it depends on a number of factors including number of lanes, and distance between exits) can get you from LOS F traffic (stop & go) to LOD C/D traffic (heavy, but moving traffic).
According to the WSJ, 6 million people per year travel between LA & SF via air every year. I can't find highway numbers, but I gotta believe it's about the same order of magnitude, if not higher.
Improve BART, VTA light rail and CalTrain (in the Bay Area), and I suspect it will have a much larger positive impact on the lives of more people.
All of the above need to be done, both will have a positive impact of even more people.