HYPERLOOP Dreams. It doesn't begin to solve our traffic problems

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/08/hyperloop-one-will-build-the-first-hyperloop-system-to-go-from-dubai-to-abu-dhabi-in-twelve-minutes/

This concept, "Hyperloop," serves the elite. It does not serve the masses.  Bottom line: A very expensive and sexy solution for the elite, very fast for them too, and paid for by the masses who are taxed to pay for this, which will not solve their specific traffic problems.  Same with High Speed Rail. It serves the few, paid for by the many.

​I lived in China for nearly 3 years and saw the country that has the most kilometers of high speed rail track, by far.  China has 19,000 kilometres (12,000 miles) of HSR as of December 2015, accounting for two-thirds of the world's total.  I personally worked as Chief Site Engineer on their most advanced and modern HSR construction project to date.  The fact is, out of the nearly 1.5 billion people there, only a small small handful of China's citizens actually use the HSR systems.  In 2015, over 1.1 billion trips were made on bullet trains in China, or an average of 3 million trips per day, or 1.5 million round trips.  This amounts to about 1/1000th of the population using HSR on a daily basis.  HSR conservatively serves less than 1% of the people no matter where it is built, and leaves 99% of the local population without the benefit.  ​These systems, though very fast, are typically paid for by government via taxation, for fares so low as to make them irrelevant to paying for it.  HSR fares are still typically out of reach to the masses being signficiantly more expensive than automobile travel where the costs can be shared with multiple passengers. Yet who pays for the HSR system?

http://uscommonsense.org/research/californias-high-speed-rail-realities-briefly-assessing-the-projects-construction-cost-debt-prospects-and-funding/

From LA TIMES:  The bullet train will require about 20 miles of tunnels under the San Gabriel Mountains between Burbank and Palmdale, involving either a single tunnel of 13.8 miles or a series of shorter tunnels.  As many as 16 additional miles of tunnels would stretch under the Tehachapi Mountains from Palmdale to Bakersfield.  The state will probably opt for twin bores — one for each of two parallel tracks. That means as many as 72 miles of tunneling before 2022. 
Can it meet that schedule?
​"No way," said Leon Silver, a Caltech geologist and a leading expert on the San Gabriel Mountains. "The range is far more complex than anything those people know."
​http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-train-cost-final-20151025-story.html

Governor Jerry Brown says that the $68 billion project will present an effective alternative to using cars and airplanes to travel from Northern California to Southern California.  But it will cost more than $68B by the time the tunnels are constructed through the 30 mile distance through mountainous terrain crossing the San Andreas Fault where the North American Plate converges with the Pacific Plate.  Its a huge unknown until the digging begins, which isn't scheduled to begin for another decade.  That $68B cost is going to potentially serve 5M passengers a year that travel from LA to SF, if we are to assumed the airlines go out of business on that trip, an unlikely scenario. Still, if the HSR were able to absorb ALL passengers, and there were enough trains to serve the same, how long would it take to recoup the $68B with fares of only $80???  Those 5Million trips could bring in $400M per year, is all.  and if that scenario came true, it would take 170 YEARS to get it back if the people who used HSR, paid for HSR.  But the masses will pay for this. 

Costs Higher, Delays Longer for CA HSR http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-plan-20160304-story.html

A moving target of cost and value, the HSR is always undergoing cost adjustments (always upward) because there are so many unknowns. As a traffic engineer, I support alternative diverse modes of travel, as long as they are reasonable and truly accessible and useful to the masses.  Bike and ped and local bus systems are, viable alternatives to the automobile.  However, HSR is different and serves a much smaller niche.  I am interested in the movement of people in general.   I do not think that even in China, their massive 12,000 miles of HSR serves well their masses.  It has cost them half a trillion US$ to build.  Most do not ride it, can't afford the fares, don't need it, and the same will likely be true here in the USA.  Most people need to make shorter and more random trips on a daily basis, trips that have little to do with the singular limited pathway of a Bullet Train connecting north and southern CA.  If I say, make a trip to Disneyland down in LA, I am going to probably take a CAR and carry the 5 members of my family that way, and it is going to cost me less than a hundred bucks in gas.  If I felt like splurging, I could take a bullet train at a cost $450 for just one direction for a family of 5, but we would have to also PLAN around the trains schedule and station locations, suitcases in hand and parking costs for the car, unknown...possibly a hundred miles away!  It seems to be more complipcated, and not worth the hassle and cost to the mainstream.  But the mainstream will be paying for this.  Californians as a whole will be paying for this, as federal funding in the near future likely gets diverted to other interests in the USA.