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Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

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Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#101

Post by georgeecollins »

ummonk wrote: post #14

I used to support the HSR project on the grounds that connecting the state (both LA / Bay Area and the Central Valley towns) would yield long term economic benefits due the increased flow of people within the state. Decreasing the effective distance between people by making travel faster and cheaper has a lot of value in the information economy. Nothing beats face to face communication. I now no longer support the pr…

The HSR will be overpriced, but it may benefit the state for a long time. The BART train used to not go to SFO because the counties below SF did not want to pay for it. And then they did. Was it too expensive? I don't know. My grandchildren will probably be able to take BART from SF to the airport. What they would those counties spent on that would benefit my grandchildren?

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#102

Post by scarejunba »

russellbeattie wrote: post #47

Why does it seem that the U.S. has become incapable of building large projects in a reasonable amount of time and budget? It seems every major bit of construction is always years late, and billions over budget. Whether it's the Bay Bridge (half of it), or a new Space Shuttle replacement, or just fixing our bridges and other infrastructure, I've never read of a large public project actually coming in on time and on bu…

We’ve empowered local bodies with veto power. This raises costs because of the holdout problem translated to regional politics. Add to the mix trade unions (not wild speculation, see NY MTA paying $1k/hr for non-existent jobs), large project fanboys, and exceptionalism (“this line will have a signaling mechanism that’s first in the world”) and you have sheer economic suicide. And that’s not even counting that there’s no project management expertise on this scale still present in America.

In the decades between now and completion, you’ll see the price rise continuously. Each time, you will be subject to the subject cost fallacy and people will say things like “but isn’t 150 billion worth it?”, “isn’t 200 billion worth it?”

People were told the 46 billion was not going to happen and all the way up to today’s 97 billion they’ve pulled these tactics. Many of the fans will think it’s worth it at 1 trillion for no reason. They won’t admit it now, but as the price rises you’ll see that no price rise will faze them.

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#103

Post by georgeecollins »

rayiner wrote: post #81
landryraccoon wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1976 BART cost $10B in today's dollars to construct. If you were alive in 1976 would you have said it was a boondoggle and the project should have been killed? IMO people consistently underestimate how much public infrastructure is worth. The US highway system was sold at a cost of $27B [1] but cost over $100B and has cost nearly $500B today [2]. Does that mean the US Highway system wasn't worth it? Of course it…

> The 1976 BART cost $10B in today's dollars to construct. If you were alive in 1976 would you have said it was a boondoggle and the project should have been killed? And what would BART cost today to build? $50 billion? Would it be worthwhile at that price? The problem is that costs for public infrastructure are ballooning much faster than inflation. That puts more pressure on public infrastructure projects to produc…

At $50B, yes. BART will exist in some form for at least a century. It is so hard to understand how valuable it is to make something that so many people use every day for that long but it is really valuable.

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#104

Post by scarejunba »

masonic wrote: post #54
russellbeattie wrote: post #47

Why does it seem that the U.S. has become incapable of building large projects in a reasonable amount of time and budget? It seems every major bit of construction is always years late, and billions over budget. Whether it's the Bay Bridge (half of it), or a new Space Shuttle replacement, or just fixing our bridges and other infrastructure, I've never read of a large public project actually coming in on time and on bu…

the U.S. has become incapable of building large projects in a reasonable amount of time and budget? Private projects come in on time and on budget, or nearly so, all the time. It's the public sector projects that are layered in graft. The last major public project that came in near the original budget that I can recall is the San Jose Area (now SAP).

Which private enterprise has the power to run a hundred billion project that isn’t funded by the government. Not one.

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#105

Post by scarejunba »

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #31

Should have given the project to the French company that put forward the proposal or hire a Japanese firm from the start. Leave it up to a bloated agency with a misaligned agenda to royally screw things up at the cost of the taxpayer. If you think this is bad, you don’t want to know where your federal tax dollars go to. Reading this makes me sick.

Yeah, law of comparative advantage.

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#106

Post by scarejunba »

captainperl wrote: post #83

For the people reading these postings, I noticed there's some misunderstandings about California HSR ... 1) It's not for transportation. It's a jobs and pension program for appointees. State leaders are willing to spend $100 billion (or more) of taxpayer money for $1 billion of pork. 2) The state cannot even manage Caltrain well, which is only 50 miles long (SF to Gilroy.) There's no way they can manage a route 400 m…

I think most people on HN don’t realize one thing, though: most Americans are very much in favour of this sort of pork barrel funding. They may say otherwise but when it comes down to it the operative reasoning is “everyone else will get the pork barrel but me so I need to get in on it”. Revealed Preferences are pro-pork.

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#107

Post by tomarr »

captainperl wrote: post #87
illvm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also the environmental impact to consider. Air travel has a much larger emission profile compared to train travel, and train travel has a much larger capacity. Plus, rail station are often in the center of the city rather than on the outskirts like airports are. e.g. traveling by train from Boston to NYC vs flying is almost a wash time wise due to travel to/from the airport + buffer time for security.

> There is also the environmental impact to consider. Air travel has a much larger emission profile compared to train travel I'm not sure that's true. Heavy locomotives require a lot of fuel, and aircraft turbine engines are fairly efficient these days (airplanes roughly get 1% more efficient per year, compounded annually.) Railroads also divide the landscape, which has a highly negative impact on wild-life roaming a…

It definitely is true, these are electrified lines and rolling resistance is low. For equivalent distances elsewhere emissions are 80-90% lower with rail over air transport. With the potential for solar in SoCal there is no reason this could not be even better.

Dividing the landscape is a separate issue. It can be mitigated against (tunnels, habitat bridges, route planning), but alone it's not an excuse to stick with emission heavy modes of transport.

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#108

Post by burfog »

kaikai wrote: post #93
tropo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can do both. Put all the stations on sidings so that stopped trains do not block the main track. Trains operate point-to-point just like aircraft, with everybody getting on and off at the same time. This means that there is little downside to adding more stops. The trip time for other stops is unaffected. There is no energy or time wasted on intermediate stops.

How were you imagining that many trains running on the tracks simultaneously? Stopping on a siding and waiting for a train to pass going the other direction takes time, never mind if there were trains running in both directions for every possible combination of stops.

You seem to be assuming there would only be one main line, and that this is a proposed reduction. I don't see it that way at all. Assume the line is two tracks. Add two more at each station, for a total of four, but just at the stations.

It's like with cars: we pull over to the side instead of just turning off the engine in the middle of the road.

At a station that uses island platforms, from west to east you have: southbound through traffic, southbound stopping trains, the platform, northbound stopping trains, northbound through trains.

At a station that uses separate platforms, from west to east you have: southbound platform, southbound stopping trains, southbound through trains, northbound through trains, northbound stopping trains, northbound platform.

Of course, in reality the line may have sections with different numbers of tracks. It could be 1, 2, 3, or 4. There could even be gauntlet tracks.

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#109

Post by [deleted] »

georgeecollins wrote: post #103
rayiner wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 1976 BART cost $10B in today's dollars to construct. If you were alive in 1976 would you have said it was a boondoggle and the project should have been killed? And what would BART cost today to build? $50 billion? Would it be worthwhile at that price? The problem is that costs for public infrastructure are ballooning much faster than inflation. That puts more pressure on public infrastructure projects to produc…

At $50B, yes. BART will exist in some form for at least a century. It is so hard to understand how valuable it is to make something that so many people use every day for that long but it is really valuable.

[deleted]

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#110

Post by Sacho »

kochikame wrote: post #46
melling wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China built 17,000 miles of high-speed rail in 15 years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China There’s another 8000 on the way by 2025.

It's easy to do when you can just forcibly move people and don't have to listen to what the locals think before you start laying track

Um, the US government can do that too? I'm not aware of any government that doesn't hold eminent domain powers.
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