Commentary: The 'Super Bus' is just More Evidence Caltrans is Irredeemable - Streetsblog San Francisco

A high-speed electric train can travel around 200 mph with over 500 seats, and multiple trains can be coupled to carry more than 1,000 passengers using an electrical grid with nearly zero CO2. A proposal to use 140-mph high-speed buses in California is criticized as a thinly veiled substitute for high-speed rail. The criticism argues that high-speed bus operation is only feasible in controlled stunt settings, not as real mass transportation. Caltrans is described as dysfunctional, acting like an outdated highway agency and producing studies framed as parody. The agency is also accused of widening freeways that will be underwater, building dangerous roads, and repeatedly claiming it will not widen freeways while continuing to do so.

"A French TGV Duplex high-speed train cruises at around 200 mph on electric power alone and has over 500 seats. On highly traveled corridors, two trains are often coupled together, meaning one driver (and a handful of crew) carry over 1,000 passengers, all on an electrical grid that produces nearly zero CO2."

"What more do I have to say about Caltrans's most recent stupidity, a study into using 140-mph, high-speed buses to move people around California as some kind of thinly veiled alternative to high-speed rail? Sure, I could get into the many other non-starter flaws in the high-speed bus proposal; I could write about wheel-surface interfaces, safety, etc., but what's the point? Anybody who knows anything about transportation already gets that this is ridiculous."

"Yeah, you can run a bus-like vehicle at over 150 mph under controlled circumstances, such as the 23-seat "bus" pictured in the lead image that was built in the Netherlands. But that was a stunt, not a real mass-transportation proposal."

"Either way, Caltrans has an annual budget of nearly $20 billion. This is an agency that is widening a freeway in the North Bay that will be underwater in a few decades. This is an agency that consistently builds the most dangerous roads in the state. They gaslight continually about not widening freeways, as they keep widening freeways and ruining our environment."

Read at Streetsblog San Francisco