• Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more

High speed rail in the US.

Ziggurat said:
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.
Click to expand...

Like the flights from ORD-JFK on Monday morning and Friday afternoon. there will be a lot of demand. But there are people making that trip daily, too. When I have done the ORD-JFK trip mid-week, the plane was usually 80+% full, and I think that should be more than sufficient to make it pay for itself. (You don't have to run as many movements when demand is slack, or you run shorter trains. TGV couples two trainsets together in peak times, running them as a unit.)

It's a big enough pool of people to make the living for commuter airlines, it will be a big enough pool for high speed rail.
 
A lot of business commuting is a waste of time and fuel. Over the next 17 years, with advancments in technology, I expect business commuting to diminish greatly.

I think HSR in CA may be a generation too late. For a fraction of the money, a sprawling network of high tech meeting centers could be established.
 
BenBurch said:
When I have done the ORD-JFK trip mid-week, the plane was usually 80+% full, and I think that should be more than sufficient to make it pay for itself.
Click to expand...

Make what pay for itself? An ORD-JFK high-speed rail? Maybe, but that doesn't tell us much about California's plan. And even with ORD-JFK, how many of those passengers would actually get displaced? Because if it's not all of them, then you can't use the total to get ridership for HSR. And I guarantee it's not going to be all of them.

It's a big enough pool of people to make the living for commuter airlines, it will be a big enough pool for high speed rail.
Click to expand...

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. So the fact that commuter airlines can succeed is no indicator that HSR can.
 
varwoche said:
A lot of business commuting is a waste of time and fuel. Over the next 17 years, with advancments in technology, I expect business commuting to diminish greatly.

I think HSR in CA may be a generation too late. For a fraction of the money, a sprawling network of high tech meeting centers could be established.
Click to expand...

We don't even need that. Just fiber optic to the home (like what much of Europe already has) and good webcams.
 
WildCat said:
They can go wherever there's a road, and there's lots of roads. Not much railroad track by comparison.People traveling in an electric car can stop and see the sights they're driving by, enjoy a meal in a restaurant, play whatever music they like without headphones, etc etc etc.
Click to expand...
To quote a friend of mine, "The ideal public transportation is the private car."
 
eeyore1954 said:
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.
Click to expand...

I can see that. A lot of the costs of driving are hidden one offs like pollution and land use issues, or things that we pay out of our pocket but we don’t really think about like “Vehicle Depreciation”.

One of the big problems with the trains vs. cars debate is that while trains have a lot of advantages over cars (pollution, land use issues, reduced energy costs), these are more of a benefit to society than to the individual. The advantages of cars over trains (convenience, deceptively low out of pocket costs, etc) are all readily apparent to individuals.
 
varwoche said:
A lot of business commuting is a waste of time and fuel. Over the next 17 years, with advancments in technology, I expect business commuting to diminish greatly.

I think HSR in CA may be a generation too late. For a fraction of the money, a sprawling network of high tech meeting centers could be established.
Click to expand...

Although of course face to face meetings do have their place I agree 100% with you on this. Where I work webinars have completely replaced going offsite for either training or sales demos.
 
BenBurch said:
My employer has found that web meetings are nowhere near as effective and so has been de-emphesizing (read discouraging) telecommuting.
Click to expand...
As a consultant who works with many different companies, I already see things trending towards web meetings and away from travel. Just imagine where the technology will be in 17 years.
 
BenBurch said:
My employer has found that web meetings are nowhere near as effective and so has been de-emphesizing (read discouraging) telecommuting.
Click to expand...

But I think in the aggregate most companies have and will continue to cut down on business travel.

I was refering to business travel not telecommuting.
 
BenBurch said:
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.
Click to expand...

That calculator reminds me of this old joke:
There are 365 days in a year.
You sleep 8 hours a day or 2,920 hours per year: That adds up to 122 days per year.
You have 52 weekends or 104 days off per year. (226 days)
You get 10 sick days per year. (236 days)
You get 20 vacation days off per year (256 days)
You get 6 holidays per year (262 days)
Most people average an hour per day in the bathroom or 15 days per year (277 days)
You spend about 2 hours a day in your car between commuting and trips to the store, dropping off the kids at soccer and so on (30 days) (307 days)
You spend about an hour and a half a day cooking, eating and cleaning up (22) (329 days).
You spend about 8 hours a week on other household chores like gardening, shopping, laundry and general cleaning (18 days) (347 days)
It takes most people about 20 minutes to wake up and get a cup of coffee. (4 days) (351 days).

That leaves you 19 days per year to work for your paycheck so don't even bother asking me for a day off, you already take too much time off of work as it is.
Click to expand...

It's complete crap math of course and so is that calculator for the same type of reasons. I'll leave it to you to figure out why but here's a tip, it double dips in a lot of its calculations.
 
BenBurch said:
Yeah, I think it really costs that. Compute it for yourself and show me what you computed, please?
Click to expand...
Just how are you calculating those costs? Your car payments don't go down because you drive less, and your insurance is likely to stay the same regardless. And you'll still need a car to get to the HSR station every day and to get home every night. Gas isn't that expensive, and you can greatly reduce that by driving a fuel-efficient vehicle.
 
BenBurch said:
Like the flights from ORD-JFK on Monday morning and Friday afternoon. there will be a lot of demand. But there are people making that trip daily, too. When I have done the ORD-JFK trip mid-week, the plane was usually 80+% full, and I think that should be more than sufficient to make it pay for itself. (You don't have to run as many movements when demand is slack, or you run shorter trains. TGV couples two trainsets together in peak times, running them as a unit.)

It's a big enough pool of people to make the living for commuter airlines, it will be a big enough pool for high speed rail.
Click to expand...
You're not going to commute via HSR from Chicago to New York, that's going to be an 8 hour trip at least with all the stops. By the time you get there it's time to come home.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

ISF - Join now!

Every member here is approved by hand. No bots, no spam, just people who care about evidence and honest debate.

Membership is free!

Create your free account

Back
Top Bottom