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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

#271

Post by trollbridge »

stephen_g wrote: post #268
blackguardx wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but infrastructure is often built to expand future regions. Before the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, there was a lot less commuting to SF. They only had ferries. Building the bridges allowed the broader region to expand and prosper.

Exactly, as people are priced out of the cities, having good HSR connections to SF and LA would be able to spur a lot of regional growth. This is a pretty common kind of blindspot for people to have, talking about how crazy it is to build transit to places with or lower populations or less population density, but forget that a lot of well-connected, dense places with good transit weren't very dense before good transi…

Transit to... Bakersfield? It's 112 miles from Los Angeles. Dumping high-speed rail (which in the current plan won't be high speed at all between Bakersfield and LA, but is going to be a slow, circuitous route going through Palmdale and Lancaster) is not really going to be realistic for any kind of commuting to LA.

There is a reason these cities never got developed more than they are. It's kind of flat, unappealing scenery and it's boiling hot in the summer. People would rather live in LA. California has huge swathes of land with very, very low population density because nobody wants to live there.

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

#272

Post by [deleted] »

blackguardx wrote: post #258
trollbridge wrote: post #237

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 centre…

I agree with you, but infrastructure is often built to expand future regions. Before the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, there was a lot less commuting to SF. They only had ferries. Building the bridges allowed the broader region to expand and prosper.

[deleted]

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

#273

Post by shipp02 »

To everyone saying SF-LA already has plenty of flights, consider the following benefits of trains:

- No need to worry about how much luggage I have. It will likely be a minimal charge if there is even one

- Trains are more comfortable with larger seats, usually

- Trains will make tickets cheaper, putting downward pressure on flight tickets as well (competition)

- Less security theatre and less worrying about what I can and can't carry

- You can still have good internet access

This is in addition to the environmental benefits of trains.

Perfect is the enemy of good. More sections and branches can be added. Piecemeal is how transportation infrastructure grows everywhere. It does not come to fulfill everyone's needs all at once.

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

#274

Post by [deleted] »

trollbridge wrote: post #271
stephen_g wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, as people are priced out of the cities, having good HSR connections to SF and LA would be able to spur a lot of regional growth. This is a pretty common kind of blindspot for people to have, talking about how crazy it is to build transit to places with or lower populations or less population density, but forget that a lot of well-connected, dense places with good transit weren't very dense before good transi…

Transit to... Bakersfield? It's 112 miles from Los Angeles. Dumping high-speed rail (which in the current plan won't be high speed at all between Bakersfield and LA, but is going to be a slow, circuitous route going through Palmdale and Lancaster) is not really going to be realistic for any kind of commuting to LA. There is a reason these cities never got developed more than they are. It's kind of flat, unappealing s…

[deleted]

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

#275

Post by frickinLasers »

pj_mukh wrote: post #260
socalgal2 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"they're going to build the train between Bakersfield and Los Angeles through the Tehachapi Mountains." OMG, just join the I-5 after Bakersfield. It's right there. Why are we barreling through the mountains?

You mean the train? I don't think they do well with steep grades [1].

[1] https://engineering.stackexchange.com/questions/23106/what-d...

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

#276

Post by atleastoptimal »

Reading stuff like this is so tiresome. Is the fate of living in the United States just watching China casually lap us in every possible major infrastructural project, completing everything faster, cheaper, and at a much higher quality?

It feels almost humiliating at this point reading any story about a public works/transportation project in the US, just endless delays, comically high costs, and a strangely small focus on the actual material realities of the matter and a failure to deliver promises on time.

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

#277

Post by babyent »

shipp02 wrote: post #273

To everyone saying SF-LA already has plenty of flights, consider the following benefits of trains: - No need to worry about how much luggage I have. It will likely be a minimal charge if there is even one - Trains are more comfortable with larger seats, usually - Trains will make tickets cheaper, putting downward pressure on flight tickets as well (competition) - Less security theatre and less worrying about what I c…

You know most of these are business travelers right?

The last thing I want (as a former consultant who did like 400k plus miles flying) is to spend more time traveling.

Not to mention flights booked out in advance are like sub 200 bucks, or even 100-150. It takes like 2-3 hours from leaving home to arriving at destination.

Have you flown between SFO and LAX? SFO is easy to get to, no real headaches. So is San Jose and Oakland. LA is a hellhole when it comes to getting to an airport regardless of where you are in that sprawl. LAX is a nightmare unless you’re already working in El Segundo. Otherwise you’ll fly out of Burbank or the other one I forget the name now depending on where you are.

Once you have flown like 4-5 weeks in a row you learn how to board your flight just-in-time. I’d almost always arrive at the gate like 5-10 minutes before departure and never missed a single flight.

The train is slow AF and from experience riding Amtrack (daily for over a year) if it’s anywhere similar to that the train will be delayed more often than the flight.

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

#278

Post by [deleted] »

rsynnott wrote: post #151
legitster wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love trains! And I agree that they are superior in comfort and ease than flying. But the train still has to generate massive amounts of new traffic that doesn't currently exist to justify its huge costs. The TGV is something of an anomaly, and tough to compare against. It both beats all ridership estimates, and also comes in at half the price of even the Shinkansen: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2023/06/21/why…

Eh, ICE journeys of similar distance seem to be in the same general price range. > But the train still has to generate massive amounts of new traffic that doesn't currently exist to justify its huge costs. There are apparently about 130 SF Bay Area to LA flights daily. Let's say on average 200 person planes, at 80% occupancy, so 20,000 people. The biggest high speed trains have a capacity on the order of 1300, though…

[deleted]

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

#279

Post by jltsiren »

bombcar wrote: post #253
WalterBright wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is it doesn't get built.

Exactly. A huge part of these projects is proving to the public the value. So even a short, direct line is useful - as some will start to use it and then extending it becomes a simple "this thing we have is good, it should be good more."

But the short direct line might also not get built, if the projections show passenger volume will not be high enough to justify the costs.

Passenger rail has high fixed costs and low marginal costs. Even with high-speed rail, you generally want to maximize the number of passengers rather than speed. Making detours to nearby major cities often makes sense, while stopping at smaller cities the route already passes through might not.

A direct connection between Toronto and Montreal would serve one pair of major cities, while a Toronto – Ottawa – Montreal – Quebec City route would serve six. The longer route could be economically more viable, even if the costs are twice as high, as the number of potential passengers is much higher.

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

#280

Post by stephen_g »

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…

Having HSR stops inside cities is one of the things that make it far better than flying for certain distances. Put the station outside the city and you're killing a lot of your benefits...
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