California High Speed Rail Thread

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

If Memphis was a metro of 10 million and Mobile was a metro of 15 million, don't you think Jackson and a few of the towns along the way would benefit from a stop?

No. Building such an HSR route would be crazy, given the region's auto orientation. HSR works in centralized, transit-oriented destinations, competing with flights.

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

I just think the bias against California's Central Valley is so strong that people aren't able to imagine it as anything other than what it is at present.

HSR isn't going to change the Central Valley into HSR corridors like Frankfurt-Paris, Madrid-Barcelona or Tokyo-Osaka. Again, this is mission creep. It was about LA-SF.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Lyon, France has a metro population of under 2 million. It's smaller than Sacramento. Every TGV train stops there.

Lyon is also a highly centralized, transit-oriented metro, with a huge existing rail infrastructure. Excepting NYC, it probably has a more developed rail system than anywhere in North America. The only CA towns that plausibly meet the criteria for HSR are LA and SF (and maybe SD, but that's really stretching it).

The Central Valley metros have some of the lowest transit shares in the entire U.S. You could hardly pick worse locales for HSR. They're up there with Tulsa, Birmingham, Amarillo, etc. Ridership from Central Valley will be minimal unless they subsidize it as a commuter line.

[jmecklenborg]

^LAX is pretty damn big for not having a rail connection. But according to you, people will only ride HSR - which exists entirely and exclusively to compete with airlines - if there is a subway or tram connection.

I don't think that anyone has any delusion that Bakersfield, Fresno, et al, will evolve into Tuscan hill towns with the benefit of HSR. People will mostly take a cab or be dropped off.

[markb1]

Originally Posted by Crawford

HSR isn't going to change the Central Valley into HSR corridors like Frankfurt-Paris, Madrid-Barcelona or Tokyo-Osaka. Again, this is mission creep. It was about LA-SF.

Mission creep? This route is what's in the 2008 business plan. Fresno, Hanford, Bakersfield, and Palmdale were all planned stations on the route back then.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by markb1

Mission creep? This route is what's in the 2008 business plan. Fresno, Hanford, Bakersfield, and Palmdale were all planned stations on the route back then.

None of those make any sense. This is HSR. HSR only makes sense for point-to-point service between centralized, transit-oriented locales.

For an LA-SF route, there should be two stations. Maybe three if the line passes anywhere near San Jose. If it ever got to San Diego, maybe one in OC. The rest is garbage, and completely undermining the point of HSR. It's the same market as business flights, at least in the U.S. context. People willing to pay high cost for rapid, reliable point-to-point service.

[markb1]

Originally Posted by Crawford

None of those make any sense. This is HSR. HSR only makes sense for point-to-point service between centralized, transit-oriented locales.

For an LA-SF route, there should be two stations. Maybe three if the line passes anywhere near San Jose. If it ever got to San Diego, maybe one in OC. The rest is garbage, and completely undermining the point of HSR. It's the same market as business flights, at least in the U.S. context. People willing to pay high cost for rapid, reliable point-to-point service.

It makes plenty of sense for it to connect the population centers in the valley. Millions of people live along the route, and we must not ignore them. There will still be SF-LA express trains that do not stop in between.

[homebucket]

The plan for hooking up with the Central Valley was in place from the beginning. So it wouldn't be mission creep. I think Crawford just disagrees with the mission.

I fall somewhere in the middle. I think stops in Fresno and Bakersfield are fine, but I'd probably get rid of Gilroy, Madera, and Kings/Tulare stations, as well as Merced and Modesto while we're at it.

So it'd be, from North to South, SF, SFO, SJ, Fresno, Bakersfield, Palmdale, Burbank, LA. There should also be an express line that skips Fresno, Bakersfield, and Palmdale entirely.

[markb1]

Originally Posted by homebucket

The plan for hooking up with the Central Valley was in place from the beginning. So it wouldn't be mission creep. I think Crawford just disagrees with the mission.

I fall somewhere in the middle. I think stops in Fresno and Bakersfield are fine, but I'd probably get rid of Gilroy, Madera, and Kings/Tulare stations, as well as Merced and Modesto while we're at it.

So it'd be, from North to South, SF, SFO, SJ, Fresno, Bakersfield, Palmdale, Burbank, LA. There should also be an express line that skips Fresno, Bakersfield, and Palmdale entirely.

Yeah, but Crawford also is misrepresenting this history of the project

The plan is to have trains that don't stop at all between SF and LA, trains that stop at major stations, and trains that stop at every station. If the route goes from Bakersfield to Fresno, I see no reason not to have a Kings-Tulare station, for instance. (That particular one will connect to the future cross valley corridor service.)

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by markb1

There will still be SF-LA express trains that do not stop in between.

...and as I have noted here in past posts, the absolute shortest practical route between LA and SF (actually San Jose) is 40~ miles shorter than what is being built. An express train operating at 220mph covers 40 miles in about 12 minutes.

That's the strength of high speed rail - it's so damn fast that a deviation between points A and B costs almost no time, especially when the full door-to-door time is considered.

[Busy Bee]

To the extent SNCF was ever seriously interested helping bring about HSR in California, it's telling that it would be the shortest, most direct and easiest to construct route. From an investment point of view, those things minimize risk and maximize potential profit. But this is no way to construct once-in-a-lifetime infrastructure, be it HSR or otherwise. The objectives should be balanced between cost and benefit. Like the old expression goes, what's good for a foreign government isn't always good for California.

[markb1]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

...and as I have noted here in past posts, the absolute shortest practical route between LA and SF (actually San Jose) is 40~ miles shorter than what is being built. An express train operating at 220mph covers 40 miles in about 12 minutes.

That's the strength of high speed rail - it's so damn fast that a deviation between points A and B costs almost no time, especially when the full door-to-door time is considered.

Absolutely. 12 minutes to connect those population centers in the valley is totally worth it!

[edale]

Originally Posted by markb1

Absolutely. 12 minutes to connect those population centers in the valley is totally worth it!

Of course, that's not the only consideration that should be taken into account.

I think the chosen alignment through the population centers of the Central Valley is going to be what might ultimately doom this project. As we've found out over the past decade, not following the I-5 right of way has been a real mistake. Land acquisition has proven way costlier and taken much longer than expected, as many of the landowners are hostile to the project, and don't want HSR. The number of utility and road modifications has been staggering, as every little country road that intersects with the proposed route has to be dealt with. We're seeing elaborate pergolas and other ridiculous, expensive accommodations being made to appease otherwise hostile interests in the CV. Following the 5's ROW would have made these obstacles considerably less difficult.

So it's not just an issue of 12 additional minutes, or the billions of extra dollars required to reach the eastern side of the CV rather than the more direct route that the 5 takes. And, as I've said before, people in the CV would still have greatly benefitted from an I-5 alignment. Take a 30-40 minute ride (or less for Bakersfield, for example) to the HSR station, and you're in downtown SF or LA in a couple hours. Seems like a pretty nice benefit to those people who currently have to drive the entire distance to reach either of the big cities. Why was it so important to serve the downtown areas of Fresno and Bakersfield? It's a misnomer to think of inclusion of the CV as an either or. It would have still been served by the other, more direct route.

The latest goal for the project is an operational HSR line between Merced and Bakersfield by 2030. Of that stretch, only 119 of the 171 miles is even currently approved for construction. And this is the 'easy' part of the HSR route. Not the complicated tunneling and urban construction of the parts near SF and LA. Some skepticism and reflection on how we got where we are is warranted, I think.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by markb1

Absolutely. 12 minutes to connect those population centers in the valley is totally worth it!

It's more time than that but I don't know the exact amount, since the trains won't be able to travel at full speed in the long tunnel to Palmdale or the climb and short tunnels between Bakersfield and Tehachapi. But since we never had a full study of the Grapevine route, we really can't compare apples to apples. We're comparing a known - what is being built - to an unknown.

The two things that percolate behind the scenes and fuel the animosity of the LA Times, etc., are the threat Las Vegas and its low taxes and cost of living pose to Los Angeles, and then the fact that San Jose is going to get much faster and more voluminous service to SoCal than San Francisco.

So the big winners from the Palmdale/Central Valley routing are San Jose and Las Vegas.

The original Grapevine/Altamont routing would have shut the door on Las Vegas and offered spur service to San Jose instead of its prominent position on the mainline, equal to LA Union.

San Jose is going to be 40 minutes closer to LA than San Francisco and will have many more southbound trains per hour versus SF's 4. It's also going to be the easiest place for Central Valley people to commute (again, 40 minutes closer than SF). It's also going to have a BART connection, so it's really poised to experience a boost in importance.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by homebucket

The plan for hooking up with the Central Valley was in place from the beginning. So it wouldn't be mission creep. I think Crawford just disagrees with the mission.

I fall somewhere in the middle. I think stops in Fresno and Bakersfield are fine, but I'd probably get rid of Gilroy, Madera, and Kings/Tulare stations, as well as Merced and Modesto while we're at it.

So it'd be, from North to South, SF, SFO, SJ, Fresno, Bakersfield, Palmdale, Burbank, LA. There should also be an express line that skips Fresno, Bakersfield, and Palmdale entirely.

This is exactly my thinking as well

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by homebucket

The plan for hooking up with the Central Valley was in place from the beginning. So it wouldn't be mission creep. I think Crawford just disagrees with the mission.

I fall somewhere in the middle. I think stops in Fresno and Bakersfield are fine, but I'd probably get rid of Gilroy, Madera, and Kings/Tulare stations, as well as Merced and Modesto while we're at it.

So it'd be, from North to South, SF, SFO, SJ, Fresno, Bakersfield, Palmdale, Burbank, LA. There should also be an express line that skips Fresno, Bakersfield, and Palmdale entirely.

Me, I would drop SFO; it already has a direct BART connection. SF straight to SJ on HSR makes more sense to me. But otherwise, I agree with the rest, including an express line that skips Fresno, Bakersfield and Palmdale.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

The two things that percolate behind the scenes and fuel the animosity of the LA Times, etc., are the threat Las Vegas and its low taxes and cost of living pose to Los Angeles, and then the fact that San Jose is going to get much faster and more voluminous service to SoCal than San Francisco.

Is there room on the Peninsula line for more tracks? Are they going to just be using the two existing commuter tracks?

San Francisco is the only U.S. city west of Chicago that has a traditional, centralized transit-oriented layout. That's the typology where HSR works. LA probably works as a function of size, but not really day-to-day functionality.

If this system is really going to be run as a Silicon Valley-LA corridor, it's even sillier. SV is centerless. They probably should have started by digging a tunnel in SF. SF, even moreso than LA, is the ridership prize.

I remember reading that they could electrify and run 150 MPH trains along existing routes for about 10% the cost, and only lose an hour off the trip, still competing with airlines. That would probably be the smarter project. Or if you're gonna spend like there's no tomorrow, bring in the Japanese and tunnel the whole route a la the u/c Tokyo-Osaka maglev.

[edale]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

San Jose is going to be 40 minutes closer to LA than San Francisco and will have many more southbound trains per hour versus SF's 4. It's also going to be the easiest place for Central Valley people to commute (again, 40 minutes closer than SF). It's also going to have a BART connection, so it's really poised to experience a boost in importance.

The HSR travel time between San Jose and San Francisco is going to be 40 minutes???

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I remember reading that they could electrify and run 150 MPH trains along existing routes for about 10% the cost, and only lose an hour off the trip, still competing with airlines.

Where did you read that? Did they leave out the fact that there is no existing passenger rail between the Central Valley and Los Angeles? Or that the massive fleet of freight trains have priority on all existing intrastate railroads, including the circuitous coastal route?

Originally Posted by edale

The HSR travel time between San Jose and San Francisco is going to be 40 minutes???

Doesn't current express service (max. 79 mph) already make the SF-SJ run in 40 minutes?

[markb1]

Originally Posted by edale

The HSR travel time between San Jose and San Francisco is going to be 40 minutes???

Per the simulation data that was released a few years ago, SF->SJ accounts for 29 minutes of the SF->LA express train. A train that stops at Millbrae and SJ would be closer to 40, but still doesn't seem like it would take quite that long.

The train speed will top out at 110 MPH on that segment, but will be slower in some sections.

[MAC123]

Originally Posted by markb1

Per the simulation data that was released a few years ago, SF->SJ accounts for 29 minutes of the SF->LA express train. A train that stops at Millbrae and SJ would be closer to 40, but still doesn't seem like it would take quite that long.

The train speed will top out at 110 MPH on that segment, but will be slower in some sections.

And that'll probably be increased slightly to 125 mph once all the grade crossings are eliminated. But while CAHSR will help pay for it, that's not its responsibility and will fall on the train authorities in the general area.