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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

#291

Post by 23B1 »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #289
23B1 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry this is upsetting you, but I'm certain that no matter what sort of information I provide to you, it won't change your mind.

Asking for a source is not being upset, but way to bring an ad hominem into it along with the moved goalposts. You’re just going for all the fallacies aren’t you? I guess it’s easier for you to move goal posts and make claims than it is to back them up when pushed to do so. You literally have not provided a single thing to back anything you’ve said up and are pretending like somehow I’m the unreasonable person. Next…

You seem really upset – tell you what, take a breather, step back and think about the larger point I'm trying to make here.

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

#292

Post by mynameisvlad »

23B1 wrote: post #291
mynameisvlad wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking for a source is not being upset, but way to bring an ad hominem into it along with the moved goalposts. You’re just going for all the fallacies aren’t you? I guess it’s easier for you to move goal posts and make claims than it is to back them up when pushed to do so. You literally have not provided a single thing to back anything you’ve said up and are pretending like somehow I’m the unreasonable person. Next…

You seem really upset – tell you what, take a breather, step back and think about the larger point I'm trying to make here.

Do you have a source yet? Or are you just going to ad hominem and move the goal posts again with “the larger point”?

> Let me ask you a different question, since you brought up air travel; what sort of ticket/buyer do you think accounts for the bulk of domestic airlines' revenues?

You implied commuters are the major source of revenue for flights. I have asked you for a source four times now for this claim. You have consistently refused to do so.

Provide the source or stop wasting all our time with these theatrics.

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

#293

Post by genocidicbunny »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #219
genocidicbunny wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The justification for it, however, is not "WA is just like Germany". Of course not, they're not the same. But we are still talking about a region of about 8-10 million people. It's also a region that has grown by 2 or so million people in a decade. Washington alone has had a pretty steady 14-20% growth per decade since the 60's. Oregon is fairly close in its decadal growth as well. So by the 2030's we might be talk…

Sure I mostly agree. And the (cough) after V->V was a silly way for me to say "I mean PDX, of course"). However, I will also note that factors are 2 are far larger than the ones that often make or break social or economic plans. So saying "that's only 2x the density of Cascadia" is not necessarily very encouraging.

Yeah but Germany also didn't start developing it's rail network at the current density did it? Good pubic transportation enables density.

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

#294

Post by andbberger »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #290
andbberger wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're not exactly making a good faith argument here [0] but sure i'll play ball i'll ignore the infrastructure costs, it's free to drive on I-5 after all. an N700S costs about $50M and holds 1300 people. amortized over 30 years, you're looking at say $3M/year including a very generous maintenance budget. i'll throw in another $0.5M/year for misc personnel costs (driver, station staff). even if you ran only a single…

> i'll ignore the infrastructure costs, it's free to drive on I-5 after all. Ugh. Like I said. =\ We aren’t building a new city with no initial infrastructure. This isn’t Sim City. And we aren’t rebuilding after getting firebombed and flattened in WW2. What we do have is an actually pretty good interstate highway system that was built in the 50s by eradicating minority neighborhoods and rampant use of eminent domain.…

about $8B for portland to seattle. in comparison, a single bridge that carries I-5 over the columbia river is being replaced for $5-7.5B.

you do the math.

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

#295

Post by marssaxman »

foobiekr wrote: post #258
marssaxman wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a high-speed rail station for that; you just need one of the park-n-ride lots at a light-rail station. You drive to the transit network, then use the local train to reach the regional train.

One of the obvious problems with this, at least in the California metros, is going to be that these stations are watering holes for people who engage in car breakins.

Interesting. I haven't heard of that as a significant problem with the existing Sound Transit park-n-rides; I wonder if that is a regional difference, or whether it is a function of system size.

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

#296

Post by xethos »

3finmunchousen wrote: post #76
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…

Sharing the tracks is a huge problem that’s just becoming worse. Railroad’s have taken the strategy of running trains so long that they no longer sit in sidings. That means that it is now impossible for many freight trains to pull into a siding allowing other trains to pass. While Amtrak is supposed to have the right of way it’s often impossible for a freight train to do so. Additionally, railroads have shown no inte…

> While Amtrak is supposed to have the right of way it’s often impossible for a freight train to [pull in to a siding]

Sounds like the system is working as designed for the shipping companies - they no longer have to pull aside, wait for Amtrak to pass them by, and resume. Much less downtime with a bonus of having the too-long trains carry more freight per employee!

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

#297

Post by blq10 »

favflam wrote: post #116
blq10 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah see this is the problem - urbanist aesthetics demanding everyone live a very particular lifestyle, which includes a lot more than just urban living hamstringing projects.

Respectfully, suburban guys want to use urban cores rent free. If people with cars actually paid anything close to market rates for the precious real estate they take up with their cars, then most of them would just walk/bike/bus in the city. Car drivers have the government on their side, so they get heavily subsidized real estate (roads, parking). I don't think this treatment is very equal or fair. Keep your house a…

Similarly, however - urban cores want suburban business without having to deal with the low tax revenue of actual bedrooms. The city of Chicago is instructive, the city is (very slightly) subsidized by suburban consumers and tax revenue. The big trick here is making suburbs without allowing the endless continuation of exurbs

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

#298

Post by peyton »

Hnaomyiph wrote: post #247
peyton wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amtrak sells tickets.

And for a large portion of their routes are already overpriced and less convenient than almost any other means of travel (except for a handful of actually reasonably-priced routes. A local route on Amtrak costs almost $100 for a one way ticket traveling <200mi A bus ticket for the same route is $30. The bus takes an hour longer. I want amtrak to thrive, but they need to attract customers, not drive more away with hig…

System-wide load factor in Feb 22 was 38%. This is not competitive. Perhaps decreasing delays would boost ridership, making tickets cheaper.

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

#299

Post by peyton »

kdmccormick wrote: post #234
peyton wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amtrak sells tickets.

Demanding that a passenger railway be self-funding while also trying to massively increase its scope is... not a path for success. Unless I'm wrong you know of any continent-scale railways that bootstrapped themselves into success recently...?

A possible strategy is to use money from ticket sales to pay for priority, boosting on-time performance which increases the competitiveness of their product.

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

#300

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

achates wrote: post #221
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #174

Man, whenever all this train talk comes up, I get this impression that Americans really know their shit when it comes to trains. All these plans and documentations, speeds, infrastructure details, hundreds of comments, expertise - you’d think it’s all the other way around. I live in Poland, and all I know is that it all just works here (more or less).

Trains aren't a good fit for the US outside the northeast corridor. We have a fantastic interstate highway system for medium distances and for longer trips flying is cheaper and faster.

Yeah, I think I can say we were/are intensely jealous of that interstate infrastructure. And yet you don’t see the same amount of people poring over all the minutae details that you see with trains - just funny how that works isn’t it?
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