(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.

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.

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.

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.

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.