The Plane Or The Train? Comparing Travel Options In An HSR Era
I’m down in Orange County for the weekend, visiting the old stomping grounds. I hope to make time for a short trip to look at the Anaheim ROW before the Super Bowl gets underway.
Trips like these always remind me of how much easier HSR would be. To get here, my wife took me to San Jose Airport yesterday, where I took a flight to LAX. Flights from Monterey to LAX were insanely expensive by the time I booked my flight just over a week ago, and I couldn’t find any affordable flights that met my schedule needs from San Jose to John Wayne Airport. So I flew into LAX and then hopped on board the FlyAway Bus to Irvine, where my family picked me up and drove me back to Tustin. Door to door, it was 6 hours:
Left Monterey at 7 AM, arrived at SJC at 8:15
Plane boarded at 9:15, took off at 9:45
Landed at LAX at 11
Boarded FlyAway bus at 11:45
Arrived at Irvine around 12:40
Arrived in Tustin around 1 PM
Sure, there was some waiting around at LAX for the FlyAway bus, and perhaps I could have left Monterey around 7:30. But even if I had left Monterey then, and had caught the FlyAway bus as soon as I made it out of the terminal (which took a good 15 minutes since I flew into the commuter terminal) I’d have saved 45 minutes or so. So 5-6 hours is the ballpark.
Now how long would that take on HSR? According to the CHSRA, Gilroy to Anaheim will be 2 hours, 16 minutes. Of course, depending on the mix of local stops, it might take longer. Still, it’s 45 minutes from Monterey to Gilroy, so let’s say I leave Monterey 60 minutes before departure (since I’d want to leave some time to spare). Then spend maybe 2:30 on the train, and 20 minutes or so from ARTIC to Tustin, depending on which family member picks me up. That’s about 4 hours’ travel time. Much better than 6, even if fares were set at 83% of comparable airfares. And even if I needed to pad my trip a bit more between Monterey and Gilroy, it’s still a savings over air travel, if not quite as dramatic, and likely for a cheaper price, especially once you factor in the increases in oil prices over the next 10 years.
Every time I travel back to Southern California, I always think “this would be so much easier on high speed rail.”
An article in last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal noted that airlines are padding their flight schedules so that more flights arrive “on time.” From the article:
Not only would your trip be easier on high speed rail, Robert, but easing congestion at airports would make flying faster for everyone else too. Win-win.
I know exactly how you feel…
Going to SFO this Thursday from Burbank. It’d be so much easier on HSR.
I was reading the January 25th Aviation Week & Space Technology and they had an interesting article about Amtrak’s efforts to get air travelers to convert to rail travel.
Here’s the text of the article:
“Amtrak Aims To Capture Frustrated Air Passenger Market
Aviation Week & Space Technology Jan 25 , 2010 , p. 16
Edited by Frances Fiorino
Amtrak may step up efforts to lure air travelers to the rails in advertising campaigns similar to the one it launched this month at Chicago O’Hare International Airport. Through March, O’Hare passengers depositing personal articles in the X-ray bins at security checkpoints will see Amtrak ads lining the bins. One reads, “Wear mismatched socks—we’ll never know” (see photo). Another, “Upgrade to Coach,” is a gentle put-down of crowded seating on airliners.
So far, Amtrak has “received lots of smiles” in reaction to the ads, says railroad official Marc Magliari. The railroad will evaluate the success of its experimental campaign at the end of March. If there is sufficient passenger switchover, Amtrak likely will expand its reach to other U.S. airports—mainly those that are “frustration points” for air travelers in terms of flight delays and security waiting lines.
Amtrak has previously placed display advertising at major U.S. airports, but never in security bins. Public relations company SecurityPoint Media collaborates with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration and airports to provide the SecureTray System product. In return, it wins the right to use the bins for what airport policies deem acceptable forms of advertising.”
Seems like something like this at LAX and SFO would really help to spread the word about CAHSR to the people that might be persuaded to choose HSR over air travel.
jimsf Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
ill tell you, we don’t have to try very hard to “capture” the ex-fliers. They have been coming in droves all by themselves. I hear it all the time. In fact, I usually try to talk people into choosing the best option, whether its caltrain versus amtrak to san jose ( a huge price difference) or amtrak versus metrolink, or amtrak versus flying to say, vegas…. and 99 percent of the time when I suggest they fly instead as a better choice they just krinkle their noses and look at me sideways as if I’d suggested they throw themselves into a volcano.
I have uploaded the audio from the KPFA radio broadcast today (Feb 7,2010). You can download at:
http://rapidshare.com/files/347371309/kpfa1.mp3
On the program was Pat Burt (Palo Alto Mayor), Elizabeth Alexis (economist and financial expert) and Bob Doty, leading the HSR program for CalTrain.
WARNING: Robert is not going to like this program.
One of the callers, frequently travels to Orange CO from Oakland, and exclaimed round trip for 100 to 120 dollars, total travel time for him 1 hr. 30 minutes. He couldn’t understand the need for HSR.
Bianca Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Has anyone been able to download this? I’ve been trying for the last hour and keep getting a message that their servers are overloaded and to try again in two minutes.
Arthur Dent Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Bianca, try this link. It’s directly from KPFA’s Sunday Show archive:
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/58432
Joey Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
“walkable”? “transit oriented”? Please.
Joey Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
“physical barrier”? One express train per day? Someone really needs to give these people a clue.
Joey Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Must people insist on comparing air fares today to train tickets 10-20 years from now?
Peter Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Because we all know that air fares will stay the same for 20 years.
Elizabeth Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
The $105 dollar number is in 2009 dollars. The ridership model and the business model assume that this number would go up with airfare inflation. If airfares are $300 in 2035, then the hsr price would be $249 (83% of air).
I think it is much less confusing for people to talk in 2009 dollars and have some context for the magnitude so I think this is okay.
Joey Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
Fair enough, but no one accounted for the fact the HSR tickets will probably be discounted in much the way airfares are, such that you are only paying the full price if you book at the very last minute.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
The problem is that this assumes airfares will rise along with general inflation trends.
There is ample reason to expect this will not be the case. As peak oil bites ever more strongly, airfares will likely rise well beyond the official inflation rate. Deutsche Bank believes that by 2017, oil will be consistently trading at or above $175/bbl. Many observers expect that to be reached sooner. At such prices, airfares will soar.
However, HSR is not affected by those rising oil costs (at least not in terms of operations, though rising costs will impact construction). So they may not have to go with the 83% of airfare scenario after all. It is likely that they could generate the revenue anticipated in the 83% scenario at 50% of airfares.
It all goes to show that any predictions of what HSR fares will be in 2020 is extremely premature.
AndyDuncan Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 10:59 pm
“One of the callers, frequently travels to Orange CO from Oakland, and exclaimed round trip for 100 to 120 dollars, total travel time for him 1 hr. 30 minutes. He couldn’t understand the need for HSR.”
Morris, this is the problem I have with you: I used to fly LA-SF every week. You’re ready to pile on to a claim that CHSRA cooked the books because it “didn’t pass the smell test” but you’re willing to post something that is obviously bullshit like a guy that can get from orange county to SF in 1:30.
Where’s the smell test?
I used to make the trip from LAX to SFO. Every week.
Every week morris.
On someone else’s dollar.
That means I got real good at paying for expensive cabs. Giving the Cabby that would illegally let me off at the downstairs of LAX an extra tip so that I could take the elevator from the arrivals area straight to the third floor and arrive at the line where I had status and could walk straight to the security machines (funny fact, Jimmy Johnson and I used to say “hi” to each other every monday morning on our commutes).
And it means that I was cutting corners so close that i was willing to miss my flight every week because if I missed it then someone else would have to pay for my change of ticket, not me.
It also means that I was buying cabs on both ends as opposed to getting a “kiss and ride” or taking bart in the Bay Area, simply because cabs are faster than public transit at 5 in the morning.
All that. Which is completely unrealistic for 90% of travelers, even 90% of business travelers, as most people don’t make the same commute every week, and the best I could reliably get my commute down to was 3:35, door to door.
I would leave my house near LAX at 5:00 in the morning, no traffic I would be at LAX by 5:15-5:30. through security by 5:30-5:45, depending on when the taxi bothered to show up (they’re not as reliable as you might think at 5:15AM). Get to the gate by 6:00 when they started boarding, hop on the 6:30 flight which would actually take off at around 6:35-6:40.
Flight would land in SFO (if there wasn’t any fog or other delays, yeah right) by 7:30-7:45 depending on flight schedules.
Since I flew so much, I had a black car on retainer who knew when my flight was getting in and would be waiting for me at the terminal, so no taxi lines to plow through, just hop in the car and go.
From SFO to downtown SF was about 30 minutes, depending on traffic.
The end result is that I could leave my house at 5:00 to 5:15 and arrive in SF at 8:00 to 8:15.
I lived within 8 miles of LAX. I was willing to pay for taxis on each end (and I’m not counting time spent waiting for taxis, which could add another 10-20 minutes), I had a car waiting for me when I got off the plane, I had status on the airline I was flying on because I flew so much, I wasn’t checking bags, and I was willing to miss my flight (don’t underestimate this, that’s a huge time saver).
The end result is that I was able to get from door to door from the west side of Los Angeles, the worst possible place for HSR, in 3:15 minutes. That’s practically a world record for any flight ever.
That’s the absolute best case scenario. Absolute. Unless you live at LAX, you can’t get to downtown SF door to door faster than that. I had coworkers who tried, and they missed their flights on a regular basis.
So forget this “1:30″ bullshit. You’re so willing to believe anything that reinforces your predisposed opposition to this project.
It’s going by your (medium density, infill) house, buddy. Sorry.
AndyDuncan Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
“and the best I could reliably get my commute down to was 3:35, door to door.”
typo, that should read 3:15, though 3:35 was more typical. Now that I don’t have status and a bottomless bank account for changed tickets it’s more like 4 hours.
AndyDuncan Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Oh, and for the record, I would have murdered a kindergarten class full of children to be able to get 2:30 of uninterrupted sleep on a monday morning, even if it meant taking a full hour more to get to SF – a total trip time of 3:00 via a plane vs 3:00 via rail is a no brainer for rail.
elfling Reply:
February 8th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Extremely well put and explicit answer!
Dan S. Reply:
February 8th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
I just listened to this program myself. It is quite disheartening as a HSR supporter to hear this project put on such a poor performance in their public outreach yet again. I suppose Bob Doty might be a good administrator, but he is just not a good spokesman. He couldn’t address issues head-on, he couldn’t even remember Elizabeth’s name for goodness sakes. If this project wants to win public perception, it’s going to have to drag out some better talking heads than this.
Maybe we, the pro-HSR community, should put together a single-page cheatsheet of talking points for anyone debating HSR. Include stuff like profitability of other HSR systems around the world, actual estimates for greenhouse gas savings, some examples of possible air and car expenses if peak oil hits, estimates for required highway expansion given CA’s rising population, actual point-to-point air travel times vs. HSR…..
But most of all, listening to this radio program makes me think that this 40 Billion Dollar Project needs to hire some professional spokesmen and send them to community meetings and media events. The administrators and retired politicians they’ve been trotting out might have some project-leading skills but they are losing the public debate against part-time community activists and spur-of-the-moment questioners.
The caller from OC must not understand the concept of “total travel time,” Morris. The time on the plane is about 1.5 hours, but unless he lives in the terminal at Oakland airport and was meeting someone in the airport in Orange County, there is no way his total trip time was less than 3 hours. I made that same trip (Berkeley to Costa Mesa, actually) many times, and often driving was only 1 hour slower than flying, if I drove too fast and late at night. With traffic in the Bay Area and in Orange County, you need to leave your home 2 hours before the flight or more, and you often arrive at your destination 1 hour after the plan lands. That’s a 4 hour trip.
Marcus Reply:
February 8th, 2010 at 7:47 am
It’s quite possible that his destination was Oakland Airport. He probably works for Southwest Airlines, which would also explain why he was calling :-)
As Joseph E points out, a minimum four hour trip by air, often longer. With the ineffective public transport in the LA Area, I would need to rent a car. It’s easier to just drive to LA from San Mateo than it is to fly.
Robert,
Your travel expereince and trip time are not unique. They are the norm.
I had my own very similar experience last May for a 3-day holiday weekend. And for a 2nd trip in October up to SF for a wedding. Regardless, in each direction, from Los Angeles to San Francisco the travel time was about x1.5 times what it would have been if that same trip were on HSR.
Of course, the most agonizing parts were standing in line… at security screening, to board plane, to get ticket (once did not use electronic check-in), etc. Traveling to and from airport also added time… whereas HSR would be at the city center… Union Station in Los Angeles or the TBT in San Francisco or Sante Fe Depot (fingers crossed) in San Diego.
I left each travel experience asking myself… why should I bother any longer; the experience with flying is such a pain in the arse that it hardly makes the effort worth it.
Michael Reply:
February 8th, 2010 at 8:39 am
A few weeks back, I spent 3:15 FROM GATE TO GATE flying LAX-SFO. Plane was scheduled to depart at 12:05. Boarded at 11:45, plane pulled from the gate at about 12:15, then as we start to taxi, pilot comes on and announces (surprise) that the poor conditions (clouds) at SFO has moved our landing slot about an hour into the future. We needed to pull from the gate, but were going to park out on the tarmac for about an hour. We took off at about 1:30 and then spent 1:30 flying up. We must have been zigging and zagging to kill time. Finally existed the plane in SF at 3:00.
This happens when the conditions at SFO require planes to approach from the east, which is pretty common in the winter. LA and Burbank flights take the hit, as it’s tougher to tell a plane from Tokyo to kill an hour or two.
That’s a great example. I hope so much that the extension to San Diego will come earlier than proposed. 2030 is pretty far away for someone who is 19 years old. :-)
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Says you! I’ll be 60 in 2030!
jimsf Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 11:11 pm
ha, try 65 and retired.
SFO is also one of the most delayed airports in the US because of fog. As Sec. LaHood noted on the Daily Show, “Amtrak runs in the fog.” Fortunately, Southern California doesn’t have the delays that Chicago, Philadelphia, or NY/NJ have.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 10:05 pm
Indeed. Yet another reason why HSR is superior to air travel.
this is just a joke it can’t be a serious news article.
Joey Reply:
February 8th, 2010 at 6:34 am
Why are people obsessing over the “chosen” 60 foot aerial when the AA for that section isn’t even nearing completion yet?
Elizabeth Reply:
February 8th, 2010 at 7:00 am
The only options they are moving forward in the AA are 60 foot aerials. The alternatives are just the exact placement (east or west of UP, station location)
Joey Reply:
February 8th, 2010 at 8:10 am
Are you sure about that?
Peter Reply:
February 8th, 2010 at 10:04 am
Those were the only options they talked about.
Nonetheless, I think the author of the letter is a “concerned citizen” who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The aerial will be designed so that a train derailing doesn’t leave the aerial. It’s not the most difficult engineering feat. Even if there wasn’t a freight train loaded with hazardous materials, a train derailing off an aerial is a very bad idea. So to think that they aren’t going to take steps to prevent that is to be a little naive.
Also, a freight train might damage the support columns, but isn’t going to take them down. The support columns will likely not even be close enough to the freight line.
Peter Reply:
February 8th, 2010 at 10:21 am
I wrote a comment to the article.
Matthew F. Reply:
February 8th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
The “Examiner” series of sites seem to be to be the worst of the worst on the New Web: Bloggers without any journalistic standards of credibility, who are motivated by per-hit payments (yes, you and I just sent a few cents to Alan Kandal) to write scandalizing articles, being passed on as if they were real journalists. I’ve yet to see any “Examiner” stories that weren’t a joke. Heck, half the time I write more researched comments than articles you see on the Examiner sites.
Kevin Neels from the Brattle Group (http://www.brattle.co.uk/Experts/ExpertDetail.asp?ExpertID=139) gave an interesting presentation the other week looking at the cost of aviation delays and looking at the value of passenger time at various stages of the airport/flight travel time. It would be interesting to compare this with high speed rail.
Please, HSR will be cost competitive with airfares. Many people misunderstand the difference between the average fare (which is the number CHSRA throws out in its various business plans) and the lowest fare. The average fare on LUV or UAUA is a good deal higher than $120 RT.
Those unfamiliar with European rail fares (i.e., almost all the HSR critics and even some HSR supporters) would do well to check out the fare search engine Momondo. A few sample searches on heavily traveled routes:
Cheapest Paris-Lyon train or flight: $99 (TGV)
Cheapest Paris-Lyon flight: $303 (Air France)
Cheapest Paris-Marseille train or flight: $136 (TGV)
Cheapest Paris-Marseille flight: $278 (Air France)
Cheapest Rural Paris-Marseille flight: $125 (Ryanair)
Cheapest Madrid-Barcelona train or flight: $87 (Vueling)
Cheapest Madrid-Barcelona train: $128 (Renfe)
Cheapest London-Paris train or flight: $146 (Eurostar)
Cheapest London-Paris flight: $210 (Air France)
Cheapest Rural London-Paris flight: $160 (EasyJet)
TGV is priced lower (sometimes much lower) than lowest airfares and Renfe is priced somewhat higher than lowest airfares (both of which we already knew). The real surprise is that that Eurostar is priced lower than lowest airfares.
And of course, when counting cost-competitive, you have to add in the taxi, the airport bus, the airport parking, etc.
While I agree with the sentiment of this article, it’s clearly biased toward making your point.
(1) You said, “it’s 45 minutes from Monterey to Gilroy, so let’s say I leave Monterey 60 minutes before departure (since I’d want to leave some time to spare).” 15 minutes to spare? That’s cutting it awfully close. You are assuming zero traffic to get to Gilroy, and parking right at the door (overnight? what, for free?), and walking onto the train like it was a bus stop. In reality you would have left 30 minutes earlier than you claimed, reducing the train’s advantage.
That’s all assuming you can just walk onto a train like it was a bus. What happens when God forbid “something happens” and from then on, we have to all go through the same security checks as we do at airports? And if there are really these millions of people riding high speed rail, we’ll need big parking lots like at airports, or long-term parking, etc. The reality is that it is not going to be any faster, and in fact much slower, for many trips — including yours.
(2) If you are going to Orange County, fly to Orange County (john wayne). Why would you fly to LAX? You said you could not find a cheap fare, but that’s completely irrelevant when you are comparing travel times. John Wayne is well-served by Southwest Airlines and has tons of cheap fares. You just did not find on for your particular day, and what constitutes “cheap” anyway — it’s subjective, and is not relevant to the argument for building a high speed rail network. If Southwest Airlines happened to have a sale that day, your whole argument is out the window. Sorry.
@elfling Why are you assuming that a high speed rail station would NOT have those same things — expensive short-term parking, cheaper long term parking but more time consuming and requiring a shuttle bus, etc.? With all those millions of riders projected to use HSR, they all can’t park right in front of the station like you can with Amtrak today.