High speed rail in the US.

[Dymanic]

You can scale back the number of trains you run, but you can't cale back the cost of tracks. Commuter airlines do not face any equivalently massive fixed cost.

Even more so with helicopters, since they can land on any sufficiently open space.

 

[WildCat]

My employer has found that web meetings are nowhere near as effective and so has been de-emphesizing (read discouraging) telecommuting.

I'm all for light commuter rail Ben, but we're talking HSR. I don't see the HSR trains packed with commuters. They're banking on business and leisure travelers to fill the trains, and to do so at record rates.

 

[WildCat]

Wanna bet it won't be a heck of a lot more expensive in 2030?

I think in 2030 gas cars will be the minority, and by a wide margin. And if I'm wrong, it means gas is still cheap.

 

[theprestige]

Even more so with helicopters, since they can land on any sufficiently open space.

Except that helicopters require ridiculous amounts of fuel, to offer that convenient feature.

 

[Dymanic]

Except that helicopters require ridiculous amounts of fuel, to offer that convenient feature.

But no maintenance costs beyond the helicopters themselves -- you know, the same as with airlines, but not with trains.



I hate having to explain a joke.

 

[Travis]

I'd take whatever Travis has to say on this topic with a grain of salt. California right now has problems paying for what it already has and doesn't need and (for most of us) doesn't want a HSR system.

Golly gee, how did the measure that set aside $10 billion ever get passed then?

What he hasn't told you (and why public sentiments are against this boondoggle)

Public sentiment is not against it. I don't care what the push polls say.
And it is not a boondoggle.

are numerous. The ridership estimates between SF and LA are way out of whack with reality.

No they are not. The study that said so was flawed. And an actual investigation into the matter said the ridership numbers are sound.

As most people are aware cars are almost a necessity in California (even in San Francisco, which has an excellent public transportation system).

Sorry but nope. There is a huge portion of the residents there who only use public transport and have no car. My little brother is among them. There is a similar growing carless population in Los Angeles.

That means that most people already own a car that they paid for and are far more likely to use them instead of the train (where they'd have to rent a car at the other end anyway).

I own several cars and would way prefer to use the train. Driving to LA by car is a six to nine hour crucible of misery. With the traffic, the heat and all the stops you gotta make for gas, food and restrooms.

No the train is superior.

And you would not need to rent a car at either end. On SF end you will be left off in a station that connects to the SF muni light rail and BART. In LA the station has access to the Red and Purple subway lines, as well as the Blue, Gold and Aquamarine Metro lines (and soon the new Harbor line).

I live near the BART line that goes to SFO and ride it on a regular basis. I rarely see more than a few people with luggage on a 9 car train heading to or from SFO on any given day or time and many of them are tourists and not locals. If people won't take a train to the airport (a 25 minute ride from downtown San Francisco, arguably just as fast and a lot cheaper than driving or catching a taxi) what on earth makes some people think that they will take a train 4+ hours to LA? The BART system also had high ridership estimates for the airport that were used to justify the extra cost of extending it to the airport.

You think a lack of people taking one train to one destination indicates anything? Seriously?

BART to SFO was a project that might be called "failed" for several reasons. The biggest is that the BART system in SF was simply not comprehensive enough to get the riders for this one destination.

Trying to compare this to the HSR project is apples and oranges.

Go to Colma station and see how that turned out. 1/3rd of the station that was intended for the increased volume of riders passing through it is closed off because of non-use. What people say they will do and what they actually end up doing are two different things

True. Doubters said light rail in Charlotte and Salt Lake City would never work. Both systems exceeded their ridership projections.

The cost of buying the right of way is cheap as hell in the Central Valley where they will be using farm land for the most part, not so much so when you get closer to the Bay Area or greater LA.

Well buying land in the Central Valley is not so easy right now. Farmers were being offered huge sums of money for the land during the housing bubble and now they want those same prices from the High Speed Rail Authority. This is resulting in lawsuits.

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) and about twice what it would cost to drive the same trip.

The actual ticket price will beat any airline price. Remember that with Southwest Airlines going out of business cheap rates on such routes will be a thing of the past. The fuel prices just won't allow it.

Comparisons to other, more successful HSR projects are misleading. California is not Japan. Not in population density, not in miles of highways and not in costs.

Maybe not but California is almost identical to many places with successful HSR systems.

- | Spain | California
surface area | 505,645 sq km | 423,970 sq km
population | 42 million | 36 million
People per square km | 89.6 | 88.1

The budget estimates are way out of synch with reality. When has any large scale government public works project of this scale ever even come close to the final tab? Look at the Big Dig in Boston for an example.

This is all just classic FUD.

The HSR people want this to go through with the cheapest section first (the train line to nowhere from nowhere) so that they can later say "But we've already spent X$ so we have to continue or it's all been wasted". Good money after bad if you ask me. There's a reason why no business or groups of investors would ever do this on their own and it has nothing to do with raising the capitol or getting the land through imminent domain to do it, it's because it's never ever going to break even much less generate a profit. There's exactly one profitable passenger rail line in this country and that's in the northeast where the tracks were laid long before the EPA, OSHA and a bunch of other alphabet soup agencies were around and when litigation wasn't a national sport. This whole thing just has financial disaster written all over it in a state that's already in deep financial trouble as it is.

I will remember this little diatribe of yours when the whole thing is up and humming.

I've read through just about single EIR document for each section. I've poured over the design drafts. I've read the technical memos. I go over all the committee meeting material.

Nothing I see anywhere in it leaves me with anything other that full confidence it will work if it is allowed to be built.

"We must do something. This is something. Therefore we must do this."

I'm 100% in favor of proper infrastructure. What do you think is the impact of improper infrastructure on a state's budget?

Why high-speed rail? What engine of commerce and industry is being jump-started with this project? Why not a canal system for irrigating the central valley? Why not upgrades to the energy generation and distribution infrastructure? Why not more investment in intra-regional mass transit networks? Why not more investment in trade schools and vo-tec programs? Hell, why not spend that money to shore up the current education system, instead of cutting education funding to advance HSR?

First off almost everything you listed there is either already getting massive upgrades or does not need them.

But, secondly, NO ONE IS CUTTING EDUCTION TO FUND HIGH SPEED RAIL.

They come out of separate revenue sources.

If your company is selling bonds, good for them! But the last thing CA should be spending money on is boondoggles like this.

Please list in detail why it is a boondoggle?

I didn't lose anything in either Chatsworth or San Jose. If you feel the need to go there, have at it.

But I fail to see why a mere hundred billion would discourage you. The purpose of this project is not to transport people, it's to transport money -- out of the pockets of taxpayers and into the pockets of consultants and construction firms.

If they were serious about moving people, they would have started at major population centers, and worked toward the middle. Then the finished parts could, at least theoretically, benefit the largest number of people.

The transcontinental railroad didn't start in Utah and work toward the coasts.

This was not done for a few simple reasons. They only have limited money right now before other forms of financing come along. The sections near the cities are currently not far along in their engineering.

I mean you have to start building somewhere. And it really doesn't matter where it is once the whole thing is built. Heck the first section of Interstate 70 was built out on the middle of nowhere Missouri.

I'm all for light commuter rail Ben, but we're talking HSR. I don't see the HSR trains packed with commuters. They're banking on business and leisure travelers to fill the trains, and to do so at record rates.

Who's to say they won't? I know I would be taken these trains all over the place if I could.

 

[WildCat]

Who's to say they won't? I know I would be taken these trains all over the place if I could.

Itching to go to Bakersfield are you?

 

[varwoche]

The actual ticket price will beat any airline price.

Either I overlooked something or else this is false. The ticket prices are defined, and are marginally more expensive than discount airfare.

 

[Kestrel]

Either I overlooked something or else this is false. The ticket prices are defined, and are marginally more expensive then discount airfare.

After the airline nicks you for the carry on bag fee, the train is cheeper.

 

[BOATGOD]

How much power does this boondoggle need to run? Is the grid even close to capable of handling it? Is it going to need a nuke to run it? How many solar panels? How many birds will it kill?

 

[Dymanic]

First off almost everything you listed there is either already getting massive upgrades or does not need them.

As I noted upthread, California is already unable to generate enough electricity to meet its own peak load requirments, so I'll assume that you are including "energy generation and distribution infrastructure" among those things that are already getting massive upgrades rather than among those that don't need them.

I understand that CHSRA has a plan for procuring the 3 billion kilowatt hours per year that the trains would consume when the system is fully operational (though at this point it appears that referring to it as "a plan for coming up with a plan" would be more precise), so when I say that I still want to hear more about these massive upgrades, I'm also assuming that HSR's energy requirements would not constitute an additional draw on an already-stressed electrical generation and distribution system.

 

[BOATGOD]

Who will think of the birds?

 

[IchabodPlain]

Yes.

Given that the populations served are smaller, the metro-areas are more spread out, and car ownership rates are higher, why do you think that CA would experience a higher proportion of it's citizens using HSR than in Japan? Is there evidence that you can cite for your assertion?

 

[Sam.I.Am]

Originally Posted by Travis
Golly gee, how did the measure that set aside $10 billion ever get passed then?

Are you saying that the California electorate is wise in all of its decisions by proposition? I guess that means that you thought that Prop 8 was a good idea, after all, the measure got passed by the voters and that there's no way that they might have changed their minds and if it were put on a ballot today to repeal it that it might pass right? All of the snark aside the proposition had a $35 billion dollar price tag but it's now estimated to be at $65 billion, and no track has been laid yet, and those price estimates are always spot on right? The state hadn't gone through the housing meltdown yet so many people thought that they could handle the financing.

Public sentiment is not against it. I don't care what the push polls say.
And it is not a boondoggle.

So you like the polls when they say they want it but discount the polls when they don't? Got it.

No they are not. The study that said so was flawed. And an actual investigation into the matter said the ridership numbers are sound.

The "Actual Investigation" lasted 2 days and threw out data that didn't conform to their bias:

4.2 Long Distance Mode Choice Model for Non-Business Trips
CS has tested several alternative formulations of the model of non-business and non-commuting trips over the past several months. The most promising ones were shared with us during the May 2-3 meeting in San Francisco and in subsequent video conferences. In this model, unlike the model of business trips, the inclusion of income led to unsatisfactory results, leading us to recommend removing income from this portion of the model until further investigation with new data can take place.

Whoops, too many people won't pay to ride the train on non-business trips. Well we'll ignore that and readjust the model to fit our desired outcomes.

Sorry but nope. There is a huge portion of the residents there who only use public transport and have no car. My little brother is among them. There is a similar growing carless population in Los Angeles.

I know. I'm one of them and have been for quite some time. I'm speaking from that perspective and based it upon what I've directly observed. As far as LA goes I really doubt that they will ever reach anywhere near the same levels of public transportation use as San Francisco has if for no other reason than it's much more spread out. San Francisco has on average no more than a 4 block walk to a bus route (and quite often much less than that) which makes it convenient to use. Combine that with a dearth of available parking and you get a lot of people using the system. LA has neither situation going for it.

I own several cars and would way prefer to use the train. Driving to LA by car is a six to nine hour crucible of misery. With the traffic, the heat and all the stops you gotta make for gas, food and restrooms.

No the train is superior.

I get it. YOU would use it IF you were going down to LA and back.

And you would not need to rent a car at either end. On SF end you will be left off in a station that connects to the SF muni light rail and BART. In LA the station has access to the Red and Purple subway lines, as well as the Blue, Gold and Aquamarine Metro lines (and soon the new Harbor line).

Except that people don't do that now with airplanes even though there is a choice between taking public transit to and from the airports or renting a car. Why do you think that people will suddenly change away from that?

You think a lack of people taking one train to one destination indicates anything? Seriously?

BART to SFO was a project that might be called "failed" for several reasons. The biggest is that the BART system in SF was simply not comprehensive enough to get the riders for this one destination.

Trying to compare this to the HSR project is apples and oranges.

Not one train. Several trains, on days, nights and weekends. I ride it often and that observation is one that I've made over time (and so has BART, they've cut way back on their original scheduling due to a lack of use and even discontinued a line that was the most expensive length of track on that route extension due to extensive modifications of the airport itself to accommodate it. Milbrae to SFO was incorporated into an existing route instead of being a separate run like it was originally intended to be)

The BART system serves four counties (some would say six but I'll just stick to the ones that actually have trackage and stations in it) and has a huge daily commuter ridership, that sounds pretty "Comprehensive". Just not to the airport. What makes you think that BART (which you just said was one of the reasons that people will use the HSR) will suddenly become "Comprehensive enough"? They sure aren't going to be adding any new stations or lines in the City and County of San Francisco and the CALTRAIN station that they are planning to use is several (long) blocks away from BART and even the new Transbay Bus Terminal is a couple of blocks away from the nearest BART station and the CALTRAIN station (both of which which aren't exactly the best part of town for people with luggage to be walking around in).

True. Doubters said light rail in Charlotte and Salt Lake City would never work. Both systems exceeded their ridership projections.

Wait. I thought that you didn't like comparing apples and oranges? Or is that only when it doesn't seem to support your opinions. Charlotte NC and SLC UT are not The Bay Area. You know, the actual location that we (or at least I) am talking about.

Well buying land in the Central Valley is not so easy right now. Farmers were being offered huge sums of money for the land during the housing bubble and now they want those same prices from the High Speed Rail Authority. This is resulting in lawsuits.

And land is still much cheaper at those prices than the same amount of land in the Bay Area at today's realistic prices. I said that it was cheap, not free. Cheap is relative in this case.

The actual ticket price will beat any airline price. Remember that with Southwest Airlines going out of business cheap rates on such routes will be a thing of the past. The fuel prices just won't allow it.

By how much and is that before or after the taxpayers subsidy of hundreds of millions of dollars per year? And that's assuming that the ridership levels estimates are correct (and don't forget that in order to get to those levels you would need to essentially stop almost all SFO to LAX airplane traffic and divert all of those passengers onto trains in order to get close to those numbers.). Energy prices will also go up for the HSR, they aren't going to be operating in a time bubble where they will only have to pay for energy at today's prices.

Maybe not but California is almost identical to many places with successful HSR systems.

Again. California is not an entirely different country with completely different needs and demographics. You sure do like apples and oranges when it suits your opinion don't you?

This is all just classic FUD.

Got it. Looking at the past history on large multi-billion dollar transportation projects and how much they went over budget is not applicable this time... It will be different, trust me.

I will remember this little diatribe of yours when the whole thing is up and humming.

I've read through just about single EIR document for each section. I've poured over the design drafts. I've read the technical memos. I go over all the committee meeting material.

Nothing I see anywhere in it leaves me with anything other that full confidence it will work if it is allowed to be built.

Half of me hopes that you will because you will be eating crow. The other half of me really doesn't want to waste the billions of dollars that we just don't have just to prove you wrong.

 

[Travis]

That is your problem not mine.

 

[Ziggurat]

I own several cars and would way prefer to use the train. Driving to LA by car is a six to nine hour crucible of misery. With the traffic, the heat and all the stops you gotta make for gas, food and restrooms.

No the train is superior.

And you would not need to rent a car at either end. On SF end you will be left off in a station that connects to the SF muni light rail and BART. In LA the station has access to the Red and Purple subway lines, as well as the Blue, Gold and Aquamarine Metro lines (and soon the new Harbor line).

My parents live in Walnut Creek (bay area). My sister lives in Altadena (LA area). They often drive back and forth to see each other.

If they wanted to take public transit, they would need to use a rental car on the far end. Furthermore, your "bug" of having to make gas stops is actually a feature for my sister. She's got a baby, and being able to take stops is an advantage of a car.

And lastly, of course, the trips are generally two to three people per vehicle. So there would be no price advantage for the rail.

BART to SFO was a project that might be called "failed" for several reasons. The biggest is that the BART system in SF was simply not comprehensive enough to get the riders for this one destination.

And the metro/bus system in LA is simply not comprehensive enough to get riders from even several train stations.

The actual ticket price will beat any airline price. Remember that with Southwest Airlines going out of business cheap rates on such routes will be a thing of the past. The fuel prices just won't allow it.

Southwest Airlines is going out of business?

I think not.

I will remember this little diatribe of yours when the whole thing is up and humming.

And how many years, and how many billions of dollars in budget overruns, do you think that's going to take? Because I'm quite curious about what it would take for you to conclude that it's failing, rather than holding onto the hope that it just hasn't succeeded yet.

Who's to say they won't? I know I would be taken these trains all over the place if I could.

These trains won't go all over the place.

 

[Sam.I.Am]

That is your problem not mine.

Actually it's everyone in CA who pays taxes problem. I don't know what your motivation here is. I can't tell if your just a railroad "Buff" or if this project will bring some much needed money into your community or if it means that your brother in law will stop mooching off of you because he will finally get a job and frankly I don't care. Anyone standing back and taking an objective look at this thing can see that it has a very high chance of failure after a lot of cost overruns.

You don't go out and buy a Maserati when you're having serious problems keeping up on the mortgage on your own house. In a different time and economy I'd be with you on this. But not now and not in this situation.

 

[Ziggurat]

I don't know what your motivation here is.

I can't say I understand, but it apparently fills some emotional need for Travis.

 

[WildCat]

Yet another California university study throws cold water on the claims of the HSR proponents:

A new UCLA economic analysis ofJapan's Shinkansen bullet train and its impact on the growth of cities along its route calls into question claims by state officials that California's high-speed rail project will create up to 400,000 permanent jobs.

Construction of Japan'svaunted bullet train began in the mid-1960s, and it did not generate higher economic growth or additional jobs, according to the study.

Written by Jerry Nickelsburg, senior economist with the UCLA Anderson Forecast, the study said there may be other justifications for bullet train service between Los Angeles and San Francisco, but the $68-billion project as an engine of economic growth "will have only a marginal impact at best."

Nickelsburg examined the growth rates of cities and regions served by Japan's system, compared to the nation's overall rate of growth, and found that the introduction of high-speed passenger service had no discernible effect.

Funny how only the California HSR Authority's hand-picked experts find nothing but gold in this project, while every single independent study reaches the opposite conclusion.

 

[applecorped]

Yet another California university study throws cold water on the claims of the HSR proponents:

Funny how only the California HSR Authority's hand-picked experts find nothing but gold in this project, while every single independent study reaches the opposite conclusion.

HSF