Just started the article, so I'm probably speaking poop. But... I see a coastline right next to that track. This looks like fiat thinking to me. Rail is more fuel efficient than road, somewhere in the range of 10-15x more fuel efficient - and boats are a similar magnitude more efficient than rail. Invest that money into ferries... Rail is for inland travel...
No more building this stuff til every budget is a Bitcoin based budget.
I think the original statewide rail system was just double this rinky-dink, 2x hourly service for 4 billion serving " thousands of people".
https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/santa-cruz-faces-4-billion-price-new-train-line-20386820.php
Discussion
It's supposed to be built on the old train bed that is already there... That's why the 4 billion is such a shocker. They don't even have to get the real estate, just lay down tracks that is a 150 year technology at this point
Is the land owned by the government? I like the park trail idea. Solve the transportation with ferries and drone taxies - then market competition drives prices down. Also localism.
Yeah. I dunno. I guess my urbanism/public transit info is rusty. However, the reason I don't like Ubers or flying taxis or water taxis is the following: you can't change your mind halfway thru the trip. It's easy in a bus to just get off in the middle and go somewhere else.
But flying taxis are supposedly a big frontier.