Osama bin Laden’s Death Revives HSR Security Discussion
Just as the country celebrated the death of its most wanted criminal, Osama bin Laden, it learned that he was speculating about an attack on the American rail system:
One idea outlined in handwritten notes was to tamper with an unspecified U.S. rail track so that a train would fall off the track at a valley or a bridge. Counterterrorism officials said they believe the plot was only in the initial planning stages, and there is no recent intelligence about any active plan for such an attack. The FBI and Homeland Security issued an intelligence bulletin with details of the plan to law enforcement around the country.
Notice the way I framed this – “speculating about an attack.” That seems to be all that was going on here. Still, the American government tends to overreact to this sort of thing, and increased security was seen around some passenger rail stations in recent days.
This raises the bigger question of how to keep the American passenger rail system – especially high speed rail – secure. We know that terrorists have targeted trains in the past – Algerian terrorists struck the Paris Metro in 1995; al-Qaeda struck the Madrid commuter rail system in 2004 and the London Underground in 2005, and of course there was the attack on a major rail station as part of a larger attack in Mumbai in 2008.
This is not a new discussion. Back in November Janet Napolitano floated a TSA-style screening of rail passengers. And in January 2010, this blog got into an argument with Politico about HSR security.
This blog’s approach has been consistent: for HSR security, we need to take our cues from Europe, and NOT from the flawed and not very useful TSA airport screening. Almost as if on cue, just before the report about bin Laden eyeing American railroads, an interesting article appeared at Miller-McCune about European HSR security, specifically in Germany:
When Deutsche Bahn renovated the 160-mile stretch [Berlin to Hamburg] in 2004 to allow the current speeds, it wiped out the market for business flights, just as a good high-speed rail corridor in California could end shuttle-flight service from San Diego (or even San Francisco) to Los Angeles. The savings in carbon emissions and overall hassle are terrific. But the crucial reason it competes so well with short-haul flights is that German trains involve no security lines….
Germany is interesting because its lack of dedicated high-speed corridors makes total security impossible. Fast trains are so well integrated into the national rail network that you don’t always know when you’ve wandered onto one. A scanner line for high-speed rail would mean a scanner line for the whole train station, which is hugely impractical. So Germany doesn’t bother.
The article explains that there are several reasons why Germany doesn’t bother: terrorists tend to attack large masses of people (like Atocha Station or a London Underground train; HSR doesn’t usually mass people like that); searching all rail baggage is impractical; and the nature of the German rail system as described above makes it difficult to separate HSR trains from others.
But the key point the article makes is that Germany, like other European countries, has a profound philosophical difference from the American Department of Homeland Security: they see that “security theater” is useless bullshit:
When some conservatives responded by saying surveillance cameras should also be installed in public toilets, a commissioner in charge of data protection said a move like that would be “alarming on constitutional grounds.” A leading Green politician named Hans-Christian Ströbele said, “It’s been proven for a long time that video surveillance of public spaces doesn’t eliminate danger.” And that was pretty much that.
The difference between America and Europe, at the moment, is that security theater carries no political reward in Europe: No mainstream politician wants to inconvenience a lot of voters for security that will never be airtight. Europeans have lived with bustling, open-plan train stations for centuries; they know the odds. In America, though, good rail travel stands to become something new and unknown — all over again! — and if U.S. politicians start crowing for airline-style security theater, the trains’ usefulness will vanish.
Europeans have also lived with a LOT more terrorism than Americans have. Few countries know that better than Spain, where ETA bombings were common for nearly 30 years, and where the 11-3 attacks at Atocha Station brought al-Qaeda terror to Madrid. But as Bianca explained in a comment on this site after a trip to Spain in late 2009, HSR security at Atocha Station wasn’t disruptive or intrusive and did not resemble the TSA at all:
we had to put our bags through an x-ray machine, but we did not have to walk through a magnetometer/metal detector.
No shoes off. No emptying pockets. No wanding.
Just drop bags on conveyor belt, walk around, pick them up off the other side of the x-ray, that was it. You barely had to slow your stride, it was such little hassle.
Back in April 2009, Rafael wrote about this topic and made some other points that are worth considering, including his argument that the most important thing is to prevent access to the tracks, with access to the trains being of secondary concern:
Rather, my purpose is to highlight the simple fact that rail networks are huge, yet a small amount of explosives or even just some concrete slabs can be enough to derail a train. The resulting casualties can be minimized by choosing very stiff train designs with articulated frames, e.g. products from Alstom or Talgo. However, the primary objective should always be to make it as difficult as possible to trespass onto the tracks in the first place.
In fact, bin Laden’s speculative plan involved tampering with the tracks to force a derailment of a passenger train, preferably on a bridge. That suggests Rafael had been right all along in his emphasis on track security over passenger screening.
Unfortunately, proposals like the Eshoo-Simitian-Gordon “blended” plan compromise this important safety goal. Already we know that the Caltrain tracks on the Peninsula are fundamentally unsafe. The death toll of the at-grade tracks is high enough as it is. If security is a concern, and it should be, then at-grade tracks do not provide the kind of security we need.
I would think that the geniuses in charge of security for the HSR systems would be smart enough to predict what the most sensitive segments are, such as bridges, and have continuous monitoring of those segments using cameras or sensors. The only viable plan for a terrorist would be to place a bomb on a more remote stretch of track, but even then there will probably be walls, cameras, and sensors along every foot of track in CA. Maybe we can hire the Minute Men to patrol the tracks further.
Lets also put a couple German on each train. Not only would they be able to sniff out bombs and serve as a visible deterrent, but they will scare the hell out of the terrorists. I am probably going to get lambasted on this blog for generalizing about people, but I have a relatively big dog, and I can tell you from years of personal experience that people from the Middle East region of the world (who were born there) are generally irrationally terrified of dogs, even small ones.
I have a lot of profiling data from my dog encounters with different types of people that I could share, but would probably get in trouble for sharing them. This is important information to keep track of since as a dog owner you need to be able to predict when the person approaching is going to want to pet your dog vs when the person is going to get mad at you because your dog took a sniff of his/her leg as they passed.
Agreed about controlling access to the tracks, not to the trains. Although hopefully this doesn’t mean there will be a full blown razor wire cage around the tracks either. Here’s to hoping for completely open station design.
An improvised explosive device was found near tracks in Philadelphia.
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/05/06/police-ied-found-near-chester-train-tracks/
“The Delaware County bomb squad determined that it was and disarmed it.
The device was found about 2 p.m., near third and Reaney Streets. That’s underneath the bridge and not far from the tracks Septa’s Wilmington-Newark line uses. ”
Government gets to play Sim Middle East but innocent Americans will suffer for it. Like I give a shit about Arabs and Jews and all of their fucking problems. I just want to ride trains.
Spokker Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 10:48 am
Related?
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/local_news/SEPTA_Counterterrorism_Equipment_Stolen_050611
Some equipment related to security was stolen from SEPTA.
VBobier Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 5:51 am
Here’s what was in the unlocked and unsecured SUV.
cph Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Tim McVeigh
VBobier Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Dead Traitor…
Which is to be considered the more attractive target for terrorists – hsr or urban mass transit? If it is the former that bolsters the case for SFO as the hsr terminus as it already has an extensive security apparatus in place. If they are forced to screen it would be a more appropriate place.
Joey Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 10:53 am
Except that the station itself wouldn’t be particularly close to the terminals.
Which is to be considered the more attractive target for terrorists – hsr or urban mass transit?
The density of people on urban mass transit is much higher. This makes it easier to kill more of them.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 10:54 am
You’d be on the “wrong” side of security at the train platform.
You were doing great, until your last paragraph, when you went off the rails.
Spokker Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 11:24 am
Yup. There is nothing unsafe about Caltrain.
YesonHSR Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 11:34 am
Except for the weekly running into a car when some dingbat drives across the tracks.. the Bay Area’s far to dense and crowded to have a 1920s era railroad train running up and down for 50 miles the thing needs grade separated and electrified whether it’s two tracks or four.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 12:32 pm
I’m hesitant to actually add up the annual death toll on the Caltrain tracks. But it is a huge public safety problem right now, and that’s without adding in anti-terrorism concerns.
If the goal is to secure the HSR system from potential threats, then track access needs to be extremely limited. Crossing a street at-grade creates a significant point of vulnerability and makes it harder to ensure the tracks are secure.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Robert, the death toll of mass transportation of any form, including airplanes, is not a major public safety problem of any sort. Try the death toll of cars instead.
If the goal is to secure the system from potential threats, then grade crossings should be eliminated in proportion to a) speed, b) passenger density, and c) special infrastructure such as tunnels. In the Bay Area there’s not going to be any high-speed track – there will only be medium-speed track hosting high-speed trains – which means that by far the most important pieces of infrastructure to secure are Transbay and BART’s Transbay Tube.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 2:19 pm
HSR won’t meaningfully combat car related fatalities however.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 2:56 pm
True. The way to meaningfully combat car-related fatalities is to reduce driving, especially local driving.
Alex M. Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
If Caltrain goes currently ~50 mph through grade crossings, with 2 tracks, and at most 6 tph, then yes, it’s not huge problem compared to cars. But it won’t be like that forever. When there are four tracks, many more trains per hour, and some going 125 mph, it must be grade separated.
Clem Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 4:10 pm
79 mph, not ~50 mph.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Sure, but even then, safety is a tiny component of this. Grade separation even at medium speed benefits cars more than trains; it’ll be done after HSR opens, not because it has to be done for HSR but because the Peninsula communities will demand it once the gates are down for too long.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 2:27 pm
“What are these “Googles” of which I hear the young people speak?”
the annual death toll on the Caltrain tracks. But it is a huge public safety problem
TERRORISTS! RUN AWAY!!!!!! ONLY LOS BANOS CAN SAVE US!!!!!!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caltrain#Deaths_by_year
JJJ Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 2:39 pm
Hey look, Caltrain has killed more people in the last 5 years than terrorists in america in the last 5 years.
And of course, that number is one days worth of deaths on american highways.
Clearly the biggest concern here are the bearded boogeymen.
joe Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 5:26 pm
Always the charmer.
http://www.paly.paloaltopta.org/
A peer at work parents a senior at Paly and the train ROW is a major concern.
My spouse’s co-worker lost a child this around the same place – hit by Caltrain.
Caltrain’s ROW is a problem – serious problem. Obviously the fault of the contractor-train-industrial complex and the many fools unpersuaded by your cutting insights.
Joey Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 6:11 pm
Unfortunately, the numbers seem to say that if you want to save lives, you could save more people by putting the money elsewhere.
Spokker Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 10:49 pm
If anyone wants to pay my way to the Bay Area Peninsula, I will repeatedly cross any railroad crossings of your choosing all day by car and/or on foot. You can film all or part of it and we’ll make bets on whether or not I am killed by the evil doers that operate Caltrain.
I also extend this offer to Los Angeles’ Metro Blue Line, though I would be afraid of being robbed and/or shot more so than being hit by a train.
Experts predict drop in in gas prices shortly..
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110507/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gas_prices
Alex M. Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
So? Are you saying that because of a possible temporary price drop in gas we shouldn’t build HSR?
joe Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 5:54 pm
Great! Now Facebook employees can drive to work.
I know a short cut through Menlo Park.
Pics of campus off HW101
http://static.businessinsider.com/image/4dc3090d49e2aed211180000-590/official-map.jpg
http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-facebooks-huge-new-9000-employee-campus-2011-5
“The company company currently resides in an old Hewlett-Packard research lab. It’s super crowded. So, it’s moving to a two-site campus in Menlo Park. There it hopes to employ more than 9,000 people within the next 6 years.
“The company [facebook] currently resides in an old Hewlett-Packard research lab. It’s super crowded. So, it’s moving to a two-site campus in Menlo Park. There it hopes to employ more than 9,000 people within the next 6 years.”
Facebook claims traffic for 9,000 new emplyees isn’t a problem and development tax addicted Menlo Park will agree. FB will bus workers to the campus in FB owned buses.
Reality Check Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 10:34 am
The new Menlo Park Facebook campus is right on the Dumbarton rail corridor the SF leg of Altamont HSR would use. The Dumbarton Rail Corridor Project (“temporarily” (wink, wink!) defunded by MTC for BART Warm Springs) includes a station right at Willow Road & Bayfront Expressway.
Emma Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Are you citing Yahoo News??
Alon Levy Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 11:47 pm
Yahoo News is just the AP wire.
Nathanael Reply:
May 10th, 2011 at 7:12 pm
A SEASONAL drop in price. It’ll be right back up in winter. Did you read the article, Morris?
For historical perspective, it might be interesting to consider the derailment (with fatalities) of the City of San Francisco in 1939 due to an apparently fairly elaborate sabotage effort (tracks tampered on a bridge approach, tampering disguised, and block signal wires run around the tampered section).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_San_Francisco
http://www.outbacknevada.us/hickson/CitySF.html
http://www3.gendisasters.com/nevada/3468/humboldt-river,-nv-streamer-liner-wrecked,-aug-1939
What is the purpose of TSA at high speed rail stations? All you do is creating huge crowds in front to the trains that could be an even easier target for terrorists. The whole concept behind the TSA was to prevent hijacking of planes. How on earth are you going to hijack a train?? And even if there was the possibility:
1. There is a plenty of crew onboard of a train that can fight terrorists.
2. Riders in all 5-8 cars can use the emergency brake at any point.
The only danger would be a bomb hidden in the luggage or baggage. But heck, if you are able to assemble a bomb then its not a failure of the CHSRA to provide security. It’s the failure of the 50 intelligence agencies that are supposed to keep an eyes on people who buy a suspicious mix of chemicals. And again, why wouldn’t that person blow up the baggage at the station with 10,000 people as opposed to the train (500 people)?
TSA for trains would be an incredible waste of money and time with no improved security.
PS: Did you know that 90% of all terrorist plots are uncovered by average policemen and women and NOT the trillion dollar intelligence complex?
Paulus Magnus Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 7:27 pm
That’s really about all the good that TSA does at airports anyhow. Security doors on airplanes and x-ray machines account for all major threats. But people don’t get careers on doing things properly.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 7:39 pm
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair
Spokker Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 9:42 pm
“All you do is creating huge crowds in front to the trains that could be an even easier target for terrorists.”
Correct. Right now people are relatively dispersed before boarding a train. Some come early, some arrive minutes before the train is to depart. Some wait in the station, some wait in the platforms and still others wait further away so they may smoke. And when they do board, they board at numerous doors.
Making everyone stand in a line for screening does exactly what you say, create an opportunity for a bomb to deliver maximum damage. Based on what we know about security checkpoints and the lines they create is that they aren’t actually that effective at filtering out threats. There are plenty of examples of undercover agents getting bomb material through security checkpoints. Even the x-ray scanners can be foiled by pancakes, according to a recent article.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2010/12/backscatter_scanner_vulnerabilities
And then there are the recent terrorist attacks that were foiled only by passengers.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Employment of TSA officers. Also, pure sadist pleasure of seeing passengers queue single-file.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
With the added bonus that it only annoys Unreal Americans. Real Americans don’t go places where there are train stations and even if there were to get the urge, they don’t travel by train.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 2:48 pm
I don’t think they care. The TSA’s original mandate was to annoy air travelers, a set that consists of both real and fake Americans. The only people who really think it’s a good thing that train travelers have to jump through hoops to get on the platform are TSA sadists and Robert Poole.
VBobier Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
I’m wondering If I could even get past the TSA? As I have 3 titanium screws in My lower left leg.
Peter Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
Possibly your screws would set off the metal detector. If you set them off they would probably pull you aside for additional wanding/patdown.
If they sent you through the full-body scanner, I don’t think the screws would register.
If you want to see true despair at some of the political ideas we have to counter, just take a gander at the comments regarding the 73 toll road here: http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/04/27/73-tolls-to-be-extended-6-extra-years/81531/
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 10:28 pm
Those toll roads are scandalous. “Ridership” is dropping like a rock and the system doesn’t cover its costs. That’s a financial boondoggle if ever there was one. Yet nobody gives a shit because roads are magically exempt from these concerns.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 10:40 pm
No no no, see it’s all government’s fault. That’s why the fares are rising, rather than falling, as the proper free-market reaction would be.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 11:18 pm
That, the Community Reinvestment Act and that we went off the gold standard. Oh and taxes on rich people being too high. They economize by driving on the free road, lower their taxes and they’d use the toll road.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 11:14 am
To be fair to the toll roads, however, they do seem to be meeting their maintenance and other operating costs, but are having difficulty with the capital construction cost. Taiwan HSR was in the same boat.
morris brown Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 7:37 am
The link Magnus provides is certainly on target showing why private equity is not going to get involved with HSR, unless investors are protected by the full good faith of the State or Feds to guarantee their investment.
Robert’s comment’s below are pure non-sense.
The Authority’s “stonewalling” on producing ridership data that could at least be considered with some semblance of validity, and failure to provide an investment grade finance/business plan dig right to the heart of why this project is nothing more than hype and mirrors with regards to getting it on any kind of sound financial basis. Boondoggle is the correct term for this project as it cannot be built at anywhere near the “lowballed $43 billion” the Authority now claims.
Anyone who is following recent events, can see the new push to value engineer their designs is nothing more than an admission that their $43 billion budget is out of line with the reality of what the true costs will be.
PB is quite happy to study more and more alternatives, just give us the money.
Readers who think they are getting a HSR segment built in the valley are going to be disappointed when they find all that gets built are some tracks that are not electrified and need at least another 28% of costs to bring them up toe where HSR trainsets can be run.
If they spend the next 10 years trying to dig up enough money to complete say “Merced to Bakersfield” and run some trains, the operating deficits will have to covered from some source of funding. I wonder if the CV which would be the only beneficiary of such a segment, is willing to tax itself for those deficits?
All of this is, of course, would be illegal under Prop 1A, but as of late, the Authority doesn’t care to worry about such trivia.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 7:55 am
My take is still one that roads are underpriced and oversubsidized. Otherwise, the road would be making a “profit.” Once again, we have a double standard about roads vs. public transit, particularly by rail.
Morris is right about one thing; private equity will not enter what it sees as a game that is rigged against it. Now, if you got the government out of the road business, even just at the federal level, that would very likely unrig the game. Roads might not look so attractive at the state level if the 80% federal match wasn’t there. Rail would be able to compete very nicely on its inherent efficiency in the use of all resources, including energy, land, materials, and labor. That is what enables private freight railroads to continue to compete profitably against trucks, and to pay huge property taxes besides.
Even Amtrak manages to make an operating surplus in some parts of the country, and not all of them are in the Northeast Corridor.
Does Morris wish to take this bet?
joe Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 9:50 am
Reading Morris you’d think the funding for the Valley Segment came from the Widows and Orphans fund.
Sadly the FEDs can’t give CA exactly what’s needed to build that ideal segment Morris demands be built. illegality and all.
ARRA funding, stimulus spending to avoid a depression is funding HSR – money CA has beciuase we were ready. ARRA requirement is the project must have stand alone utility – the Valley projects meet the requirements.
Wasteful?
I suppose HSR isn’t as productive and useful as the roads we taxpayers are building in Afghanistan or schools and hospitals in Iraq.
tony d. Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
$3 billion ANNUALLY for Pakistan anyone? Where’s the outrage and cry’s of boondoggle!?
VBobier Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Especially when some in Pakistan hid Al Qaeda’s center for 5 years, The Seals are Heros to Me, Since the Seals took out Al Qaeda’s center(Leader). From what I’ve read He’s not easily replaced and His 2nd in command is not even close to being another Osama bin Laden, But then Osama I hear does make good worm food on the bottom of the ocean. Pakistan is saying someone is responsible within their Government and that heads will roll when they find out. Now if Pakistan will return the tail of that helicopter to the US Navy and not send It off to China for analysis…
Nathanael Reply:
May 10th, 2011 at 7:16 pm
Yeah. Half of Pakistan’s government appears to actually be working WITH al Qaeda, and the US is just dumping money into Pakistan. I don’t think the US even knows which half of the Pakistani government is working with al Qaeda — I certainly haven’t seen any “inside analyses” the way I have for the internal politics of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, or Egypt. I don’t think the US government has a *ing clue what’s going on in Pakistan.
John Burrows Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 11:24 am
You say that this “boondoggle” cannot be built for anywhere near $43 billion. Elizabeth might disagree. Based upon what savings could be achieved in The Valley and by going back to the “Grapevine”, she has thrown out an admittedly wild guess of $40 billion for phase 1. She specifically excludes from her guess the Transbay, and Peninsula guad-tracking and grade crossings. She also excludes Merced and the Long Tunnel into Union Station. Merced will probably have to be put back in, but even so we would still be under $43 billion.
It seems to me that van Ark is doing what we are paying him to do—Make the project work. If costs start to get out of line you find ways to bring them down and you do this before construction starts, not after.
Isn’t it this October when the draft 2011 Business Plan comes out? To say that this business plan will be important may well be a gross understatement.
synonymouse Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 11:40 am
Prop 1A is going to have to be re-interpreted in order for improved rail transit in California to go ahead. The CHSRA seems to be making baby steps in that direction.
The thrust of the TRAC tack is correct. Concentrate first on the missing links and the sections that will be built no matter what route changes might be eventually considered or made. That would be of course the mountain crossing. That could very well unfortunately have to go to court so in the interim direct the funds first to Bakersfield to Fresno rather than Borden to Corcoran.
Nathanael Reply:
May 10th, 2011 at 7:17 pm
?!?!? You do know that Borden to Corcoran is part of Bakersfield to Fresno, don’t you ?!?!
Elizabeth Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
Please note that my $40 billion is really only San Jose to Santa Clarita and that it is a very round number at this point.
It is also about $25 billion more than the money the Rail Authority has, being as generous as possible.
Elizabeth Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 1:52 pm
Question for the crew:
Let’s say the project moves to the Grapevine. They are starting initially study basically now and say it will be finished in 4 months. If they decide to pursue it, they will then have to do all the engineering and then at some point you can start. It looks like about 50 miles (google maps grapevine, ca to Santa Clarita) through tough terrain.
How long does engineering take for this sort of project?
How long would construction take? From previous work, about 1/2 would be aerial and 1/2 a series of tunnels.
tony d. Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
You really, really don’t want to see HSR built, do you!?
Elizabeth Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 2:11 pm
This is a serious question, one to which I don’t know the answer.
Nathanael Reply:
May 10th, 2011 at 7:21 pm
Engineering time is unpredictable as it depends on what “shows up”. If something turns out to be really straightforward, engineering time can be as little as six months. If technical problems and NIMBYs start popping out of the woodwork, it can drag on for years.
Construction time? Depends how many sections you can start in parallel. Tunnels are *slow*, and if you’re only running from one end to the other, look at the Second Avenue Subway: a year for 30 blocks. If you can do multiple shorter tunnels, you can do them simutaneously and it’s much, much faster. The massive Swiss railway tunnels under the Alps (Alptransit Gotthard and Alptransit Loetschberg) had vertical access shafts dropped in the middle so that the tunnels could be built simultaneously from several points at once.
Bored tunnels are almost certainly the limiting factor on construction speed. And you’d better remember that.
Alan F Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 2:11 pm
For an entirely new route through the Grapevine option? Since they would pretty much be starting over from scratch, probably 2-4 years of Tier 1 and 2 engineering and EIS studies along with all the public outreach stuff. The current Bakersfield to Palmdale to LA route has at least the advantage of the preliminary alternative analysis work being mostly completed.
As for how long the construction would take, until a route is chosen and the initial engineering is in place choosing which techniques to use to bore out & build the tunnels and how long it might take to build them, even a ballpark estimate is asking for a lot.
VBobier Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Problem is, State Politicians are asking those questions now & then asking for unrealistic service in the name of saving money & saying don’t do this or spend that cause some have the opinion that said project isn’t worth building & some are just gutless & would rather not do anything different, Americans are are not all that different than Europeans, We just use more energy than anyone else cause We have a continent to travel across. And some think automobiles being familiar is good enough & that Trains are old fashioned & obsolete, If trains like Amtrak are so obsolete, Then Why do people ride on them in ever increasing numbers & defend Amtrak by emailing and/or calling their Congress-person & US Senator?
How come the past is always looking better? Oh well, some more material from old movies to lighten the tone; Synonymouse will appreciate them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioQlOml6vvA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0odXnKhKBxQ&feature=related
Have fun.
The item below appeared recently on the Infrastructurist; it’s a little point on economics that might be of interest to a couple of readers here.
beowulf Says:
May 8th, 2011 at 12:06 am
The problem we have was pointed out by Beardsley Ruml 60 years ago, the United States Government uses a consolidated budget combining operational and capital spending instead of keeping long term public investments off-budget in a separate capital budget. No state or local govt funds capital projects that way, school boards don’t pay down school bonds in a single year. And of course, Uncle Sam doesn’t ever have to (nor should it) “pay down” its debt. We’ve been rolling over debt continuously since the 1830s, and we’ve done OK for ourselves, But I digress.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,819109,00.html
The US Government annually spends 4.0% of GDP, $600 billion, on public investment spending (defined by OMB as infrastructure, education and R&D), every dollar of which adds to the national capital stock. There’s no reason it should be counted in the federal budget deficit, indeed we could profitably spend another $200 billion or so on necessary infrastructure work. And it should cost us precisely nothing. Leaving aside that the interest rate paid on US Treasuries is currently dirt cheap (5 year T-bonds are yielding 1.86%, 3 month T-bills, 0.01%), as economist James K. Galbraith points out in a new paper, there’s no economic reason that the US Government ever has to pay any positive interest rate (or, to extend his point, to ever need gas taxes to pay for new roads).
http://pragcap.com/is-the-federal-debt-unsustainable
Some background on Ruml:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beardsley_Ruml
Nathanael Reply:
May 10th, 2011 at 7:24 pm
Thank you D.P. This is the sort of thing which I try to explain to people with limited success….
Security is a given and it does not have to escalate to the terrorist level. Simply a cost of doing business:
http://www.8newsnow.com/story/14575982/mob-of-thieves-swarms-las-vegas-convenience-store
Meantime let me suggest that Van Ark quietly let his engineers do a cursory look at the nuclear bare-bones of Livermore via I-5 freefield to Bako-Fresno via a full wye at north Tejon and then when the tunnels are complete via Tejon to LA. Let’s see if the idea has any semblance of functionality or is a still too priceydud.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 1:07 pm
Meh. Tejon is defensible – Palmdale is a huge detour. I-5 is stupid.