California High-Speed Rail

[BTinSF]

Originally Posted by william

They'll probably only get one shot at this.

I couldn't disagree more. I think HSR in CA and a few other places around the US is inevitable. It's just a question of when. Sooner will be cheaper. But the lack of vision and local chauvinism ("I won't support it if MY city isn't part of the initial route") expressed here may well push it into the future when highways and airports become nightmares for everyone trying to use them and the state's commerce grinds to a halt.

[Reminiscence]

I dont know why, but all this debate sounds all too familiar, at least for myself as a Bay Area native. History of certain counties or regions being selfish and only voting for what they see as the best and cheapest way that will convineice only them. A la Marin BART ... ?

[BTinSF]

^^^Or San Mateo BART or Santa Clara BART--their original lack of vision will cost them in the end, too. Arguably, it already has.

[william]

Originally Posted by BTinSF

I couldn't disagree more. I think HSR in CA and a few other places around the US is inevitable. It's just a question of when. Sooner will be cheaper. But the lack of vision and local chauvinism ("I won't support it if MY city isn't part of the initial route") expressed here may well push it into the future when highways and airports become nightmares for everyone trying to use them and the states commerce grinds to a halt.

Originally Posted by Reminisence

I dont know why, but all this debate sounds all too familiar, at least for myself as a Bay Area native. History of certain counties or regions being selfish and only voting for what they see as the best and cheapest way that will convineice only them. A la Marin BART ... ?

Typical bay area, demand that everyone else be flexible, but not willing to show any flexibility yourself (Such as considering building the entire project at once or a system that delivers HSR to your region last and let you take the risk.) This is the same group that demands everyone else conserve water and not encroach on the natural environment blah, blah, blah, but gets their own water from the formerly pristine valley in Yosemite that they dammed for their own use and no one else's. Oh, but we're the chauvinists... Just keep diggin' in guys. Soon it'll all be over but the cryin'.

[Reminiscence]

Originally Posted by william

Typical bay area, demand that everyone else be flexible, but not willing to show any flexibility yourself (Such as considering building the entire project at once or a system that delivers HSR to your region last and let you take the risk.) This is the same group that demands everyone else conserve water and not encroach on the natural environment blah, blah, blah, but gets their own water from the formerly pristine valley in Yosemite that they dammed for their own use and no one else's. Oh, but we're the chauvinists... Just keep diggin' in guys. Soon it'll all be over but the cryin'.

Frankly for me, I dont care at all if we're the last ones that get the rail, as long as we get it. Whether or not they decide to build it all at once or in two phases, its important that we have a structured plan. If anything, we're the ones that are farthest along in the planning phase (with the Transbay Terminal planned for HSR). I think its sad that people cant come together for once and just decide this already. If we wanted this, we could have this, theres no question. Its just a lack of people being able to reach an agreement for the state. To think that the State of California cant do this, sigh ...

[william]

Originally Posted by Reminisence

Frankly for me, I dont care at all if we're the last ones that get the rail, as long as we get it. Whether or not they decide to build it all at once or in two phases, its important that we have a structured plan. If anything, we're the ones that are farthest along in the planning phase (with the Transbay Terminal planned for HSR). I think its sad that people cant come together for once and just decide this already. If we wanted this, we could have this, theres no question. Its just a lack of people being able to reach an agreement for the state. To think that the State of California cant do this, sigh ...

With all due respect, people have come together for the benefit of the entire state and the bay area seems to get the lion's share of the spoils. Were you asleep during the Stem Cell initiative? Financed by every California citizen, most of the research money as well as the institutes' HQ are near San Francisco. To be sure, almost everyplace with a major medical research facility will get something including LA, SD and Sacramento, but the overwhelming bulk is going to the bay area. Medical benefits are worldwide, economic benefits are disproportionally located in your neighborhood. This is just the latest example. There is a reason people in this state don't trust the project to be built as promised. History teaches us to be skeptical.

As I written before, let the bay area get served through high-frequency, high-speed existing trains via Sacramento (much less expensive) and put the Irvine spur and either the Oakland or SF spurs into the second phase (or how about eliminating one of these altogether?). That should at least come close to paying for construction to both Sacramento and San Diego in the first phase while providing adequate service until the promised second phase is built. This way you serve three out of four markets and the number two market gets an upgraded existing line. And ,of course, that's just temporary until the promised phase two is built.

But perhaps you don't consider promises and existing high-speed corridor service adequate.

Well, neither do we.

[BTinSF]

Originally Posted by william

Typical bay area, demand that everyone else be flexible, but not willing to show any flexibility yourself (Such as considering building the entire project at once or a system that delivers HSR to your region last and let you take the risk.) This is the same group that demands everyone else conserve water and not encroach on the natural environment blah, blah, blah, but gets their own water from the formerly pristine valley in Yosemite that they dammed for their own use and no one else's. Oh, but we're the chauvinists... Just keep diggin' in guys. Soon it'll all be over but the cryin'.

Just amazingly wrong. Yesterday, I posted that I would vote FOR a high speed rail system linking ONLY Sacramento and LA as better than nothing and likely to be expanded. Clearly, I would also support building the entire system.

The rest is just more local chauvinism: "If we don't play by our rules, we'll take our ball and go home."

Your attitude can only work until the state chokes on transportation congestion and then the HSR will get built. But it will cost you and everyone else more.

[william]

Originally Posted by BTinSF

Just amazingly wrong. Yesterday, I posted that I would vote FOR a high speed rail system linking ONLY Sacramento and LA as better than nothing and likely to be expanded. Clearly, I would also support building the entire system.

The rest is just more local chauvinism: "If we don't play by our rules, we'll take our ball and go home."

Your attitude can only work until the state chokes on transportation congestion and then the HSR will get built. But it will cost you and everyone else more.

Well pal, when that's the proposal, I'll vote yes with you. Until then, I'm not buying and I have good reason not to buy it. You can call it "chauvinism" if you like. But the history of large California transportation projects suggests that, as proposed, only the LA/sf segment will be constructed. If you want HSR in California within the next dozen years, you better get you and your fellow supporters to develop a more equitable plan and put that on the ballot.

Until then... no thank you.

[Reminiscence]

The truth is, no matter what plan you come up with, there will always be some for it and some against it. I think its really just a matter of plain setting out a proposal that although it may not satisfy everyone with what they want, it will work best in the way that everyone benefits from it. Even something as ordinary as this is an idea:



Perhaps an idea where rail construction would begin simoultaneously in San Diego and Sacramento, to which both lines would eventually meet wherever the midpoint of the route is. In the end I just see this as a big investment, that may or may not pay off. But such is the risk as with all investments. The idea here is time, and we've already had plenty of it. If this would've went smoothly to begin with, we could have probably already seen the first few miles of rail done.

[friedpez]

Originally Posted by JJC80

the bullet train idea seems to be very strong in the fresno and bakersfield and palmdale and such, but I guess California's big metro's don't really see the advantage. heh, whatever, I think we should look at Japan and how the thing works over, successful or what.

I really doubt his thing will ever get started. Just to expensive and not important to the California areas that matter.

While I'd agree with you about 70% on that issue, it's also worth it to mention that California voters (including those in SF, LA, and SD) approved various propositions in November 2006 that dealt with levee and waterway improvements. I don't think the average person in LA or SD knows what a levee is, (probably not even in SF) but I'm sure if you pitch an idea to them strongly enough and get them to understand how it affects them, then maybe they'd approve it. Maybe saying things like "traffic on the 5 and the 15 will be slashed as the HSR will remove thousands of cross-state motorists daily" or "traffic on the 5 and 15 will be slashed on holiday weekends" or the like.
The real challenge is selling it to counties that won't even get any share of the HSR, esp north of Sacramento. On that note, they'd have to focus more on the economic benefits to the state and how it'd make us more competitive or something...

[bmfarley]

California have a lot of passion about transportation. Evidence of that is born out from the passage of Prop 42 in 2002 and the recent Props 1A and 1B.

As it currenlty stands.... the legislator needs a 2/3rds vote to remove the bond measure from the ballot in November 2008. The CHSRA will soon come out with ridership projections and animated virtual video of the train in action. That will sell a lot of people.

• Benefits to the Transportation System:
• Carrying up to 68 million passengers annually by 2020, with the capacity to carry twice as many passengers and high-value, lightweight freight.
• Meeting the need for a safe and reliable mode of travel that would link the major metropolitan areas of the state and deliver predictable, consistent travel times sustainable over time.
• Will not require an operating subsidy.
• Serving tourist and leisure travel, business travel, and long-distance commuters over a variety of long, intermediate and relatively short-distance trips (such as Los Angeles to Anaheim, Palmdale, Riverside, San Diego, Fresno, Sacramento, and the Bay Area).
• Sharing rail alignments throughout much of the system will improve joint facilities benefiting safety and operations of existing freight, commuter, and conventional passenger rail services.
• Providing quick, competitive travel times between California’s major intercity markets.
• Providing door-to-door travel times for longer distance intercity markets that would be comparable to air transportation and less than one half as long as automobile travel times.
• Providing considerably quicker travel times for intermediate intercity trips than either air or automobile transportation and bringing frequent HST service to many parts of the state that are not well served by air transportation.
• Providing lower passenger costs than for travel by automobile or air for the same intercity markets.
• Providing a new intercity, interregional, and regional passenger mode—the high-speed train—, which would improve mobility and connectivity and accessibility to other existing transit modes and airports compared to the other alternatives.
• Improving the travel options available in the Central Valley and other areas of the state with limited bus, rail, and air service for intercity trips.
• Providing system redundancy in cases of extreme events, such as adverse weather or petroleum shortages
• Providing a predominantly separate transportation system that would be less susceptible to many factors influencing reliability, such as capacity constraints, congestion, and incidents that disrupt service.
• Providing superior on-time reliability.
• Providing a lower accident and fatality rate than automobile travel. Will avoid up to 10,000 auto accidents yearly with their attendant deaths, injuries, and property damage when compared to exclusive reliance on highways.
• Offering greater opportunities to expand service and capacity with minimal expansion of infrastructure.
• Adding capacity to the state’s transportation infrastructure and reducing traffic on certain intercity highways and around airports to the extent that intercity trips are diverted to the HST system.
• Eliminating delays at existing at-grade crossings where the HST system would provide grade separation.
• Using train technology proven to be the safest most reliable form of transportation known through extensive regular revenue service in Europe and Asia.
• Expanding airports and highways to meet the intercity travel demands of 2020 would cost two to three times more than building the HST system.
• California’s highways and airports are highly congested and conditions are projected to further deteriorate from projected growth – even if we widen highways and expand airports.
  
  Benefits to the Environment:
  
• HST will have less impact on the natural and built environment than expanding airports and highways: less potential impact on wetlands and water resources, biology and farmlands; less noise impact and even reductions in areas where the HST project grade-separates existing roads over adjacent rail lines.
• Projected to save five million barrels of oil per year, even with future improvements in auto fuel efficiency. Comparing the energy required to carry a passenger one kilometer, the HST needs only one-third that of an airplane and one-fifth of a commuter automobile trip.
• Avoiding and/or minimizing the potential impacts to cultural, park, recreational and wildlife refuges to the greatest extent possible.
• Decreasing air pollutants statewide and in all air basins analyzed by reducing pollution generated by automobile combustion engines.
• Electrically powered HST reduces pollutant and greenhouse emissions and reliance on fossil fuels. The total predicted emissions savings of the California HST system is up to 10.4 billion pounds of CO2 per year by 2020 and would grow with higher ridership.
• Maximizing use of existing transportation corridors and railroad rights-of-way in order to minimize the impacts on California’s treasured landscape.
  
  Land Use Planning Benefits:
  
• All HST stations will be multi-modal transportation hubs that will stimulate denser infill development and will be linked directly to local and regional transit, airports, and highways.
• In contrast to highway improvements that encourage sprawl, HST is consistent with the State’s adopted smart growth principles (2) and is highly compatible with local and regional plans that support rail systems and transit-oriented development.
• Saving an estimated 67,000 acres from urban/suburban development, including 24,000 acres of farmland, by encouraging compact transit-oriented development.
• Increasing public benefits beyond the benefits of access to the HST system itself, including relief from traffic congestion, improved air quality, promotion of infill development and preservation of natural resources, increased stock of affordable housing, promotion of job opportunities, reduction in energy consumption, and improved cost-effectiveness of public infrastructure.
• Being a catalyst for wider adoption of smart growth principles in communities near HST stations.
  
  Economic and Social Benefits:
  
• Creating more economic growth for California – over 450,000 more permanent jobs expected by 2035.
• Benefit-cost analysis has shown that direct benefits would be more than twice the costs of the HST system.
• Economic growth would come from construction and operation of the system, travel time reductions, travel quality advantages, reduced delays to air and auto travelers, reduced air pollution, reduced accidents and fatalities, and location advantages related to proximity to the HST system.
• Reducing airport delays (by diverting some airline passengers to high-speed trains), thereby reducing aircraft operating costs.
• Generating about 300,000 job-years of employment from HST construction.
• Improving travel options available in the Central Valley and other areas of the state with limited bus, rail, and air service.
• Providing lower passenger costs than travel by automobile or air transportation
• Inducing travel; that is, some people who would not otherwise make trips will now do so because of the availability of high-speed rail.
• Enhancing and strengthening urban centers. In combination with appropriate local land use policies, the increased accessibility afforded by the high-speed service could encourage more intensive development and may lead to higher property values around stations.

[bmfarley]

I happened upon a 1999 survey that the CHSRA conducted. Since there was so much interest in what the public supposedly thinks about high speed trains I thought it appropriate to provide tehir summary of the results. Unfortunately a simple copy & paste couldn't work since the doc was in pdf format... so I did a print screen and provided the image below.

A link to the file is: http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/plan/pdf/Plan_7.pdf

Yes, it's from 1999. can you imagine how people feel abou the project now?

[slock]

Thanks for posting all of that bmfarley. It's nice to see the lengthy list of benefits in detail. A no-brainer.

[What is a Rivercat?]

From today's Sacramento News & Review - a pub I usually always disagree with. Not this time, however.

2 hours to L.A.—why not?
Instead of embracing high-speed rail as a key part of California’s transit destiny, the governor seems to be orchestrating a prolonged death for the bullet train

http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=276348

[urban_encounter]

Originally Posted by bmfarley

I will claim that the $34b or $37b cited here or elsewhere is not burned into the conciousness of the California voters.

This thing isn't even on people's radar. But should HSR ever make it to the voters, the airlines (especially Southwest), will ensure that every voter in California knows just how much this will end up costing.

Run a few commercials in San Diego and Sacramento, explaining how those regions will get stuck paying for a multibillion $$$ system for SF and LA and HSR will be overwhelmingly rejected in those regions.

It's doubtful that a HSR vote could overcome overwhelming opposition from Sacramento and San Diego voters, with only a simple majority of voters in SF and LA approving it.

For example; just as the argument was made in Sacramento this past November, that voters shouldn't pay for a new arena for billionaire basketball owners, so will the campaign against HSR point out that voters shouldn't pay for a rail system for L.A. and San Francisco. The arena measure lost by 80% of the vote btw, and that was absent a serious campaign by those opposed to it. Granted there are differences, but imagine what a slick campaign effort by Southwest airlines could do to turn voters against HSR...

It would take an overwhelming yes vote in SF and LA to overcome opposition in Sacramento and San Diego, and as I've all ready pointed out, you can expect a statewide media campaign against HSR, the likes of which California has never seen.

But to echo what William said. California can get a lot more for it's transportation $$$ by modernizing regional rail systems and expanding mass transit systems in San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Jose and Sacramento. (for starters).. Expand Light and Heavy Rail in those cities and modernize regional rail systems. That would be the best value for the $$$. This is something that all California voters can support and will enhance California's transportation system, much more so than a HSR system between LA and SF.

[urban_encounter]

California's High Speed Rail Could Significantly Impact 140-180 Parks, Wildlife Refuges, and Parcels of Protected Open Space.


Some of the protected resources that could be significantly impacted include:

Henry Coe State Park and its Orestimba Wilderness
Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge
Grasslands National Wildlife Refuge
Southern California State Beaches including: San Clemente, San Onofre, Carlsbad, Doheny and more
Cornfields and Taylor Yard Properties (yet to be developed State Parks in the City of Los Angeles)
Elysian Park (Los Angeles)

The High Speed Rail Draft Environmental Impact Report fails to adequately consider the impact on parks, wildlife refuges and protected open space
Federal and state laws require that the new transportation projects not harm parks unless there is no "prudent and feasible alternative to using that land; and the program or project includes all possible planning to minimize harm to the park, recreation area, wildlife and waterfowl refuge, or historic site resulting from the use." Not only are there often feasible alternatives to using protected lands (such as the Altamont Pass route), but the DEIR does almost nothing to indicate that everything has been done to minimize harm to those protected resources.

Major failures of the DEIR with regards to protected lands include:

No discussion of the quality of the impacts to protected resources. The DEIR simply tallies the total number total number of parks that would be highly impacted by the high speed rail and compares it to the modal alternative. This analysis gives equal weight to the impacts to a small city park as it does to a massive wilderness park such as Henry Coe.
No complete list of the names of the parks that might be impacted by the high speed rail. Because of this omission, the DEIR fails the most basic requirement of NEPA and CEQA by not identifying the impacts of the project.
No mention of the fact that the routes through Henry Coe State Park would violate the California Wilderness Act.

Defense of Place

http://www.hsrlandimpacts.org/index.html

[slock]

Rivercat, thanks for the article. Really well written and I agree.

At the bottom of the piece was the opition to Digg it.

Not sure if you're familiar with Digg, but it's a news aggregate that moves news stories higher up based on number of Diggs. It's had some real effect on news stories getting a lot more prominence. This could be one.

I ask everyone who's for CAHSR to read the story and then Digg it at the bottom. I think the more people learn about HSR the more they'll be for it, and when they find out the Governor's trying to kill it, they'll speak up.

Follow up by checking out its count on digg.com

[Richard Mlynarik]

Originally Posted by william

You haven't really been paying attention now have you....

I was too busy paying attention to the network of seaplanes and VTOL part.

Woo hoo!

I mean, with so many truly deep ideas, how to you expect us to keep up with all of them?

[munkyman]

Originally Posted by slock

I ask everyone who's for CAHSR to read the story and then Digg it at the bottom. I think the more people learn about HSR the more they'll be for it, and when they find out the Governor's trying to kill it, they'll speak up.

Follow up by checking out its count on digg.com

I pressed the Digg button at the bottom and then added my 2 cents under the comment section. If you don't want to comment on it, just go to the article, read it, and then press the Digg button. It won't take longer than a few minutes.

[greenmidtown]

Originally Posted by urban_encounter

This thing isn't even on people's radar. But should HSR ever make it to the voters, the airlines (especially Southwest), will ensure that every voter in California knows just how much this will end up costing.

Run a few commercials in San Diego and Sacramento, explaining how those regions will get stuck paying for a multibillion $$$ system for SF and LA and HSR will be overwhelmingly rejected in those regions.

It's doubtful that a HSR vote could overcome overwhelming opposition from Sacramento and San Diego voters, with only a simple majority of voters in SF and LA approving it.

For example; just as the argument was made in Sacramento this past November, that voters shouldn't pay for a new arena for billionaire basketball owners, so will the campaign against HSR point out that voters shouldn't pay for a rail system for L.A. and San Francisco. The arena measure lost by 80% of the vote btw, and that was absent a serious campaign by those opposed to it. Granted there are differences, but imagine what a slick campaign effort by Southwest airlines could do to turn voters against HSR...

It would take an overwhelming yes vote in SF and LA to overcome opposition in Sacramento and San Diego, and as I've all ready pointed out, you can expect a statewide media campaign against HSR, the likes of which California has never seen.

But to echo what William said. California can get a lot more for it's transportation $$$ by modernizing regional rail systems and expanding mass transit systems in San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Jose and Sacramento. (for starters).. Expand Light and Heavy Rail in those cities and modernize regional rail systems. That would be the best value for the $$$. This is something that all California voters can support and will enhance California's transportation system, much more so than a HSR system between LA and SF.

Sac voters rejected the arena because it was clearly a bad deal that stiffed locals with a bill for something that most of us wouldn't use. The same thing happened in Seattle. HSR would dramatically benefit Sacramento since it will link us closely with the economic powerhouse that is L.A.. Not to mention the increased number of Bay Area commuters hoping to use the rail service. L.A. would benefit from the ability to travel to the state capitol in a flash to do some lobbying and take care of any other official state business. Every already rapidly growing Central Valley city in between will benefit from increased travel dollars. North of Sac the state is so sparsely populated it wouldn't pose any threat. The main opposition I foresee will come from the Bay Area which most likely would be left out initially. But we have to act FAST, all the Central Valley cities are growing and with them property values that will only cost the state more come time to lay out the tracks.