Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

asteriskmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 476 posts

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

#241

Post by vlovich123 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #175
GeekyBear wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because competing with the airlines requires some semblance of "high speed"? California is fairly densely packed once you get away from the Central Valley and nearer to the coast where the people are.

The current plan actually accounts for this; the 2:40 includes the amount of time it takes to run on the current Caltrain tracks from San Jose to SF which will not be running at the highest speeds.

Said another way, that SF/San Jose stretch accounts for 25-30% of the total time. That’s similarly true for the last stretch of LA meaning a truly engineering driven design could have done it within ~1h50. And note that the 2h40 goal is admitted as a pipe dream by everyone involved, particularly because of the last mile issues and the circuitous route.

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

#242

Post by SllX »

Eridrus wrote: post #232
tidbits wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Tax increases and bond measures have to go through the voters. The alternative is to get enough of the legislature, including probably some in Central Valley, to agree to cut a bunch of other more popular programs in order to fund it out of the general fund.

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

#243

Post by trollbridge »

legitster wrote: post #65
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…

Unfortunately there simply isn't enough demand between SF and LA alone to justify the insanely long stretches of a direct rail project. A better way would have been to build it out from the city into the suburbs first as a commuter rail project. There isn't a ton of intercity demand for this rail, but there is tons of traffic in and out of each singular city to justify even medium speed rail.

I don't agree. There are around 145 flights a day between metro LA airports and metro SF airports (based on a quick Google Flights search for a random Friday). Assuming there's 75 seats on each plane, that's 10,000 seats a day. That's a lot of trains. A typical TGV is 500 seats. (If I add San Diego to SF, that's another 50 flights or 3,700 seats...)

The market is there and exists, and that's with the gigantic hassle of having to get to and from the airports, as opposed to a convenient downtown train station

Commuter rail is also a good idea but it's not the same thing as high speed rail. And commuter rail already exists: COASTER in San Diego, MetroLink in LA.

Currently you either have an almost 11-hour trip on Amtrak, a 6 ½ hour drive, or a flight between LA and SF. The ridership is clearly there. (Believe it or not the Amtrak trains are often sold out.)

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

#244

Post by slt2021 »

andbberger wrote: post #83
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The route through Fresno is only 50 km longer than the I-5 route. It's a difference of 7% in total length. Going through the two biggest cities in the Central Valley is worth a 7% increase in track length.

the opportunity cost isn't a 7% increase in length, it's the tens of billions in extra infrastructure to build 350km/h right of way straight through the middle of every town all the way down the central valley, and the massive hit to SF-LA run time that will come with that. beyond the stop penalty, HSR just doesn't run at full speed through city centers anywhere in the world. doesn't happen.

people who need to get from SF to LA as soon as possible are already served by the airplanes.

Your business class traveler from LA/orange county to SF bay is already well served by the many airports in both metro areas.

the HSR is about connecting the rest of the state to economic opportunities in these large metro areas

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

#245

Post by renewiltord »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #17

It's absolutely critical that a country with California's GDP learns how to rearchitect itself to build again -- literally critical for America's progression. Nothing in this article makes me feel any better about the prospects of that happening.

As Californians will tell you, local communities are more important than all that.

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

#246

Post by trollbridge »

nineplay wrote: post #118
rsync wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Unfortunately there simply isn't enough demand between SF and LA alone to justify the insanely long stretches of a direct rail project." I will stipulate that that is correct at this very moment . However, it is my contention that a truly high speed rail link (sub two hour) between SF and LA would have manufactured demand as an entirely new set of trips, activities and lifestyles would have been enabled by the abili…

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…

... similar issues at the train station?

With Amtrak, you just show up at the train station a few minutes before departure time.

I took Amtrak from Richmond VA (well, Ashland, VA) to NYC once precisely to avoid the song and dance with getting around NYC airports. I showed up a few minutes before departure at the Ashland station (saving a drive to Richmond), relaxed on the train for 5 hours, arrived in Penn Station, and then took a short walk to the Roosevelt Hotel where my business meeting was.

High-speed rail can have multiple trains per day. If you miss one, you get on the next one.

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

#247

Post by renewiltord »

vondur wrote: post #180
1970-01-01 wrote: post #174

In the exact same amount of time, China has gone from 0 to 25,000 miles in high speed rail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-speed_railway_lin...

It probably helps when you can simply take the land you need. One major issue with the California project has been the difficulty in securing land rights. Additionally, California’s strict environmental laws have made construction even more challenging. In contrast, China can largely ignore these obstacles.

[flagged]

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

#248

Post by trollbridge »

legitster wrote: post #146
kccqzy wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you've never taken a train. Time through security? There's basically no security in American train stations (or French TGV stations). I've only experienced Chinese train stations with security but with wait times far less than American airports. Time to the airport? Well yes because the airports are inconveniently located. Train stations are right there in the downtown.

> Train stations are right there in the downtown. A train station in downtown LA or SF would be inconveniently located for most people in these cities.

The train stations have connections to other transit - hard to see them as any less convenient than airports (LA's famously had no train connection until recently).

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

#249

Post by [deleted] »

Eridrus wrote: post #232
tidbits wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[deleted]

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

#250

Post by trollbridge »

legitster wrote: post #154
ricw wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s entirely unfounded. There are more than 100 daily flights between the Bay Area and LA metro. That’s ridiculously high demand. https://simpleflying.com/san-francisco-los-angeles-flight-ma...

It's hard to know for sure, but the majority of these flights are probably going to be transfers. I've never set foot in LA but I've taken that flight several times. Even so, there are only ~20k daily seats between the two cities. The ridership on successful high speed rail lines elsewhere in the world are measured in the hundreds of thousands per day.

Hundreds of thousands? A TGV holds 500 people, so you're saying a successful TGV line does... 400 trips a day?
Post reply on HN