High speed rail in the US.

[Sam.I.Am]

Airlines are heavily federally subsidized.

Airports and air traffic control and etc are all federally subsidized.

Remove the subsidy by making each landing and each takeoff pay it's cost of the system in proportion, and you'd be talking a ticket at least 25% higher than that.

But that wouldn't be good for the country, now, would it?

You apparently missed what he was responding to:

The cost to the rider (not the actual taxpayer subsidized cost) will be about the same as a airline fare with at least twice the overall time between destinations (in the door of the airport/train station and out the door of the destination)

This HSR will always have to be subsidized because the actual cost to run the trains would require a ridership of anywhere between 3 to 10 times the current amount of all traffic (at the current rates) between SF and LA at the proposed fare rates.

That wide range also brings up another point. Namely that nobody knows how much it will cost to build and maintain the damned thing because it hasn't even been designed yet. No firm routes have been set outside of the Central Valley where land is cheap as hell relative to the Bay Area and greater LA, hell they don't even know where the terminus stations will be yet and, lets be honest here, if the terminus is 30 miles outside of SF or LA then it is highly unlikely that people will use it with any regularity but that last 30 miles will be by far the most expensive sections of track to build which is why they are starting in the Central Valley in order to try and get people to agree to the much higher costs later on to actually get to where people are going to want to go (and there's still no guarantee that people will actually use it).

Bait and switch, good money after bad, call it what you want but there's no way that the final costs will be what is being claimed today. Again, look at the Big Dig for an example of how the costs will end up spiraling out of control, and that's when they knew down to the foot where everything was going to go ahead of time and they didn't have to buy much land in order to obtain right of way.

As far as the same day airfare goes that is always expensive and it's that way because of simple supply and demand much like almost any service where you need to have them squeeze you in at the last minute. Very few people actually pay that fare because they try and plan ahead at least a week (and usually a month or so) beforehand for their trips not to mention that they will waive the higher fares for regular customers and for true emergencies like a death in the family where you cannot have known a week earlier that you would need to fly right now. If you're dumb enough to pay that fare to go to Disneyland on a whim then you deserve to be raked over the coals, and who's to say that the HSR won't have the same type of fare schedules where a last minute ticket will cost three times the amount of a regular ticket?

 

[Sam.I.Am]

...

And, because a rail line passing through a valley usually passes near communities that could be served, serving them is an added benefit of also choosing the most efficient route.

That is most decidedly not the definition of a high speed rail line. There are limited stops for obvious reasons. Stops will slow you down by as much as 1/2 an hour for the overall trip by the time you include slowing down and getting back up to speed vs how long of a distance that you could've traveled without the stop. The Central Valley in general will never be a major destination and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the HSR ended up just stopping at those stations once a day in each direction. Even the larger cities like Fresno are really just small farming towns on a larger scale, primarily there for providing commerce hubs for the outlying areas. Nobody says "Hey, lets go to Fresno for the weekend just to get away and see the sights". Have you ever been in the Central Valley? It's hot, flat and populated with people that are most decidedly of the Red State variety. Take away the Bay area or LA and California becomes a Red State overnight.

 

[theprestige]

Presumably the good people of Fresno would visit Disneyland more often if they had high-speed rail that stopped in their town on the way to the Magic Kingdom.

Of course, stopping in Fresno would reduce the value of the line for SF-originating travelers, so that's probably a tradeoff that needs to be considered.

Unless the argument is that Fresno will become a major destination, once there's a high-speed rail line that stops there.

 

[Sam.I.Am]

Unless the argument is that Fresno will become a major destination, once there's a high-speed rail line that stops there.

That actually was one of the arguments made here by BenBurch in favor of the HSR. Build it and they will come.

No. No they won't. At least not in numbers large enough to justify the rail line. The Central Valley is almost all agriculture or agriculture related. For them, trains are for moving produce to market, something that the HSR is decidedly not ever going to be used for. I have family in the Central Valley (Turlock and Modesto mainly) and they are somewhat in favor of the train only for the jobs that building it will bring in. None of them are planning on using it on anywhere close a regular basis because they have neither the time, the money or the inclination to do so.

 

[Dymanic]

Presumably the good people of Fresno would visit Disneyland more often if they had high-speed rail that stopped in their town on the way to the Magic Kingdom.

With an E-ticket ride right on their doorstep, they'd be nine-tenths of the way there already.

 

[BenBurch]

... There are limited stops for obvious reasons...

And this is very limited for the runs we are talking about.

And it isn't like every train will be a local!

I can't think of an operation like this where all trains are locals.

And the Japanese know more about this than almost anybody, and their network has a lot of stations much closer together than we are discussing here;

 

[Puppycow]

And this is very limited for the runs we are talking about.

And it isn't like every train will be a local!

I can't think of an operation like this where all trains are locals.

And the Japanese know more about this than almost anybody, and their network has a lot of stations much closer together than we are discussing here;

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8434991&postcount=63

If you are comparing with Japan, some relevant facts:

Japan is roughly the same size as the state of California.

Population of Japan: 127,451,000
Population of CA: 37,691,912

Roughly 35 million people live in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area, while about 18 million live in the greater Osaka area, and almost 9 million live in the greater Nagoya area between the two. The Shinkansen goes from the heart of Tokyo to the heart of each of the other major cities as well as Kyoto, and is accessible by commuter train from anywhere in each of the respective cities.

The greater Los Angeles area is home to 17 million but it is quite spread out compared to the Japanese cities, and the greater San Fransisco area is home to just over 7 million, also considerably spread out. Fresno is half a million. Bakersfield is 350 k, and Merced is less than 80 k. The rate of car ownership in the US is about 50% higher than in Japan, where many people travel by train.

What this means is that ridership on CA's HSR system is likely to be considerably less than that in Japan

 

[BenBurch]

Yea, Puppycow, I recall that, but it occurs to me that it's not really relevant, as we only really want to compare the number of people who will use it, not the number of people who it will pass.

 

[Sam.I.Am]

And this is very limited for the runs we are talking about.

And it isn't like every train will be a local!

I can't think of an operation like this where all trains are locals.

And the Japanese know more about this than almost anybody, and their network has a lot of stations much closer together than we are discussing here;

And those stations aren't all served by the HSR. Many are served by two separate more conventional lower speed trains that feed to a central point and the trackage is set up to handle that by being two to four tracks or more wide. Most of the California trackage is going to be one track wide and cannot handle the same amount of train traffic levels. Again, you cannot compare the two systems other than they both will have high speed trains involved and that includes ridership levels. Apples and oranges.

Yea, Puppycow, I recall that, but it occurs to me that it's not really relevant, as we only really want to compare the number of people who will use it, not the number of people who it will pass.

And essentially nobody will use it because it doesn't save any time even at the best case scenario levels and is in most cases going to take longer than what we have now, costs about the same to ride as the next fastest means and it's going to be inconvenient to use regularly without spending tens of billions of dollars that the state just doesn't have.

Hey. I'd like to see us switch over to more rail travel. I love to ride the train up to Reno and Seattle when I have the time mainly because the view is fantastic but I also realize that this boondoggle really has no use other than being an interesting trip once or twice before most people find out that it's not what the proponents are saying it will be and go back to air travel for their regular trips. Then what? We have a white elephant that sucks even more money out of a state that simply cannot afford it or it gets abandoned and we cut our losses.

I have zero faith in people who make claims of the level of ridership we can expect when I and everyone else who is being honest knows damn well that those claims are all best case scenarios at the extreme end of the spectrum used to try and sell a product. If there's anything I've learned it's that publicly funded projects rarely turn out the way they were presented and more often than not it ends up at the much less than ideal end of the spectrum instead both in costs and results.

 

[WildCat]

For crying out loud. It doesn't even matter if I watched his video at all. What YOU are saying is flat our wrong.

Your inability to understand the viodeo is not my problem.

OK. How do electric cars address the same need as HSR? And if you expect this scenario of yours to happen by 2030 anyway, why bother to invest public money to speed it up>

What need does HSR fulfill?

We all know what need automobiles fulfill, personal transportation from doorstep to doorstep.

If California has billions of dollars taking up space in the Treasury they can give some to their many excellent universities to design a standardized battery system and upgrade their electric grid.

 

[WildCat]

You underestimate the full cost of a driving trip, though it's not highly relevant to the debate.

Driving gets cheaper, and trains more expensive, as your travel party gets larger.

What does it cost a family of 4 to drive vs. the train?

 

[WildCat]

Because high speed rail serves not only the end points, but points intermediate, it allows business to site in cheaper places outside of major metros. If my commute from SF to Sunnyvale takes me 90 minutes, but I can get on a train in SF and be at a less-expensive office in Merced, that would be more attractive.

You think people are going to pay $100/day to commute to work and back, and will do this to save money?

 

[IchabodPlain]

Yea, Puppycow, I recall that, but it occurs to me that it's not really relevant, as we only really want to compare the number of people who will use it, not the number of people who it will pass.

Which is to say that, proportionally, you think ridership levels will be higher in CA than in Japan?

 

[BenBurch]

Which is to say that, proportionally, you think ridership levels will be higher in CA than in Japan?

Yes. Only relevant measure is the number of people served by station-stops and the amount of existing traffic between those points. The total population of the region isn't what matters whatsoever.

 

[BenBurch]

And those stations aren't all served by the HSR. ...

OK, then, can you clarify exactly which stations are served and provide me a timetable?

I looked and the map I provided was tagged as the network of the high speed system. It certainly is not a comprehensive map of passenger service.

 

[BenBurch]

You think people are going to pay $100/day to commute to work and back, and will do this to save money?

It will save money on those trips.

The actual cost of driving is around $1.30/mile. (Computed here; http://commutesolutions.org/external/calc.html)

In a 400 mile trip that is $520.

Even the IRS business rate of 55.5 cents per mile results in a cost of $222 for a 400 mile trip.

So, yeah, if the fare is $100 it will be quite the deal.

 

[Ziggurat]

It will save money on those trips.

The actual cost of driving is around $1.30/mile. (Computed here; http://commutesolutions.org/external/calc.html)

In a 400 mile trip that is $520.

Even the IRS business rate of 55.5 cents per mile results in a cost of $222 for a 400 mile trip.

So, yeah, if the fare is $100 it will be quite the deal.

So you're talking about people whose commute costs are about $120,000 per year being able to cut their commute costs to $23,000 per year. Yeah, that's a big savings. But exactly how many people do you seriously think fall in this category? I know of nobody with a $120,000 commute cost. Perhaps they exist, but how many?

 

[BenBurch]

So you're talking about people whose commute costs are about $120,000 per year being able to cut their commute costs to $23,000 per year. Yeah, that's a big savings. But exactly how many people do you seriously think fall in this category? I know of nobody with a $120,000 commute cost. Perhaps they exist, but how many?

Well, I was looking at a 400 mile trip once per week, which matches the commute profile of many who air-commute now.

ETA: I used to air-commute from Chicago to Halifax, every two weeks. Did that for almost a year.

 

[eeyore1954]

It will save money on those trips.

The actual cost of driving is around $1.30/mile. (Computed here; http://commutesolutions.org/external/calc.html)

In a 400 mile trip that is $520.

Even the IRS business rate of 55.5 cents per mile results in a cost of $222 for a 400 mile trip.

So, yeah, if the fare is $100 it will be quite the deal.

Do you really believe the actual cost of driving is anywhere near the 1.30 per mile range? Even the IRS 55 cents per mile is pretty generous for the typical driver.

 

[Ziggurat]

Well, I was looking at a 400 mile trip once per week

OK, so that's a bigger pool of people, but it's still not big. And since it's not daily, their numbers are diluted.