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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

#201

Post by Karrot_Kream »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #177
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EVs still emit brake particulate matter, generate roadway noise, put pressure on roadway infrastructure (either for maintenance or expansion), and still tie up the driver's time in transit. Rail does none of those things. It's a matter of political will in the US, and most Americans tend to be fine wasting lots of time driving.

New York City has the best public transit in the US… and the longest commute times. Average commute time in Tokyo (58 minutes) is twice as long as Seattle (27.5 minutes). It’s not the same problem as induced demand, but the net effect is similar. Ultra dense, transit rich cities are more expensive and have longer commute times. There’s no free lunch.

The problem in NYC [1] is that 21.4% of people have > 60 min commutes, which probably is the same problem with Tokyo and many US cities: COL is really high so commuters come in from long distances to commute. Fukuoka has a 30 min average commute time, closer to Seattle. Moreover the real important thing when it comes to commute time is that driving requires active participation. Sure you can listen to whatever music you like and sip your favorite drink in the car, but every minute spent driving a car is time spent using your attention. People are willing to put up with longer transit commutes because those commutes are passive.

> There’s no free lunch.

I mean, are we seriously comparing the capital, operational, and environmental costs of a train with tens of thousands of BEV cars and the charging infrastructure required to make this work? There's also the permanent kneecapping of throughput in an auto-oriented corridor. The long tail of BEV adoption will be quite long. The only reason this is even a discussion point is because building transit is politically unpopular and US governments can't really build anything anymore on time or under budget.

[1]: https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/planes-trains-and-...

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

#202

Post by rz2k »

johngladtj wrote: post #200
AlotOfReading wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 was sold by the government in return for the railroad being built. Every bankruptcy was the direct result of government intervention. The railroads did their part, in spite of being hamstrung at every step by the government.

I think you’ve misunderstood the arrangement. They were not granted the land where the rails were laid alone. They were granted vast amounts of additional real estate, and the value of that land could have maintained the railways in perpetuity. However, similarly vast fortunes were extracted from the railways instead, and the generational wealth created during these events in the 1800s has proved more durable than the commercial viability of the rails that the country had intended to support.

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

#203

Post by CPLX »

hx8 wrote: post #66

If you were to pick a dozen likely stops on this train, you'll likely end up with a name collision. Vancouver, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia. It's fun to think about how they would handle this. Would they use the full names in all documentation. Would they give one of the locations a nickname, such as "Southern Washington" or "British Columbia". I also wonder what would be the largest mishap that could h…

They already have Newark NJ and Newark DE on the northeast corridor.

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

#204

Post by SllX »

Balero wrote: post #178
SllX wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eugene -> Albany -> Salem -> Woodburn -> Wilsonville -> Tigard -> Portland -> Vancouver WA -> Woodland -> Long View -> Castle Rock ->Centralia -> Grand Mound -> Olympia -> Lacey -> DuPont -> Tacoma -> Federal Way -> Seattle-Tacoma International Airport -> Burien -> White Center -> Seattle -> Shoreline -> Lynnwood -> Everett. You could keep going, but that gives you the spine of the populated places between Seattle an…

That route at the top would make any high speed rail pointless. You would never get up to a speed to make it worth while. All to stop at places like Castle Rock population 2500. Going down to Eugene and Salem would make sense, but with the intent that they places would aim to grow in size considerably. Places like Gresham to Forest grove are better for the Portland tram network, they are just part of the one metro ar…

You can cut some of those out then if you think they don’t make sense. It was a quick and dirty example I came up with from my minimal knowledge of Oregon/Washington geography (not nothing but not exceptional) and tracing a route through Apple Maps. Anyone with better knowledge of the local geography can take a second pass and come up with something more reasonable.

You do want some local service at some in-fill stations though between the major destinations, even run express and local service, but as long as you can park your car at a station, having a station that the more suburban/rural parts slightly off the beaten trackway can go to still makes it accessible to more people in the State.

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

#205

Post by bluGill »

UtopiaPunk wrote: post #39
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the layout. They had a nice bypass set up, but the first day the train derailed and it has just recently re-opened. Sharing track with freight is a PITA: the freight trains don't care about going fast (so no really straight tracks) and they often have priority especially if the cascade is running off schedule, causing even more delays. Not sure where they are going to build new straight-enough HSR track unless…

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 doesn't need priority, they need to run their trains on time. That means not running old worn out,.under maintained trains. They nees to leave on time, every time. That also means fining the freights when they have the track blocked so they cannot get access in their allocated time which was planed months ago.

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

#206

Post by bluGill »

twelvechairs wrote: post #53
foota wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the tracks are the most expensive part though, no? Although I'm not sure if you mean the physical tracks are in poor condition or the layout. If it's the layout, that's not much easier to fix than building a HSR. They may not even be able to fix the railroad company owned tracks?

HSR can use the same rails (standard gauge) if they are in a good state (i.e. fine in most of the rest of the world, not in the USA which is far behind on rail safety). Big differences are turning radii (HSR obviously wont go around sharp corners easily) and station distance (HSR will want stops ~50-100km apart, older railways its often more like 1-5). That generally means a new route rather than using an existing on…

If the track is built to HSR in the first place. You can't have crossings on HSR track because someone who carefully looks both ways before crossing will be kill by a train they didn't see.

Even then while it is possible it doesn't work well, as HSR will catch up to whatever else is on the track and then must slow down.. the cost to build HSR track is so high (even at world leading low prices) that you have to run several trains per hour on those tracks to pay for it, and so there isn't free space for lower speed trains in between.

Nobody makes a switch that can be crossed at high speeds so the slower train cannot just get out of the way no matter how much you might wish for that to wosk.

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

#207

Post by dredmorbius »

euroderf wrote: post #187
dredmorbius wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding to this, there's a pretty interesting paradox of transportation infrastructure as relates to land values, and a characteristic I've noticed of many high-speed rail systems. The creation of transportation infrastructure can convert land from low-value (as reflected by market prices) to high, and this has very often occurred. The US Transcontinental Railroad, completed in 1869, was seen by many as a boondoggle,…

I have read elsewhere that there are ways for rail development to capture some of the increase in land value, in order to offset the cost of the development. I do not have any pointers though.

In the US, railroads were granted sections of land (1 square mile) alongside tracks.

I believe this was every other section, for each mile of track laid. One site I'm finding says that this extended 20 miles to either side of the track:

Approximately 16 percent of Nebraska’s total land mass was given to various railroad companies, either by the federal government or by the state. Along the lines of the state’s two major railroads, the Union Pacific and the Burlington, every other square mile of land (called a "section") went to the railroads. This checkerboard of land extended back twenty miles on both sides of the track. So, the railroads owned a total of twenty sections of land for each mile of road constructed.

https://www.nebraskastudies.org/en/1850-1874/railroads-settl...>

There are some holdings that are still retained (or were until relatively recently). The UCSF extension along the San Francisco bayfront is on land that had belonged to the Santa Fe Railroad, for example.

How US High Speed Rail projects are utilising this approach I don't know. Much of the valuable land is, of course, presently owned.

I believe this was initially specified under the 1862 Pacific Railroad Act, and may have been later amended:

Section 3 [of the Act] granted an additional 10 square miles (26 km²) of public land for every mile of grade except where railroads ran through cities or crossed rivers. The method of apportioning these additional land grants was specified in the Act as being in the form of "five alternate sections per mile on each side of said railroad, on the line thereof, and within the limits of ten miles on each side" which thus provided the companies with a total of 6,400 acres (2,600 ha) for each mile of their railroad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railroad_Acts>

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

#208

Post by bluGill »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #146
xboxnolifes wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

State population density simply doesn't matter. City population and distance between cities matters. Nobody realistically expects train lines to enable transportation to every square mile of the state.

Well, Germany sort of does ....

Germany doesn't have much HSR either. They have some, but they are mostly running slower trains to reach all those small towns.

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

#209

Post by bluGill »

rendang wrote: post #100
fnordpiglet wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sincerely hope not. Sprawl is the anti pattern maximizing human impact. The skagit valley in particular is beautiful - the last it needs is a suburban megaplex.

An advantage of building on farms or other greenfield land is that you can start off with dense, walkable planning rather than car-oriented suburban expanse.

You can, but will you? I don't think so (for reasons that are complex and thus not worth writting in a comment box)

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

#210

Post by bluGill »

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?

Spain is the place to look if you want to build HSR. They have built a lot of it for much cheaper than any other country. Japan has the most used HSR trains, but that is about population density, not that they do anything in particular right.

I'd drop the Netherlands for Turkey, and France for south Korea in a heartbeat if I was in charge. Probably Taiwan for Italy as well.

The above is about building. Once it is built Japan and France have a lot to teach the world about operations.

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