Two-Thirds of Americans Would Utilize High-Speed Rail If It Was Available • Hacker News Board

Re: Two-Thirds of Americans Would Utilize High-Speed Rail If It Was Available

#61

Post by ubernostrum » Sun, May 08, 2016, 9:52 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #27

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Having train travel target business travelers who are neither price-sensitive nor particularly time-sensitive is a choice -- a political choice. For instance, when we say that buses "can take advantage of a a road network that already exists and that they don't need to maintain (other than whatever taxes they pay)", that doesn't mean the infrastructure doesn't need to be paid-for, it means someone other than t…

>and then act surprised that nobody takes Amtrak But lots of people take Amtrak in the Northeast Corridor--enough to subsidize the rest of the system. The problem is that there aren't any other areas in the country that are as well-suited for busy inter-city rail as the Boston to DC corridor. Almost everything else is lower density and further apart. I'm not an expert on transportation cost structures but my observat…

The problem is that there aren't any other areas in the country that are as well-suited for busy inter-city rail as the Boston to DC corridor.

A lot of money's being pumped into trying a high-speed rail corridor between Los Angeles and San Francisco. And to be honest, I'd think there's at least a moderately good case for running up to Portland, Seattle and possibly even Vancouver. There's an awful lot of tech-industry commuting by air on those routes right now.

Re: Two-Thirds of Americans Would Utilize High-Speed Rail If It Was Available

#62

Post by seanp2k2 » Sun, May 08, 2016, 9:53 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #44

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's easy to tell a pollster you're for high speed rail but how many will actually buy a ticket? Perhaps they should ask for them to prepay for a ticket? I use the MBTA on a fairly frequent basis. I would use it every day if biking didn't half my commute time. I've also used Megabus to visit New York City, for day trips even, Acela for an interview in New York once, and a short domestic air flight to visit a friend…

Acela isn't "high-speed" rail, it's basically normal rail with high-speed hardware which occasionally goes fast enough to barely clear the threshold for calling it "high speed." Acela averages less than 70MPH. In a proper high-speed system that would be more like 180MPH. Boston to DC would be 2.5 hours, vastly faster than flying once you account for airport nonsense.

While I agree that more high-speed rail would be amazing in the US as a viable transit option, a lot of the calculus around efficiency of it rests on it being exempt from the likes of TSA. TSA has been making their way into train stations for a few years now:

2013: http://reason.com/archives/2013/08/08/tsa-to-ruin-train-trav...

2015: http://www.infowars.com/tsa-airport-style-searches-on-all-am...

Re: Two-Thirds of Americans Would Utilize High-Speed Rail If It Was Available

#63

Post by takno » Sun, May 08, 2016, 9:53 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #51

mikeash wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Shinkansen line (arbitrarily chosen because it was the first thing that popped up in my search) can do 13 trains per hour with 1,323 passengers per train, which is equivalent to one 747 every 1.4 minutes.

That would replace one runway, but it still doesn't compare to the number of planes that the sky can handle. Sky which is cheap/free in comparison to building rails. There is definitely a point where trains are more efficient, particularly between a small number of large cities, but moving a large proportion of US air traffic onto trains, imho, is a different problem given the number of routes (1000s) and airports (1…

How many airports are landing anything like a 747 every 1.4 minutes? Especially given that the Shinkansen runs in both directions, so your airport is going to have to handle exclusively 747s, with high loadings and a headway of around 40 seconds. That's slightly more planes and massively more passengers than London Heathrow.

In terms of carbon emissions you'd need the flights to be long, and the trains to be pretty inefficient and empty (think current Amtrak trains), and even then there is evidence that the high altitude appears to make the emissions significantly more harmful than the equivalent ground-level emissions

Re: Two-Thirds of Americans Would Utilize High-Speed Rail If It Was Available

#64

Post by gozur88 » Sun, May 08, 2016, 9:55 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #2

This would seem pretty clear when California voters (notorious for not voting in taxes or bonds) approved the high speed rail project. What was even more interesting were the forces that came out against it and how they have acted.

California voters approved that project because they expected it to be a bit of priming that opened up the federal dollar spigot. If that doesn't actually happen the project will almost certainly be scrapped.

Re: Two-Thirds of Americans Would Utilize High-Speed Rail If It Was Available

#65

Post by gozur88 » Sun, May 08, 2016, 9:58 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #36

wahsd wrote: post #33

It really kind of fascinates me why people are so obsessed with rail and high speed rail. What are the emotional reasons for it, because there are no rational and reasonable arguments for it that can't be refuted. It makes absolutely no sense and strikes me as another one of those examples of obsessive thoughts and ideal people have these days. It's like all the shitty education we subjected people of roughly <35 yea…

Oh, there have been train fans for a very long time. And IMO rail is a comfortable way to travel for certain distances--especially given what a pain airports can be these days. But HSR is really expensive to build and distances and geography in the US make it hard to justify.

It may be hard to justify a national high speed rail network, but the coasts easily have enough population density to make it work on a regional basis.

The big problem with rail in the US, at this point, is you'd have to build out an enormous number of track miles to make the system actually work for people who wanted to use it, and that's going to cost a lot of money and displace a lot of people.

Re: Two-Thirds of Americans Would Utilize High-Speed Rail If It Was Available

#66

Post by ghaff » Sun, May 08, 2016, 9:59 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #44

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's easy to tell a pollster you're for high speed rail but how many will actually buy a ticket? Perhaps they should ask for them to prepay for a ticket? I use the MBTA on a fairly frequent basis. I would use it every day if biking didn't half my commute time. I've also used Megabus to visit New York City, for day trips even, Acela for an interview in New York once, and a short domestic air flight to visit a friend…

Acela isn't "high-speed" rail, it's basically normal rail with high-speed hardware which occasionally goes fast enough to barely clear the threshold for calling it "high speed." Acela averages less than 70MPH. In a proper high-speed system that would be more like 180MPH. Boston to DC would be 2.5 hours, vastly faster than flying once you account for airport nonsense.

FWIW, the most recent study I've seen from Amtrak sets a target of about 4 hours from Boston to DC. (Which would be quite competitive with air.)

https://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/214/393/A-Vision-for-High-Speed...

Re: Two-Thirds of Americans Would Utilize High-Speed Rail If It Was Available

#67

Post by greglindahl » Sun, May 08, 2016, 10:01 PM UTC

ScottBurson wrote: post #19

ChuckMcM wrote: post #2

This would seem pretty clear when California voters (notorious for not voting in taxes or bonds) approved the high speed rail project. What was even more interesting were the forces that came out against it and how they have acted.

I voted for that bond measure, and now I regret it. I'm a little fuzzy on the details at this point, but my recollection is that it was originally planned to include major Caltrain improvements, which they have now given up on.

The intended improvements have changed, but they're still there. Hopefully we'll end up with electrification and level-loading, which should increase Caltrain people/hour to be the same as a BART line. 38% of tech workers in Palo Alto take Caltrain, just imagine what it could be if Caltrain wasn't running over 100% during rush hour.

Re: Two-Thirds of Americans Would Utilize High-Speed Rail If It Was Available

#68

Post by protomyth » Sun, May 08, 2016, 10:01 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #40

protomyth wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wonder what would happen if they built a new double lane highway between two cities that is only usable by autonomous vehicles? How fast do we trust autonomous vehicles to go?

In a fairly straight line and in good weather? Very fast (compared to current US highways). 150 mph or more. The primary factor I can think of in terms of risk, are wild animals crossing and vehicle malfunction (eg tire rupture). Censors/radar, both in the vehicle and along the perimeter, should take care of the animal threat. On the mechanical side, well, the goal would be to get the rate of death down to perhaps ai…

A fence and over/under animal crossings would probably deal with the non-flying animals. Birds require a bit of intervention sometimes.

I wonder if anyone has done a paper on how fast / how dense you can drive automated cars while maintaining a decent safety margin.

Also, different makes of automated cars are going to be a pain in the butt for the system. I'm sure the Kia and Ferrari are going to want to go different speeds.

Re: Two-Thirds of Americans Would Utilize High-Speed Rail If It Was Available

#69

Post by sandworm101 » Sun, May 08, 2016, 10:02 PM UTC

fla wrote: post #60

sandworm101 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would replace one runway, but it still doesn't compare to the number of planes that the sky can handle. Sky which is cheap/free in comparison to building rails. There is definitely a point where trains are more efficient, particularly between a small number of large cities, but moving a large proportion of US air traffic onto trains, imho, is a different problem given the number of routes (1000s) and airports (1…

> Sky which is cheap/free in comparison to building rails. Isn't flying the most expensive kind of transportation ? Plus it relies on fossil fuels big-time.

It's hard to compare price because it is very rare for two means to compete directly. It's often apples and oranges. A train that moved as fast as plane isn't going to be very fuel efficient. They can be electric (insert source debate) but planes can also run on biofuel (another debate). And when comparing plane-train, a plane burns much of its fuel taking off and climbing to altitude. Once there (10,000m) it is remarkably fuel efficient in terms of passenger/mile at a given speed. And there are times when rail simply won't ever be an option (over large water). The head of RyanAir gave a great presentation a couple years ago about highspeed rail. His point was that, while great if you live in london and vacation in Paris, most people don't live downtown, that planes can land in places much closer to actual destinations --> reducing total-journey emissions.

I'd love a high-speed rail from Vancouver BC to Calgary Alberta, or Prince George (both places I go every year). But building such a structure is a monumental task (10s of billions) and a fast train would take a vast amount of energy covering that distance. Imho trains just cannot compete in such markets.

Re: Two-Thirds of Americans Would Utilize High-Speed Rail If It Was Available

#70

Post by takno » Sun, May 08, 2016, 10:02 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #47

paulmd wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all depends on the capacity of the train and how frequently it stops. Starting and stopping are the real killers since you need extra spacing (or very long "onramps") to accelerate and decelerate a train. However, one concept is a train that never needs to start and stop. Passengers move onto a separate car that separates from the main train and can decelerate into the station, and then it reaccelerates and attach…

The runway is one-dimensional, but aircraft still move in 3d. That means planes can be closer (in time) behind each other. Trains must leave room enough to stop. Planes can escape by diverting higher/lower/left/right. So planes stacked up on approach to a runway can safely be far closer together than trains on approach to a station. Non-stopping trains are interesting, but such a solution would require the multiple p…

Given that it's incredibly important that the planes don't under any circumstances stop they have their own limiting factors. high speed trains using short or ideally variable block signalling and running on segregated high speed lines can achieve spacing which is pretty comparable to airplanes coming in to land.