OK, check the date, its not 1st April so this can’t be an April Fools prank, right? But reports from the wild and crazy world of California, had our scepticism antenna on high alert.
While construction is still underway on its long-delayed high-speed rail system, the Golden State says is now said to be looking into high-speed buses that they say would potentially travel at up to 225 km/h or 140 mph in the old currency which of course is still used in the USA.
The California Department of Transportation, also known as Caltrans, has been apparently been researching the concept for at least a year and opened up about the concept in a recent webinar.
The wild concept is based around the basic idea of building dedicated bus lanes and stations along existing California freeways. We know, its MAD right?
Caltrans’s feasibility studies manager, Ryan Snyder told a California news station KCRA last week that long-distance travel by bus could become an attractive and affordable way to go between California metropolitan areas.
“The high-speed bus service could connect major California metro areas like Sacramento, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego,” Snyder said
Caltrans said that one proposed route would take passengers between San Francisco and Los Angeles in about 3 hours and 12 minutes, with buses traveling at around 190km/h or about 120 mph in the old money.
The roughly 650 km trip (380-miles) currently takes anywhere between seven-and-a-half to nine hours on a direct Greyhound bus.
Interestingly Caltrans says that its researchers are looking at examples abroad, including South Australia’s Adelaide O-Bahn busway system and the Netherlands’ Superbus prototype, to see whether such a system could work in California. I won’t tell them if you don’t that the Adelaide O-Bahn buses travel at speeds considerably lower than 200km/h
Not Surprisingly Caltrans said that a preliminary review from last year, found that the project would require major infrastructure upgrades before anything close to that speed could be possible. Salute to you Captain Obvious!
California freeways are currently, generally designed to support speeds of up to about 135km/h (85mph) because of obvious factors such as sight, distance and curb stability.
Without meaning to state the bleeding obvious, the project will also require a lot of new tech, including more aerodynamic buses, vehicle-to-everything communication, automated driving systems, and advanced braking systems, we would prefer VERY advanced braking systems.
For alll of that Caltrans still believes the project is at least theoretically possible. Really?
“Despite significant engineering hurdles, it is conceptually feasible to operate buses safely at high speeds under controlled conditions,” the Caltrans review said.
“However, real-world implementation requires incremental approaches, substantial investments in infrastructure, technology, and rigorous validation through field tests.”
The proposed bus system is being discussed as California continues to pursue its high-speed rail project which has also had its pitfalls.
“It might offer as a complementary option alongside existing solutions like rail, not to replace them,” Mehdi Moeinaddini, a senior transportation planner at Caltrans, told KCRA about the high-speed buses.
Last year, the Trump administration pulled $US 4 billion in federal funding from the California bullet train project, because of missed deadlines and growing costs.
The California High-Speed Rail project, was first approved by state voters in 2008, and was pitched as an 1300km rail system linking Northern and Southern California, with trains traveling at speeds up to 350km/h (220mph).
A planned second phase would extend the line further, reaching the state capital at Sacramento in the north and San Diego in the south.
The project was initially projected to cost $US 33 billion and was set to be completed by 2020. However after years of delays and escalating construction costs, the estimated price tag has now surged past $US100 billion.
However, the state is continuing to movie forward with the project, with construction ongoing for an initial 200 km section connecting Fresno and Bakersfield in California’s Central Valley.
