The First High Speed Rail Station Breaks Ground
In San Francisco today, a group of top local and national political leaders gathered to break ground on the new Transbay Terminal – the first high speed rail station in California, and potentially the country (depending on whether you define the Acela as “high speed rail” or not).
Photo from Congressman George Miller
(From L to R: Willie Brown, John Burton, Maria Ayerdi-Kaplan (TJPA), George Miller, Gavin Newsom, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Ray LaHood, Barbara Boxer, Curt Pringle, Nathaniel Ford (Muni) and David Crane (CHSRA board))
The California High Speed Rail Authority collected some of the remarks via their Twitter account, @CaHSRA:
“We’re finally going to have high speed rail here in California” -SF Mayor Gavin Newsom
“The Transbay Transit Center is a bullet train for job creation” -Senator Barbara Boxer
“CA got the most HSR funding because you all have your act together” -USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood
“We need to get into the HSR business in America and there’s one way to do it: make the investment.” -LaHood
“Transbay will boost the dream of HSR in CA and across America.” -Speaker Nancy Pelosi
The CHSRA put out a press release with this quote from Chairman Curt Pringle (who probably can’t wait to have a groundbreaking in his own city of Anaheim for the ARTIC project):
“We are all committed to building a world-class high-speed rail system and this groundbreaking signals another step in the process of making that system a reality. We’re pleased that the Transbay Joint Powers Authority has made the future development of a high-speed rail system a centerpiece of its planning for this multi-model transit center. Projects like these if done right have the potential to truly transform a city and reinvent the way Californians travel – making it faster, cheaper, more convenient and better for the environment,” said Authority Chairman Curt Pringle.
There were times in the last year or two that this day didn’t look like it’d ever come. Sure, there was always going to be a new Transbay Terminal, but the CHSRA and the Transbay Joint Powers Authority were squabbling over the details of where the station should be located. However, Attorney General Jerry Brown, Speaker Pelosi and Senators Boxer and Dianne Feinstein intervened to ensure that the existing TJPA project went ahead as the SF terminus for the HSR project and that the all-important “train box” was funded with $400 million in federal high speed rail stimulus money.
It’s good to see the HSR project breaking ground. We’ve got a long way to go, obviously, but we’ve gotta start somewhere. And here on August 11, 2010, we did.
Needless to say, this should be seen as another blow to the HSR critics and opponents on the Peninsula. As SF Supervisor David Chiu (likely SF’s next mayor, after Gavin Newsom is elected Lt. Governor this November) said at last week’s CHSRA board meeting, anyone who thinks that SF is going to let the Peninsula cut off the HSR project in San José is crazy. With HSR playing a key role in the multibillion-dollar Transbay Terminal project that is now officially under way, it seems even less likely than ever that the Peninsula can avoid HSR. Since clear majorities of Peninsula residents support HSR, despite what some city councils claim, that’s an outcome that will make most Peninsula residents very pleased indeed.
Good, I guess, but I hate groundbreakings. They should start doing publicity stunts like this for operations and maybe it might encourage politicians to make an effort to save bus and train service.
Spokker Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Here’s the plan. Find some money for Caltrain to avoid severe cuts and Diridon gets to pose next to the trains and we’ll run it in all the newspapers saying he is a hero and has a big and mighty penis.
It’s really hard to feel good about this as Caltrain is facing going back to only rush hour service.
Amanda in the South Bay Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Yeah, which is why I’ve cut back on my train pr0n as of late. Its just too depressing to fathom the kind of cutbacks that Caltrain is facing, and people going off in heated debates about technical details for a system that hasn’t even been built yet.
I guess I always thought things would turn out the opposite-its pretty damn obvious (to my small mind at any rate) that the same Peninsula NIMBYs who hate HSR would also like to see Caltrain gone, and I’d have bet dollars to dougnuts that HSR was going to get its axe chopping moment before Caltrain.
jimsf Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
I wouldn’t worry too much about caltrain. They are going to be fine.
Matthew Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 10:28 pm
not if people don’t worry about it.
Ted Crocker Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:18 am
Amanda, I know alot of “NIMBYs” (more like UMBY’s – Under My Back Yard) and I’ve got to tell you I don’t know any that want to see Caltrain gone, not even in exchange for BART. Given a choice, they’d take Caltrain over HSR any day because it serves local commuters, and truly reduces the number of cars on 101 between SF and SJ. In addition, most that I know have been advocating for interoperability. Unfortunately, Caltrain seems to be its own worst enemy, that and the lack of a direct funding source.
Peter Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 8:49 am
Well, the Stone Pine Lane Gang all seem to want all rail service GONE.
Amanda in the South Bay Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
I guess at this point I don’t give a rats ass about HSR, I just want Caltrain to stay at its current, minimum level of service.
YesonHSR Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
Caltrian funding is the 3 counties problem not HSRs Is it not Samtrans that did the most damage with the funding cutback? the state about 14 years ago thru this baby into our laps without a dedicated funding source ..that still needs addressed and HSR will build the infrastructure that will make Cal train less costly to run it will always be the three counties responsibility for funding a level of service that people really want.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:26 am
But Caltrain’s own electrification EIR says its operating expenses and operating deficit after it electrifies.
Got it? That’s what the highly skilled and highly trained professionals at the promoting agency and the world class rail planning professional consultants at PTG (the same people responsible for the astonishingly competent, high capacity, high throughput, flexible, value engineered and attractive Transbay rail fisaco) claim.
How can they even manage such a bizarre outcome? Because Caltrain’s highly professional and extremely motivated world class planning staff seek to run an FRA freight-style olde tyme commuter railroad forever, but with the extra expense of US-designed overbuilt, maintenance-intensive and failure-prone overhead. Win-win world class synergy! Higher capital cost, higher maintenance cost, and almost certainly lower reliability.
(Nobody — nobody!! — erects failure prone headspans rather than single poles or portals any more … except for every single design or drawing that has ever come out of CHSRA and Caltrain, World class!)
Bay Area transportation capital “investments”: the gift that keeps on giving.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
I’m not at all happy about Caltrain’s problems, have written before about them, and strongly support new funding solutions to prevent the operational cuts.
Peter Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 10:44 am
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/12/BAOT1ESMO9.DTL
Maybe some of that money should be shifted from BART to Caltrain…
synonymouse Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Money shifted from BART? lol
You are evidently not familiar with the Bay Area food chain.
Peter Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:15 am
You’re missing my nuance. Get the irony?
“Should”, not “will”.
Was beginning to think we would never see the day. This is truly a monumental moment, representing the begin of the construction of HSR in CA.
Spokker Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
No offense, but this is one small part of the HSR system. This is also a bus terminal and it very well could be a bus terminal forever if we are not careful.
This does not under any circumstances mean that the HSR system is under construction.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
From the point of view of many people in the East Bay, North Bay and places like Sacramento it will always be a bus terminal because they are never going to have train service to San Francisco.
wu ming Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 8:09 pm
after phase 2 is built, sac will have direct HSR service to SF. the east bay has direct BART connections to SF. it is true that the people in the north bay would have to take a ferry or drive to get to the transbay terminal, although they’ll be able to take the train to the ferry landing.
but all of this is silly, since people in the east bay, north bay (sac a bit less so) would not just use the transbay terminal for trips to SF, but perhaps moreso as a way to leave the bay area for destinations south.
Reality Check Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 11:24 pm
“after phase 2 is built, sac will have direct HSR service to SF …”
Hey, thanks to the HSRA’s bone-headed Pacheco route fix, you’ll be enjoying that phase 2 “direct” HSR trip from Sacramento to SF via a 284-mile dogleg route via Chowchilla, Los Banos and Gilroy. (vs. ~160 via Altamont, ~88 miles over the road and ~75 miles air-line).
Joey Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
Yeah, that’s probably one of the biggest Drawbacks of Pacheco. The 2 hour time currently planned is about on par with taking Amtrak from downtown SF (either by bus or BART to richmond). Amazingly, Altamont would have offered 1 hour service, however circuitous the route may seem.
Reality Check Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:20 am
You’re assessment of Pacheco flaws doesn’t include needlessly pumping up system miles, needlessly congesting SF/TTT, creating the PAMPA NIMBY shit-storm, not serving the zillions who would be served sooner/better/faster by HSR in the hyper-congested and sprawly I-580/Altamont corridor? Oh, there’s so much more … but it’s all been said before, during and after the HSRA “chose” the SJ/Diridonista-mafia’s “pick Pacheco or we kill this puppy and the project too” offer they couldn’t refuse.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:32 am
I said ONE of the biggest flaws. Certainly not the only flaw. I could go through the list, but as you said, it’s all been said before (and Pacheco does have a couple of advantages but not enough to make it superior by any means).
P.S. how does Pacheco congest the TTT?
Caelestor Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:31 am
The idea is that Altamont would send about 60% of the trains to SF and the other 40% of the trains to SJ, easing up congestion in the absurd bottleneck before the terminal. I think RM also proposed that there would be no need to quad-track the Caltrain corridor either (except at Hillsdale).
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:37 am
RM’s maps show eventual quad tracking all the way from Redwood Junction to Bayshore, with a short two track section at San Mateo.
Caelestor Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Yeah I saw it. My bad.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
It’s easier to quad-track after trains start running than before, because then people would see that the system is useful, and hear that the trains are not very noisy.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Far more expensive to do it once the two tracks are in. Unless you leave a nice wide empty space in the middle.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Who said that the new tracks would have to be between the existing ones?
Also, it would make far more sense to upgrade and quad track the corridor in segments to speed things up rather than upgrade it all but not quad track.
Caelestor Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:35 am
Why anybody is even considering Sac-Bay Area service via Pacheco is beyond me. You’re better off upgrading the CC to 125 mph at this point.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:42 am
Yeah, though in truth, Altamont probably would have provided faster Bay Area-Sacramento service than the CC ever could, at least in its current form.
wu ming Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:02 am
it makes more sense from sac-SJ. the killer app of CAHSR from a sac perspective will be the central valley/LA route, no doubt about that. i suspect that a decade or two after the sac extension is all built-out, that an altamont cut will be added to the network, as a way to speed sac-SF times and serve the 580 corridor a bit better. it’s not crucial, though, probably before redding but after the leg to las vegas.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 1:49 am
Why this fixation with Altamont? The concert that traumatizing for California? There’s a shorter route to San Francisco, the one the Capitol Corridor trains use to get to Oakland just a short distance from San Francisco.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:29 am
$10 billion of public “investment” in UPRR’s freight line to Sacramento later, and perhaps trains might run more slowly, far less reliably, and at most half as often than via Altamont.
But feel free to ignore on the ground reality. It looks like a straight line on a map, so it must be easier!
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Not only does it look like a straight line on the terrain maps it’s flat. No pesky tunnels to build. MOre or less parallels I-80 and whatever preceded I-80. According to the California High Speed site it’s going to take 20 minutes to get from Sacramento to Stockton and 20 minutes to get from Palo Alto to San Francisco. Assuming they build a billion dollar bridge at Dumbarton for trains how long will it take to get from Stockton to Palo Alto? How many billions of dollars of tunnel under the pass?
All kinda moot because they are never gonna build the bridge and there’s never going to be place to bring trains in from Oakland. They’ll get on a bus in Oakland.
Peter Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Yeah, it parallels I-80 beginning just south of Fairfield. Between that and Oakland, though, is a single-track bridge, and miles of twistiness along the shore.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Peter – the bridge is double tracked, the last time I checked. But yeah, the route along the shore is twisty and circuitous.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
There is going to be a new 4 track tube per BARt in 2050. Its their next big thing once the OAC and the SJX is complete.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
The benicia rail bridge is slated for replacement by the way. It is no longer safe.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
I thought their next big thing was Livermore…
Alon Levy Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:30 pm
If Sacramento, Stockton, and Modesto didn’t exist, Pacheco would be better than Altamont for connecting LA and SF. If instead LA, Bakersfield, and Fresno didn’t exist, then the I-80 route would be better than Altamont for connecting SF and Sacramento. In the real world, where all of those cities exist, Altamont is better than both because it connects LA, SF, and Sacramento with minimum trackage and, yes, minimum tunneling.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Jim, where are the trains going to go once they come ashore in San Francisco. . .
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
The ccjpa is not designed to get people from sac to sjc primarily, its designed to be an i-80 corridor service serving rno-tru-cox-arn-rsv-sac-dav-[vac]-sui-mtz-[her]-ric-bky-emy-okj-oak-hay-fmt-gac-sjc
This is a corridor in its own right that has nothing to do with the (very legitimate) needs of the -580/680 corridors. ccjpa was designed to do just what it is doing, it wasn’t just thrown in there to benefit UP. Considering that it was formed and in just a matter of years, took off as a huge rail success story in a state where skeptics said rail could never succeed, clearly justifies its continued existence and improvement.
Altamont should be address as well, but that’s an entirely different animal.
wu ming Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:59 am
i know, that why i was in favor of altamont, back when it was still up for debate. now that they chose pacheco, my concern is *getting the damn thing built* so that i can a) make it down to socal to see my grandmother and high school friends in 2 hours, instead of the current tortuous choice of a 7-8 hour drive down the increasingly congested valley, or a major headache plane flight+rental car on the other side; and b) so i can ride to my best friend’s house in san jose from sac in a fraction of the time it takes now on either capitol corridor or car.
it is true that an improved capitol corridor will end up the quickest way to get to the bay area from sac (even moreso from davis, where i am), but the false assertion i was shooting down is that there would be no sac-SF direct HSR links, not that it was better than in an alternate universe where altamont was chosen over pacheco.
getting HSR built but not totally ideal for my region is still a hell of a lot better for me than not built at all while peninsula NIMBYs crying crocodile tears over inland regions they otherwise wouldn’t give the time of day to endlessly debate an imaginary best out of all possible HSR worlds.
Kathy Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 9:46 am
My main concern is getting the darn thing built too… I live in the LA area and go up to the bay area often. The (minimum) 5 hour trip to san jose is less than pleasant, and ends with a waste of 5 hours doing nothing but watch the backs of other vehicles (at least on a train you can read a book or take a nap) an empty tank of gas and very little energy to do anything when I get there. I’m planning on moving up there soon so it would be nice to know I’d have an easier way to get back down here to visit family without a car’s worth of gas and emissions to transport one person =)
YesonHSR Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
The East Bay ,SAC will not have train service? They have the entire inner-city service at this point called Amtrak.. Now they will no what the city has felt like all these years when we have to take bus across the bay to actually ride an intercity train..and they have the Bart from a large amount of points to get to the new HSR system
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
And you are still going to have to get on a bus to get to Sacramento. Or Santa Rosa. Or Stockton. I realize the bright lights and bustle of San Jose it alluring but there are other places in California where Californians, even San Franciscans, want to go besides San Jose.
YesonHSR Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Yes like HSR to Los Angeles and San Diego..I will take the Caltrain to SanJose and the Capitals viv a Ambus when going to Sacramento…
Joey Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 9:57 pm
So you’ll add 2.5 hours to your journey time just to avoid getting on a bus to go across the bay?
(you can also take BART to Richmond, just so you know).
YesonHSR Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 10:14 pm
YESS…I know..have done it…and when I was speaking about the Capitals via a bus I was speaking of starting here in the City at the Embaradero Amtrak..
RubberToe Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 9:56 am
Aren’t you forgetting the SMART train to points North? Just a ferry ride to Larkspur, no bus required. You can even grab a couple oysters at Hog Island in the ferry building to sustain you for the trip.
Peter Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 10:22 am
Bids for the railcars for SMART went in yesterday, in fact.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
There aren’t any ferry docks at Transbay. So to get from Petaluma to SFO you take a train to Larkspur, get on a ferry, walk or take the bus to either BART or Transbay to take a train to SFO.
Peter Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Oh dear, a 5 minute walk. Can we handle it?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
They’ll get on the airport shuttle bus, which will be running forever because there’s no reasonalbe way to get to SFO other than driving from the north, and transfer to HSR at SFO.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
That’s ridiculous. besides, there is a whole other plan from WETA going in soon, which is going to create a network of ferry service, not just from SF but to and from various points around the bay. It would be simple as peach pie to run a ferry from larkspur to sf-sfo and oak airports once per hour. They already intend to put ferry service as far away as Benicia and Martinez, and Hercules, as well as Oyster point and Redwood city, perhaps even the lower eastbay, newark/union city up to mission bay.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
If it’s outdoors, then the answer is no, most people won’t handle it, especially if they’re intercity travelers and not commuters. Walking from one platform to another incurs a large transfer penalty (a factor of 1.75 according to the New York MTA) for commuters and an even larger one for people with luggage.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
from transbay you take the #80 remember?
James Leno Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
Technically, it may not be the beginning of HSR, but as I understand it, the new terminal must, by law, be compatible with the new HSR system.
Joey Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Well, yes, since they are getting ARRA money to fund the trainbox.
Spokker Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
In 2020 perhaps you can take Muni Metro and if you ask nicely, they’ll let you visit the trainbox.
nobody important Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Don’t be a negative nancy.
YesonHSR Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 10:25 pm
What is with all the negative vib on this board about what is at least a postive news item?? Yes TBT is not perfect and in fact I thought 4th and King would work more than Ok ..But that is not what many want and unlike the sourpuss TRAC/TRANDEF types that would stop anything about HSR just because it did not turn out just as THEY planned I am hoping we get things moving..ok goodnight
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
^Thank you hello!!!
YesonHSR Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
Yes that would be the track laying between Fresno and Bakersfield that really is the first high speed section..!!! And that’s next!!!
The next-to-last person in the picture, next to Curt Pringle, is Nathaniel Ford, CEO of Muni. I can’t identify the last person.
Nadia Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
The last one kind of looks like CAHSRA BOD member David Krane – but I wasn’t there and it is hard to tell….
Reality Check Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 10:54 pm
Yup, it does look like HSRA board member David Crane (with a ‘C’).
This is a great day for San Francisco. Breaking ground on what will be a new landmark and mixed use master planned neighborhood including much needed park space. This will integrate into the Eastern Neighborhoods plan and Western SoMa plan and will including a complete revamp of Folsom into a two way retail and residential corridor with improved transit smack in the middle of my neighborhood. Of course it will all be years more in the making but this is the foundation. ( oh plus I’ll have a nice new place to work just 7 blocks from my apt. sweet!) And the project has remained basically on schedule and budget, something the skeptics of large projects should note.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Breaking ground on what will be a new landmark
I’m sure transit planners will be talking about it for the next few centuries. In their discussions about realllllly realllllly bad planning. A landmark in bad planning.
And the project has remained basically on schedule and budget
It’s very easy to remain on schedule and on budget before they actually have to do any construction.
jimsf Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Well lucky for you, you don’t live here, won’t have to look at it and won’t have to use it. Its not for you, its for us. But thanks for weighing in.
Joey Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
Jim, some of us do live here and are thoroughly dissatisfied with the lackluster job planners have done about getting the technical issues hammered out.
jimsf Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
I think what we have is a lot of monday morning quarterbacks with opinions. I don’t think the problems are significant enough that most of the public will even notice. these are the kinds of issues that those of us who have time to sit around an hand wring over every detail, worry about. Nobday outside the blogosphere is worried about technical perfection, they just want a nice place to wait for the bus and train with lots of nice amenities in a good location. and thats what they’ll get. Further, I’m not convinced that the so called “problems” are a big deal, they are only big deal in the fantasy ” i like my way ideas best” world of all of us who have an opinion. In the real world it will be what it is and everything will be fine.
Joey Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Oh, they’ll notice. They’ll notice the earsplitting screeches when trains turn the sharp curves, they’ll notice when their train is late because of conflicts in the station throat, they’ll notice that they have half the train choices that they should because there are two terminals…
Dan S. Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
What is your criteria for a sharp curve that produces earsplitting screeches? I personally have no idea, but Clem on his blog called for curves of at least 200 m minimum radius going into TBT, and in the latest PB specs we’ve unearthed, the minimum radius for HSR going into TBT is 198 m.
Joey Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Is that screechy enough for you?
Curves at the Köln (Cologne) Hauptbahnhof (station in the video) are in the 200-300m range. Also note that it’s in open air, not a tunnel (think echoes).
Minimum radius curves do produce screeches.
Dan S. Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Yep, that’s fairly screechy. Good data point. Perhaps we can expect similar results for the TBT tunnel, but maybe it won’t be that bad either.
Dan S. Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 11:26 pm
I guess another way of looking at it is that the main rail station in Cologne, Germany, designed and built by real rail professionals not employed by those philanderers at Parkins-Birkenstock has approaching track curves with radius of 200 m and still has successful real-world operational high-speed rail service. Dang, that almost puts me in a lather! ;-)
And another way of looking at it is farther down the same platform, where the screechy noise, while still apparent, is much less of an irritant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygnywiqCHFU
(Is that the same curve?)
Joey Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
Again, open air vs tunnel. It makes a difference.
Also, just as a side note, the Cologne HBF uses curved turnouts to minimize throat conflicts, nowhere to be found (except for the CalTrain “emergency” crossover) in the TBT.
Dan S. Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:35 am
Okay, point taken, I’m sure it does. Seems to me like we’re about at the minimum curve radius that a new (downtown) station should be designed for, and we’ll get some flange noise for it. I note that apparently the TGV is designed to navigate curves as sharp as 125 m for approaches to terminals, according to this (admittedly unimpressive-looking) web site:
http://www.trainweb.org/tgvpages/faq.html
I tried to find the same info for the Shinkansen, but came up blank. Clem’s old links for this data on his blog have gone stale too.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:38 am
See this (File provided by Richard). The Shinkansen has an absolute minimum curve radius of 200m.
Dan S. Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 1:52 am
Great link, thanks! Okay, so apparently with our design showing a minimum curve radius of 200 m for the tracks approaching TBT we can utilize the trainsets of every single major HSR manufacturer in the world with no modifications. I want to be upset with those moronic imbeciles who are designing our system, but this seems fairly reasonable, no?
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 10:57 am
Sure, but I would point out that most European systems have legacy lines to deal with which tend to have sharp curves.
Also, minimum radius isn’t something you want unless there is no other solution.
dave Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Actually, nearly all the manufacturers minimum looks to be very much lower than the 200M currently proposed. The only one wich is very close to 200M is the strictest wich is obviously the Shinkansen at just about the limit. Seems reasonable to me.
Peter Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Even with equipment that is not at its minimum radius, it’s going to be loud as HELL standing no the platform.
However, given that this is what we’re likely going to be stuck with, what can be done to mitigate? What about rubberized or some type of foam wall coatings?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Hmmm yes, some sort of rubber or synthetic material which when it bursts into flames will fill the tunnel with toxic fumes. If they manage to keep from bursting into flames how many millions to replace every decade or so? What will be the effect on service? Sounds like a plan. Textured pumice or maybe some sort of textured foamed glass, concrete or synthetic stone but no rubber or rubber like substances. Which wouldn’t be needed if they had gone with the plan using the parking lots across the street.
Peter Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
I didn’t think about a possible fire. My apologies for not having thought through ALL the details about an idea that just popped into my head when I wrote it.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
Topographic constraints matter. Leveraging a legacy station with an unfixable 200-meter curve is not the same as building a new station with a 200-meter curve when 250 is possible at no extra cost.
But anyway, the low curve radius at TBT is a bigger problem than elsewhere, and not just because of the tunnel. The station throat has a lot of conflicts plus a single-track bottleneck, which means that the slower trains are forced to go, the lower the capacity is. That and nothing else is why Caltrain is planning to terminate most train at 4th and Townsend.
Matthew Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 10:36 pm
It seems entirely feasible that eventually they would expand the system with a dedicated tunnel to the East Bay, modifying TBT to have run-through tracks. No rush, though, LA to SF is compelling enough for a first phase of the system.
Joey Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Have a look at downtown SF on google maps. Do you see any way to actually extend the tunnels under the bay? And where are they going to find the capacity for all those additional trains?
dejv Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 3:00 am
Run-through station is the answer for the second question. It eliminates conflicting moves in station throats, multiplying total capacity compared to terminus. It would also make a lot of sense from operational POV, allowing LA-bound express to gather passengers from East Bay before it even reaches TBT, reducing dwell times there.
thatbruce Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
If those tail tracks heading southish on Main are actually built, then a cross-bay tunnel could start underwater in the same direction, then head east for Alameda. May as well also wish for a circle back along Main/Embarcadero/Towsend to 4th/King.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
The tail tracks have been replaced with a useless crossover before the platform (useless because of the single track approach).
Peter Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
According to the documents on the tjpa’s website, the tail tracks are an option that can be built as part of a phase 2 (or phase 3, if you want to put it that way).
They also included an extra crossover so that Caltrain can access the middle track. The “problem” with it is that it is a curved turnout, an apparent no-no in the US.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Not that crossover. The one closer to the platform. I wish I could find the documents right now.
Peter Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
There’s the X crossover right before the platform. Then there’s the “emergency” turnout from the northern Caltrain platform track to access the middle track of the TBX.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Here we go.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
The X crossover is the one I’m talking about. It (1) is useless because of the single track approach and (2) pushes the platform back such that no loop tracks can be constructed.
Peter Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Ah yes, I see what you mean. The platform is pushed so far back it goes past Main St.
Peter Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
If you look closely at that page, you’ll see that extending the platforms and such all the way to Main St is set for Phase 2 construction. Included in the Phase 1 trainbox is the cutout for the beginning of the tail tracks.
mike Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
@Joey
Not sure I agree with you on the Caltrain Crossover (i.e. the X crossover). It appears to serve two purposes:
(1) It allows trains approaching TBT on MT-2 (the gratuitous DTX middle track) to access Track 21 (the southernmost track) on the Caltrain platform.
(2) More importantly, it allows an arriving Caltrain to approach within 100′ of the platform when both Tracks 21 and 22 are occupied. Without the Caltrain Crossover, the arriving train in that scenario could have to stop as much as 2500′ from the platform while waiting for a train to depart Track 21 or 22.
Number 2 seems particularly important. Am I wrong on this? Ideally there are also be crossovers near the HSR platforms. Unfortunately there are not.
Peter Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
@ Mike
Joey’s point is that if they build the station as depicted in that drawing, the crossovers prevent Caltrain from ever getting its tail tracks or loop tracks.
mike Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
@Peter
No, I am specifically referring to Joey’s point (1). He claims that the crossover is useless. I believe that is untrue.
I don’t have an opinion on point (2) (the feasibility or desirability of loop tracks).
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Fine, I will upgrade its status from completely useless to mostly useless. It accomplishes occasional tasks which would already be possible with a decently designed station throat.
mike Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
I think the Caltrain crossover is potentially quite useful given the otherwise shoddy design of the throat. Of course we’d prefer a better overall design, but that may not be what we get.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:36 am
It’s not feasible. Stop making things up.
Good God. Take a walk in downtown SF, look upwards where you think this “perfectly feasible” vapourware tunnel might run and report back to us.
And yes, it was perfectly feasible up to five or six years ago, and came with an infinitely more flexible and more capacious Transbay rail station as well, one that would have had absolutely no problem accommodating all Caltrain and HSR needs indefinitely, even without through running to the East Bay.
How many thousand times does this nonsense have to be brought up?
The world’s finest transportation planners at Caltrain and the TJPA killed off a non-terminal Transbay Station and killed off the only possible SF-Oakland connection in 2003 through their mindbogglingly unprofessional EIR alternatives “analysis” and their “choice” of a Locally Preferred Alternative.
They deliberately and knowingly and egregious chose to do the wrong thing and to screw the public forever. It’s a done deal. There is several hundred feet of high rise in the way now. It’s over.
http://transbaycenter.org/uploads/2009/10/LPA_Rev3-21-03.pdf
Stop it! It’s dead. Dead as a doornail. It’s not going to happen, no matter now often or how much people ignore simple facts. It can’t physically happen any more without removal of hundreds of millions of dollars of newly-constructed high rise buildings. So stop wasting even a millisecond thinking about it. BART combined with buses on the Bay Bridge (not trains: trains on the bridge were explicitly and permanently killed off by MTC staff in 1999) are the SF-Oakland transit connections now, 20 years from now, and 50 years from now.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
It’s probably going to be the option 150 years from now too. Though people will be taking the bus from the quaint little suburb of Oakland on buses across the Bay Bridge.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
BARTs planned four track ( 2 bart 2 standard gauge conventional/hsr) tube in 2050.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 5:02 am
Half the train choices because there are two terminals? No. Thats still all the train choices but you get two locations from which to choose depending on what part of town you live in for departures and what part of town your destination is for arrivals. JUst like you have bart on one side of town and caltrain on the other, depending on what part of town you want to access and just like when coming from SAC on CC, you tranfser to motorcoach at EMY if you are accessing the greater downtown area ( east of van ness) or you transfer to bart at RIC if your destination is the mission/bernal.balboa/state/or beyond. Thats more choices not fewer choices.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:13 am
No, you will have half the choices, assuming that they split the trains between the two stops rather than waste capacity on running twice as many trains. You see, you do have a choice, but sometimes it makes a lot more sense to use one terminal than the other (usually that’s the TBT). Let’s say you are arriving on BART. 4th and King is obviously not an option. Let’s say you are arriving on MUNI. The vast majority of lines serving the western half of SF only go to the transbay area. How about ACTransit? GGTransit? Sorry, no service to Mission Bay. And now that you’re at the station you have only half the trains to choose from than you would normally. Also, even if you do have a choice of stations traveling to your destination, you will not on the way back because your car/connecting transit/whatever is at one station or the other.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Joey, the tbt serves a lot of people, but the 4th street station can serve a whole other segment of people for whom it is closer. Depends on what neighborhood you live in or what neighborhood you are destined for. If you are arriving by car from the bridge, or from the james lick or the 280x 4th is actually the better access point as it is (2) freeway adjacent and avoids using financial district surface streets. If you draw a line diagonally thru SF from SoMA to SFSU everyone below that line would be better off using 4th via muni. Unless they live along the bart line in which case, if they Glen Park/and beyond, would just as well go 15 minutes to Millbrae.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Driving might be the ONE time where Mission Bay would be a better option, simply because there isn’t as much congestion in that area compared to downtown.
As for people in SF, Mission Bay might be marginally better for a few people in the southeastern sector of the city (if you bothered looking at a MUNI map you’d notice that there is no service to Mission Bay for anyone west of Mission Street – and I’m tempted to say that there’s shitty access for anyone who doesn’t live along the T line). Anyway, these people are going to be a tiny minority of high speed rail users.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
joey, you have to consider the plans for the 16th street and folsom street transit corridors That would hopefully on there way by the time hsr service starts not to mention the central subway ( god please don’t get them started on that topic) that will link the northeast direct to 4th and townsend better than to tbt.
The van ness brt service would likely extend all the way to tbt as the old 42 van ness downtown loop used to. and as part of the western soma plan, folsom is going to be an improved 2 way tranist corridor as is 16th street from the casto thru the mission direct to mission bay.
Theres a lot of stuff in the works. ITs a big picture. It takes a while, but people are paying attention. Relax it will all work out.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Okay, so by the time HSR is operating, a few more people in SF will be able to take transit to Mission Bay. The number of people who can take transit to the TBT is still several orders of magnitude larger.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Yes and so what? Some trains will go to tbt some will go to 4th, some people will go to tbt and some ( a lot of car arrivals and a portion of sf-ers) will use 4th. I don’t see what all the broach clutching is about. Everyone will figure out what works best for them and adapt. I mean if you have central subway bringing russian hill/north beach/chinatown/ union sq folks to 4th, and the T line bringing all the southeastern and mission bay folks ( oh and remember the multiple thousands of units planned for mission bay, the UCSF campus, the Bio Research companies and the huge Hunters point develoment) all will use 4th with direct access via muni. Then throw in the E line (waterfront) which can take hsr arriving tourists on their little thrill ride to their hotels at the wharf . and throw in the folsom corridor serving all us new SoMa and inner mission folks…. well that adds up to a nice chunk of folks. Most of whom, myself included, would find 4th more inviting and less crowded than tbt. Leave the tbt to the FiDi crowd. You can’t slice it badly just cuz you don’t like it. You have to agree that 4th will be good for a lot of folks who don’t want to deal with downtown. And, I will tell you right now that eastbay HSR riders, who would previously been Eastbay SFO users, will still drive in, just like they drive in to SFO now. Only driving in to 4th will save them a good 20 minutes or more in traffic. They’ll be able to drive and get long term parking without the FiDi prices, and they will be able to do the “white zone is loading and unloading only” thing where their friend can exit the freeway dump em at the curb and get back on the freeway without going into downtown.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
Just think Jim, someday people in the East Bay won’t have to go over the bridge to get to a train, They’ll be able to have their friend or an AC Transit bus, drop them at the HSR station in Oakland
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
ok well someday oakland can have one too. I don’t see why not. Hey does new york still float its garbage around on barge btw?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
No garbage scows any more. Less and less trucks as it moves to rail. Even Mount Trashmore is closed. They reopened it to dispose of the debris from the World Trade Center collapse. Lovely view of the Harbor and Lower Manhattan. Since it’s also a cemetery also a memorial to the people they were never able to find in the debris.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
I don’t live there and I won’t be using it because when I want to get to Santa Rosa I’ll be standing on a street corner on Van Ness waiting for a GGT bus to take me there. When I want to go to Sacramento I’ll be…. driving because the bus to Emeryville and getting on a slow train is … .slow.
jimsf Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 9:55 pm
you dont know much then. On many occasions it has taken me in excess of 4 hours to drive from sac to sf, and I use to do it 4 times a week. The bus from sfc to emy takes 15 minutes. the train from emy to sac takes 2 hours. total travel time is 2:30 and if the train is in sac on time its lets than that because there is an addition 10 minute pad on the sked. Now if you are driving on 80 and manage to breeze from sf to sac and not hit traffic ( for those of you from socal, this is the equivalent of jumping on the 405 or 10 and thinking youre going to zip on up from long beach to Encino on a summer breeze) and if you want to pay the gas, parking, and bridge tolls, and you its a once in a while thing, then sure drive, knock yourself out. Overall the regulars don’t seem to have a problem with it and not only that, but lots of them transfer to another bus in SAC to continue another 30 minutes to the sac burbs.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
4 hours is an average speed of 22 miles an hour. Traffic must have been very very bad. Which of course the flying bus from San Francisco to Emeryville didn’t have to sit in.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 5:04 am
The buses have back ways and special lanes for getting from emy and on to the bridge. Its the davis, fairfiled, vallejo, berkeley slowdowns where the problems are and each time I got caught in a four hour, this happened at least four times, it was so bad that people were getting out of their cars at emy and peeing on the side of the road cuz they couldn’t wait any longer.
wu ming Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:09 am
clearly you don’t drive 80 much. one memorial day weekend i was in a traffic jam more or less from the casa de fruta damn near nonstop to the scandia miniature golf course around vacaville.
Dan S. Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
I’m sure people will be finding negative design points about the TBT for years to come, yes, including Adirondackers and Mlynariks and Reality Checkers and whole swaths of pundits, naysayers, talking heads, concerned citizens, self-appointed experts, NIMBYs, and even passengers of CA-HSR! ;-) So far I find the compromises to be reasonable and I’m personally really excited that we have a bit of a stake-in-the-ground for pulling this train up the Peninsula! Knock on wood.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Which is peachy keen if you want to get to San Bruno. Not so peachy keen if you want to get to Davis or Petaluma or Stockton or Sacramento. There’s get big swaths of California on the other side of the Bay.
jimsf Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
I don’t know why you are so concerned with getting to Davis. Are you planning to attend University there soon? There is an advantage to the dedicated bus connection from the eastbay that passengers really like, that gets overlooked.. the fact that that route drops off in as many as different key locations around town without having to ever transfer to another system. (caltrain, moscone, the financial district, the ferry building, the wharf area, the union square area, and the civic center area.) The majority of people arriving in sf for the day or on vacation, are utilizing these 7 areas and have an easy walk from the bus stop to their destination. A train into the city, while it would be nice, would only serve tbt, still requiring a schlepp on Muni to the aforementioned points, a much more miserable trip, with no place for baggage and no personal service from drivers. The existing motorcoaches accommodate checked and carry on baggage, with assistance from the driver, new model comfort coaches, etc etc. The ride from emy to the wharf etc, via motorcoach ( which takes only 20 minutes most of the time regardless of of all that padding in the sked, is far more pleasant than a muni trip on the 30 crosstown from tbt – which if you’ve ever had to do it, you know why so many of us avoid it.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
There is an advantage to the dedicated bus connection from the eastbay that passengers really like, that gets overlooked.. the fact that that route drops off in as many as different key locations around town without having to ever transfer to another system.
How many dozens of people a day take advantage of it? The Royal Blue Trains to Washington DC had the same kind of service. You could catch a bus in Brooklyn and at major destinations in Manhattan. Great service, lovely ferry ride across the Hudson to Jersey City where the bus dropped you right at the train in the Jersey Central Terminal. No subway ride, no long flights of stairs in Penn Station, absolutely wonderful.
The Jersey Central terminal avoided the fate of the other railroad terminals along the Hudson. It’s a museum now. The last train to DC left in 1958. The last train to anywhere left in 1967.
If this is such a great idea why doesn’t Amtrak do the same thing with service to Manhattan? They could avoid the costly and crowded stop in Penn Station and just circulate buses, lots of convenient stops in Manhattan that whisk people off to Newark or New Rochelle. Or on the DC end whisks them to the train in New Carrollton.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 5:06 am
I don’t know why amtrak does or doesn’t do anything. What I know is that Caltrans and CCJPA are the ones who insist on this as this is a state funded service. So ask ny dot why.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
NYDOT doesn’t have to worry about it because you can get from almost anywhere in the Metro Area to an Amtrak station where it’s a short walk – less than a block – to the Amtrak trains.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
…and in many places it’s an Amtrak train just across the platform if it’s not actually arriving on the same platform. People on the Harlem branch of Metro North are screwed but almost everybody else has a two seat ride to Boston or DC.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
well to quote a well know new york tv character from yesteryear…”whoop de doo”
Dan S. Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
It will be peachy keen for me if I want to get from downtown SF to downtown LA on a train in less than 3 hours! I was really kindof focusing on the whole HSR station in downtown SF thing. There are indeed big swaths of California not served by CA-HSR, true, not really arguing that point.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
And never will be because the station is so poorly designed they will never be able to bring them there. When you want to go to someplace not served by BART, north or east of San Francisco, you are going to get on a bus. They could have avoided that problem but they didn’t.
Dan S. Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 11:34 pm
Speaking of which, I’d like to make the argument that the TBT is really especially poorly designed to serve as an intergalactic space port. I mean, where are the space waiting areas and the space loading zones and the space transport tubes? ;-)
Joey Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 11:39 pm
No need. The elevators double as teleporters.
Dan S. Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:26 am
Actually, hold on, I think I just figured out what those damn funiculars are really for!!!! And speaking of those funiculars, have you SEEN what track gauge they are planning to use for those things?!?!? No way it will hold up to constant use at that vertical climbing angle. Total, incestuous, ham-handed, dishonest, unimaginable, incomprehensibly incontinent incompetence!! ;-)
Speaking of which, Adirondacker, I’d like to formally apologize for mentioning you in the same breath as Mlynarik. That wasn’t necessary. Same goes for you too, Reality Check. Sorry about that, buddy.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:35 am
Richard may be a bit crazy, but he’s right most of the time.
Caelestor Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:40 am
RM probably has the most expertise out of the people that visit here, but he’s incredibly jaded from his experiences with the politicians and now has a personal vendetta against them. Unfortunately, he’s also practically given up hope on everything and now spends his time railing on blogs. I’m surprised he hasn’t moved out of the country by now.
Dan S. Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:47 am
That’s nice, Joey, but I think you’re missing my point about the funiculars. Perhaps I did not use enough adjectives to describe the incompetence with which they were designed?
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:49 am
Well yeah, the funicular looks like more of a showpiece than anything actually useful, cost effective, or technically wise.
Peter Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 8:47 am
I don’t think the funiculars are actually going to make it to construction…
Dan S. Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:18 pm
Dan S. Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
(smacks forehead)
wu ming Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:17 am
the emeryville bus+capitol corridor will work just fine for davis, especially with the bus station part of the TT having its own onramp for the bay bridge, and extra-especially if the CC is improved WRT frequency and time to sac to boost its feeder network capability as they build the HSR.
it really isn’t that difficult to take the bus across the bridge or switch at richmond to BART. i live in davis, and have done both several times.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 10:04 am
Jim has told us all how it “only” takes 2:30 to get from San Francisco to Sacramento using the Thruway bus to get from San Francisco to Emeryville for the Capitol Corridor train. It’s, in nice round numbers, 90 miles. In nice round numbers it’s 400 miles between SFO and LA and according to the California HSR website will take 2:27. You don’t think someone somewhere is going to ask why someday?
New York to Philadelphia in nice round numbers is the same distance between San Francisco and Sacramento. Acela, last time I looked, makes it in 67 minutes. On infrastructure that is essentially the same as it was when the Roosevelt administration used WPA loans to the Pennsylvania Rail Road to electrify the tracks. NJTransit schedules show the connecting SEPTA sevice to Philadelphia. It’s around 2:30 if you catch the express. Lots of loitering around in Trenton included.
From the Amtrak stations along the line you can get a one seat ride to places other than New York or Philadelphia. So if you are in Metropark you can take a train that gets you to Wilmington or Stamford. You won’t be able to go to SFO or Palo Alto from Davis or Sacramento on one train. ….and never will be…
wu ming Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 10:44 am
no matter how much bloviating non-sequiturs about east coast trains you toss up there o try and make us feel inadequate, it still doesn’t make the existence of the eventual sac-SF direct HSR route go away. stick to insulting davis.
the geography of the peninsula and SF’s location at the tip makes SF to inland CA direct routes either absurdly circuitous or else exorbitantly expensive to go over or under the bay. that’s just how it is, when the new bay bridge segment was designed without rail, that was more or less set in concrete. obviously, i’d be thrilled if down the line they dig tunnels under the bay to give us a single-seat ride, but that’s a long way off, and i suspect that the cost of doing it won’t pencil out anyway. what is the point of your mockery, exactly?
the 2:30 time from sac to SF on the CC is the current time, but they’ll speed it up as much as can be done with what they’ve got to work with. straightening out some parts and grade separations should help a lot.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
What you’re saying is that the limited express trains NJ Transit and SEPTA run end up having the same average speed as Amtrak California’s diesel clunkers. Good to know. So much for the theory that NJTransit is a competent organization…
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 13th, 2010 at 12:30 am
I didn’t deduct the loitering time in Trenton, I don’t know who is to blame for all the loitering done in Trenton.
Go calculate the average speed of a SEPTA express between Trenton and Philadelphia and then the average speed of a NJTransit express between Trenton and New York. Or compare the timetable between Camden and Trenton on NJTransit to the timetable between Philadelphia and Trenton.
SEPTA is tentatively exploring the virtues of level boarding at suburban stations. SEPTA expresses make more stops than the Capitol Corridor does between Emeryville and Sacramento which has some effect on their speed. Neither SEPTA or NJTransit has much to say about speed limit that Amtrak imposes on them. But I suppose all of the above is NJTransit’s fault.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 1:20 am
The fact that the connection at Trenton isn’t timed and cross-platform is NJT and SEPTA’s fault. The problem isn’t speed limits, or station stops, or whatever. It’s that the connection is not timed well and you’re not guaranteed to make the connecting train listed on the timetable.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 2:23 am
If you want speed take Amtrak. You just love through running, Amtrak trains run through Trenton to Philadelphia or New York cutting the trip to 1:30 – 1:35… Not bad for 30 year old trains running on 75 year old infrastructure. or 1:07 on an Acela.
Pray tell, how are they going to guarantee the connection? Hold the train making both of them late? Roll another one out for the half car full of people making the connection?
Alon Levy Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 3:14 am
Amtrak overcharges. And NJT/SEPTA don’t care enough about on-time performance; railroads that do can guarantee connections with twice the tph count on half as many tracks.
As for the whole bit about “30 year old trains,” etc., here’s one: the express trains from Tel Aviv to Haifa average 120 km/h. Those are diesel loco-hauled 160 km/h trains running on a track that still has some grade crossings. And they run 2-3 tph intercity, same as the NEC. I hope you can see why I’m unimpressed with the Northeastern railroading experience…
jimsf Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Thank you. Yes reasonable compromise is the key phrase. It has become a very rare thing, people being able to deal with “reasonable compromise” versus, ” if its not my way then its wrong.”
Drunk Engineer Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 10:23 pm
Tell me more about this reasonable compromise. Because unless plans just recently changed I must have missed that part.
Despite handling a minority of passengers, HSR still gets most of the facility to park trains, with the majority of Caltrain runs still only going as far as 4th/King.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:41 am
OK. Come out and show us where something positive (passenger circulation capacity, platform interchangeability, amount of excavation, passenger environment, architectural quality, rail operations robustness, train throughput, construction cost, operating cost) was traded off against another positive outcome (any of the above, or anything else you can name.)
Come on. Name just one thing that the TJPA got right in a “compromise” on the rail “design”.
If there were “compromises” there must be mitigating upsides. Tell us! Come on, don’t be shy!
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
They put the train in the transit center instead of another adjacent location 2 blocks away. They put the trains adn transit center on the site they had available. They designed something that has design elements that are acceptable to San Franciscans, which, had they not done this, there would be no new transit center. We know that the number of trains per hour is inflated. The transit center has elements that are desirable, most notably the bus deck with direct bridge access, the new park, “green” design, revenue generating retail space which will benefit city coffers, and the whole thing is part of a giant real estate plan which will benefit the city as well.
Iver heard criticism that the platform area is ugly, and then heard from the very same hater crowd, that there is no need for people to linger in modern train stations anyway so no need for a concourse. which is it, do we need a pleasant waiting area or not? I mean if we are really having trains leaving every 5 minutes (oh no the capacity restraint!!) then who cares what the basement looks like as you will only every be there for 4 minutes maximum. And if people are waiting around for 15 or 20 minutes per train, well then, track capacity isn’t an issue after all now is it and with that kind of time to kill, well lo and be-effin-hold, go upstairs and indulge in some of our conveniently located retail therapy.
Bitch bitch bitch. EVer hear of seeing the glass as half full? Just once? Just one time? ever? Christ and I thought I had a bad attitude. You make me look like a ray of fucking sunshine richard.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
They designed something that has design elements that are acceptable to San Franciscans,
Which is funny because San Franciscans are probably going to be the minority of the TBT’s train and bus facilities.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:57 pm
what?
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
So vast quantities of tourists, business people, and residents of the east and north bay are all irrelevant to you?
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Oh and that’s not to mention commuters on CalTrain, who will be going into SF rather than out of it.
Same goes for bus services. All of AC transit’s customers are on the other side of the bay.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Quit acting like there isnt going to be any train service to TBT!!! geez.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Current plans call for the MAJORITY of trains (both HSR and CalTrain) to terminate at Mission Bay, i.e. where the MINORITY of riders are. How is that not a huge waste of resources?
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
WEll then, we are surely all doomed to a bleak and unworkable future. Quick! close the city and proceed to the under bunkers with your canned goods.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Oh, so THAT’s what the trainbox is for :D
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Ok I have to ask. Where are these current plans? I mean how many total trains are there? and how allegedly short on space is TBT? Last I heard the plan was 8 trains per hour for hsr, and obviously caltrain isnt’ going to be increasing service levels as they struggle to maintain what they have. Nor is there any need for more than a train arriving and departing once every 15 minutes peak, and 30-60 off peak. In fact, for the bulk of the off peak hours, which is most of the day, TBT can handle the load, at peak hour, when trains are closer than 15 minutes, the overflow could use 4th. Seems completely reasonable to me.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Oh, so THAT’s what the trainbox is for :D
funny. ;-P but hey, underground in concrete is the best place to be in an earthquake in the city I hear.
Caelestor Reply:
August 13th, 2010 at 1:30 am
You (mustn’t be so complacent about the current plans. (This is a problem I’ve noticed with the populace in general.) For the money we’re spending, we could get something better, so why don’t we?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 8:42 pm
They put the train in the transit center instead of another adjacent location 2 blocks away. They put the trains adn transit center on the site they had available.
They have a site available, right across the street. The place where they are going to build all those signature skyscrapers, which if they wanted to, could have a spacious bus terminal and train station in them. The plan recommended in the 90s, back when planners looked at the growth of the Bay Area and the increasing congestion and determined that trains to exotic places like Stockton would be a good idea. But no everybody voted on it and they have a cramped mingy bus terminal with a train station wedged under instead. One that will never be able to serve trains from any place but the Peninsula.
jimsf Reply:
August 13th, 2010 at 4:53 am
What I’m telling you is that the city has a plan for that space – for just those very highrises ( which I happen to despise by the way) So what I’m saying is that this plan we have is what we are gonna get and its a complete waste of time arguing otherwise. At some point you have to accept it unless your goal is to be miserable and cranky about the outcome forever. The plan isn’t going to change. The trains will be in the box, the wheels will squeal, and the people will shop in the train/bus station and the developers are going to build their highrises all around no matter how much people on the ca hsr blog moan about it not being perfect. So find something positive about the progress and deal with it.
mike Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Jimsf, stop pretending you speak for all San Franciscans. You don’t, just like the Peninsula NIMBYs don’t speak for all San Mateo/Santa Clara residents. You speak only for yourself.
jimsf Reply:
August 13th, 2010 at 4:54 am
I’m not pretending to do anything. I’m telling you the plans went throught the public process and we have the outcome and I stand by the outcome of said public process. So move on.
Dan S. Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Thanks for asking, Richard. But foremost on my mind is just asserting my own right to have my own opinion about the project and I’d really like to have a space here to engage in this discussion without all this ridiculous shouting going on from you and other people with (perfectly legitimate) negative feelings for the project. I’d really appreciate you to reduce your tone and treat this discussion with a little respect. So far your posts only serve to pollute our dialogue, antagonize our membership, and serve apparently as your own public therapy session. I’m seriously suggesting that you buy a pillow, go yell into it with all your might, have a nice cup of tea, and rejoin our discussion here with a pleasant tone and your educated insights.
But since you ask, I think 200 m curve radii coming into TBT is a good compromise, and an improvement over the original plans which I think showed about 150 m, and even a better improvement over the Authority’s initial survey of HSR manufacturers where they considered something like 115 m.
I personally feel like 6 platforms in the basement of TBT is pretty good for SF. I’m not arguing with what I know is a dissenting opinion, that’s just mine. It’s an opinion, and you can’t argue it away from me. SF currently has NO downtown platforms for Caltrain or HSR, and in a country that is so biased against transit, I’m quite pleased that we got the voting public to support this amount of new transit development smack dab in the center of our favorite foggy city.
The TBT connects to transit pretty well from my point of view too. Buses are obvious, but it’s a short walk to BART/Muni, and I feel there’s even a pretty good chance of getting that underground pedestrian walkway connecting directly to Embarcadero (?) station.
What about the possibility of some trains stopping at 4th and King instead of getting all the way to TBT? Well, it would be vastly better if all HSR and Caltrain trains could go to TBT. But again here I’m not that disappointed in not getting it. If I’m not mistaken, in Japan, when they first opened the HSR station at Shinagawa (downtown Tokyo, the next-to-last stop before Tokyo station) they opened it because they didn’t have the capacity to get all their trains to Tokyo to terminate, so they had a bunch of trains ending their runs there. Seems like they’ve fixed their problems with Tokyo station by now and they’re not doing it any more, but I just point out that it’s not an unheard-of situation in the real life of successful HSR systems.
And since you mentioned it, I think the architecture of the TBT is cool, and I love the park on top. And I know I’m not the only one in SF who thinks so. But people have different opinions. You know what, that doesn’t threaten me.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
^oooh…what he said!
mike Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
Dan and jimsf,
You misunderstand what Richard is asking for. “Compromise” implies one thing was traded off against another. What was traded off in some of these design decisions?
Take the absurdly long station throat for example. What was the upside to designing in that way? Certainly it wasn’t necessary for Jim’s green design elements or for your TBT connectivity. The only upside appears to be the ability to use AREMA No. 14 freight turnouts, which is no upside at all. The downside is conflicting train movements that reduce throughput and reliability.
Dan S. Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Mike, you and Richard misunderstand what I am asking for. A respectful dialogue. And if I hadn’t made it clear earlier, I am not interested in Richard’s evaluation of my opinions, nor am I interested in having a dialogue with him while he is shouting at me and acting in an antagonizing way. I would just like this to be a forum where I can express them without getting personally attacked. Fine, if you’re so threatened with my opinions, go ahead and post why. But don’t be a jerk. (BTW, Mike, I’m not saying that you are.)
Regarding the station throat, I honestly don’t have an opinion about it, I’m not sure what it is, I don’t think I was discussing it, nor do I feel I have to justify my understanding of the term “compromise.” And I certainly won’t do it just for Richard’s benefit. I’m just trying to provide my own perspective to the discussion, one that I’ve realized is different from those commonly expressed here.
Anyway, go ahead and discuss the merits of the throat if you’re determined to do so, but I don’t plan to contribute. (Alright, actually, I know what it is, I was just being rhetorical.)
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 13th, 2010 at 1:19 am
“Reasonable compromise” means something in English.
Dan S. Reply:
August 16th, 2010 at 12:17 am
Quite true, so does “dialogue”. I’m happy to have one if you are. In the meantime, I don’t need a “bad cop.”
Alon Levy Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
You’re wrong about Tokyo. The Tokaido Shinkansen has gone from Tokyo to Shin-Osaka, since day one. Trains started calling at Shinagawa to relieve congestion at Tokyo, it’s true, but the trains have always served Tokyo, as well. The only plans to use Shinagawa as a terminus are for the Chuo Shinkansen, for which JR Central couldn’t find any room near Tokyo or Shinjuku.
But maybe you’re confusing Shinagawa with Ueno, which is used as a terminus for express commuter lines. When the Tohoku and Joetsu Shinkansen were finally extended to Tokyo, the connection required appropriating two narrow-gauge tracks, which severed the Tokyo connection for all longer-range commuter and intercity trains.
Since you brought it up, let’s compare Shinagawa or Ueno with 4th and Townsend. Shinagawa is connected to Tokyo with eight tracks of commuter rail. Only four of those eight go to Ueno, but Ueno is connected to two subway lines passing near Tokyo, and to relieve overcrowding JR East is six-tracking the Ueno-Tokyo segment, at great expense. 4th and Townsend is going to have the low-capacity Central Subway. One of those things is not like the others, etc.
Much of the rest of your defense of TBT, while not as verifiably incorrect as the Tokyo claim, is orthogonal to Richard’s criticisms. The six platforms are not a problem; they’re not the limiting factor to capacity. The problem is that the station throat is configured poorly. The low curve radius is one problem, but not even the biggest one; the single-track Caltrain bottleneck is the worst part of it. The dual terminal configuration Caltrain is looking at is also bad; for local and regional transit, high frequency is very important, and splitting trains between two terminals can reduce ridership by more than is gained from serving more destinations.
Dan S. Reply:
August 16th, 2010 at 12:33 am
Here’s where I saw that info about Shinagawa — I guess it was more of a predictive article rather than one about something that had already happened, and it’s true that you can take English-language reports about stuff in Japan with a few grains of salt. But it clearly reports on plans to turn back Tokaido Shinkansen trains at Shinagawa.
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/single-view/view/10/tokaido-upgrade-to-beat-back-air-competition.html
Anyway, thanks for the fact-checking! ;-) I wish there were as much policing around here on the tone and respect of the dialogue, but I guess you’re getting that critique of mine by now!
I’m not saying it’s invalid to bring up flaws in the TBT design. That’s fine and good and appropriate for a train blog, for goodness sake! But let’s not invalidate the point of view of slightly less than uber-train geeks who are just excited to see a new train station in SF. Damn, despite all the insistence on critique around here, I’m still excited! Screw you all! ;-)
And let’s give props to SF to at least be building some new transportation infrastructure these days. Plenty of places in the US where there isn’t a subway project or a HSR terminus or a new bus terminal to complain about.
Okay, so now that this blog entry about the ground-breaking is over, and we’ve gotten all our feel-good sentiments aired (hah!), back to the regularly-scheduled sniping. ;-)
Alon Levy Reply:
August 16th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
No, I get that critique. It’s fine. I may be the only person here who doesn’t mind either the vitriol or the people complaining about the vitriol. Usually both kinds of comments include a lot of usable technical information.
And I’m sorry I was harsh. I treated you like you didn’t know Tokyo and it was wrong. Sorry.
As for the point of view of non-geeks, the reason I’m unimpressed with TBT isn’t that the design is flawed, although it is; it’s that I grew up in a city where they built the cornerstone of the subway, dug one station under a building, and then abandoned the entire thing.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 16th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
A mathematical education is correlated with a great many positive things.
YesonHSR Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
It was a great day!!! really it is the ground breaking for HSR!!! If the California high-speed rail system is not funded with a group of people present today then there never will be high-speed rail America. I can’t wait to see this complex completed. At first I hated the design thou now I’ve grown to like it and I’m sure it will look phenomenal when actually built.
YesonHSR Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Semi-off-topic the anti-HSR mouthpiece John Horgan has a new ant-HSR story how high-speed rail down the peninsula will destroy all the auto dealers!!.. Hey they also moved next to that railroad!!!
PeakVT Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:01 am
And this is bad how? Auto dealers are not exactly TOD compatible. They will be forced to move as land values rise in the vicinity of stations. Individual dealers may even profit from the land use changes if they own their properties.
“Photo by Congressman George Miller”? … Really? He must be good with his camera’s self-timer and tripod, because he and his snowy hair and mustache are clearly visible in the photo between TJPA’s ED Maria Ayerdi-Kaplan and SF Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Click on the link – it’s from his Flickr account. Obviously he didn’t take it, but as far as I can tell, he gets the credit…
Peninsula Rail 2010 Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 10:23 pm
Hmmm… Where oh where is Quentin Kopp??? It’s not like him to miss a celebration like this, and most of the SF political establishment is present. I guess he doesn’t rank anymore.
Ted Crocker Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:03 am
Remember, Kopp didn’t get his way with regard to the TBT at the April board meeting. He’s probably still mad. Damn whiney NIMBY!
One station doesn’t mean much. In Tel Aviv, they built the first subway station underneath a major office tower, in the 1960s. It was a big cornerstone-laying ceremony, too. But even today there are no tracks or other stations; the subway line that’s occasionally under construction, when there’s private money for it, skips that station.
Is it already redesigned to accomodate ALL Caltrains and ALL high-speed trains?
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:17 am
Nope, they’re still planning to split the trans with Mission Bay. Though if they improved the station throat design and didn’t plan to uselessly idle trains there for 40 minutes, they might be able to fit everything into the TBT.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:43 am
Peter Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Assuming a loop track is constructed for Caltrain, how short would HSR’s dwell times have to be to accommodate all Caltrains and HSR trains?
Alon Levy Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
It doesn’t matter what the dwell times are. Caltrain’s constraint is the single-track bottleneck, not the terminal tracks, which allow 15 Caltrain tph with ease and 30 in a crunch.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
Assuming a reasonable 6TPH HSR on 4 platform tracks, each train would have to be in and out within 40 minutes, which realistically means 30-35 minute dwell times. Under the Authority’s somewhat ridiculous 9TPH plan, that dwell time would have to be reduced to 15-20 minutes. As for CalTrain (and again, this assumes a 4/2 track split and doesn’t model any dynamic capacity allocation), for 6TPH, dwell times can be as long as 15 minutes (assuming a decently designed station throat or loop track), but closer to 5 minutes for the official 10TPH.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 13th, 2010 at 12:04 am
And for the record, given a decently designed station throat, regional rail operators turn 15 tph on two tracks all over the world, and local rail operators turn 24-30.
Hmm. Isn’t it likely that the first stations to be used will be Union Station to Anaheim?
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Assuming the LA-Anaheim segment gets funding first, which is not guaranteed at this point
O/T: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hQ65mAbapUiUvF8j21oxjj1Tci4QD9HI60LG3
Looks like that holocaust bill has gotten further. I’m not gonna hold back, this bill is an absolute load of fucking horse shit. What purpose does it really serve?
Peter Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Not making light of the Holocaust, but the bill is as stupid as the uproar over van Roelof’s “final solution” comment.
spokker Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
It’s a feel-good law. California has a few of those.
Andre Peretti Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
If the SNCF had any political sense they would understand they’re not welcome in California. In France they are powerful and can confront politicians and governments. In America their lobbying power is zero. Besides, CHSRA is entirely in the hands of politicians, which is very different from what the SNCF is used to. TGV experience won’t be of any use in California. CHSR should be run by an American company familiar with local politics and unions. The SNCF could be a technical consultant, but nothing more.
Spokker Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Yeah, get out of here SNCF. We’re xenophobic Americans. We don’t take too kindly to your kind here.
Spokker Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Dey turk our trains!
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
^lol
nobody important Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:23 pm
What American company is capable of running an HSR line? You want Amtrak to run it? What a shitfest that would be!
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
we may find out.
nobody important Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
Seriously though, Amtrak better not end up running it or I’m going staple my ballsack to my forehead.
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
and wil you be posting that video on the net or keeping in your private folder?
jimsf Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
THe operations will be put up for the bidding process, all the interested players will bid, and the state will make its choice based on the offerings. In addition to that, the operating contract, especially the initial contract will be for a set, limited time, and subject to change upon expiration. This is common in transit. Metrolink went from amtrak to the other guys, and back to amtrak, VRE went from one to the other, MBTA, same thing, some go and come back, its like anything else. So its wide open as to who will operate hsr at any given time in future history. ( is there such thing as “future history”? you know what I mean)
YesonHSR Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Hey… thats an idea to do to the Nimbys!!!!!!
YesonHSR Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
SNCF is one thing ..Alstom is another as they are already here in NorthAmerica ..plus they have a nice new trainset..AGV!!!
Emma Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 10:28 pm
What a weird bill. But if everything is alright, there should be no company that can be excluded. I mean, we are already working with Deutsche Bahn.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
Deutsche Bahn didn’t even exist before 1994. Not like SNCF which has been around since 1938.
Emma Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
Really? Then why did they recently open that Museum spreading awareness about how Jews were deported by national railways? Deutsche Reichsbahn, Deutsche Bundesbahn, Deutsche Bahn. What’s the difference? Nothing but the name.
Joey Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
Maybe so. German national railways have gone through a number of reorganizations since WWII, and things get a little convoluted during the Cold War, but you can trace DB’s lineage back there. Anyway, being the main railway operator in Germany, they inherit this history whether they were part of it or not. It’s debatable whether they would have to report this under the new law (though I would be surprised if they didn’t), but it’s a moot point, since this shouldn’t be used in the bid selection process.
“The aerial viaducts actually work pretty well for us, we get rid of the berm” Quote from San Carlos vice mayor Omar Ahmad appearing in the Mercury – News.
This story has become tiresome. I already did 10 hours of railroad-y junk today. I don’t think I can argue it for 5 hours more. Once you all have it figured out, you know, that the world is coming to end because there’s a concrete column blocking the worm hole, please submit your resolutions in writing to god and he’ll get back to you.
Clem Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Actually, the columns were moved. Escalators don’t face columns anymore, and they provide adequate clearance between the escalator and the platform edge. Thanks for acknowledging the concern, though.
jimsf Reply:
August 13th, 2010 at 5:03 am
Oh good. See, and I’ll bet some other such modifications will be fixed along the way as well. I will agree that no transit project in the US is perfect, but in the end having what we are getting is better than not having it, and that the perfectly designed transit project does not exist in american and never will. YOu have to accept that because its true and always will be. Its a result of our political and financial system. IT just is what it is. YOu take what you can get and hope for the best. This isn’t china, or france so why get your pressure up. I know that san franciscans certainly won’t be poking their noses into the design of fresno, la, or san diego’s stations or worrying about the location of the escalators in Palmdale.
Peter Reply:
August 13th, 2010 at 8:40 am
Well, those drawings also have the Caltrain platform set up for tail tracks without the crossover before the platforms. So, what IS the current state of the design? Do we know? Does anyone know?
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 13th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
A larger ger and completely ignored — never even considered at any stage! — issue is that their column-rich, platform-ignoring, train-oblivious, passenger-hostile “design” features only single escalators arrayed along the platform.
This is a huge problem for efficient passenger movement because at each spot along the platform the vertical access will only work in one direction (and the direction has to be explicitly managed by somebody, and will usually be wrong…) — this means that passengers will have to move along platforms that have insufficient clear space (because of all the delightful columns and double the number of escalator locations which block a lot of movement space on the platforms) just in order to find an escalator that happens to be moving in the right direction.
This is fucking insane. Nobody does that. (Well, awful warrens like NY Penn have this sort of thing, as do some retrofits into old stations where nothing else will go, but nobody wastes FOUR BILLION DOLLARS, starting with a blank slate, with World Class pig-lipsticking architects and World Class civil engineering … from ARUP North America Special Needs division.)
The way vertical circulation to and from platforms works at all modern, well-designed, high-capacity, high-throughput, passenger-first stations is that at the minimum pairs of escalators, working in both directions, flank or are flanked by a wide stairway.
Structural columns, if there are any, are compressed laterally (not 5 and 6 foot diameter circular section plonked down whereever, per TJPA/ARUP/PCP) and fit in between the escalators.
Look at how competetent and professional transportation engineers and architects are building right now in Barcelona. (3 times the size as Transbay, built 12 years faster!!!)
Look at the proposed rebuild of London Euston.
Look at Berlin HB
That is how everybody (not monumentally incompetent) does it.
Wide space with free lateral and longitudinal circulation space lies at the top and bottom of these banks of escalators/stairs, so that arriving and departing passengers can both quickly locate the escalators and are can mvoe quickly on and off without impediment from civil engineering artifacts or other passenger flows.
The disaster underground at Transbay is entirely due to incompetent, wretched, lazy and ignorant engineering and architectural design … except there never was any design, because they just took a 10 year old back-of-the-envelope structural system that somebody threw together for preliminary purposes and never once did the slightest design to allow for the fact that humans need to move through transportation facilities. It’s a big box of columns hold junk up in the sky, that’s all. World class!
You want to undersand what I’m so mad and why I think that everybody involved in this four billion dollar fiasco should at the very least be crucified? This is a great example. There was no cost to doing the right thing, it would have taken minimal effort and only the lowest level of technical skill and professional awareness, but they chose to completely ignore the issue … for no reason!
They’re just digging holes and crapping out structural junk without the slightest attention paid to the ostensible function of the edifice. Simply incredible, a major tragedy, a professional low-point, and a fiscal catastrophe.
jimsf Reply:
August 13th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
I have to agree with richard on the escalator situation if that is in fact going to be the final design. BART is full of one way only escalators, and and at any given time a third of them aren’t working. Its a joke. Are we sure that there isn’t some other plan for passenger circulation? I heard something about – well something that also had to do with keeping the platforms beyond a security point, wtih limited access for arriving and departing or maybe I had a weird dream about it. I mean perhaps they have something in mind. Otherwise, if its a free for all, and they put in single escalators. ITs effed up.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 1:17 am
Jim, you don’t need to screw up the escalator design to have security. I don’t have photos right now, but I’ve been to Tel Aviv Savidor Center and Shanghai South, both of which get it right despite having security-controlled access. Tel Aviv also has faregates, but still gets passenger circulation right.
jimsf Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 9:00 am
Alon accroding the plans I linked below, there seem to be plenty of escalators after all.
Now correct me if Im reading these drawings wrong but I see
-3 bi directional banks ( one per platform at the west end
-4 addtional bi directional banks in the center ct/hsr platform that will get the highest passenger volume.
- and 8 addtional single directions on the two outside platforms where the up and down face each other rather than sit side by side. Obviously to save space.
Now they will need to direction those escalators in conjunction with the escalators to the other levels to create a flow.
There appears to be an escalator in each direction for every two cars of a ten car train. Plus elevators too.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 11:46 am
How long does it take 300 people to get up one escalator? ( Two cars carrying 150 people a piece )
Alon Levy Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Bidirectional is just bad. When you’re building a new station, you should have enough room for two unidirectional escalators, making it easier for people to know what they’re doing. Even regular commuters often don’t remember where the correct place to stand is to get to the right escalator, and making it less easily visible where to go just screws up passenger circulation.
jimsf Reply:
August 16th, 2010 at 4:45 am
Ok thats what I meant. I was thinking a bank was a set of two escalators, on in each direction. There are several of those in the plans Im looking at.
YesonHSR Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 8:01 am
I love the Berlin station.
Dan S. Reply:
August 16th, 2010 at 1:15 am
I guess the escalator issue could be a potential problem depending on specific station pedestrian flows, but I don’t think it’s much of a deal-breaker in general. E.g., I know that when I get off work today and head off to my station on the Yamanote Line in Tokyo I’ll take an escalator down to the platform that has no side-by-side sibling going the other direction. That’s also the case for the commuter lines that come through here.
I also can report that when I take the Shinkansen for points south leaving from Shinagawa that the escalators down to the platform there are not in bi-directional pairs, but singles connected to a medium-width stairway.
I have yet to witness mass hysteria, cats chasing dogs, or the like. ;-)
Hmm, I can’t find a good picture of the Shinkansen platforms at Shinagawa. If you look at this one, you’ll just have to take my word for it that there isn’t another one behind that column!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hyougushi/2285363093/
Actually, looking at this statino map, maybe there are paired elevator banks on the south end of the platforms there, but these singles on the north end (where I always enter) at least show that HSR stations can survive and even thrive without strict enforcement of such mating rituals.
http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/stations/e788.html
Anyway, I don’t think this is turning out to be quite the Dank Hole anticipated by some. (BTW, seriously, h/t for those advance-renderings, it was indeed cool to have an early perspective of the platforms.)
Alon Levy Reply:
August 16th, 2010 at 6:20 am
Well, Shinagawa may not be the best example here, because it’s an infill station constructed in a constrained situation. Escalators are paired on stations without such constraints, such as Ueno on its legacy tracks. But Shinagawa still does things much better than Transbay, on account of its wide staircases, which are not obstructed from sight by columns.
However, even Shinagawa is suboptimal. For a new station, if you do it, you might as well do it right, more like most other major JR East stations. The highest-capacity configuration is the multi-escalator setup found on the Chuo Line platform at Tokyo, capable of turning 28 tph on two tracks, about 6 times more than what Caltrain thinks Transbay will be capable of. However, what suits an elevated station may not work for an underground station, where people need to go up from the platform to the main concourse. Hence the need for wide staircases and clearly visible escalators, with obstruction kept to the necessary minimum.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 16th, 2010 at 9:48 am
Just think about it for an instant:
* It’s a terminal station. There’s 100% turnover of passengers.
* It’s an extremely constricted station. The number of platform tracks is (or would be, if not for the TJPA cretins) barely adequate to support the rail traffic. This means that the time to get trains into and out of the station (turnaround time) is the key factor that should drive every single decision at every level.
* It’s a green field site. It’s not being retrofitted under an existing building. It’s not being retrofitted into an existing station. They could have built anything at all that is physically possible.
And if you think the situation getting to and from the platforms is bad (and it is; it’s a catastrophe because what’s a brand new $2bn railway station if not a facility for managing passenger flows efficiently?) then the lack of circulation from their crazy full-plate claustrophobic underground mezzanine level makes it even worse: instead of sucking in pedestrians from points around the compass and then redistributing them quickly to clearly visible access points to the correct platform, the instead funnel everybody through a “great hall” and into a dank underground level where the single-direction escalators are hidden behind structural columns and/or empty retail locations.
Most hilariously, the dim bulb who is the TJPA’s chief engineer presented a little slide show on the temporary bus terminal last week and noted that it was a big issue that passengers couldn’t walk the most direct route to and from their bus north-east towards the CBD. Yet this is exactly what he has engineered into the mindbogglingly bad train station!!!!!!!!!! He’s so so stupid he doesn’t even understand that there is a problem! I’ve brought it up with him, in public, on a half dozen occasions over several years, and he makes made a big show of making a little note in his little notebook. Comment acknowledged! Now let’s continue with the passenger-free structural grid from 1999. It’s incredible.
In the real world, in a station designed, in a station undertaken by people who aren’t subhumans, there would be stairs and escalators reaching out into the neighbourhood all around the terminal, most particularly leading directly under Mission Street and right into the underground circulation level above the platforms. People would get off their train, look up through a pleasant, mostly-empty above-track space, easily locate capacious nearby elevators heading towards the exit direction that they can see in the absence of a full-plate mezzanine, take a short ride up to the circulation level, walk to the exit location, and emerge outside the terminal, outside the floor plan of the terminal, well on their way to their destination.
But instead everybody has to walk well out of their way in order to experience a central “grand hall”, then emerge in one spot and fight their way in and out, then immediately have to cross Mission Street in the midst of a ton of traffic.
Just think about it: trains are inherently long and skinny things, with passengers distributed along their lengths. It’s utterly counter-productive to make people walk half way along the length of their train to get to an exit point … and then quite likely just have to walk back the same way on the street once they escape the horrific stupid World Class Grand Central of the West clusterfuck.
Those responsible should be crucified. Lined up against a wall and shot.
There is no excuse. There is no explanation. There is no reason for anything they have done. They are both completely incompetent, utterly unprofessional and egregiously unethical (because they were repeatedly informed of the problems, had a legal and professional obligation to investigate, but chose to do nothing but suck down over $100 million of public money while fraudulently claiming they were doing “design”.)
Die, Transbay and everybody who had a hand in this disaster.
Dan S. Reply:
August 16th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
“what’s a brand new $2bn railway station if not a facility for managing passenger flows efficiently?”
In this case it’s a massive public works project, an ego-stroke for the politicians who helped create it, a huge outlay of public funds that causes an extreme amount of special interests to salivate, a public transit project in a country historically hostile to transit, and a building originally intended to serve as a bus hub but updated to include an underground train station. In other words, it’s many things to many people, and ultimately something we collectively have to take credit for. It will be as good as we deserve, and as good as can achieve as a collective of San Franciscans, Californians, Americans.
FWIW, I agree that it doesn’t make sense to make anyone walk half the length of a half-mile train to reach an exit at a terminal station, if that is indeed true.
As to your foul language, insults, and rhetorical flourishes of homicidal exhortations, they are completely inappropriate for the public sphere and I condemn them strongly. I care for this space and it hurts me to see you piss on it daily. There is no excuse. You should see plainly one reason why your suggestions are not taken seriously. You ensure the dismissal of your salient comments by your ridiculous invective and tarnish the reputation of those who would call you a collaborator.
I hope we will see the other end breaking ground by the end of the decade. I’m not talking about Anaheim, I’m talking about San Diego.
Why the heck would bi-directional escalators be needed? CHSRA is following airline-terminal model. The ticket agent holds all passengers in the TSA waiting pen above the platform until the plane, um I mean, train is ready for boarding. No boarding passenger need ever rub shoulders with someone getting off the plane, um, I mean train.
BTW, the old TBT had no need for escalators or elevators. Passengers reached train platform using very nicely-designed ramps. The new ‘Leeds-certified’ ‘Green’ TBT replaces the ramps with huge number of energy-intensive elevators.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 13th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
Elevators are one of the most efficient ways to travel.
StevieB Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 9:09 am
Are these geothermal powered elevators?
The video shows up and down escalator banks. and so did the diagram I had printed out a few months ago which I now can not find anywhere.
jimsf Reply:
August 13th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
oh yeah here it is. yes there are plenty of escalators. similar to bart, the up and down face each other rather than sit side by side. This I guess leaves more room on the platform. The escalators are visible though and there are enough. So it doesnt look like a big deal after all.
I meant here
Hey, somewhat o/t, but while we’re on the subject of actual passengers in the trainbox, I found SOM’s proposal (low rez if your internet sux), which seems to give some actual consideration to those passengers (bringing light down, cutting away sections of mezzanine for more spacious … spaces, etc. Of course, this says nothing of the track/throat layout, though that is really the fault of the TJPA/CHSRA and not the architect. Also, I was talking with a guy at SOM a few weeks ago, and he said that final choice in the design “competition” wasn’t really based on design at all, but rather on which developer (each paired with an architect) provided a better package for the city. So much for wise decisions.
more of SOM’s entry, if you’re interested in architecture
political_incorrectness Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 12:54 am
Definitely much better in terms of allowing natural light to the platforms.
YesonHSR Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 7:56 am
Yes this one was nicer..I was hoping for this or the Foster desgin to win as bolth had also had more interesting desgin for the tower
jimsf Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 8:50 am
Som had a bes level design that was rejected by the agencies involved. The city found the pelli tower to best fin in with the skyline, and the park and retail was a big deal for everyone. In all cases as the project went forward, the train box area, seemed to get little play. My general take on it was people seemed to think a train box is a train box. No one was oohing and aaahing or really even discussing much about the rail level. Now some may say that is a gross oversight, I’m just saying that’s how things appeared to go down. A general sense that you stick the trains in the basement as usual and what matters is how pretty everything is up on top.
Joey Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
If what the guy at SOM told me is correct, they didn’t even consider the design in their final choice.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Correct. There was no architectural competition.
It was pure pay for play.
jimsf Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
and even it was pure pay for play as you put it. Here in “Capitalismamericaland”, thats how everything is done. Remember, money is god in america. Its what we are. I don’t always like it either, but you better get used to it or you’re gonna have a stroke.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Jim, the irony is that capitalist reformers usually focus on competitive bidding as a way to reduce government cronyism, both in the US and abroad.
jimsf Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
pardon my typos, I meant, the BUS level, in the SOM design was ruled out. I believe it had buses on multiple levels and bad access. AC Transit and the others said no.
And again, the tower design, had to be something that would pass muster with San Franciscans. ( not the new ones, but the ones, myself included, who fuss about any change to the skyline)
The park, again, was a huge thing in getting this chosen as well. San Franciscans love and want more park space wherever we can get it and like it or not, this project was not going to happen unless the architects and developers appeased the locals. Its how things are done here ( the small town way) and we intend to keep it that way.
The SOM was butt ugly. You can also expect the proposed 1000ft tower to be cut in half before its done.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
You can also expect the proposed 1000ft tower to be cut in half before its done.
Isn’t that how they are going to pay for the park on top of the bus terminal?
jimsf Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
You needn’t concern yourself with our park.
Peter Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
If we (as in the state and federal taxpayers) are paying for it, it concerns us, Jim.
jimsf Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Not any more than everything that goes on with funding all over america everywhere else does. I mean you sure do’t here sfers worrying about a new runway at DFW or whatever. Let’s not pretend that this the real concern. “oh well the taxpayers blah blah blah” a lot of you just don’t like the design so you pick on the park and other aspects and deride the local choices. Well Im sorry but its too bad. Im sure plenty o’ stuff goes on in LA that my tax dollars fund but that I don’t get all bent out of shape about.
The fact is, that most onthis blog are focused entirely on the rail portion of this project and don’t give a rats behind about the fact that there are other aspects that concern the residents locally. But those local concerns, wishes, opinions, were valid and were addressed in the overall design. So just deal with it and move on.
jimsf Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
In other words you’re lucky there’s going to be hsr in SF at all because I promise you that if it were to be made unpalatable to san francisco, it would have been nixed. this I know. happens all the time here.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
I’m pretty sure Pelosi has some of her own thoughts about whether to allow appropriations for runways at DFW.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
So do I since they have a perfectly good underutilized airport closer to downtown, Love Field.
Joey Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
You seem to still be under the assumption that the design actually factored into the final competition.
jimsf Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Of course it did.
Joey Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
That’s not what I’ve heard.
Joey Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Or rather, what I gather is that design was a secondary consideration. The fact that the Hines-Pelli proposal offered more money than the others was more important.
jimsf Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
If it didnt have the other elements the money would not have mattered. The money of course did matter as the city has a financial responsibility to get the best deal in that regard, but the fact that thepelli design was well liked by the general ( non-architect /non engineer with ax to grind”) public, is what got it to the finish line. Pelli had the look, style and money package. The others had one or two out of three. Thats just the way it works.
Joey Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Funny, it kinda reminds me of this