April CHSRA Board Meeting Open Thread
The agenda is here – I’m not seeing any live audio or video feeds, but I’m looking into that.
This will be a particularly eventful meeting. The agenda includes:
• A report on the search for a new Executive Director
• Discussion of Transbay Terminal design
• Approval of the draft business plan revisions
• Reporting on the Alternatives Analysis for both San Francisco-San José and Merced-Fresno
And other committee discussions.
UPDATE: It looks like we’re seeing a new tone from the Authority on the Transbay Terminal:
Chair Pringle on Transbay: choosing any other station alternative in SF would be a break of trust with the voters of CA
That’s a very welcome thing to hear. As noted in the comments, the powerpoint presentation on the SF-SJ Alternatives Analysis explains several reasons why the Beale Street alternative to Transbay Terminal is undesirable. So this is a very positive development.
UPDATE 2: CHSRA board votes 6-1 to eliminate the Beale Street option for Transbay Terminal. I don’t know who the vote against was, and won’t speculate (you all can do that in the comments though), but this is a good move for the Authority that can hopefully start putting to rest the long and contentious debate over the Transbay Terminal.
The SF-SJ Draft AA and Merced-Fresno “preliminary report” are up on the site here (agenda item 11).
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 9:16 am
er, they’re both “preliminary”.
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Robert: you can delete these now that you have the links in your doc, you won’t hurt my feelings.
Interesting – in the powerpoint they argue that the Beale Street alternative basically sucks and isn’t a workable solution. Might we finally be seeing an end to the ongoing fight over Transbay?
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Looks that way. The solution is craptacular though: they’re going to split both HSR and Caltrain between TTC and 4&King, they carried one and only one option forward:
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 9:51 am
Appendix H
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:22 am
Is the zone of influence above the line or below the line?
tomh Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:37 am
Wow. The Beale Street option looks expensive. It even involves building a whole extra underground station perpendicular to TTC, rather than just putting it in the basement as in the 1st option.
BTW, wouldn’t it be better to begin the turn northward from Townsend at 4th street so the turns aren’t as sharp and the route is more direct rather than going down 2nd Street?
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Expensive but also sandbagged. They mention that they’ll have to buy those properties for $1B (which seems high, to say the least), but they don’t mention that they’ll be able to sell the air rights over the station, potentially recouping all of that money and more. Looks like the CHSRA caved to political pressure.
You win, Jim! I’ll send you a quarter you can flip to see which terminal your train is leaving from ;-)
lyqwyd Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
yeah, it’s a bummer when politics wins out over rational thought. I was pretty sure the was going to be the outcome, but still a sad day.
tomh Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Wait, so they ARE doing the Beale Street option? A) Why was it even an option? B) How did it win?
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
No, it has been voted out.
tomh Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Ah. What was the reasoning to consider it in the first place?
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Because it was suggested, and as a reasonable alternative it had to be studied for purposes of NEPA and CEQA.
tomh Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Understood. But why was it suggested/what made it a reasonable alternative? There are people who have posted here saying they are disappointed the Beale option wasn’t chosen, but no one has said why it might be a better option than the 2nd Street option.
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
Longer platforms, wider curves, and generally more space are the main advantages of the Beale alternative
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
@tomh, the TTC design is flawed for a number of reasons (that post is slightly out of date now, but the design modifications aren’t much help). The end result being that it won’t have the capacity to handle what it is supposed to be doing in the first palce: bringing all caltrain and HSR trains to downtown SF.
The beale alternative would potentially have provided the platform and throughput capacity to bring all trains downtown.
So the end result is that San Francisco (and the rest of the taxpayers around the state and country) will end up paying $4b for half a station plus a tunnel and an unknown amount to refurbish 4th & King to handle the overflow that a better designed TTC or Beale station could have handled alone.
lyqwyd Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
I think the biggest and most obvious evidence of the flaws of the transbay terminal is that they now plan on having more platforms at the 4th & King station than they do in the $4 billion transbay terminal.
Beale on the other hand would have capacity for anywhere from 10-12 platforms, while trasnbay and 4th & King combined will only have 7.
I also noticed after looking at appendix H that they unnecessarily ran the approach tracks directly under one of the buildings they claim would need to be demolised. The tracks could easily skirt around the building, and in fact if they did go around the building (through what is currently a parking lot) the curve radius would be shallower.
Joey Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
How much more difficult would it be to build the tunnel closer to the bridge supports?
lyqwyd Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
hi Joey, I’m not sure if you were directing your question to me, so if you were not feel free to ignore my response.
Skirting around the building would incur no additional difficulty with regard to the bridge supports as the it could still be brought through the midpoint between the two supports.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
Yes, It was sandbagged. That’s my feeling. But the alignment was deeper becuase of a Fire department Auxiliary Salt Water Pipe. What the hell is that? And, could’t it be relocated? Why was that not answered?
jimsf Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 9:16 am
Well to be fair I don’t know why you all continue to ignore the fact that for some passengers fourth street is the better location. We can assume that the larger percentage of traffic will use downtown, and we can assume that the majority of trains will use downtown. But maybe a 25 percent of people will prefer 4th for the reasons I have listed ( and had ignored) time and time again. So maybe 25 percent of trains can term at fourth. How do you know which is which? No coin flipping involved. A little something called referring to the printed/posted schedule, reading the big red flashing destination signs and, listening for important announcements in stations and on trains. ( yes its all very railroad-y huh?)
Look. If I’m coming from west portal or castro station, and I’m headed inbound I know that certain trains are going to caltrain/mission bay and certain trains will term at embarcadero. I choose the one that meets my needs.
Same with bart, if Im going to oakland, I can choose from 4 different lines but if Im going all the way to el cerrito I have to transfer or choose that one in particular.
Now we have all agreed in the past that mid day isn’t a problem ( he number of trains per hour for hsr is way over blown anyway) but there may be a capacity issue at crunch time.
What is the max per hsr that tbt can handle?
That number whatever it is, is more than the downtown destined crowd will ever need for a long long time, meanwhile if you want to run additional headways during that time to increase overall system wide frequencies, one in four trains, for instance, can term at 4th. The collective group of passengers system wide at any given time, for whom 4th is the better stop anyway, will choose that 4th train on the schedule.
Delores from Fresno is coming to town to visit her friend Marge who just moved into her new place at Arterra at Mission Bay.
“Hi Marge its Delores, I’m trying to make sense of this schedule what should I do? There’s a 330p that says TBT express and theres a 335p that says Mission Bay Limited”
“Oh sure Delores hun, you need to take the 335p itll stop right down the street from my place the other one is gonna take you all the way downtown, it too far”
And you know all those people who currently live in places such as walnut creek and orinda and livermore, who have their friends pick them up and drop them off at SFO? Well now their friends will be able to pick them up and drop them off at HSR… 20-30 minutes closer than SFO and guess which location is more auto friendly. ….. ever try driving around 1st and mission at 5pm? Its not pretty. MEanwhile, 4th is a snap.
So to summarize if you count all the people who might actually prefer 4th ( drivers/80/ 280 east and south locations, all the new residents of mission bay and the eastern waterfront plans, a all the new SOMA residents, the high density plans for the 4th street corridor, etc you have total justification for having say one out of four trains term at 4th while allowing for over all tight system wide headways at rush hour.
Is this hard to grasp?
I really don’t understand all the hand wringing. There’s just no issue here.
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Bleh
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:22 am
I’m trying to figure out how they’re even going to market this. So we’re building a $4b downtown station and you’ll have a 50% chance of being able to use it? Are they going to run shuttle busses back and forth between the terminals for the dozens of people arriving on or for each train who are now at the wrong terminal? Does 4th&King get the locals and TTC gets the expresses? What a cluster.
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:41 am
Aren’t they planning on building an extra station at 3rd and King? Maybe they’re thinking of doing a transfer there…
an_onlooker Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
I am no expert on these things, but it seems an overreaction to assume 50% of the trains will stop at 4+king.
These discussion forums have seen many posts about the topic of where to originate and stable trains at the beginning/end of the day and between rush hour and midday lull… perhaps 4+king offers an opportunity to have more flexible origination and stabling schedules in the near future, while still technically allowing for the envisioned increased frequencies in the distant future.
After all, we probably won’t ever need the maximum projected future schedule frequencies for CAHSR or Caltrain, and as long as that is true, the majority of revenue runs should start and finish at TBT.
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
I’m going by CHSRA’s own word. They state in the AA that they want to run 10tph and that the TTC, even with the changes made by the TJPA, can only handle 5tph. They’re also building just as many platform tracks (4) at 4th & king as at the TTC, which would indicate they expect to see similar amounts of traffic.
But even if it’s 75% TTC 25% King how is that any better? How are you going to split those service levels?
One of the (quite valid) arguments in favor of the current alignment was that San Jose and San Francisco are on the same line and that service isn’t split between the two.
Now San Francisco and San Francisco won’t even be on the same line. It’s asinine.
YesonHSR Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 8:56 pm
The stations are only 1.2 miles apart and at rush hour some HSR leaving from 4th and King would actually work better for many people living south of downtown and all the business at the new China Basin area..As this area is the newest and fast growing section of the city..I would board at that location instead of fighting to get Downtown at that hour
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 9:11 pm
That’s a small market compared to the transit connections available downtown.
YesonHSR Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
With the new Central Subway this station will have alot more options than now..I think it could have more than its fair share of the citys total seat sales..But all this is far off..the TBT station and tunnel will be more than able to handle the first years of operation..
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
The Central Subway is still nothing compared to BART, ACTransit, dozens of MUNI lines, GG Transit, etc, etc, etc
lyqwyd Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
If the distance is inconsequential then there’s no reason to have two stations so close, and if 1 of them cannot handle the expected amount of traffic (transbay) then the other should be the only station. Especially when the one that can’t handle the traffic (transbay) is going to cost $4 billion.
Of course Beale could handle all the traffic of both, and more.
YesonHSR Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Do any of you people live here??? TBT is old ..SF 4th and King is new SF..the site of the SP rail empire but in the year 2010 ..
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 12:32 am
SP wanted to build their terminal across from the Ferry Building but San Francisco wouldn’t lete them…. sound familiar?
lyqwyd Reply:
April 11th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
I live and work in SF and plan to do both for the rest of my life if possible. I worked directly between TBT & 4th & King station for several years and had coworkers that took Caltrain, and I used TBT many times for the bus, so I’m very familiar with the area in question.
I also understand that spending $4 billion on a terminal that can’t handle the trains it is supposedly being built for makes no sense and building another station less than a mile away that also can’t handle the trains makes even less sense.
I would be fine with killing TBT and making the whole station at 4th & King, or building a transbay that would actually handle the number of trains required (both HSR & transbay) and keeping 4th & King for Caltrain exclusively, as I agree that many people will want to use it, but the vast majority of those people are commuters not HSR riders.
Building 2 stations, neither of which can do what is really needed, is just stupid.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
April 11th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
San Francisco? Yes.
So when do you plan to pay a visit to Planet Earth anyway? Act soon, before you miss a chance to see the last remants of the holocene ecology.
EJ Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
They’ll probably figure it out much in the same way passengers figure out if they’re going to Penn Station or Grand Central, or London Marylebone or Euston, or LAX or Burbank, or SFO or OAK…
lyqwyd Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
LAX & Burbank are very far apart, you choose one or the other based on destination (I’ve used both many times)
lyqwyd Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Isn’t having HSR stop at 4th and King also illegal by prop 1A? I thought there were a finite number of stations allowed. Are they suggesting eliminating another station somewhere else? Or is my understanding just wrong?
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Eliminate Norwalk and University City.
Bobierto Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Sorry but University City needs to be nixed, but I really think San Diego needs both a downtown and airport station. So that takes University City’s slot.
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
The airport stop doesn’t serve anyone. On the other hand University City serves the (reasonably large) mid San Diego County area.
Bobierto Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
I respectfully disagree. Housing around University City is relatively dense, but for reasons I can’t fathom, there is strong neighborhood opposition. Cost of tunneling to get to UTC will be huge. Business around UTC is spread across several square mile extending to the north of the 8/805 merge. HSR would be a boon to UCSD but I do fear that it could worsen the creeping decline of the number of businesses located downtown. I’d love to be proven wrong on all this, of course.
Meantime, I’m all for a downtown terminus, and there are thousands of housing units within walking distance of Santa Fe Depot. But there is no parking (that lot next door is scheduled to be developed and is too prime not to be, once the economy recovers), no car waiting area, not much of a taxi waiting area, Broadway and Kettner are obstructed by crossing trolleys every few minutes – none of this very conducive to carbound San Diegans, and let’s face it, mass transit isn’t fantastic here. Santa Fe Depot is not next to the convention center so will still require a cab or trolley to get there and to the major hotels. If you live in Temecula and want to get to the airport, I suspect you will be much more likely to take HSR if you don’t have to wait for a trolley and pay a separate fare and pull your bags up the steps and … Sorry to be a cynic. I think it probably makes me unpopular around here but if there is only going to be one station in central SD, I’d rather see it at the airport. It would serve more people from more places and make it easier for them to transfer to all other modes of transportation than it will be downtown. It’s only two miles from Santa Fe Depot and those Santa Fe users who arrive by public transportation will still use HSR if it’s two trolley stops north.
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
I never said the station had to be UTC, although that would be ideal. It’s true that auto access to Santa Fe Depot is rather limited, but you’ve got a lot more hotels/offices/transit connections right there, and the airport station only serves a couple of trips for people in Temecula and Escondido who want to fly (plus, they’ve got Ontario).
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
An airport stop in San Diego has no merit! Who the hell would use that connection?
SD is in a corner of the country. It’s not a hub or have a lot of traffic, especially long-haul flights. And the airport has a single short runway… at sea-level. Big & heavy planes can not use the airport with any regularity… or be cost-effective.
The only locals taking HSR to the airport, let alone NorCal residents, are the ones too dumb to realize other better airport options exist.
And, those flying in to SD from far-away places and wanting to remain local, are really headed to downtown. They’ll have a Trolley stop to take them to downtown or Mission Valley hotels. Does it make sense to have an airport stop separated from a downtown stop by about a mile for this group?
Bobierto Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 9:32 am
Well I’m not a professional city planner or transportation expert, so I am willing to be proven wrong about all this. But the conventioneers and vacationers who don’t rent cars will take the trolley if it’s convenient, regardless of whether they arrive downtown or at the airport. I think there is a problem with referring to the airport station as … the “airport station”. If you call it the intermodal station, and realize that it will combine the Coaster and the trolley with HSR access as well as Santa Fe depot would, and then think that it will stitch in access to I-5, Pacific Hwy and city streets (it will essentially be at the foot of Washington Street) … The road access is crucial, it will give drivers large parking lots, rental car agencies, and also will serve bus connections much better than Santa Fe Depot can.
I’m sure people much smarter than me have thought this all out and they may conclude that downtown is the way to go. But those smart people are also concluding that there will two stations in downtown SF a few blocks apart so maybe I’m not SO dumb … Anyway if don’t think of the San Diego station as the AIRPORT station but rather as a large, spacious, easily accessed intermodal station that combines all current methods of transportation better than downtown can, it might re-frame the conversation.
Bobierto Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 9:34 am
Guess what I’m saying is that the airport could replace Old Town as a main transportation hub.
BruceMcF Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Yes, thinking of San Diego Airport Station as an intermodal station that combines all current methods of transportation better than downtown can, that would reframe the conversation … taking it out of the realm of reality into the realm of fantasy. The reality is that the airport could provide an equally good intermodal station for some modes, not as good for others.
From a pure intermodal point of view, a combination of Qualcomm and Santa Fe might be superior to either Qualcomm and Airport or University City and Airport.
Bobierto Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
You must be one of those people more informed than me! LOL Leaving the snark aside, the problem with Qualcomm is the difficulty in getting the line PAST Qualcomm. Do you know where there is room in the I-8 corridor for tracks? I fear if it is built to Qualcomm, it will terminate at Qualcomm, and I do NOT think that is a better site for a terminus than downtown.
Also, I thought the point of an intermodal station was to bring everything together in one place? So not clear on how combining two locations a few miles apart accomplishes that.
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 9:47 am
While outsiders also seem to be telling sf how and what to do, constantly ( why is the world so fascinated by the minutiae of what goes on here anyway) I will refrain from telling san diego what it should do. I think the people of san diego should decide where and what kind of station they should want and those of us who don’t live there should butt out.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 10:18 am
When you stop taking our money to do it, we’ll butt out.
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 10:27 am
you don’t even live in california. you live in new york, a place that probably gets more big ticket items on the taxpayer dime than anywhere on earth.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Last time I checked both New York and California are in the United States, the pertinent taxing district. New York and California get equally reamed by the Federal government.
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 11:22 am
except that san franciscans have zero interest in how new york and la spend tax money, yet the whole country sees fit to criticize sf at every turn. sf response to this… take a guess.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Not our fault that you aren’t paying attention. People in New York and Los Angeles pay attention to what San Francisco does because San Francisco is adept at doing stupid expensive things.
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 11:52 am
again, san francisco’s collective response to what new yorkers think goes like this: “…………………………………. “
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Then when the Federal government says “this a stupid expensive thing” in a polite way and doesn’t give you any money, don’t whine.
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
except they are giving us money. plenty of it.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
5 percent of what you need so far.
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 7:09 pm
both tbt and central subway are moving right along just fine thank you. YOu know all I do is voice my opinion on how things could or should be done and a lot of you just don’t like me and seem to want to attack for the sake of it. well my opinions are just as valid as yours. just because you don’t like the fact that I don’t tow the politically correct line like most of you do doesn’t make my ideas less valid. Nor do I give a rats ass what you think of me. I say what I think and I think all the projects, from central subway to tbt to hsr ar moving along just fine, and are perfectly acceptable as planned and I think everyone should quit foamer-bitching about all the minutiae. in the end it wont amount to a hill of beans. The trains will run. the people will ride. if there’s a glitch or inefficiency here and there itll all come out in the wash. life will go on. call the chinese and let em get the damn thing built and be done with it.
lyqwyd Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
I am actually curious about this situation. Can they just add another station? I could be completely wrong, but I thought it was a fixed number of stations… anybody?
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
I think there is a limit on the number of stations which can be built with 1A money…
Nadia Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
they discussed yesterday that yes – the limit is 24 stations and that this configuration will count as 2 stations – so it reduces a station somewhere
lyqwyd Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
Thanks Nadia.
Wow, that seems pretty wild, what other station is going to be cut? I don’t think the recipient of that cut is going to be very excited about that.
Adam Clark Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:02 am
mmmm i wonder have they thought about HSR going to Beale Street while Caltrain go the other way to Transbay like figure 1 in Appendix H?
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
My guess is that it’s too expensive. Might make technical sense
though.
tomh Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:02 am
I wonder if stops in Milbrae and Palo Alto would make them more likely to support above-grade. I think if those towns continue to be obstructionists, they shouldn’t get any HSR stations. Though I suppose Milbrae is guaranteed one since it has a BART station.
What does the red bubble represent on page 6?
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:08 am
See below re “obstructionist” cities.
And it looks like only very few parts of the Peninsula would see an elevated, either berm or aerial. Most of it is now supposedly possible at-grade.
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 9:34 am
Key points for me:
“Berm design options not carried forward in commercial or residential areas,” “Deep tunnel station options avoided,” “Limit use of high berms in commercial or residential areas,” and “Stopping service in San Jose does not meet the purpose and need nor the requirements of Proposition 1 A or Caltrain.”
YAY!
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:47 am
Let’s hope they come to the same conclusion for a deep tunnel station in San Jose.
Robert, the other AA released is Merced-Fresno, not SJ-Merced. And their Powerpoint is broken.
china rail for cali
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:15 am
God help us.
tomh Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:44 am
Agreed. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/01/bloomberg1376-L09HSE1A1I4H-3.DTL
I have this mental image of spending billions on a Chinese HSR, and then having to rip it all out. *Shudder*
dejv Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:36 am
I think I’ve already replied to that.
Andre Peretti Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
I think the Chinese are 99% certain to win for plenty of reasons, mainly:
- they bring $10 billion, which nobody else offers,
- their trains are far less expensive,
- they teamed up with GE, a 100% American firm which also has enormous lobbying power.
A Japanese lawsuit would fail as the technology licensed to GE is legally Chinese. The contracts they signed with the Big Four stated they couldn’t export more than 25% of the technology. They claim they respected that clause and, in fact, they did for each separate contract Thus:
25% Alstom+25% Bombardier+25% Kawasaki+25% Siemens=100% Chinese.
Chinese magic, you can’t beat it.
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Well, once a “100% Chinese” train has been in operation for five or more years, no reason why we shouldn’t use “their” technology. But until then, they have a lot of shit to answer for, such as shoddy construction practices (earthquake where entire cities collapse, anyone?) basically non-existent human rights record, etc. Until they get that straightened out AND have a good track record on HSR, I’m firmly against them supplying our trains.
Bobierto Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
I think Andre hits the nail on the head. His first bullet is 90% of the argument – all the opponents who say “where will the private money come from?” will be rendered silent. And the smart people in Washington are looking for ways to suck up to China without it actually costing anything. Obama will be pushing for this behind the scenes, you can be sure. And the Chinese will be sure to make it irresistible so they can then build the systems in Florida, and Illinois, and New England, and Texas, and …
Alon Levy Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:34 pm
China doesn’t have any experience building stuff in constrained urban or mountainous areas. For example, China Railways doesn’t use tilting trains; the Pendolino trains it bought are non-tilting. So New England is out.
The human rights practices don’t really play here. The labor force is going to be local no matter what; only the managers would be Chinese. At most, you’d have Chinese managers exploiting American workers. Call it getting even for the First Transcontinental Railroad.
Bobierto Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 9:38 am
LOL! Great point about the revenge.
They’ll get the urban and mountain experience in California. (Doesn’t the Tibet route count as mountainous?) Then with that experience and the unique pleasure of having learned to negotiate with American labor unions, they’ll be ready to take on the midwest and New England.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 12:10 am
I don’t think the Tibet route involved tunnels under mountain passes or very tight curves. It involved different obstacles, for example tracks at high altitude on permafrost.
dejv Reply:
April 11th, 2010 at 8:17 am
Be careful, actually has a number of mountain railways, the link to Tibet just doesn’t happen to be typical one. They also have pretty recent experience of boring base tunnel through difficult geology.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
April 11th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Too right! The backwards yellow peoples are clearly unable to master the subtle arts of civil and mechanical engineering. Making holes in hills, erecting bridges and fabricating metal structures is the clearly the exclusive province of the western mind alone.
Let the Chinese stick to menial low tech scut work, things like microelectronic design and fabrication.
Toyota is shutting a big assembly plant in Fremont, Calif., that it once operated as a joint venture with General Motors, and one idea under discussion is converting the factory to the assembly of high-speed rail equipment, said Mr. Crane, who is also a member of the state’s Economic Development Commission. Rail parts from China would then come through the nearby port of Oakland, in place of auto parts from Japan. “High-speed rail requires a lot of high technology — we would send many high-end engineers and high-end technicians” to California, Mr. Zheng said
The guys who just got laid off in fremont could get jobs here.
tomh Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
I’d prefer to not use China in this (see my drywall comment above), but that would be great if a European or Japanese HSR company located at NUMMI. And politically it could be a winner to drown out the NIMBYs on the Peninsula. But it’s likely that most of those workers would have already moved on with their lives before an HSR assembly plant is hiring. Also, I’d imagine it would be more ideal to locate the assembly plant (and maintenance plant) somewhere on the HSR line so finished trainsets wouldn’t have to be trucked.
Bobierto Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Not sure how many of those laid off NUMMI workers will have been able to move on with their lives. The pundits seem to think that unemployment will be the most persistent symptom of the Bush Recession (that’s what I’m calling it, has a nice ring to it, I think). And an unintended consequence of American tax policy that encourages home ownership is that homeowners are less willing/able to pick and move to take a job elsewhere, leaving pockets of unemployment and areas of job demand as the economy recovers.
tomh Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Understood, but the day when an HSR train assembly plant is ready to hire workers is still a long way off. The jobs situation will have likely improved by then and/or the laid off workers will have gotten training/education for other jobs. If the jobs situation hasn’t improved by then, God help us.
“Potential Mid-Peninsula Station: Redwood City, Palo Alto [or] Mountain View (New)”
My suggestion: hold a referendum in each community for residenst whether or not they want the station. The community with the highest support wins. Then we’ll see what Palo Alto residents really think…
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:37 am
Yeah but what about people who want to get off the train at one of those stations? I personally am more likely to have a destination in Palo Alto than I am in Redwood City. Barring some sort of massive community uprising that makes the current NIMBY situation look tame, it should be primarily based on ridership estimates.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:45 am
Agreed; Palo Alto would seem the obvious place for it.
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Not to mention the fact that Palo Alto is more or less the midpoint between Millbrae and San José.
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:15 am
And a MAJOR destination, at least where Caltrain riders are concerned.
political_incorrectness Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
I wonder if giving the news media a byte to see what the reaction would be if the rumor was Palo Alto would not get an HSR station. Then it might get the silent majority out to support.
lyqwyd Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
On the other hand Redwood City actually wants the station very badly, and is willing to make massive improvements for it, while all I’ve seen from PA is obstruction.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
April 11th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
You know, in most of the rest of the planet, the places not designed by the subgeniuses of PBQD and Caltrain, they have these things called “stations” and any number of different sorts of trains can stop at them. Big trains, small trains, fast trains, slow trains, red trains, blue trains, all “stopping” at the same “station”. Incredible, inconceivable, astonishing, counter-intuitive, whacky, eye-popping, confounding, but true!
No blue and gold choo choos! Red and white chuff chuffs here only! Go away and make your own station!
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 11th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Shhh, if they did something like that then any Caltrain station could be an HSR station. Can’t risk having the blue and gold trains getting cooties from the red and white trains.
I don’t know why PA would be any more popular than mountain view. I prefer RWC because the station location is not only downtown but more importantly in this case, much closer to the 101. This is important for the central eastbay. While the richmond-oakland and diablo valley passengers will use Millbrae, and the fremont-milpitas-berryessa folks will use SJC, san leandro-hayward-union city folks will use dumbarton bridge to 101 to access hsr. while PA seems closer, the access from the freeway into downtown PA- forget it. just look at your google and see how much closer the 101 is to the rwc location.
also and maybe more importantly, if, in the future, some kind of dumbarton rail does wind up being instituted that would connect the east bay with a new path to the city, that row turns north and connects to the caltrain row AT RWC! thus its the logical place for the dumbarton/hsr/caltraiin/ multi modal.
This document shows various cross sections, and appears to account for FFSS, SFFS, and FSSF scenarios. Note, however, that FFSS is by far the most commonly represented and I only see one reference to FSSF.
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Those are really interesting documents. The ideas for cut-and-cover stations should scare the crap out of Peninsula NIMBYs. For most of those options I don’t see how to maintain Caltrain operations while doing cut-and-cover. Especially since most of the options have HSR directly below Caltrain. If you maintain operations you’d have to widen the ROW dramatically for large sections. If you’re doing that anyway, then just go with at-grade.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:48 am
You assume the hardcore Peninsula NIMBYs care about Caltrain…
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:52 am
Well, I know they don’t. But, assuming Caltrain is still operating (*crosses fingers*), they would not allow their operations to be shut down for months (years?) while tearing up all their infrastructure. Of course, if they do go belly-up, I’m still advocating that Caltrain be replaced with BART service running on standard-gauge infrastructure. That would give CalBART (like the acronym?) the political and funding clout it currently lacks.
look i think this should be a pretty important aspect of station choice.
There is no row between a future dumbarton rail line and PA. By choosing PA you forgo an opportunity to have a caltrain/hsr/d-rail/ intermodal. Now you may say, “well, those future d-rail eastbay folks will use bart to sjc to connect with hsr.” sure they might, but, depending on the eventual layout for future d-rail which could include various incarnation of caltrain/ccjpa/ace/ and what have you, bart to sjc may not be the best choice for all cases. Further, while a bart to sjc-hsr is useful, there is nothing wrong with having another good intermodal station in the bay area. and the junction of row in rwc is tailor made for such a station while a PA hsr station is not. A future d-rail passenger headed for hsr on the peninsula would have to proceed to a d-rail caltrain stop in rwc, then back track on caltrain to PA, and then board hsr. Again, sure they could go to sjc, but why pass up a chance to potentially have a 4 or 5 agency intermodal at rwc when you have that chance.
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
BART to diridon might not be optimal for all cases, but between BART to diridon, the CCs and ACE or the “high speed commuter overlay” version of ACE. I don’t see a lot of people from the east bay taking rail over dunbarton to hop on HSR. Some? Absolutely, but perhaps not enough to make up for the loss in ridership of putting the station in RWC over PA.
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Agreed.
jimsf Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
I don’t see how you would lose any ridership at all by using rwc instead of pa, as rwc is still a lot closer to pa than either san jose air or sfo air. some isnt going to not use it because its a mile further away. meanwhile you pass up a chance for a well located intermodal station at the junction of two rows.
lyqwyd Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
yeah, I don’t see any significant difference in ridership. And as I mentioned above redwood city has plans for growth, both business & TOD housing.
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
“I don’t see how you would lose any ridership at all by using rwc instead of pa,”
Maybe because Palo Alto has almost twice as many boardings today as RWC does?
HSRComingSoon Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Don’t forget, PA would have higher ridership because of Stanford University which is across El Camino from the current and proposed station.
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
I’m not sure how much extra ridership HSR would get from Stanford. Caltrain serves them quite well…
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Caltrain doesn’t go to LA.
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Well, duh, but do you see students commuting to Stanford from LA?
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Stanford also has almost 2000 faculty, not to mention the myriad of businesses around the campus that the college directly and indirectly supports, but yes, students do travel often albeit seasonally. Students who don’t have cars would be even more likely to use trains to go home, visit friends, etc.. I would imagine that Stanford (the college, the faculty, the students, the supporting businesses) would be a huge source of ridership for HSR.
But I think we agree that Palo Alto is still the better place for a station, regardless of much of that ridership you want to attribute to stanford.
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Yes, we can agree on the last part. We are quibbling over irrelevancies. Hehe.
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
“Yes, we can agree on the last part. We are quibbling over irrelevancies. Hehe.”
But that’s what we do on the internet.
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Touche. (Don’t know how to add an accent)
Dan S. Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Stanford’s population seems like an ideal demographic in which to find pro-HSR pro-Caltrain voices. If anyone wanted to start this kind of group to counter the anti-train hype emanating from Palo Alto they could do worse than to start handing out fliers on campus!
Alon Levy Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Not for work, but students and professors travel a lot more than other groups of people. Students visit their parents often and go on vacation multiple times a year; professors hold conferences.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Meh. Stanford isn’t going anywhere, the professors and students will schlep on Caltrain to Redwood City or Mountain View no matter what.
The employers in Silicon Valley could take off for Peoria if th gets too congested ( I can’t imagine it getting too expensive, it already is ) or to Fresno since Fresno will have an HSR station….
Those employers hold conferences, training sessions, sales meetings, their customers and suppliers come to visit. San Jose airport isn’t there to serve Stanford, it’s there to serve business in Silicon Valley.
But then if Caltrain and HSR had compatible platforms making any Caltrain station an HSR station becomes a matter of stopping HSR trains there, maybe hanging out a shingle. Sorta like how long distance trains stopped at Rye and New Brunswick but now stop at Metropark and New Rochelle and could at all four…
Bobierto Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 8:25 pm
Peter – alt-0233.
lyqwyd Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Stanford will have almost zero impact on HSR ridership. Business travel and commuters will make up the vast majority. A few thousand students and faculty traveling a couple times a year will make no dfference, especially since taking Caltrain to the nearest HSR stop will still be far more convenient than getting to the airport, not to mention cheaper.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
The Stanford connection is for inbound travel. Not only is PA a bigger job center than RWC independently of Stanford, but also academic conferences at Stanford would draw large numbers of travelers.
lyqwyd Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 8:09 pm
That’s a good point Alon, I didn’t really think of that.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
There is no row between a future dumbarton rail line and PA
Sure there is, the Caltrain ROW.
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Jim has a point though, in that Redwood City is right at the end of the dumbarton line, whereas routing Dumbarton trains to Palo Alto would require routing them all the way up to Redwood City and then back down via a rather circuitous route.
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 8:52 am
Thank you that was my point. Its a relevant point. So much consternation here about how today’s mistakes will be forever frowned upon when it comes to hsr, unless I point out an obvious one. Suddenly its not a big deal.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 10:01 am
Why would they terminate the train at the first station on the Peninsula? Some of them are going to go all the way to San Francisco, or make a valiant effort to do so. Some of them will go all the way to San Jose or make a valiant effort to do so.
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 10:14 am
let me start over and ‘splain it.
If there is ever a dumbarton service, the way the existing row is laid out, it would provide the option to have whatever agencies use that bridge to run trains from the east bay to sf via that route.. ( ccjpa could run some that way, Ace could use it to run a train to sf, caltrain, whomever, if you put a multimodal with HSR at RWC you give bay area travelers one more option in addition to millbrae and san jose, to make a transfer from any of the other regional trains – to- high speed rail. All im saying is the the configuration of the row begs for a mulitmodal station at that junction and RWC makes sense. Its not absolutely mandatory, but its a good choice, at least as good as PA since it won’t mean any less ridership ( again, pa people aren’t going to suddenly decide to drive past the rwc hsr station, all the way to SFO and fly just because the hsr station is a mile away.)
And while PA may be convenient for standford, rwc may be more convenient for those arriving via the 101, as well as many menlo park, rwc, and even southbound san mateo residents.
suggesting RWC as a good spot for a multi modal interchange is perfectly sensible.
especially when you consider they have been far more supportive, and will be far more receptive to future TOD and other devepment
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 10:43 am
All very true. You wrote that there is no ROW to Palo Alto. There is. The train that toddles across the bridge, assuming they ever build a bridge, will be making all local stops on the Peninsula. The one headed towards San Jose will be stopping at Palo Alto. Why anyone in the East Bay would schlep to the Peninsula when there’s HSR stops in Oakland and Fremont is a better question. …. because before they start building billion dollar bridges across the bay for a few trains a day they will have HSR service between Sacramento and San Jose via Oakland…..
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 10:50 am
because again, if you wanna make a big deal about planning for the future, as so many are so concerend about tbt, then who knows, when the bay population reaches say 10 million, the demand for multiple agencies crossing the bay to a multimode connection may be warranted and all things being equal RWC makes more sense AND THEY AREN”T BEING A PAIN IN THE ASS the way PA is, and PA will contintue to be a pain in the ass no matter the issue. THATS who lives in PA – PAINS in the ass. UPPity whiney sissy white folks. why not do business with sensible blue collar working class folks in RWC instead.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 11:20 am
All very true. You said there was no ROW to Palo Alto. There is. And the train isn’t going to be terminating at the first Peninsula stop.
lyqwyd Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 9:54 am
but why even plan for growth since there will be no room for the trains at the transbay terminal?
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 10:25 am
multi agency potential
RWC allows for a total of 5 bay area locations
fremont
san jose
redwood city
millbrae
4th and king
where there is room for transfers between multiple agencies in one spot to connect.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 10:10 am
Why would someone in Millbrae who wants to go to Fremont get off the train in Redwood City? The train they board in Millbrae would be going to Fremont ( or Stockton )
to overlook the potential for that future, and obvious intermodal location is to showcase exactlyy the kind of bad or lack of transit planning in the bay area that is so often railed against here on this very blog.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Odd, your concern for good design, and your love of BART to SFO and Tranbay.
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 8:56 am
I love bart to sfo because I use it and it works. How often do you use it? I a might remind you that it was the public opinion at the time that if they were going to build bart to sfo, they shouldn’t stop short but go all the way in. I was here. I remember. And if, in the future bart does head down the peninsula, the the airport wye will make a lot of sense, being able to funnel passengers from both north and south into he sfo terminal.
As for transbay. It makes sense because the city is building a new transit hub and there is room in the basement for trains so its a no brainer. Its the opposition to it that has the political bent.
Reality Check Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
@jimsf — on BART into SFO … that was then-Senator Quentin Kopp’s doing. He went ballistic when the original and better plan of ending BART at a multi-modal “One-Stop Terminal” on the Caltrain line directly across from SFO was shaping up to be the preferred alternative. Lou Turpen — the SFO director at that time — had designs for the yet-to-be-built airport-owned and operated free-to-ride 24/7/365 people mover to loop over to serve the One-Stop Terminal off the present-day route between the International Terminal Garage and the Rental Car Center. Anyway Kopp thundered and blustered that he would put an initiative measure on the SF ballot to effectively force BART into SFO. That was Measure I and Supervisor Tom Hsieh, who also sat on the Caltrain JPB at the time, put on a competing measure H — which would effectively preserve and formalize the One-Stop Terminal concept on the Caltrain line. Of course, going into SFO was a great sound bite and far easier to sell (and Kopp was a far, far better salesman than Hsieh, who was soft-spoken and had a strong Chinese accent). Tom’s Measure H was much better policy and operations and cost-wise, but the average voter’s eyes would glaze over before you could ever hope to explain why. So Kopp’s I – For BART Into SFO — won handily. Next … well, it’s a very long and twisty story, but when the low-balled costs on running BART into a station under the short-term parking garage in the middle of the terminal “horseshoe” were budget-bustingly batshit crazy and laughably unaffordable, Kopp put up a great front and acted totally undeterred until he had them come up with the cost-reduced aerial “Kopp memorial” SFO wye design we have today and they were just able to come up with a totally BS accounting of how it would all get paid for with profits … yes, BART/SFO was supposed to generate an operating profit. What it did instead is nearly bankrupt SamTrans and all of its interests (like Caltrain). Oops, well, I guess it did bankrupt them. So BART goes into SFO and to Millbrae pan-galactic more or less due to the then-powerful Senator Kopp who really threw his weight around hard on that. He was powerful and imposing and pushed his agenda through.
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
I get really tired of people making excuses for how people vote. Nobody was tricked. Its a simple question. should bart go into the airport or should you transfer to a people move. of course people with common sense will say, if youre gonna build it for gods sake done stop short” if the resulting desing and costs thereafter were screwed up then that is the fault of the contractors and politicians. But the idea of going all the way in. That made sense and still does.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Says the blue collar guy whose job only exists because of union featherbedding BUT who says he’s going to vote Republican.
That’ll show them! No excuses!
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
again the point being – no was tricked into voting for bart to sfo. no one was tricked into voting for prop 1a, no one was tricked into voting for prop 8 for that matter. Even when the results suck, you can’t argue with the votes cast. Thems the breaks. And for all their yammering about cutting amtrak, weve actually done better during republican reigns in the past. sure they make a fuss, but the money always comes through and we all know it. The bigger issues of sacramento pissing away money on illegals, and welfare, though, well, Id take my chance with meg whitman.
she isn’t going to cut rail transportation. Even republicans secretly know its a must.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 12:12 am
Actually, a lot of people were tricked into believing that if 8 didn’t pass, their children would learn gay sex in school.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Says the blue collar guy whose union job exists because of generous state subsidies.
Dan S. Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Intermodal RWC station does make a good argument. In Japan, if you buy a Shinkansen ticket out of Tokyo you can use it to enter any JR station in the city to make a free connection to your departing HSR station. It’s pretty sweet. If Caltrain goes to platform access gates, we could see the same thing along the Penninsula. Then maybe you don’t have a single seat from PA, but you do have a single ticket, and a quick feeder trip from Caltrain that takes a couple minutes. As long as we’re throwing out hypotheticals!
swing hanger Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Yes to RWC- more room for a station, a friendlier city government, and the aforementioned possibility of the Dumbarton link. About the JR shinkansen ticket, it allows you to ride the shinkansen and make a connection with a local train and get off at any station in the city zone- very convenient.
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
What? The Redwood City right-of-way is extremely constrained, barely able to fit two tracks and their accompanying platforms at the station. This says nothing, however, about the city’s willingness to make room for a station though (and property takes will be required to accommodate the HSR tracks anyway).
swing hanger Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Who says the station has to be exactly at the current location? (which is indeed cramped) I recall there is a large parking lot adjacent to the station (near the pizza and pipes place) as well as a consideably large (and blighted) parcel of land behind the Costco where the dumbarton branch joins the main line and where UP stores some of the Granite Rock gravel hoppers and the odd gondola car.
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
The current downtown location is probably ideal, and the station might be larger than you realize. The platforms have to be 1380′ long, and for two island platforms, you need at least 120′ of width, plus the room required for the tracks to approach the outer edges of the platforms.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
120′? Why?
Joey Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 12:06 am
10′+ row edge to center of 1st track + ~5′ center of T1 to edge of platform + ~30′ platform + ~5′ to center of T2 + 15′ to center of T3 + ~5′ to platform + ~30′ platform + ~5′ to center of T4 + ~10′ to edge of ROW.
Total is ~115′, but 10 feet from the track centerlines to the edge of the right-of-way is a bit conservative, and the distance from the center of the track to the edge of the platform will probably be a bit more than five feet.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 12:32 am
Oh, if the platforms are 30′, then sure, you need 120′. But in a constrained environment, you could get away with much narrower platforms.
Joey Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 12:40 am
How much narrower can you possibly make island platforms, especially since you need some sort of grade-separated access (stairs, escalators, elevators) in the center of each while still having enough room for people to walk on either side. You could conceivably (under exceptional circumstances) get them down to 20′ each, but even then you’re looking at 100′ of width and uncomfortably narrow platforms.
dejv Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 3:46 am
Minimum island platform width in Europe is 20 ft that can be narrowed down to 10.5 ft at plaftorm ends.
Elizabeth Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 7:32 am
The documents show 123- 136 feet Caltrain stations, depending on configuration. (page 31 of http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/images/chsr/20100408094019_Appendix%20C%20Typical%20Cross%20Sections.pdf)
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
But in a constrained environment, you could get away with much narrower platforms.
That works out really well in Penn Station doesn’t it?
Alon Levy Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 12:14 am
I think the E/V platform at Lex is around 15-20 feet. It works fine there. Just put more staircases than NJT puts at Penn and you’ll be fine.
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 8:57 am
exactly my point. exactly.
just look at the junction, it begs for a station
I also think that the more working class redwood city would be likely to embrace the jobs and development -TOD etc, that would come with an intermodal station whereas the Latte sipping nimby’s in PA would not.
I was having an awful day, and then I read this wonderful news that my and my 287 neighboring units at BayCrest Towers and my neighbors at The Watermark no longer have to sweat the “Beale Street Alternative.” Thank you for sharing the good news!!! Alright, now let’s get this thing built …. :)
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Just think 100 years from now foamers will still be talking about the awful station in San Francisco and how a few condo owners stopped something better being built.
tomh Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
How is building an entire underground station perpendicular to TTC (as in the Beale Street option) better than building the station in the TTC basement?
political_incorrectness Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Curve radii into the TBT basement as designed is very tight and the station is limited to six platforms. Moving it to Beale Street would have allowed for double the tracks and less of a curve radii to allow Shinkansen equipment to operate.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
It will have more capacity
BruceMcF Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
The best feasible design for an HSR station in the basement of Transbay would have been superior to any design presently on offer, but that would have required taking seriously the measure passed by the voters of San Francisco a decade ago.
Because of the decision of the TJPA to ignore the mandate to build the TBT station as an HSR terminus, the California HSR system in general and San Francisco in particular is now stuck with an effort to work out how to rescue the hash that the TJPA made of the design of the station.
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
It is theoretically possible to avoid the Watermark (though not easy). The BayCrest Towers would have to go, but not having to split the trains between two terminals would be a big plus.
lyqwyd Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:54 pm
Yay!! A few hundred people get to screw the entire state of California for 50-100 years… whoo hoo!!
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 8:59 am
yes hooray for you guys. the notion of removing ANY kind of existing housing in the city of san francisco was a ridiculous no go to begin with. These people are out of their minds if they think they are gonna pull that kind of disruptive eminent domain in this town. I couldn’t wait to see that fight. lol. please. Now we need to get you those sidewalks!
Kevin Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 9:33 am
Uh-huh. ‘Cause eminent domain is only for other people — those damn NIMBYs who aren’t fortunate enough to be part of the elect living in San Francisco!
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 9:42 am
yes. like it not.
Kopp voted against it at the meeting
Kopp’s tirades against the TBT were actually the only thing interesting that happened at the meeting. HSR was using the Santa Clara County boardroom and they had apparently agreed to be out of there by 1:30 so they more or less had time to hear abbreviated versions of staff reports and then vote yes on whatever matter was at hand.
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
“apparently agreed to be out of there by 1:30 so they more or less had time to hear abbreviated versions of staff reports and then vote yes on whatever matter was at hand.”
Whoops. Nice planning.
Reality Check Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
It would be interesting if those who heard it could summarize Kopp’s Transbay tirades … or we’ll have to wait to see if a podcast of the meeting is made available and then it’s just a simple matter of figuring out what timestamp to que the player to for the Kopp show.
Nadia Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Kopp made some snarky comments around 11:45 AM if that helps once the audio was up. He spoke about the TBT twice – once under the technical element and once after Doty presented the AA and explained that they eliminated Beale St. I don’t remember if 11:45 AM was the first instance or the second.
Interesting that FSSF, SFFS, and FFSS are all apparently under consideration. They’ve also got some split-level alignments – maybe I missed it but they don’t seem to go into any detail about possible operational constraints on caltrain if they did this (or maybe it’s just assumed that caltrain would retain its current passing loops in this scenario).
Could anyone figure out with the “Deep Tunnel (HST Only)” option, was this just assuming Caltrain stays status quo at ground level, or are they factoring in grade seps for Caltrain into the cost?
Peter Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Probably depends on where they were looking at doing that. Where is it and what are the other available options?
Nadia Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
That was my understanding. It is in the matrix on page 10
http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/images/chsr/20100408090045_Agenda%20Item%2011%20SF-SJ%20Preliminary%20Alternatives%20Analysis%20Report.pdf
http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_14847661?source=rss
The Mercury News’ take on the board meeting. Why is it that these things are not labeled as editorials?
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
It looks like a local columnist’s take. She clearly thinks loud train horns and an epidemic of suicides makes for a pleasant community experience that ought to be preserved.
This project isn’t going to be tied up in court for years, much as she might like. The i’s will be dotted and the t’s crossed. The courts won’t save the NIMBYs.
Besides, nowhere does that columnist explain that a tunnel could very well happen if the locals approve a tax to pay for it. I’d be very curious to see if she’s OK with that. Somehow I doubt it.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 8:13 pm
…the horns are quaint…. and idling in traffic at grade crossings does have a certain retro charm…
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 9:05 am
well, to be fair, there is a certain homey ambiance about sitting on your lanai on sunday morning with your coffee, cool morning mist in the air, birds chirping amongst the dew drops and the faint distant train whistle summoning the day. Having lived on the peninsula, much of it is actually like that too. But times change and frankly the majority of property along the tracks is not like that but instead made of of unused warehouses and shoddy falling down back fences and empty rusted 70′s doughboy pools.
Peter Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 9:20 am
That ain’t your grandpappy’s train whistle though. That’s a slightly scaled-down version of an foghorn…
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 9:30 am
Faint and distant? That’s ridiculous. If you’ve ever been near a crossing with 110dB(a) horns going past and bells ringing, you’d spill more than coffee all over your lanai. The Horns are only “faint” about half a mile away, and you can hear them coming down the tracks for miles.
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 9:41 am
Yes I know that, I wasn’t talking about a back yard on the tracks, but deeper into the neighborhood and the post wasn’t that serious. ok? Yes I lived for 10 years in a house that was 30 feet from the sp tracks between two grade crossings, in the days before welded rail, when the charming old school clickety clack would shake the house. Thats said, in the bay area, with its geographic layout ( its like a giant stadium ringed with hills and water in the middle,) indeed on a quiet sunday morning you can here trains in oakland, in sf, you can here bart across the bay as well, and on a quiet sunday morning in the mist you do hear these sounds of the city waking up. and it is indeed quaint.
How many trains per hour does JR manage to operate out of Tokyo Station’s 6 tracks on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen?
Alon Levy Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
JR Central currently operates 10 tph peak, I believe, but it used to operate 13 tph before the recession.
But JR East currently peaks at 12 tph into Tokyo Station with 4 tracks.
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
Well then insufficient capacity my ass!
Alon Levy Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
Tokyo Station’s turnouts minimize conflicts, instead of maximizing them. If it had the throat of TBT, it wouldn’t be able to turn 12 tph on 4 tracks.
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:51 pm
Really? Google Earth tells me that all they have is a double crossover and then one of the tracks splits into three.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
The crossover is located close to the station, which means that the effective single-track sections are short. Eyeballing it, it looks like the crossover is 300 meters out of the platforms. This is nothing like the TBT throat, which forces trains to spend multiple kilometers on single-track bottlenecks at low speed.
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
I wouldn’t count the three track tunnels as a single track bottleneck. And the final curves are only a little more than 300 meters in length, with crossovers between the tracks starting very close to them. It’s not ideal, but it should be workable (with improvements operating 12tbh could be no object). Remember, 10tph only equates to a train movement every 3 minutes (1.5 minutes if you include CalTrain), which should be plenty of time for trains to clear the last part of the station throat, where conflicts are most probable to occur.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
The three-track tunnels are a single-track bottleneck, because each track is on its own, without regular-service crossovers to other tracks. The crossovers planned are only between each of the three tracks and the two station platform tracks.
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:32 pm
Crossovers are planned for the three track section right before the final curve. It appears that there is in fact a double crossover between the two tracks serving the HSR platforms about 400m from the platforms themselves. A train does not necessarily have to be on the the track corresponding to its platform for the entire length of the tunnel.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:36 pm
I thought it was only one emergency turnout, not a regular-service crossover.
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:39 pm
That’s for CalTrain, who, barring the emergency turnout, has a single track section which is at least 600m. All the crossovers I’m talking about are in the straight section, right after the curves (see figure 3 of appendix H). Don’t get me wrong, CalTrain is still very constrained here, but we should be able to fit as many HSR trains as we need into the TBT.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:56 pm
Ah, no, I see… it still doesn’t work too well – the curve constrains speed too much, forcing trains to spend more time in the bottlenecked section.
Joey Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 12:00 am
The ~200m curves aren’t great, but do you think that they could accomodate 9tph?
Alon Levy Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 12:30 am
I’m not sure. They’re a big speed limit – they can’t be superelevated, so even at a high cant deficiency of 150 mm, they’d limit speed to 50 km/h.
lyqwyd Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
according to Wikipedia there are 6 platforms for Tokaido Shinkansen, which would imply 12 tracks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Station#Shinkansen_platforms
Joey Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Platforms in this case correspond to individual tracks (each side of a platform is counted individually). Look on Google Maps if you don’t believe me.
lyqwyd Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Google maps is useless, I looked at satellite and map view and I find it to incomprehensible. Whereas Wikipedia clearly states “The main station consists of 10 island platforms serving 20 tracks” and goes on to say:
Shinkansen platforms
14-19 Tōkaidō Shinkansen
which clearly indicates 6 platforms, and given the above 2 tracks per platform would imply 12 tracks for those 6 platforms. Wikipedia could be wrong, as could my interpretation, but you need to provide more evidence than “look on google maps” before I will accept your statement over Wikipedia.
Joey Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 9:54 pm
What train station you know of numbers platforms rather than tracks?
And here. All of the Shinkansen platforms highlighted in pretty colors. You can follow all of these tracks out of the station where they merge into two mainline tracks, independent of any other tracks (which if you look closely are narrow gauge anyway).
By the way I’ve been there. I didn’t think to count the tracks while I was there but I know that they don’t have that many.
Joey Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
*ahem*
Alon Levy Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 12:16 am
Lyqwyd: forget Wikipedia. Here are the maps of the JR East stations. For more precise track maps at Tokyo, look here.
lyqwyd Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 9:00 am
There we go, I stand corrected: 3 physical platforms, 6 numbered platforms, which definitely means 6 physical Tracks.
So that pretty much proves that 2 platforms can handle ~8 tph of HS trains to me, which IIRC is the peak number of trains projected by CHSRA (assuming they are able to realize japanese levels of quality of service).
I don’t have enough knowledge to comment on the approach from a throughput perspective.
Now this begs the question, if transbay actually has the capacity for HSR, then why is the CHSRA saying it that it can’t and that it needs more platforms at 4th & King (which I believe means another station will have to be eliminated elsewhere)?
The way I see it, either transbay can handle the capacity, or it can’t.
If it can handle the capacity, then the planners are either incompetent, or intentionally building a redundant station. In either case, any determination with regards to Beale being infeasible or less desirable becomes invalid.
If it can’t handle the capacity, that proves that the transbay is severely flawed terminal, which again points to the planners being either incompetent, or intentionally misleading the public (they’ve had many years to figure it out, and this was the best they could come up with).
So I haven’t seen any real indication of why Beale is a worse alternative than transbay, but lots of evidence that the decisions being made are seriously flawed.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
Never been in a station with multiple island platforms have you? There’s the chunk of concrete between tracks. No one except maybe the maintenance people call that chunk of concrete by one name.
If the station map on JR’s site is to be believed, and I suspect they have assured it reasonably accurate, the tracks are numbered
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
20, 21, 22, 23,
14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
14 and 15 share the eighth island
16 and 17 share the ninth island
18 and 19 share the tenth island
http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/stations/img/map_e/e1039.pdf
Joseph E Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:54 pm
Joey, it’s not just the number of tracks and platforms. First of all, you have to share the station between local and HST service (though the current plan is to have two separate stations, 4 platforms for HSR and 2 for Caltrain, with no sharing), then you have to deal with the slow, tight turn into the station. Also, I think Tokyo Station has thru-tracks, while Transbay is a terminal station only, which means trains need to cross tracks to go back the other way. All these things increase the time between trains and limit capacity.
Joey Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Tokyo has no through tracks. The 4 track JR East and 6 track JR Central termini have no connections between them. Curve Radii are indeed a question, as well as sharing the approach tracks with CalTrain, but if JR East can operate 12tph on four tracks, then we should be able to operate at least 9tph (which should be plenty for phase 1) on the same number of tracks.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:41 pm
What happens when phase 2 opens five years after phase 1 opens? Rip out 4 billion dollars of station and tunnel and start over? What happens when the people in Stockton and Sacramento begin asking why they can get to Bakersfield faster than they can to get to San Francisco and find out there’s no place to put more trains and they have to wedge themselves onto BART?
Alon Levy Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
The TBT issue is the least of the worries for the Upper Central Valley. If I were in Stockton I’d be a lot more pissed about Pacheco than about the TBT bottlenecks.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 8:08 am
Pacheco and TTT bottlenecks (well, ultimate physically constrained, not mentally deranged) TTT bolttlenecks) are the same thing.
As you are well aware, line capacity for a through track is far higher than the terminal turnback capacity of one, two or even three tracks.
The huge problem with all-trains-via-Los-Banos-and-end-in-SF is that the line capacity of Central Valley to SF is constrained by turnback capacity in SF alone, and the number of tracks in SF is constrained by idiotic “choice” of the Locally Preferred Alternative at the TTT made by the intellectually challenged who controlled and still determine TJPA “engineering”.
The inevitable result of trying to put too many trains into too small a facility (with the TJPA-engineeed bonus of doing through the eye of a needle with the DTX “design”) — as I was predicting and advertising and warning about on the record at TJPA and at Caltrain a decade ago — is that either HSR or Caltrain gets kicked out of the CALTRAIN downtown extension.
Well, guess who gets shafted! That’s right, the 80% of the passengers on the SF-SJ line who won’t be riding the PBQD Flight Level Zero Airline.
Even completely disregarding eh lower construction cost, lower environmental impact, fewer back yards traversed, lower system cost and high ridership of Dumbarton (all reasons that counted against it in the PBQD-Kopp transportation planning wonder-world), the massive win for train operations and for HSR capacity is that one extremely constrained HSR terminal for the entire Bay Area becomes one very constrained terminal in SF plus one much less constrained station in SJ.
The quite literally insane Caltrain/HSR “plan” of having two terminals in SF, one of which is where nearly all riders do no wish to go, together with the massive and completely unnecessary costs and disruption of quadrupling the entire SF-SJ corridor (including duplicative Bayshore-TTT tunnel$$$$$$ in SF), rather than splitting the terminals into SF and SJ, is one for which the criminals involved ought to burn in hell forever. (The non-existence of God can be such a disappointment sometimes.)
Anyway, if you’re pissed off about TTT stupidity, you ought to be pissed off about Pacheco criminality, because they’re closely tied together, and the same mental midgets cheerlead for them and the same rent-seeking consultants are cleaning up by promoting what they know to be the most expensive and operationally kneecapped “solution”.
Win-win!
Screw SF. Screw SJ. Screw Stockton. Screw all Californian taxpayers. They screw everybody, using their amazing patented PB-PTG Unique American Conditions Ultra Screw(tm) technology.
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 9:18 am
There really is not a problem with having some hsr trains term at 4th. With several trains per hour, at elast a couple of them can term at 4th and those people for whom 4th is a better term anyway, will choose those trains. Why is that so hard to grasp? There will indeed be people for whom 4th is actually a better location that downtown.
4th is good for those people being picked up by friends and family who drive there to pick them up becuase 4this far more freeway and parking friendly.
4th is also more convenient for the tens of thousands and future additional tens of thousands of new residents of the eastern neighborhoods/bayview/mission bat development plans.
4th will also be more convenient via the planned 16th street corridor for the Noe Valley and Mission district residents.
So having some trains term there instead of downtown makes good sense for many people.
Its like this, the phone rings at your home in Bernal Heights, its your friend in Burbank who says “hey, there’s a 9am departure and a 910am departure one says transbay and one says 4th and king, which one should I catch? whats the difference?” “Oh” you respond, ” for gods sake take the 910a to fourth and king cuz I can jump right on the 280 and pick you up without having to drive downtown.”
same goes for people who’s friends are picking them up from the east bay. same goes for valley arrivals coming to town for giants games.
and again, if you knew anything about san francisco, you’d know that the vast majority of new housing and business development will be in the 4th and king catchment area. In fact, even if tbt wasn’t constrained, it would still make sense to term some trains at 4th.
dejv Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 2:48 am
Because wherever is such arrangement used, it sucks badly. Having all trains stop in both stations is totally different story.
I live in city that did similarly stupid thing to SF’s Trasbay – some 120 years ago. Our ancestors decided to merge two stations to one in better (probably the best) location and connect all the lines to this “new” Main station. But…
- they didn’t build the approach tracks to stations to the equal capacity as connecting lines
- minimum radii curves at station troats severely limit speeds of approaching trains
- they didn’t expand station to handle future growth of traffic, so passengers must squeeze through narrow passages
- one line was connected to more crowded south throat with much longer tracks than would be needed to north throat because it would involve tearing down a few houses.
All of that should sound familiar to you. There are two more differences: the station I was talking is located at grade, it was damaged in WWII and subsequently the country was ruled by communists who didn’t exactly mind public opinion on big projects. In spite of all that, we’re stuck with our ancestor’s stupid decisions and the only thing we can do right now is to curse them.
The design you’re advocating right now is way more stupid, because it’s literally cemented by support columns for buildings above it and there is 100 years of extra worldwide experience of what works and what does not work. Yet you’re pushing it and you manage to act as rail advocate. If it really gets built, be prepared to be cursed by your descendants.
For the record, Brno Main Station looked like this in 1906 and it looks like this today.
Joey Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 11:31 am
If the trains are going to be split anyway then maybe the train splitting to San José doesn’t sound so bad.
But would you say that people in Fremont, Pleasanton, Livermore, and Tracy don’t have backyards?
Peter Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 11:39 am
But if you’re already splitting them in SF, do you want to split them to SJ as WELL?
Joey Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
As few splits as possible is ideal.
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 11:35 am
anyone remember the whole altamont overly thingy?
Joey Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 12:02 am
If more capacity than what is available is required in Phase 2 then that is when you might consider building a secondary terminal at 4th and Townsend (or perhaps even resurrecting Beale Street).
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 11:47 am
Its going to be at least 2030 before addtional capacity is needed anyway unless they just plan to run empty trains out of tbt every 5 minutes. A trainset that can carry 500-1000 people deaprting once every 15 minutes and arriving once every 15 minutes, is enough capacity for hsr from the time it opens in 2020 until at least 2030 or more
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
If you need something on the scale of a new train station, in 2031, you have to start planning it now. How long has Caltrain to Transbay been planned? Not that there is going to be anyplace to put additional capacity in 2025 because there’s going to be billion dollar office towers sitting where you’d want to build a station.
jimsf Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
yes thats why theyll have 4th for excess capacity. Its a total of 7 blocks between 4th and tbt, that 7 blocks will be filled in with development. In some cases 4th will be just as close a walk as tbt. In addition to that, further density is going right on top of the 4th corridor from moscone to mission bay. direct access to 4th. In addition to that the rest of the mission bay and eastern waterfront, will also have the easiest access to 4th. So as demand for departing and arriving in the city increases, more of that sf demand will be closer to 4th, than tbt. Between the two, thatll hold things over till 2050 when bart is lready planning a 4 track tube at which point they can connect it from tbt/mission or the cn connect via townsend. Plenty of time, plenty of options.
Id rather see hsr in socal use the 405 and serve long beach but we don’t always get exactly what we want.
Joey Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
That’s more convenient for a couple of SF neighborhoods stacked up against transit connections to virtually the entire Bay Area…
lyqwyd Reply:
April 11th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
First, I don’t believe that 4th & King is more desirable than a location that’s closer to downtown. But if it is, then lets drop TBT altogether and save $4 billion.
Second, even under your best projections, the 2 station solution is obsolete only 30 years after completion. And that doesn’t even include support for a possible Dumbarton rail bridge. Whereas with 10-12 platforms & more room to grow, Beale can handle any foreseeable growth in rail transit
swing hanger Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:03 pm
Tokyo Station is a terminal for both the Tokaido Shinkansen and the Tohoku/Joetsu/Nagano Shinkansen, there are no through tracks. Capacity is maximized by quick turnarounds (16 car trains are cleaned by staff in about 10 minutes, aided by motors that automatically turn the seats in the direction of travel. Station dwell times are thus minimized, and trains spend most of their time running and earning revenue during the services they are diagrammed for.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 8:11 am
The towering intellectual giants of the CSHRA plan to park their (well, purchased by you and me, but profiting them) multi-million-dollar trains for at least half an hour at the end of every little trip, and do so inside a station on a track that alone cost several hundred million dollars (paid for by you and me, but profiting them) to excavate and build.
You’d almost thing that economics is entirely beside the point, wouldn’t you?
Maximize capital cost and maximize operating cost! Win-win synergy!
lyqwyd Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
It’s not 6 tracks but 6 platforms (12 tracks)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Station#Shinkansen_platforms
Joey Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 6:40 pm
JR Central has 6 platform tracks coming from the south and JR East has 4 platform tracks coming from the north. Each are operated as separate terminals as there are no track connections between them.
lyqwyd Reply:
April 11th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
yes, I misunderstood the entry, thanks for the correction.
corntrollio Reply:
April 12th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
I made this comparison between Shinkansen’s Tokaido and CA HSR in Transbay, a while ago, on another site. I’ll repost here:
Btw, I should also add that for Tokaido Shinkansen (i.e. the line between Tokyo and Osaka), there are only 6 tracks for Tokaido at the Tokyo station and only 3.5 at the Osaka station (3 dedicated to Tokaido, one shared with another Shinkansen line). Note that Tokaido runs on a 2 track “throat” at Tokyo. Tokaido runs 11 tph from Tokyo during peak hours (the overall two-track Tokaido line allows 15 tph). There are no tail tracks at Tokyo for Tokaido, and Tokyo functions as a true terminus with the rail depot off of the mainline a little ways from the station.
In comparison, Transbay would have 6 tracks, 4 of which are dedicated to HSR, along with tail tracks. The downtown extension from 4th and King has a 3-track throat. And Kopp is suggesting that the design specs need to allow 12 tph. The rail depot would be similar, being at 4th and King.
A few thoughts:
1) So, Transbay has roughly the same throat as Tokyo (since Caltrain takes up 1/3 of the station), 2 fewer tracks, but has the added bonus of tail tracks. The tail tracks should theoretically help you increase throughput to compensate partially for the fewer tracks.
2) I don’t understand why CA HSR assumes that trains will sit at stations for extended periods of time. That seems particularly wasteful of a limited resource — trains don’t make money sitting at stations!
3) It also would make sense to create a loop as mentioned above, which could increase throughput and could probably achieve 12 tph without needing more than 4 tracks at Transbay. You’ll need the loop anyway if there is ever true HSR transbay service to Oakland (and Sacramento).
4) Why can’t you dig out 2 more tracks/1 more island platform under Transbay if you really need more than 4 tracks? Couldn’t you make Transbay a 2-level train station, with 2 HSR + 2 Caltrain tracks on one level, and 4 HSR tracks on the second?
corntrollio Reply:
April 12th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
Btw, I should add that they considered a 12 track 2-level train box for Transbay, but rejected it because of a much higher cost. If 12 tracks were really a priority, this could be done now for cheaper than it could be done later. Kopp’s reviving of Trans-Beale Terminal (when it had already been rejected in 1994 for Caltrain’s DTX) was always a red herring — all a political ploy that wasted everyone’s time.
Didn’t Eurotunnel traffic double or something when they moved to a better station locale?
Alon Levy Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
What do you mean “better station locale”? Both Waterloo and St. Pancras are in the center of London with good transit connections to the rest of the city. Traffic increased after HS1 opened and cut travel time from 3:00 to 2:15, but it didn’t double; it rose 13% between 2007, when HS1 opened, and 2009.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 8:17 am
St Pancras is in fact significantly worse situated than Waterloo for connections to the largest Eurostar market and the largest London regional population density, which is the stockbroker belt of the south.
As Alon said, this disadvantage is partially compensated for by the shorter on-Eurostar train trip time, but all things being equal — which wasn’t physically, economically or politically feasible — a Eurostar station at Waterloo would attract significantly more traffic than one near St P/KX/Euston. Connections matter! (Except in California.)
Elizabeth Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 8:43 am
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/St+Pancras+International+lures+more+than+2m+passengers+to+Eurostar-a01611522687
Alon Levy Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 12:30 am
St. Pancras didn’t lure 2 million passengers to Eurostar. For a start, the year on year increase between 2007 and 2008 was 10.3%, and the year on year increase between 2008 and 2009 was 1.2%. The total increase was about a million annual passengers.
But it doesn’t matter because nearly half of Chunnel passenger traffic is not on Eurostar but on the shuttles, which have been in decline since 1998. Including all traffic, the Chunnel has yet to regain the passenger volumes it got in the late 1990s.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 10:12 am
Didn’t they also have a station in the southern suburbs when the trains went to Waterloo? ….the NIMBYs got what they wanted, the awful electric trains carrying those furriners don’t go through their neighborhood. My heart bleeds…
I won’t be around for it, but my heart bleeds that the business center of the Bay Area will shift to Oakland and it’s easy access to the rest of the state… when Phase 3 or 4 is built and there’s HSR service between Sacramento and San Jose via the well connected intermodal station in downtown Oakland.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 11:24 am
Good God. Or Good Google. Or something. Please try, at least.
You know, absolutely nothing would be better for the environment and economy of the Bay Area.
You make it sound as if there is or could be or would be anything at all negative about this.
Oakland has every possible geographical and logistical advantage. If I’d made excess tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in the dot-com run-ups I’d have lost it all by investing in downtown Oakland real estate. (And no, I don’t live on that side of the BART tube.)
Bring it on!
Sadly, I can promise to — I’ll match any dollar bet you care to name — that a Flight Level Zero Airline terminal in Oakland isn’t going to effect this change.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Good God. Or Good Google. Or something. Please try, at least.
I vaguely remember that the good burghers of suburban London screwed themselves over realllly well. I don’t care one way or the other because I’m never going to be living in the southern suburbs of London. If I ever visit I’ll be on a local train. If you don’t want to take the opportunity to rant about your second favorite railroad planners, again, oh well.
You make it sound as if there is or could be or would be anything at all negative about this.
I can’t think of any. The San Franciscans of 2075 might be a bit concerned about it.
Everyone thought Commodore Vanderbilt was out of his mind when he bought all that land way way way up in the farmland of 42nd Street. He built a nice depot and it got used. Some nice slums grew up around the tracks, what with all the noise, cinders and steam. It was a PITA to commute from offices all the way down on Wall Street so there has a bit of development around the station since the last rebuild.
Sadly, I can promise to — I’ll match any dollar bet you care to name — that a Flight Level Zero Airline terminal in Oakland isn’t going to effect this change.
Station, one that’s serving people at decent speeds on a line between San Jose, Sacramento and intermediate points. Throw in sevice to suburban points in the Bay Area. Don’t need HSR at the station to effect it but when, not if, they build a big station in Oakland there’s no reason why HSR trains couldn’t go there. I’m assuming they will ignore the specialness that the palm trees lend to California and do something sensible like use the same platform heights, loading gauges etc. When it’s a fast train ride to Petaluma or Davis putting an office in Oakland becomes much more attractive than the slow bus ride to San Francisco.
I’d have lost it all by investing in downtown Oakland real estate.
Neither of us is going to live long enough to make a killing. When I look out the window of the BART train passing through West Oakland all I can think about is all the money people are going to make when it gentrifies and it will… someday. Nice spacious station in downtown Oakland that has 45 minute or an hour service to Santa Rosa is going to make living in Sebastopol and commuting to Oakland look very very good.
…. but it wouldn’t be BART so people in the Bay Area will never consider it…. Much better to engage in fantasies of taking BART all the way to Stockton or San Jose….
Alon Levy Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 12:37 am
Your mentioning Grand Central goes back to a pet peeve of mine… at the time Vanderbilt built a station at 42nd, New York’s population was growing at about 4-5% a year. Midtown, which was the rapidly suburbanizing northern edge of the city, was growing much faster. The economics of building a greenfield station in an urban area that grows this fast is completely different from the economics of building a greenfield station in an urban area that doesn’t grow at 4-5% per decade.
It’s the same deal with every other transit line that American cities build hoping it will stimulate infill development like the Flushing Line (which was built at a time when Queens was doubling its population every decade). You’re not going to get any traction from your shiny infrastructure in a city with 0.5% annual growth.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 11:05 am
What’s the annual growth rate of San Francisco where they are building shiny new infrastructure?
Alon Levy Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
I’ll be surprised if it’s more than 1-1.5%.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
so then the 4 billion or so they are spending is pointless because because their growth rate is too low?
Oakland isn’t going to be a struggling city forever. There’s wide swaths of other large Northe American metro areas that are reviving quite strongly – who woulda thought Harlem would ever have high real estate prices or that the Lower East Side would be fashionable…or that there would be office towers in Jersey City or Long Island City?
Make it difficult to get to San Francisco people are going to start looking for other places to have a nice urban experience. One where their suburban workers can get to work easily.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 6:36 pm
No, but spending billions on infrastructure to nowhere would be pointless. Putting the metro area’s big terminal in Oakland would qualify. (Jersey City and LIC have never been nowhere – they’ve been important secondary downtowns since the late 19th century, and are just seeing renewed growth.)
The entire point of TBT is to get people to the existing CBD, instead of to a future one.
Elizabeth Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
To be precise, the point of the TBT is to get people to a very carefully planned extension of the CBD. It seems likely to succeed, just like San Francisco managed to create a financial district around embarcardero Bart.
Are there other cities along the route with such single mindedness?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Where are they going to build it?
The TBT gets people from the Peninsula to the CBD. There’s more to life than the Peninsula.
Oakland is not “nowhere” It’s been an important CBD since the Gold Rush. Home to Fortune 50 companies and a major league sports team. One of it’s suburbs has a world class university, you may have heard of UC Berkeley. If you dropped it and it’s suburbs on I-90 it would be the most important city between Seatle and Chicago.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 10th, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Oakland’s CBD is nowhere. The East Bay’s employment base is actually in decline, whereas San Francisco’s and Silicon Valley’s are gaining. Oakland has a respectable secondary downtown, and that’s not nothing, but it shouldn’t count for placing train stations. Drop Brooklyn on I-90 and it’ll be the most important city west of Chicago, ahead of Seattle; it still isn’t where Amtrak should be hoping to place New York’s train station.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 11th, 2010 at 12:23 am
Who said anything about having a single station for the whole Bay Area?
Someday they will upgrade the route the Capitol Corridor trains use. There will be a stop in Oakland. Icky old Oakland is a destination. I know this concept may be astounding but people who live in icky old Oakland occassionally get the urge to leave! And even more amazingly there’s suburbs of Oakland where people who want to leave the area might be inclined to use a station in Oakland. Or here’s a concept the train that passes through Oakland will be stopping at places, I know this is hard to beleive, that aren’t well served by BART where people who want to go to other places the train stops, like Oakland or Los Angeles, might be inclined to get on the train there instead of traveling the amazing and compelling Transbay Terminal or changing trains in the eqaully fantastic Pan Galatic in San Jose. I’m sure they will deeply regret not going to the 9th Wonder of the World that Transbay or being able to actually walk around on the platforms at the Pan Galatic but will make the sacrifice to save some time. Miss a ride on BART, the alpha and omega of Bay Area transportation too … they’ll get over it.
It would be really inconvienent to have Amtrak’s only station in New York City in Brooklyn. It would be really inconvienent to have Amtrak’s only station in metro New York in Penn Station, which is why Amtrak makes other stops in metro New York. The people planning California’s HSR system seem to have a grasp of that concept as evidenced by the way they are planning more than one stop in metro Los Angeles and metro San Francisco.
Having Amtrak’s Brooklyn Station in Brooklyn would probably be very very convienent for people who live or work in Brooklyn. Extend it all the way out to Jamaica and it would be very very convienent for people who live in Queens, eastern Queens anyway… they could, I know this is an even more radical idea, extend the train all the way to Mineola and people who live in Nassau County could get on the Amtrak train in Nassau! They all miss the extraordinary delight of changing trains in Manhattan but I have a feeling they would make the sacrifice. North River tunnels reach capacity again sometime between 2030 and 2040. Tunnel from the end of the old PRR ROW in Jersey City to the LIRR Terminal in Brooklyn might be just the thing. Means Amtrak, NJTransit and the LIRR could have a stop at Fulton Transit Center. It’s right under Wall Street, which even though it’s not the employment center it once was, will be a popular destination for a very long time.
YesonHSR Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
You have got to be the Cookoo
from TRAC…really you must be!!
Richard Tomolach???