With the future of high-speed rail uncertain, Caltrans has quietly begun studying a similar, if more audacious idea: buses that zip from San Francisco to Los Angeles at 140 miles per hour.
The bullet bus concept is still in its embryonic stage and comes with many challenges. First and foremost is the infrastructure. U.S. freeways could accommodate a transit vehicle traveling up to 85 miles per hour, Caltrans engineers posit, but anything beyond that presents risks for braking or maneuvering curves. A bus operating at breakneck speed would need a dedicated lane and a technologically advanced design, possibly with automated driving systems and highly precise reaction times, according to the agency’s senior transportation planner Mehdi Moeinaddini.
He wrote a preliminary report last year on the feasibility of a high-speed bus network, contending that the vehicles would make travel more efficient and display “technological ambition” if they ever came to fruition. However, Moeinaddini wrote, if the cost is daunting and the logistics are too complicated, “a more moderate target of 80–100 mph can serve as a practical and impactful alternative, still offering significant improvements over current standards.”…