California High Speed Rail Thread

[ardecila]

^ IOS is to San Francisco I believe. Caltrain electrification will extend from SF to Tamien in south SJ, then CHSRA will electrify the remainder of the Caltrain corridor to Gilroy where it will connect to the new Pacheco Pass line. The Caltrain corridor will absolutely be a place where the high-speed trainset runs on legacy tracks, albeit newly-electrified ones, at a slower speed, up to 4th/King.

That line across Pacheco, BTW, will not be easy or cheap. An increase in costs is inevitable for that segment which contains many miles of tunnel crossing active fault lines.

[Busy Bee]

I could be wrong but I do not believe the Peninsula blended row is part of the IOS. The major reason is that they are not going to be terminating at 4th/King like Caltrain will temporarily before the DTX tunnel to Transbay is complete. That is if the IOS op's are using the actual hsr trainsets.

The way I understand it is that the interim operating plan is for the IOS to run from Bakersfield to San Jose with a electric Caltrain transfer.

[electricron]

Amtrak only provides a bus service between Bakersfield and Los Angeles today, so there is no way at all for the possibility of LA to SF passengers using the soon to be completed newly laid tracks in the central valley exclusively by train. Buses will still be needed.

People criticize the privately funded HSR train from Victorville to Las Vegas as being incomplete, because people will need to ride buses from LA to Victorville - yet few advocates admit the same with the bus ride LA to Bakersfield????

The only portion of the CHSR track improvements that LA to SF can use for the foreseeable future without using buses will be the corridor electrification between San Jose and San Francisco - which Amtrak doesn’t run trains on and probably never will. So those riding any of Amtrak’s trains running in California between LA and San Jose will have to transfer trains in San Jose. Even if they rode the trains to Emeryville, they’re still taking a bus into San Francisco.

I’ll repeat what I wrote before, the first segments CHSR should have built are the missing links in Amtrak’s California portfolio; Bakersfield to Los Angeles and San Jose to San Francisco. You know, where they could use Federal funding where it is needed most, on the most expensive sections of the HSR corridor.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by electricron

I’ll repeat what I wrote before, the first segments CHSR should have built are the missing links in Amtrak’s California portfolio; Bakersfield to Los Angeles and San Jose to San Francisco. You know, where they could use Federal funding where it is needed most, on the most expensive sections of the HSR corridor.

The Caltrains reconstruction/electrification is being built in part with a $647 million federal grant. This is the one that the Trump administration temporarily took away just to play politics. The new Caltrains commuter trains are going to operate on the same high voltage as the future HSR trains. Better acceleration thanks to the acceleration will enable Caltrains to operate one more train per hour than they do currently in addition to 4 HSR trains per direction.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by ardecila

That line across Pacheco, BTW, will not be easy or cheap. An increase in costs is inevitable for that segment which contains many miles of tunnel crossing active fault lines.

The board's flipping the IOS to SF as opposed to Los Angeles likely had to do with anticipated tunneling costs in Nocal vs. Socal, plus the shear amount of time required to dig these monster tunnels. Pacheco is going to be 13 miles versus 20 or more miles between Palmdale and Burbank.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

The Caltrains reconstruction/electrification is being built in part with a $647 million federal grant. This is the one that the Trump administration temporarily took away just to play politics. The new Caltrains commuter trains are going to operate on the same high voltage as the future HSR trains. Better acceleration thanks to the acceleration will enable Caltrains to operate one more train per hour than they do currently in addition to 4 HSR trains per direction.

Yes, but the blended right of way is still a drastic reduction in speed and throughput. This was done to save money to keep the budget from completely blowing out. They estimated it will save $30 Billion (keep in mind the original system that voters approved was only supposed to cost $33 Billion). However it also means that any reasonable estimate will show that the current system will not meet the time requirements that Californian's voted on. This isn't some little mistake either, the proponents of this project very blatantly and knowingly lied about its cost, speed and schedule in order to get the voters to approve it. This is the sort of thing people should go to prison over.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Yes, but the blended right of way is still a drastic reduction in speed and throughput. This was done to save money to keep the budget from completely blowing out. They estimated it will save $30 Billion (keep in mind the original system that voters approved was only supposed to cost $33 Billion). However it also means that any reasonable estimate will show that the current system will not meet the time requirements that Californian's voted on. This isn't some little mistake either, the proponents of this project very blatantly and knowingly lied about its cost, speed and schedule in order to get the voters to approve it. This is the sort of thing people should go to prison over.

The reason that the ambitious speed requirements were written into Prop 1A was to keep the project from being watered down. A voter-approved bond issue that forces them to build a high speed passenger railway forces the board to build a high speed railway with the allotted funds. They can't build anything that precludes a 2:45 transit time or else opposition can get a court order to stop construction.

Nothing has yet been built that physically prohibits a 2:45 transit time from SF to LA. A total of 50 miles was added to the mainline in order to serve Palmdale (which single-handedly added 30 miles) and the Central Valley cities. So at 220mph, those extra 50 miles cost the LA-SF express trains a grand total of 13-14 minutes.

There is nothing stopping the authority from scheduling one early morning and one late night super express per day that makes no stops between SF and LA, thereby making the trip in 2:30 or thereabouts and fulfilling the time promise. As is, all "express" trains will stop at SFO, San Jose, and Burbank Airport.

There is still nothing preventing the authority from building a 13~ mile viaduct between the Burbank airport and LA Union Station that would untangle HSR from local trains and enable a time savings of about 10 minutes. However, I'd speculate that the advantage of a dedicated approach would really be about consistency and maintaining a schedule for trains that travel through LA to San Diego or Anaheim.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Yes, but the blended right of way is still a drastic reduction in speed and throughput. This was done to save money to keep the budget from completely blowing out. They estimated it will save $30 Billion (keep in mind the original system that voters approved was only supposed to cost $33 Billion).

Mainly it was done because every little high end town on the Peninsula threatened a lawsuit--and several did file suit--that would tie up the project because they didn't want fast trains coming through their idyllic towns.

The High-Speed Rail Authority's press release (in 2013) noted the significance of the "blended rail" approach to sharing the Caltrain corridor that may allay some of the fears of the . . . cities of the use of eminent domain for an expanded right-of-way (needed for 4-tracking the corridor).

https://www.planetizen.com/node/61045

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Mainly it was done because every little high end town on the Peninsula threatened a lawsuit--and several did file suit--that would tie up the project because they didn't want fast trains coming through their idyllic towns.

I'm aware of the issues that this and every other infrastructure project faces.. and the people who pushed for it should also have been aware. If they wanted to make this and similar projects successful California should have passed laws strengthening eminent domain and reducing the ability of NIMBYs to sue. As it is spending Billions of dollars to fellate a few rich people is going to be the death of the whole project.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

As it is spending Billions of dollars to fellate a few rich people is going to be the death of the whole project.

There are several scenarios by which there would have been no improvements to Caltrains whatsoever. As is, the peninsula down to Gilroy is getting world class commuter rail.

The blended service is a compromise from the perspective of HSR but it isn't much of a compromise. The new 6-track Transbay Terminal is the bottleneck, not the blended HSR/commuter rail. Even with dedicated tracks, HSR could have only run four trains per hour to and from Transbay.

I believe (I have not read this) that the big operational difference between the blended service and dedicated HSR is that the stops at SFO and San Jose for each train, including express trains, are necessary to cue all trains.

A complete HSR alignment from SF to LA Union with no blended service at either end would mean about 50 miles of 200mph operation instead of 110mph service plus the subtraction of three mandatory station stops. Add the I-5alignment to the equation and the end-to-end transit time would be about 45 minutes faster.

At no time was the fastest transit time between LA and SF the singular goal of this project. By compromising that end by adding 50 route miles, 6 million people are brought into the service area. Also, I question the demand for more than one 1,000 seat express train per hour from DTSF to DTLA. Such a train loses all of the potential ridership from the San Fernando Valley and from the Peninsula and San Jose. Combined, that's a 5+ million market.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

HYou don't exactly see a lot of poor people on the Acela or Eurostar etc because they cost hundreds of dollars unless you get an off-peak time months in advance.

That's not true. HSR on the Continent is very heavily subsidized, fares are dirt-cheap and lots of working class and poor peole ride HSR. You can get Frankfurt-Paris tickets for $30-$40 USD. Second class often feels like a Greyhound bus.

Acela leans upper class, but fares are much more expensive, and it's difficult to get tickets. Acela doesn't lose money, HSR in Europe does.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by Crawford

That's not true. HSR on the Continent is very heavily subsidized, fares are dirt-cheap and lots of working class and poor peole ride HSR. You can get Frankfurt-Paris tickets for $30-$40 USD. Second class often feels like a Greyhound bus.

That's why I used Eurostar as an example. Regardless, my concern is whether the taxpayers are getting a good deal, not whether the riders are getting a good deal. My concern is ACTUAL costs, not subsidized costs.

[phoenixboi08]

Some highlights from the September 2018 Construction Update

- San Joaquin River Viaduct & Pergola
est. completion: 2019




- Cedar Viaduct
est. completion: TBD




- Fresno Trench & State Route 180 Passageway
est. completion: late 2018

[phoenixboi08]

I've never found any decent, up-to-date KMZs of the current route alignments, station locations, etc. (the Authority really needs to put something like this on their site. Their current map isn't useful at all).

Anyways, I found an old map based on one done by some students at UC Davis, and imported it into Google Earth and created a KMZ. I haven't yet imported it into Google Maps (because that interface is clunky, and the original data is from GIS so the projection is likely different and means it needs to be tweaked), but you can view it in the Earth web client.



If nothing else, it's interesting to quickly identify some of the construction sites/land clearing that's been taking place -- although, I'm fairly certain Google Maps may not have been updated since I last examined the route over a 1.5 years ago? I'm not sure how frequently this data gets updated.

You can tell it's not too old because the Tuolome St. Bridge seems complete, but stuff like the Cottonwood Creek Viaduct, Cedar Viaduct, etc aren't very visible ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ?


Anyways, if anyone has anything more recent/better, please share.

[jmecklenborg]

I'd like to see construction costs for some of those individual features, like the pergola. That thing looks like about $150 million worth of concrete and rebar.

I'd also like to see a simple percentage of route miles involving "structure" versus basic surface running. This first phase might be as low as 1% of the route involving a ramp/viaduct or trench.

[plutonicpanda]

Originally Posted by mousquet

I went to CA. I traveled all the Californian coast from SF to LA. Some of their highways are super wide. Especially when you drive by LA. The widest I've seen in my life. I even forget the number of lanes...

It clearly doesn't work as a standalone solution. You still get stuck in traffic over there, no matter how huge their highways are.

Over here, we've been advertising competition between any transit means. Cars, buses, trams, trains, planes...
We've been leaving ideology behind and just would pick the most efficient. I think that will work for us all.

I think what BrownTown has basically complaining about is the cost of the workforce in the US.
Well, I wish the French workers had the same purchasing power as the American ones. Our unions here have done a poor job in defending workers' interests.
They've been too busy at politics and ideology, serving their so-called leftist ideals and forgetting about purchasing power on the ground.
That's silly, ineffective. Now many workers are pissed and vote for the retarded far right in this country.

It seems to me we could find some very great system by mixing some Fr and US principles.
More competition, and higher purchasing power.

As already pointed out, LA has among the least amount of freeway lanes per capita. Coupled with the fact that freeways such as the Beverly Hill and La Cienega Freeways that should have been built but weren't among tons of others, you can see why traffic is so bad in LA, but still doesn't compare to many major cities, so be thankful.


https://www.dmagazine.com/urbanism-t...es-per-capita/

Note how various cities that have smaller pops than larger cities with less freeway miles seem to have much worse traffic. Anecdotal note, of course. Portland traffic is way worse than many cities much larger than it. Of course, Portland also has geographical restrictions, which don't help.

[plutonicpanda]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

It sounds like you were on the 405. L.A. is actually underserved by freeways and ranks below many of it's peers in freeway lanes per capita. Much of the mid-century freeway plan was never completed. L.A. traffic and congestion is awful because the extensive rail system that once existed was scrapped and was to be replaced by a huge freeway network [see map below], which was never finished, scaled back and entire freeways eliminated. Double whammy.

The 5 freeway just south of downtown is only 3 lanes in each direction, that it until a massive project finished up. It is a huge bottleneck and soon that'll finally be upgraded to today's standards. The cost to build a freeway in L.A. increased 6 times from 1960 to 1980.


L.A. Times graphic

IIRC, that map is missing a couple proposed freeways. Wasn't Laurel Canyon to be come a freeway as were artificial islands built in front of Santa Monica proposed to support a freeway connecting to PCH?

[plutonicpanda]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

The Central Valley cities and counties, cumulatively, have just about as many residents as the Bay Area. 6~ million versus 7~ million, depending on what, specifically, is counted.

The Central Valley has roughly the same population as the 15th biggest of our 50 United States.

Their demographics are also quite different than those of San Frans and SoCals. Do you envision the populations from the big cities driving their cars to the central valley and hopping on the train only to have a much slower connection waiting for them at the other end? It doesn't make sense. What purpose would Central Valley cities that are already dominated by cars use HSR for?

[plutonicpanda]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Plenty of US cities built virtually the entire freeway systems with no cancellations. Dallas, Houston, or Kansas City come to mind.



You could say something similar about building freeways through dense cities, which are the canceled projects you're shedding tears for.

I don't believe any of those cities you mentioned built every freeway they planned.

Furthermore, if you make a case against freeways in larger cities than you make a case against transit in suburban areas where most people live. There might be a few exceptions, but most people live in the suburbs and unless you have solutions for funding a functional transit system serving low density cities and also have a solution for the first last mile issue which is a problem even in large dense cities, lets hear it. Then if by some miracle you do, you're going to run into the issue that most people living in suburbs likely won't want to use transit anyways either because of preference or negative stereotypes they've come to believe.

[plutonicpanda]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Yay I can't wait for my Federal money to go to a single rail line in California for the upper-middle class and rich people. What an awesome cause...

To be fair, they still haven't done any studies to know who their riders will even be. But yes, you're assumption is one that will likely be the end result.