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Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

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Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#231

Post by WalterBright »

thehappypm wrote: post #226
jonahrd wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is actually exactly what has been happening over the past few decades, and with the current proposal, for HSR from Toronto to Montreal, two of the largest cities in terms of both population and economy in Canada. Ottawa felt excluded, and is where the federal govt is based, so instead of going along the 401, a straight highway that follows a river valley and lake and has existing rail corridors, it has to go fro…

I’m sorry I don’t really see the problem with this, connecting Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec city seems like a pretty reasonable route

The problem is it doesn't get built.

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#232

Post by Eridrus »

tidbits wrote: post #172
pj_mukh wrote: post #141

This is the most California article ever written. The author admits that if the line was run along the I-5 it probably wouldn't need all the costly grade-separation and state property issues it's now facing. It may have even finished with its original funding! But instead of immediately being able to serve the upwards of 18M people of Greater Los Angeles and 7.5M people of the Bay Area, the 1M people of the Central V…

Take a look at the voting data for Prop 1A. It is very likely HSR would not have been approved in the first place if the central valley had been excluded. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_...

Did it have to be funded by a proposition? Could the CA legislature not have passed a law?

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#233

Post by josuepeq »

bombcar wrote: post #64
giarc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling the leaders of the State of California, the 4th largest economy in the world, "local" and less efficient than the federal government is interesting.

The main advantage the feds have is they can preempt the state. Versa vice doesn’t work.

Additionally the U.S. Government requires that the states have balanced budgets, a requirement that is not stipulated for federal national spending. Unfunded spending obligations are not a problem, the federal government just raises the debt ceiling.

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#234

Post by WalterBright »

Eridrus wrote: post #230
mullingitover wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that this should've been a federal project from the start, one of many running concurrently nationwide. Doing it nationwide would give economies of scale that wouldn't be possible with these local half-measures. California, and every other of the dozen plus states where this rolled out should've barely even had any say in the matter. Maybe deciding what artwork to put up in the stations and what to nam…

If you don't try and reinvent everything, you can get economies of scale by doing what the rest of the world is already doing.

Washington state decided to have light rail. But instead of using off-the-shelf rail cars, they just had to have them "custom designed" for the Pacific Northwest. Nobody was ever able to identify what about the PNW needed custom rail cars, but they sure cost a lot!

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#235

Post by [deleted] »

socalgal2 wrote: post #195
bardak wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you insist on going through the cities in the valley they chose a construction sequence that takes the longest time to show any process. If they fast tracked LA-Bakersfield they could have extended the Amtrak San Joaquin service to LA by now. Concentrat on the SF-Merced section next and then you can work on the Merced-Bakersfield piece meal.

I thought they were unclear if LA-Bakerfield is even possible. My understanding comes from a podcast that wasn't about the rail at all, it was about how to make decisions. In the podcast they gave the example that if you decide to have a music box and a dancing monkey at a fair to make money, which do you do first, make the music box or train the monkey. The answer is, train the monkey, because if you can't train the…

[deleted]

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#236

Post by AStonesThrow »

rsynnott wrote: post #220
nineplay wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced. The train is not competing with driving to SF, the train is competing with flying to SF. LAX -> SFO is 1.25 hours. There's time to the airport, time to check in, time through security of course, but there's going to be similar issues at the train station so the customer has to be convinced that the train is a time savings. Plus, of course, SWA has 4 direct flights to SFO, 6 to Oakland, 4 to San Jos…

> There's time to the airport, time to check in, time through security of course, but there's going to be similar issues at the train station ... Eh? You get to the station (generally well-located), you walk through a turnstile or similar, you get on the train. There's no check-in or security on most intercity trains. Or walking for miles in sprawling airports, for that matter. In a big intercity station, you go in t…

> seen a film or TV show

I've run through Source Code with Jake Gyllenhaal a few times; does that count?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#237

Post by trollbridge »

This was both a very good read and thoroughly depressing.

It makes a lot of sense to connect San Diego/LA/Sacramento/San Francisco.

It makes a lot less sense to try to connect Merced, Bakersfield, Fresno, et al. People there like to have cars, like to drive, there isn't a lot of traffic. Once you arrive in those places, there is very little transit infrastructure. You basically need a car. And they're far more centred around ag or industry, so more reason to have commercial / truck traffic and a lot less for just passenger cars.

Meanwhile, there are over 100 flights a day between LA area and SF. Meanwhile, Merced has 2 flights a day to LA on a tiny prop, Bakersfield has 2 to SF, and Fresno around 5 a day. There aren't any flights at all between Bakersfield/Sacramento/Fresno/Merced.

Whereas SF/LA/San Diego make complete sense to have a train station with plenty of transit options to get around once you arrive.

(To get an idea of what I'm talking about - traffic on I-5 is so heavy, we would often take 99 instead, when going between SD/LA and Sacramento. 99 is 2 miles farther than I-5.)

San Diego/LA/SF/Sacramento is one of the few markets in America that could reasonably support high speed rail. And it's sad to see it being strangled in the crib.

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#238

Post by trollbridge »

fraserharris wrote: post #87
rsync wrote: post #13

One issue with "CA HSR" is that it isn't even "high speed". We may have happily referred to is as "high speed rail" 30 or 40 years ago but, given a possible completion date of 2035 (or whatever) the 2:40 travel time from SF LA is unimpressive ... and even that will not be achieved: "California legislative overseers do not expect the 2 hr 40 min target will be achieved."[1] The simple fact is that the I-5 corridor is…

Fresno / Central Valley is not the circuitous route, which is quite close to the I-5 near Bakersfield. The true circuitous detour is between Bakersfield and LA, where the route is planned to go East through the Antelope Valley with a station at Palmdale.

It's utterly asinine, and will result in "low speed rail". Which already exists... you can take the Coastal Starlight if you aren't in a hurry. There is no market (none) for rail service between LA and Bakersfield.

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#239

Post by trollbridge »

scythe wrote: post #171
rsync wrote: post #13

One issue with "CA HSR" is that it isn't even "high speed". We may have happily referred to is as "high speed rail" 30 or 40 years ago but, given a possible completion date of 2035 (or whatever) the 2:40 travel time from SF LA is unimpressive ... and even that will not be achieved: "California legislative overseers do not expect the 2 hr 40 min target will be achieved."[1] The simple fact is that the I-5 corridor is…

It would be one thing if they were just going to Fresno. There are three major cities in the Central Valley: Bakersfield, Fresno and Sacramento. You get Bakersfield for free; Sacramento is north of SF and has existing commuter rail. Fresno is big enough to justify a stop; it has room to grow, too. You could put a stop that's ten miles outside of Fresno, and you don't have to cut through the city too much. That's what…

Stops in Tulare and Visalia... they're 12 miles apart!

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#240

Post by drpgq »

jonahrd wrote: post #145
pj_mukh wrote: post #141

This is the most California article ever written. The author admits that if the line was run along the I-5 it probably wouldn't need all the costly grade-separation and state property issues it's now facing. It may have even finished with its original funding! But instead of immediately being able to serve the upwards of 18M people of Greater Los Angeles and 7.5M people of the Bay Area, the 1M people of the Central V…

this is actually exactly what has been happening over the past few decades, and with the current proposal, for HSR from Toronto to Montreal, two of the largest cities in terms of both population and economy in Canada. Ottawa felt excluded, and is where the federal govt is based, so instead of going along the 401, a straight highway that follows a river valley and lake and has existing rail corridors, it has to go fro…

I was surprised to find out it was going the Peterborough route. Didn't make a lot of sense.
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