California High Speed Rail Thread

[jg6544]

Originally Posted by aquablue

Wouldn't they run somewhere near/in the Central Valley to central LA? Isn't that the obvious option? I don't know how you could mention Santa Barbara, that isn't a good place to continue the line to the main HSR spine of the system. Wouldn't LA to Bakersfield, or something similar bea good option. The article specifically mentions Central Valley connection to LA basin. Nowhere did it talk about SB, Palm Springs, San Diego, etc..

They probably will run it to the Central Valley. Do you know anyone who wants to go to the Central Valley? For any reason? Ever?

I don't.

I mentioned those other locations because those are destinations people might actually want to go to. I said a few weeks back, if it weren't hideously expensive, the smartest initial route might be LA-San Diego. Unfortunately, much of it is through populated areas and therefore, grade separations alone would be staggeringly expensive.

[jg6544]

Originally Posted by Altauria

So after an embarrassing twenty years of construction on a silly little railroad, an already-outdated-before-opened (and probably needing to be repaired from natural deterioration) rail system will eagerly await its commuters that had to sit in traffic to get to the station longer than their trip will take, because the local transit systems are still as bad, or worse, than they are today?

The cost/time of this project seems so unbelievably foolish, I feel like I'm missing something big in the details.

You're right. We should have invested heavily in HSR when the Japanese were starting to, but we didn't. Doesn't mean we shouldn't start now.

[jg6544]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

jg6544:


This isn't that difficult to figure out. The article explains it pretty straight-forwardly. The first phase would build high speed rail from LA/Irvine to Merced and then the second phase would extend this from Merced to San Jose-San Francisco, instead of building LA - SF all at once.

Well, some of us think it would be nice to complete the entire thing within the lifetimes of at least half of Californians now living.

[aquablue]

Originally Posted by jg6544

Well, some of us think it would be nice to complete the entire thing within the lifetimes of at least half of Californians now living.

I'm sorry, but you mentioning Santa Barbara to LA just seemed very odd. How did you expect them to continue the line up to SF from SB? I think you should think before your write.

It HAS to go to the valley, otherwise there is no true HSR, no place to lay straight flat 220mph tracks, no connection to the North. So, no, going to SB or SD would be a terrible mistake for phase 1.

[JDRCRASH]

Trying to run HSR down the California coast is political suicide, and all you conservative forumers KNOW IT. The only way to make it happen and gain the NIMBYs approval would be for it to be a subway, and that in turn makes running HSR along the coast more expensive than the Central Valley route. Heck, just running from Los Angeles to San Diego ALONE would probably cost as much as the whole system currently planned.

[202_Cyclist]

Can we get over the idea that the Central Valley is nowhere? Admittedly, it isn't Paris or New York but there are 4M residents in the sections of the Valley that will be served by high speed rail (http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/jtf...lValleyJTF.pdf) -- excluding the Sacramento region. There are already six daily Amtrak trips between Fresno and Bakersfield.

[Altauria]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

jg6544:

This is not at all true. High speed rail won't be built in isolation of continuous investment in local rail and subways. LA's 30/10 Plan promises to dramatically expand the reach of transit over the next two decades throughout LA County. The Expo Line will open within the next few months and construction on the Crenshaw line to LAX (or at least in the proximity of LAX) will begin this summer. As someone has noted on the LA Transportation thread, there will be a new rail line constructed in LA County every year for at least the next five years. There is already talk of extending and expanding Measure R.

Let's review driving on the other hand. Every month sees ridership records for Amtrak, while vehicle miles traveled declined by nearly two percent last year-- and that was before $4 per gallon gas. Any guess how much gas will be in 2030? How bad will traffic be when Southern California has another 5M residents?

Great points in the first paragraph. That's good that they're integrating the transit expansion. I hope to see a huge influx of riders.

I do, however, find the second filled with logical fallacies. 'Nearly two percent' is smaller than a margin-for-error. That shouldn't even be considered. Everyone I know has consciously driven less ever since it broke $2 a gallon, 8 years ago, back in 2004! There really is no solid correlation.

High ridership with Amtrak doesn't tell us a thing. It doesn't say anything about volume/frequency/need ratios. A living example would be an Apple Store. Most of them appear swamped busy - yes, 25 people in the square footage of a 1 bedroom apartment is going to appear very busy. Driving 50mph down a one lane residential road will also feel very fast, where as all the knuckleheads driving 45mph in the middle of the 10 freeway, causing all the traffic and pollution, appear very slow.

What's the percentage of Amtrak commuters (not special-occasioners) versus drivers? Why are they commuting via Amtrak? This becomes a 'chicken or the egg' question. Are we creating an infrastructure so spread out, that we need to accommodate it by creating spread out transit, thus merely perpetuating the overall problem instead of fixing it?

I certainly don't claim to have a practical answer. Personally, at least for L.A., I would like to see a Haussmann-ian overhaul.

[jg6544]

Originally Posted by aquablue

I'm sorry, but you mentioning Santa Barbara to LA just seemed very odd. How did you expect them to continue the line up to SF from SB? I think you should think before your write.

It HAS to go to the valley, otherwise there is no true HSR, no place to lay straight flat 220mph tracks, no connection to the North. So, no, going to SB or SD would be a terrible mistake for phase 1.

I agree. I'm simply saying that until it's completed to the Bay Area, not many people are going to ride it. Could give ammo to the people who are against HSR because (they claim) there isn't a market for it.

Maybe they should do it the way they did the first transcontinental railroad - start at both ends and build to the middle.

[jg6544]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

Can we get over the idea that the Central Valley is nowhere?

You don't live in CA, do you.

[jg6544]

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH

Trying to run HSR down the California coast is political suicide, and all you conservative forumers KNOW IT.

You've sure misread me. I think we should have NATIONALIZED the railroads at the beginning of WWII and that they should still be NATIONALIZED.

My comments about the coast were directed mainly at the argument that HSR should concentrate in southern California and my point was, that's too damned expensive because this part of the state is too densely populated to run dedicated HSR rights-of-way between the two major cities (San Diego and L.A.) and nobody would want to go anywhere else other than the coast and Palm Springs.

I am all for building HSR, just the way France built the TGV system and just the way the Japanese built their HSR lines (which have been in operation for going-on 50 years now and quite successfully) - completely separate, dedicated right-of-way; no grade crossings.

[Busy Bee]

^ I don't agree with full nationalization. Such a dramatic socialist gesture (made even more by how exponentially more operating private railroads there were in the US verses Europe at the time) would have never been acceptable by that political climate nor this one. In theory what I DO think should have been done was the "nationalization" of the corridors and ROW of private railroads. As we know, the railroads in many cases were essentially given the land to build corridors, facilitated through eminent domain and land grants by the federal goverment - see the Pacific Railroad Acts for instance. This ribbon of privatized right of way traverses the country and the very fact that it has remained private property, IMO has prevented an abundance of critical rail transport projects coast to coast because of the "sovereign in tone" objections of the railroads over interoperability concerns. It makes much more since for the ownership of the infrastructure to be nationalized or socialized, whatever word works for you, and leased to a potential mix of privatized freight railroads and private or public passenger services. Since you mentioned SNCF as a model, this scenario is very similiar to how RFF operates - especially now with its current and future agreements with German DB and Spanish Renfe, etc. Nationalization would put an end to the constant objections of the private freight railroads to sharing tracks (Amtrak being the only exception, and that took an act of congress and a 40 year long contentious relationship continues) and looking into the future building new parallel dedicated passenger tracks in existing ROW's, something the private railroads currently absolutely reject. BTW, the excellent book Waiting on a Train by James McCommons has a chapter on nationalization. The whole book is required reading for anyone that seeks to understand the current embarrasment that is the US passenger rail system.

The way I see it this is the only way to really speed the development of a truly European grade system through the US outside of massive from-the-ground-up ventures like CAHSR that require huge ROW land acquisition. Will it happen? Probably not. It would take a major shift in political ideology in Washington, or even the state level, to be inclined to put forth quasi socialist European style policy proposals like this, even if only in the focused field of rail transportation. But they already have an excellent example of such a "nationalized" experiment to look to for bold inspiration - the interstate highway program.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH

Trying to run HSR down the California coast is political suicide, and all you conservative forumers KNOW IT. The only way to make it happen and gain the NIMBYs approval would be for it to be a subway, and that in turn makes running HSR along the coast more expensive than the Central Valley route. Heck, just running from Los Angeles to San Diego ALONE would probably cost as much as the whole system currently planned.

Id rather be above ground for a 400 mile trip than below ground(ugh).

Anyhow,

Bid to appease bullet train critics may violate law

By Ralph Vartabedian and Dan Weikel, Los Angeles Times

March 26, 2012


...Quentin Kopp, an architect of the project when he was a state senator and chairman of the rail authority, believes the design changes do not meet the law and is not what was envisioned by the Legislature.

"These guys at the rail authority have been pretty clever," said Kopp, who is also a former state judge. "I saw it coming."

The mandates in the law are considerable. They require that any initial segment has to use high-speed trains. Money for each operating segment needs to be in hand before construction starts. Passengers must be able to board in Los Angeles and arrive in San Francisco without changing trains. As many as 12 trains per hour are supposed to run in each direction and the system has to operate without taxpayer subsidies.

Instead, the rail authority has agreed to run fewer trains at slower speeds on tracks shared with commuter rail systems, Amtrak and freight trains. In the early years, passengers will probably have to transfer trains to get from one end of the system to the other. The concept, known as the blended approach, was pushed last year by Bay Area politicians, who fought the original plan to run high-speed trains through the region on 60-foot high viaducts over local neighborhoods. The idea has attracted support in Southern California as well.

Brown has thrown his weight behind the blended plan, but also recognizes the potential legal problem...


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...,6325897.story

1 They wanted the train to run on 60-ft high viaducts over Palo Alto and Atherton?

2 All of these proposed changes make it less convenient than flying imo.

[M II A II R II K]

Lawmakers ready to green-light California high-speed rail


Mar. 23, 2012

By Dan Walters

Read More: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/23/435...-ready-to.html

Its popularity has declined sharply, many of its details have yet to emerge, and independent authorities have questioned its financial and operational viability, but California's bullet train project is very likely to get the green light from the Legislature soon.

That's the consensus of those who have been counting votes among the Legislature's dominant Democrats, who can give the California High-Speed Rail Authority authorization to sell bonds and begin construction of an initial segment in the San Joaquin Valley. And that's true even though lawmakers still don't know, in any detail, what linking the northern and southern halves of the state via rail would entail. They don't know how much the system would cost, who, if anyone, would put up its money, or whether it could draw enough passengers to cover costs without subsidies.

.....

[202_Cyclist]

Bid to appease bullet train critics may violate law
Revisions are in conflict with the ballot measure approved by voters and may go against the Obama administration's plans. Gov. Jerry Brown backs the changes but admits potential legal problems.

By Ralph Vartabedian and Dan Weikel
Los Angeles Times
March 26, 2012

“A series of concessions over the last year to quiet opposition to the California bullet train has created a potentially lethal problem: the revised blueprint for the system may violate requirements locked into state law when voters approved funding for the project in 2008.

The Legislature packed the law with an unusual number of conditions intended to reassure voters, protect the project from later political compromises and ensure that it would not end up a bankrupted white elephant.

But many of those requirements may be at odds with the plan to integrate bullet trains with existing commuter rail lines in Los Angeles and San Francisco. They may also conflict with the Obama administration's insistence to start construction in the Central Valley without any near-term prospect that high-speed trains would operate there…”

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...,6325897.story

[DJM19]

This seems to be latest tactic against the project. However I dont think the proposition said the project could not be built in phases (which is really the argument here). The blended plan is only the first phase of the project. After electrification, a second phase can include additional tracks along the metrolink and caltrain row devoted to HSR.

[mwadswor]

Originally Posted by DJM19

This seems to be latest tactic against the project. However I dont think the proposition said the project could not be built in phases (which is really the argument here). The blended plan is only the first phase of the project. After electrification, a second phase can include additional tracks along the metrolink and caltrain row devoted to HSR.

In fact, I believe the proposition implicitly contemplated phases. Doesn't the language require that each operating segment be fully funded before construction begins? No need for language on each operating segment if the proposition requires the whole thing to be built at once.

[peanut gallery]

Besides, what large, statewide public works project is ever built all at once? They didn't build the 700 mile State Water Project (and 5 or so major associated dams) all at one time. I believe there were at least two major stages to that project, not to mention all the various smaller projects, like say building the Oroville Dam (which is taller than Hoover and more than 5 times wider, just to point out how big it actually is).

[202_Cyclist]

Brown administration, bullet train board seek to ease environmental reviews of the project
Environmental groups that have joined discussions on relaxing reviews say they'll support small-scale concessions but not wholesale exemptions.

By Ralph Vartabedian and Dan Weikel
Los Angeles Times
March 29, 2012

"California's bullet train authority and representatives of the Brown administration are exploring ways to relax environmental review procedures on the massive project to help meet a tight construction schedule, The Times has learned.

Major environmental groups confirm they have been in discussions with state officials about some type of relief from possible environmental challenges to the project, which is falling behind schedule and risks losing federal funding if it must conduct new reviews of construction and operational effects.

The environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Planning and Conservation League Foundation, say they are willing to consider small-scale concessions but will oppose a wholesale exemption of the environmental process..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...0,882981.story

[twoNeurons]

Originally Posted by jg6544

You're right. We should have invested heavily in HSR when the Japanese were starting to, but we didn't. Doesn't mean we shouldn't start now.

And now the Japanese want to invest heavily in California's HSR.

Population in the 1960s wasn't as dense as it is now. Lots of people moved to California in the past 50 years. What SHOULD have been done was secure the ROWs. I'm not sure HSR would've been successful in 1960s and 1970s America.

[Busy Bee]

^ I don't know about that. There were many progressive and ambitious projects coming out of USDOT in the 70s. Who knows were some of them would have led us had the Reagan "revolution" not derailed (sorry pun) some of them...