California High Speed Rail - Boondoggle or Boon? (Los Angeles, San Diego: to buy, casino)

[sav858]

Originally Posted by BBMW

How about the state just expand airport capacity in LA, SF, and SD? They all need it desperately. And it can likely be done cheaper and quicker than this boondoggle. And then that added capacity could be used to provide expanded service to a lot more cities.

And where exactly would they expand into? Especially SD. SF might be able to if they filled in more of the bay I guess.

[FrankNSense]

The idea is a great idea. People would still be willing to travel by rail when it is appropriate. Just look at the Amtrack Pacific Surfliner between San Diego and San Luis Obispo. It has the 2nd highest ridership of all of the routes in the US with around 3 Million passengers.

But the implementation of the CA HSR is a total Cluster-F.

It started with the decision of where. Bakersfield to Merced? They of course say that it will have huge ridership which I don't think anyone really believes. If I need to go to SF, I am not going to drive to Bakersfield only to catch a train that may save me a little over an hour...but then have to drive another couple of hours to actually get to SF. I'll either just drive straight to SF or hop on a flight.

They broke ground in 2015, and won't even have this first line running until at least 2028. The LA to SF line won't even be done until well into the 2030's and that is if they keep their current schedule, which is unlikely based on their history.

By Comparison when Japan built its first "Bullet Train", it took a grand total of 5 years to get the first line up and running.

[Chimérique]

Traveling from NorCal (Bay Area and Sacramento) to SoCal (LA, OC, SD) is best done by air. So High Speed Rail is really an alternative to flying, not really a replacement to driving.

I can fly to every single major destination in SoCal from Sacramento non-stop, so why would I take a train. High Speed rail would not go directly to the coastal part of LA-LAX, nor the Long Beach airport area, nor Orange County airport area , nor San Diego airport area. Nor to inland locals like Hollywood-Burbank airport, Ontario airport area-Inland Empire, nor Palm Springs, nor Santa Barbara.

If you want your own car when you get to your NorCal or SoCal destination, you need to drive but both 99 and I-5 are hellish to travel between NorCal and SoCal. Full of semi's and other trucks, its a horrible and potentially dangerous experience. So what we really need is a special dedicated right-of-way for cars only on 1-5...basically build an expanded I-5.

There are 2.75 million Californias living BELOW the Sacramento-Stockton Modesto area and north of LA County. High Speed rail is a way to connect those folks to NorCal and SoCal without driving; few flights currently exist as the flights are too short and not cost-effective.

[BBMW]

IIRC a few locations were identified around the SD are. They got stalled for political reasons. Piggybacking on MCAS Miramar seems very logical. SD needs a new full sized airport, regardless of what happens with the HSR.

For LA and SF, what are needed are commuterports. I wouldn't be looking for new or expanded long distance international capacity. I'd be looking to add capacity for commuter planes and the smaller end of main line narrowbodies. These would serve the shorter end of the airline routes, which is what the HSR would do. So the runways don't need to be so huge. I'd also tie the commuterports into the local mass transit systems, so they'd be easy to access (one of the purported benefits of HSR.)

Originally Posted by sav858

And where exactly would they expand into? Especially SD. SF might be able to if they filled in more of the bay I guess.

[Chimérique]

Originally Posted by Chimérique

There are 2.75 million Californias living BELOW the Sacramento-Stockton Modesto area and north of LA County. High Speed rail is a way to connect those folks to NorCal and SoCal without driving; few flights currently exist as the flights are too short and not cost-effective.

Revision - More like 1.75 million, and of course, I was excluding the Bay Area & the Sacramento Area. Basically, Fresno, Bakersfield and all the other smaller San Joaquin valley cities that need a connection other than by car to NorCal and SoCal.

[NW4me]

A fine idea, ruined by politicians.

The fatal flaw is the preposterous route alignment.

Consider: if you were in LA and planning to drive up to SF as quickly as possible:
-- would you go out to Palmdale, then back around to the Central Valley?
-- would you go through Bakersfield and Fresno on Highway 99?
-- would you go through Gilroy and San Jose?

The answer to all three questions is "no."

You'd take I-5 over the Grapevine, through the west side of the Central valley,
then I-580 toward SF, crossing the Bay on either the San Mateo Bridge or Bay Bridge.

This is exact what HSR ought to have done: follow I-5 over the Grapevine and through the Valley,
then approach the Bay probably by the I-580 median (replacing the BART tracks),
and then a bridge over the Bay to connect to the Caltrain tracks.

The thing to do now is immediately halt construction on the US 99 alignment, and start over.

Of course, having seen what a fiasco HSR became, what chance is there that the public
would support a second attempt?

Maybe the only hope of winning back the public's confidence would be to impanel
a group of investigators and transportation experts to sift through the history,
identify exactly when and where the wrong decisions happened, and who made them.
In other words, we need a High Speed Rail Truth Commission.

[sav858]

Originally Posted by BBMW

IIRC a few locations were identified around the SD are. They got stalled for political reasons. Piggybacking on MCAS Miramar seems very logical. SD needs a new full sized airport, regardless of what happens with the HSR.

For LA and SF, what are needed are commuterports. I wouldn't be looking for new or expanded long distance international capacity. I'd be looking to add capacity for commuter planes and the smaller end of main line narrowbodies. These would serve the shorter end of the airline routes, which is what the HSR would do. So the runways don't need to be so huge. I'd also tie the commuterports into the local mass transit systems, so they'd be easy to access (one of the purported benefits of HSR.)

That idea died a long time ago and all the other ideas were pie-in-the sky ones (floating airport off the coast, desert with HSR (lol) connecting it, etc..). They're pouring billions into SAN now so it's not going anywhere.

[OyCrumbler]

There are a few issues here. One is that the only option listed for going through with high speed rail states that it's worthwhile at any cost. That's a ludicrous option.

Another is the idea that alternative proposals "would move the same number of people but at vastly less cost" which is also pretty silly. The kind of capacity increase double tracked rail with some passing points has is massive compared to the kind of land acquisitions that anything of the same capacity for road and airport would have--all of which would hit the similar issues with CEQA, NIMBYs and land acquisition. These are things that need reform regardless of whether high speed rail comes to pass, but it would certainly greatly help reduce the cost of high speed rail were these issues to be tackled.

One thing to note is that the operating expenses of that kind of capacity for airplanes is massive in comparison to rail. Rail, like road vehicles, have most of their weight (the gravity vector) offset by the normal force of the ground it's on. Rail also has extremely low rolling resistance as steel on steel has far lower rolling resistance than rubber tires on asphalt--but both of these are a world away from the constant lift fighting the gravity vector that airplanes require. The operating expenses in terms of energy needs for airplanes to have anywhere near similar capacity is ridiculous in comparison. That's simply a hard physical constraint you're butting up against and no amount of magical thinking will change that.

High speed rail will be a waste if it is *just* the Central Valley initial operating segment that opens and nothing else. That ridership will take at least many decades of growth in those areas to justify such an expenditure, but it's not the case that the initial operating segment is all that's planned to be built. It's supposed to be just the first part to debut and what expenditure you make there is useful for going to LA, SF, Sacramento, and San Diego. It's okay to have this part which will be running at the highest speed up first as you'll want to have that tested first, but there should be a push to have at least the Bay Area leg ready to go soon afterwards. Caltrain electrification project is part of that, so that means getting the Pacheco Pass ready to undergo construction soon.

I think there is one particularly bad part of the implementation when it comes to route that's hard to justify at this point which is the jog out to Palmdale. That's not completely awful, but it's not good either. The Tejon Pass is the much more reasonable route given that this is an electric train and that section should be reconsidered. In the meantime though, I think while that's happening, it makes sense to upgrade Union Station in LA which is to some extent part of HSR and has other benefits as well as go through with Caltrain electrification which is also part of the HSR project and will have more immediate benefits and to make sure the initial operating segment extends to the Bay Area first while trying to push the Southern California route to go through the Tejon Pass. I think one way to make the adjustment to Tejon Pass, as has happened in other parts of the world that embarked on high speed rail with some communities left out, is to offer Palmdale and the Antelope Valley something useful to them like frequent and fast (though not HSR fast) rail service to Union Station earlier than the completion of phase 1 of HSR.

The Central Valley alignment isn't bad though or at least there is a reasonable trade-off. It's not as direct as LA to SJ/SF, but what you pick up are growing areas and there will likely be two separate at least million person metropolitan areas by the end of this decade and the wye to another one with Stockton and further up to Sacramento which is also growing and which this alignment reasonably serves.

[sav858]

I'm guessing the Palmdale alignment had to do with geography and population to some extent. Tejon Pass is probably too steep for trains and would require a very long tunnel. Even the Tehachapi Pass is fairly steep and requires the existing rail line to do a large loop to go up the grade.

Central Valley was the initial segment to provide jobs to the region. CA and more of their equity BS instead of doing what makes the most sense at the time.

[Dave_n_Tenn]

Maybe some private enterprise can HELP get it turned around? https://www.gobrightline.com/