chrisl137

They do also break things up a little funny there - they put Pasadena and Altadena in "The Verdugos" but I don't think you'd find many people in either who didn't think they lived in the SGV. I'd put the western edge as up to and including the Arroyo Seco. People in both have easy access to the Gold Line.

DELee

Whichever way you cut the population base of the Los Angeles basin, there's a lot of folks. How many of them, any given weekend that want to and do go to Las Vegas is not an insignificant number.

However, depending on time and convenience, different folks will be wanting to take different modes of transport.

And, as writerguyfl notes, the draw for this line/spur initially may not be inhabitants of the basin...but, if it gets built, different folks will find their own reasons to take it. As well, if it gets built and eventually a decent connection made to the Westside of the basin's population base may expand its ridership.

There's a few "if's" in there folks.

David

writerguyfl

I didn't really think too much about the Westside figures as to whether they were reasonable or not because that wasn't the point I was trying to make. Clearly, I didn't make that point (or my error in trying to find the right Westside population made people miss my point).

My point is that a significant portion of the Los Angeles County population lives east of Downtown.

If you have 8 trains running with 240 seats per train (both arbitrarily picked numbers), you might be able to fill them without Westsiders given the population of eastern Los Angeles County, the Inland Empire, and parts of Orange County.

It's probably worth noting that greater Las Vegas has a population of 2.2 million people. That's another group of people that will possibly buy train tickets to visit the Los Angeles area, too.

Indeed...lots of "if's" at play here. When the initial plan to build between Las Vegas and Apple Valley/Victorville was announced, I dismissed it as folly. But if they connect it further into Southern California, it might actually stand a chance of getting built.

Although I'm glad little or no public money will be used for this project, the fact that it's private means it's harder to get access to data to determine if those "if's" are reasonable or not. With the Miami to Orlando train, there were a few lawsuits from cities/counties along the route that required the company to disclose some of their data. In reading that data, I went from skeptical to reasonably assured that the train would be viable.

I'm uncertain if the LA/Vegas route will generate any legal action that will require disclose of data. It appears that the company has secured the right-of-way and Victorville/Apple Valley seem eager for the train because it will bring jobs and real estate development. Unless something changes, we may not ever get access to any of the data used by the company to determine viability of this project.

bzcat

Victorville is a temporary terminal. Desert Xpress was waiting for CAHSR to finish the SoCal route EIR so they can start discussion with LA County and perhasp the state on funding for Victorville to Palmdale portion of the line. Measure R and I think Measure M both has funding for a High Desert corridor between Palmdale and Victorville and Desert Xpress was counting on the public to fund that portion of the track. Once the tracks are laid, you can have through service so eventually, you should be able to take the high speed train from LA Union Station to Las Vegas and vice versa.

The spur that San Bernardino wants to fund will not connect to CAHSR so it can proceed independently without waiting for CAHSR to finalize the final route via Palmdale or subject to LA County sales tax funding.