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High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

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Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#71

Post by cardiffspaceman »

acchow wrote: post #56
joshuaheard wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the figures released before the project, it will cost the same, but take twice as long to go from LA to SF compared to flying. No one is going to take the train instead of flying, except maybe John Madden.

But wouldn't train connect city centers? Airports aren't really near anything.

This is not 100% true and the situations that "not near anything" is true for are varied. DFW was located "in the middle of nowhare" ca. halfway between two cities when it opened. I visited there more in the past than now but "anything" was building up around it when I did go sporadically. LAX is not close to Downtown LA but there are lots of office buildings out there. San Diego's and Pheonix's airports are very close to Downtown. In the case of San Diego it would be difficult to do anything but reuse the existing railways. I suspect if you look around there are a range of airport distances and a range of abilities to get high-speed railways close to city centers, rather than everything setup like Heathrow vs London.

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#72

Post by Sanddancer »

jimrandomh wrote: post #5
erentz wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever ridden a train in Europe or Japan? They are far and away the most comfortable way to travel any distance under 500 miles.

They are also much, much cheaper per mile. Something is wrong with construction in the US that makes rail lines dramatically more expensive here.

Infrastructure is expensive. For example, the project to upgrade state route 99 in California, which parallels the High Speed Rail tracks for about 130 miles, to Interstate standards was projected to cost $22 billion ten years ago [1]. A lot of the huge costs are from the infrastructure debt of refusing to pay for a rail network, and for destroying a lot of the network that was in place. The HSR system will give a lot of benefits for a substantial amount of the state in terms of giving a modern transit backbone.

[1] https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/economic_development/studi...

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#73

Post by Inconel »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #51
privong wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whats stopping the price of flights from being halved in the next couple of decades and killing this train service too? The construction of the high-speed rail system is/will be heavily subsidized by the government. So presumably, the government will have a vested interest in keeping the train service running and will subsidize operating costs if airlines cut prices in that manner.

> the government ... will subsidize operating costs By which you mean taxpayers will subsidize operating costs. I wonder exactly how regressive the wealth transfer from the average middle-class California taxpayer to the California weekly-commute bullet-train businessperson will be, in practice.

This is my big reservation about HSR even as a huge proponent of rail transit. I live in a working class area of south LA and there is huge demand here for local/regional rail and other transit. Neither LA, despite its improvements over the last decade, nor the Bay Area, have anywhere near the needed levels of regional mass transit.

My big fear is that HSR will ultimately be subsidized by middle class Californians so business people and wealthy vacationers can travel between SF and LA at the expense of more regionally focused transit that has a greater impact on the lives of working/middle class people.

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#74

Post by twblalock »

WildUtah wrote: post #16
melling wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC to Boston is 230 miles, about 3.5 hours by "fast" train. It's about an hour flight. A lot of people still take the train. If you can get the trains to take you directly into the city center, it can often be a better option.

If you can get the trains to take you directly into the city center, it can often be a better option. That's because Boston and NYC are both navigable without a car. Only one side of the SF-LA link can claim to be close to that ideal. But the time and hassle of airport parking and security and delays might be able to keep a 3.5 hour train ride viable even in CA. That would require a train system that allowed passenge…

> That's because Boston and NYC are both navigable without a car. Only one side of the SF-LA link can claim to be close to that ideal.

Just put some car rental places near the station in LA, just like is done for airports.

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#75

Post by [deleted] »

helthanatos wrote: post #59
sand500 wrote: post #38

As I see it, the price of rail tickets will be pretty high.whats stopping the price of flights from being halved in the next couple of decades and killing this train service too?

High speed trains are much better than flights for small commutes, after the expenses are payed, it will be cheaper, it's easier to get on a train than wait hours for flights to take off. High speed rails are the future; flights are the past. Why would you not want to see this work out? Flying is quite annoying because it has constant delays, TSA, and hours of waiting in between.

[deleted]

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#76

Post by setpatchaddress »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #51
privong wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whats stopping the price of flights from being halved in the next couple of decades and killing this train service too? The construction of the high-speed rail system is/will be heavily subsidized by the government. So presumably, the government will have a vested interest in keeping the train service running and will subsidize operating costs if airlines cut prices in that manner.

> the government ... will subsidize operating costs By which you mean taxpayers will subsidize operating costs. I wonder exactly how regressive the wealth transfer from the average middle-class California taxpayer to the California weekly-commute bullet-train businessperson will be, in practice.

Taxpayers subsidize all successful transit. True of cars, true of rail.

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#77

Post by caf »

DrScump wrote: post #67
joshuaheard wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the figures released before the project, it will cost the same, but take twice as long to go from LA to SF compared to flying. No one is going to take the train instead of flying, except maybe John Madden.

The relevant duration for an honest comparison is door-to-door timing -- lime left origin to time arrived at ultimate destination. Travel to/from airport, security, checked bag retrieval, early arrival for margin-of-error to not miss a flight, etc. favors rail, making the overall time-in-transit difference less. Plus, we could see added environmental impact taxation for short-hop flights (carbon tax, if nothing else)…

Presumably also you can pull out your laptop and do useful work for a much higher fraction of that door-to-door time as well.

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#78

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #75
helthanatos wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High speed trains are much better than flights for small commutes, after the expenses are payed, it will be cheaper, it's easier to get on a train than wait hours for flights to take off. High speed rails are the future; flights are the past. Why would you not want to see this work out? Flying is quite annoying because it has constant delays, TSA, and hours of waiting in between.

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#79

Post by DrScump »

caf wrote: post #77
DrScump wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relevant duration for an honest comparison is door-to-door timing -- lime left origin to time arrived at ultimate destination. Travel to/from airport, security, checked bag retrieval, early arrival for margin-of-error to not miss a flight, etc. favors rail, making the overall time-in-transit difference less. Plus, we could see added environmental impact taxation for short-hop flights (carbon tax, if nothing else)…

Presumably also you can pull out your laptop and do useful work for a much higher fraction of that door-to-door time as well.

This. I don't even drive to Giants games anymore (South Bay to Mission Bay area of SF), although I have full-season parking passes -- I drive to the nearest CalTrain station with safe parking, then I can read or do online work. And the parking passes sell at a profit.

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#80

Post by truebosko »

erentz wrote: post #6

Huge supporter of rail but sadly I believe there are a number of mistakes being made. This is a classic example of how projects like this in the US need to be monolithic, self contained, and gold plated to the hilt. The correct action would have been for CA to incrementally acquire and build railways along a number of corridors. Take the SF bay for example. There should be one agency running Caltrain, the Capitol Cor…

In Toronto and surrounding area we've seen the expansion of our suburban rail network, through incremental purchase of track, over the past decade. It's owned by one company (Metrolinx, which is a gov. Body) and it seems to be working out well. It's taken a long time (it feels like) to see progress in certain corridors but the rider ship and effect its having on the surrounding regions of Toronto is clearly identifiable.

This approach has its problems too, but I do agree with you hear type of monolithic projects always become a boondoggle.

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