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Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

southseattleemerald.com

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Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#101

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #63

Yawn. So maybe we'll have a connection to Spokane in another 80 years and a connection to the Tri-Cities by 2123. Let me know when it gets to my house. I know perhaps I shouldn't be this negative, but... let's use Germany as an example, as it is roughly comparable to Washington and Oregon. Its residents now have a 49 Euro ticket anywhere in the country, useable on multiple forms of transit. We don't even have buses,…

Germany: population: 84,270,625 area: 357,592 km^2 density: 232/km^2

WA: population: 7,785,786 area: 184,827 km^2 density: 39.6/km^2

In almost no way are they comparable. 1/10th the population, 1/2 the area, 1/8th the density.

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#102

Post by ericd »

ryukafalz wrote: post #44
charcircuit wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's useful because the rail doesn't go to your exact destination. You will need to drive there. It is expensive to have a separate car in both cities instead of just taking a single car with you.

That depends a lot on how the cities on either end are designed, in particular how easy it is to get around without a car in each. Also, car rentals exist.

Well, we’re talking about the US…

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#103

Post by Exoristos »

jmyeet wrote: post #67

The rail situation in the US is woeful and it's important to understand why: 1. Privatization has been an absolute disaster for the rail industry. Privatization has simply become a way to privatize profits and socialize losses. The advent of Precision Scheduled Railroading ("PSR") [1]. It not only decreases safety but leads to massive delays for passenger trains who can't pass the longer trains that PSR results in; 2…

The answer is much simpler. U.S. cities are too far apart for rail to be practical here.

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#104

Post by AlotOfReading »

scarab92 wrote: post #84
UtopiaPunk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legally, Amtrak is supposed to have priority, and freight trains are required to pull off. But freight trains usually get priority because that's what the railway wants, and Amtrak doesn't have the political muscle to do much. But it's illegal. https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Amtrak-has-priority-o...

Amtrak are freeloading on privately built and maintained railways. If they want better track alignments, or prioritisation over other users, they should come to a commercial agreement with the infrastructure owners like anyone else. Alternatively, they can build their own infrastructure.

Railroads in the US run through land donated by the government, on tracks given to the railroads by the government, supported with funds from the government. Despite all that aid, the government has had to step in with additional funding to ensure they don't go bankrupt many times, especially in the 1920s, 1930s, 1970s, 2000s, and during COVID.

Fulfilling their legal obligations to Amtrak is the least they could do. It's worth noting that the corridors where Amtrak did build dedicated track have the fewest delays and the best safety in the network.

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#105

Post by throwaway-blaze »

carabiner wrote: post #79
CSMastermind wrote: post #70

For those unaware allow me to present The Seattle Process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_process Otherwise known as "decision making through exhaustion" where everyone tries to stop progress as much as possible until the other people get so sick of arguing with you that they give up and you get your way. The Seattle region might be the part of the country least capable of building infrastructure. I'll believe…

lol California would disagree. I am amazed at how much is being built here. I wouldn't be surprised if Seattle is the fastest building urban metro area in the US. I still think WA has a libertarian streak (hence no income tax) that moves things along.

WA does but Seattle does not. Worse, the one big city / region we have completely swamps the rest of the state politically so our "leaders" only ever get leftier and don't have a moderating influence from the other side.

It's worse in OR to the south (Portland)...it's so out of balance there that 11 rural counties voted to secede and join their eastern neighbor Idaho.

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#106

Post by bugglebeetle »

cyberax wrote: post #93
NegativeLatency wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know there are nice and fast trains in Europe outside of the Paris region?

The whole WA is just around 7 million people. Portland area is around 2. Yet the distance between Seattle and Portland is the same as between Frankfurt and Munich. There's simply not enough traffic to justify a train. Another lane on I-5 would help a lot more.

> Another lane on I-5 would help a lot more.

That rarely works out how you would think:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#107

Post by genocidicbunny »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #101
poulsbohemian wrote: post #63

Yawn. So maybe we'll have a connection to Spokane in another 80 years and a connection to the Tri-Cities by 2123. Let me know when it gets to my house. I know perhaps I shouldn't be this negative, but... let's use Germany as an example, as it is roughly comparable to Washington and Oregon. Its residents now have a 49 Euro ticket anywhere in the country, useable on multiple forms of transit. We don't even have buses,…

Germany: population: 84,270,625 area: 357,592 km^2 density: 232/km^2 WA: population: 7,785,786 area: 184,827 km^2 density: 39.6/km^2 In almost no way are they comparable. 1/10th the population, 1/2 the area, 1/8th the density.

I do want to point out that unlike Germany, where the population centers are relatively spread out over the area, in WA and OR, the vast majority of the population lives in a fairly narrow band largely following I5. The density of the Portland - Seattle - Vancouver corridor is a little less dire. Eastern WA and OR are relatively sparsely populated, so HSR to those areas is almost a non-starter.

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#108

Post by tjpnz »

ekianjo wrote: post #50

> They interviewed a cadre of transportation experts in France, the Netherlands, Spain, Taiwan Have they never heard of a country called Japan?

Maybe Taiwan will put them in touch. There's a Shinkansen line linking the international airport to Taipei.

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#109

Post by fomine3 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #30

I love trains but the discussions on HN have a quality of a cargo cult, anyone who even slightly slides off tracks is punished. It exhibits similar characteristics found in climate change movement or other progressive agenda. No room for nuanced discussion, only extreme conformism. It actually has a reverse effect on me. Why is this thing pushed through without debate? It might gather more support if you allow critic…

cargo cult vs passenger cult

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#110

Post by Lammy »

sfpotter wrote: post #3

Amtrak Cascade has trains that can do 125 mph but are throttled to 78 mph because of low quality tracks, as I understand it. Amtrak also recently just started running many more trains per day between Seattle and Portland. High speed rail is great, but maybe a good starting point would just be… fixing the tracks. Get 3 1/2 hours from SEA to PDX down closer to 2…

> because of low quality tracks, as I understand it

Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Washington_train_derailme...

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