Saturday Open Thread
If we don’t all get raptured tonight at 6PM, then we’ll still have rising oil prices, a warming climate, a serious recession, and public demand for transportation choices to solve. So let’s keep talking about how high speed rail will help us solve them.
No rapture. All is safe.
VBobier Reply:
May 21st, 2011 at 5:51 pm
Yep, Nothing here either.
JBaloun Reply:
May 21st, 2011 at 6:46 pm
I got raptured but they threw me back.
Gianny Reply:
May 21st, 2011 at 9:05 pm
Nothing here…but made sure to receive it at a German bar drinking plenty….so I can’t type.
jay taylor Reply:
May 21st, 2011 at 9:20 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0GFRcFm-aY
I think that song is fitting.
wu ming Reply:
May 21st, 2011 at 9:23 pm
catch and release.
Risenmessiah Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 1:21 pm
Yeah no sign of the rapture at all…hey wait…has anyone seen Morris or synonmouse today?
Peter Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 1:36 pm
That would be a great blessing.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 1:55 pm
So it did happen, just that it happened in an alternate universe.
So… they building that Spaceport in New Mexico. I guess Virgin Galactic chose this area because of the low number of planes.
I still hope there will be a spaceport close to our high speed rail line. This might sound odd, but with the current exponential progress in technology, I would say that travelling to low-orbit space will be as normal as a flight to Australia by 2030.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
May 21st, 2011 at 6:28 pm
Won’t be unless someone manages to invent a reactionless drive capable of more than one gee in atmosphere. Energy costs and lack of rationale are against it.
Derek Reply:
May 21st, 2011 at 6:40 pm
And regenerative aerobrakes.
Robert, why are you assume you would’ve gotten raptured? Are you a closet born-again Christian?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 21st, 2011 at 7:49 pm
“We” would include you. Depends on your interpretations of who gets raptured and when. There’s one camp that says the elect will be raptured. There’s another camp that says the non elect will be raptured. Yet another camp that says all of us will be raptured. Yet another camp that says none of us will be raptured until after Armageddon. Or maybe just before the Apocalypse
But then he could be in the majority camp that heeds the warning in Matthew 7:15 about ravening wolves. Or the other warnings about it.
Maybe he’s just expecting another Great Disappointment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Disappointment
VBobier Reply:
May 21st, 2011 at 7:54 pm
It’s all Ruptured to Me.
wu ming Reply:
May 21st, 2011 at 9:24 pm
as if the born agains are anywhere in the neighborhood of being rapture-worthy. “whatsoever you do to the least of them, you do unto me.”
Proof of the rapture: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/nc71573305.html
Eric M Reply:
May 21st, 2011 at 8:24 pm
The geysers are always rumbling a little all the time.
Anyone see the latest Nat Geo? China will soon have 8,000 miles of high-speed rail lines…WOW!
Anyone know how Chinese HSR compares to the likes of Japan, Taiwan, Spain, etc?
New HSR lines, new airports, new infrastructure period…must be nice!
Gianny Reply:
May 21st, 2011 at 9:08 pm
Empty cities, empty malls…yeap! But their infrastructure is amazing (Rail, Airports, Ports).
wu ming Reply:
May 21st, 2011 at 9:26 pm
i take it you’ve never actually been to a chinese city or mall. while there may be empty ones somewhere out there, the only time i’ve ever seen a chinese mall not packed to near-panic attack sardine-can asphyxiation was during SARS.
Winston Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 12:43 am
One example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_China_Mall China has also built a number of cities that have just sat empty from their construction. While nobody would deny there is a genuine boom in China, there is an astounding amount of waste – waste that puts to shame anything in the U.S. housing bubble. It will be interesting to see if these eventually get occupied or not.
wu ming Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 1:35 am
i’m not sure i’d go so far as to say it “puts to shame anything in the US housing bubble.” there’s failed speculation in places, and some large planned developments have not panned out for a variety of reasons, and china does have a significant and dangerous bubble in its real estate market, but empty malls and empty cities are not typical, they’re fascinating aberrations and exceptions to the rule of teeming cities and jam-packed malls (i hope to never again experience crowding like opening day at the beijing ikea). again, have you actually been to a city or mall in china?
Yeap, I meant the vast empty new cities built near Mongolia along with their vast malls…Not the ones in major cities.
NEW Order for Future Bombers… Cost? Only $55 Billion to start. Isn’t the cold war over? Aren’t the new wars like Afghanistan or cells?
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-new-bomber-20110522,0,6128044.story
D. P. Lubic Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 5:30 am
Look what else is on that LA Times page–a nostalgia trip for fliers:
http://www.latimes.com/travel/deals/la-trb-air-stewardess-20110518,0,1656913.story
I’m recalling how I put together a TV series based on the adventures of railroad men in the steam era just before and going into WW II, and I couldn’t sell it to save my soul. The only outfit even look at it was Gaylord Entertainment, which ran Opryland USA and The Nashville Network at that time. Even they turned it down, claiming it would be too expensive for them (this was when TNN ran mostly interview shows with Ralph Emery and reruns of “The Dukes of Hazzard.”)
I live in the wrong time, either too late or too early. . .
This obituary is older news to me, but notable for the serious rail enthusiasts here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-richard-steinheimer-20110522,0,1878831.story
Of course, if I lived in the right time I would be dead by now. . .
Which would be better, to live in the right time and be dead, or to live in the wrong time and live?
Ugh, what a choice.
Peter Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 6:39 am
Yeah, but the next superpower struggle is on its way: U.S. v. China & Co.
All this talk about HSR being risky and unproven–bah, we’ve had trains running over 100 mph since at least 1893 (New York Central’s 999) and streamliners since 1900, and on the old B&O at that:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Windsplitter_B%26O_streamlined_train1900.jpg
See No. 47.
http://www.borailroadhotsauce.com/bo-trivia/
Some B&O fans must run this outfit (and it is in conjunction with the museum in Baltimore).
http://www.borailroadhotsauce.com/
I’ve never had any of this stuff, but there is a local firm where I live that produces something called “Scorned Woman.” I can only imagine you would have some of that on a hamburger or steak and exclaim, “WHOO–EEE!!”
I keep reading articles about California’s “massive deficit”, “California is broke”.
What riles me is that everybody takes these assertions for granted as if they were self-evident truths.
Let’s compare California and France.
France’s debt/GDP ratio is 7%. For California it is 6%.
As nobody says France is broke then California is even less broke.
The confusion, that many exploit, comes from S&P ratings:
France: AAA, outlook stable.
California: A-minus, outlook negative.
Why is California rated lower than France and denied access to the same cheap loans?
The wrong answer: “because it’s broke and France isn’t”.
The right answer: “because we have a copy of France’s budget but we’re still waiting for California’s”.
S&P is quite clear. The low rating is due to “inability of lawmakers to reach political consensus”.
In an ideal world, you should round up all your lawmakers and lock them in like for the pope’s election. Nobody gets out until we see the white smoke signalling that a budget has been voted.
Risenmessiah Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 6:15 am
Oh, the same ratings agencies that listed mortgage backed securities as AAA+ investments?
Don’t know if this news was posted somewhere in the responses here, but Amtrak put out a press release on Thursday about their request for proposals for private investments for the next generation HSR NEC plan. The pr titled “AMTRAK PURSUING PRIVATE INVESTMENT TO SUPPORT NORTHEAST CORRIDOR HIGH-SPEED RAIL PLANS” can be found at http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=Page&pagename=am%2FLayout&cid=1241245669129
Excerpt from the bulk of the release:
“Amtrak is developing an in-depth business plan that will maximize the opportunity for private investment to finance the construction of infrastructure and the acquisition of equipment required to provide 220 mph (354 kph) next-generation high-speed rail service in the Northeast Corridor.
“Amtrak will aggressively pursue private investment, in combination with funding from the federal government and from other public sources, to achieve our goal of initiating true high-speed rail from Washington to Boston,” said Al Engel, Amtrak Vice President, High-Speed Rail.
In April, Amtrak issued a request for proposals for a fully implementable and robust business and financial plan where Amtrak is the key developer and operator of the high-speed rail system. It will identify and develop public and private funding sources and address fundamental issues of risk, credit, debt and investment phasing among other criteria.
The business plan also will include strategies and tactics for meeting the project delivery timelines and achieving financial targets, provide information for Amtrak’s FY 2013 federal budget request and lay out the strategy for subsequent forays into the private investment and capital markets. To date, numerous private investment firms have expressed interest in working with Amtrak. Proposals are due June 10.
Mr. Engel said the active pursuit of private financing is one of several actions taken by Amtrak to move forward its next-generation high-speed rail vision plan since it was announced in September 2010. Another key action is the development of a stair-step approach outlining a clear, structured and coordinated path to achieve 220 mph service on exclusive operational segments first between Philadelphia and New York, then New York to Washington, followed by New York to Hartford and finally Hartford to Boston.”
Beta Magellan Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 10:37 am
It’s a shame they’re specifying Hartford rather than New Haven—looks like they’re really set on their ridiculous inland Connecticut greenfield line rather than just using a few bypasses of the Shore Line’s curvier stretches (and if they’re keeping that, they’re certainly looking at overbuilding the rest of the line, too).
Joey Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 10:40 am
Agreed. In this case, you can get a lot more bang for your buck by upgrading the existing alignments, and, frequently, save almost as much time.
Alan F Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 1:35 pm
The problem with the current NEC route through CT is that both halves of it are slow and curvy. CDOT owns the Metro-North line to New Haven which runs through a densely populated and pricey real estate corridor with few options for major speed improvements so long as they are constrained to that line. The Shore Line route is even more curvy and there are few options there for a 220 mph class corridor route. Yes, the Shore Line could be made faster by re-routing some parts of the ROW to I-95. But not to a 220 or 186 mph class line.
What Amtrak put out last fall is only an outline or concept to get the conversation started. It has done that. The most challenging part – and this will make the debates in CA over the route of the CHSRA system look easy – is getting from NYC to mid-Connecticut, whether it be to New Haven or Hartford. The political fights in CA over the San Jose to SF route or which pass to take will be child’s play to the politics, NIMBYs, and cost engineering on settling on a HSR route through CT.
If the next gen NEC HSR line runs to Hartford, then it is likely to go north to Springfield and Worcester MA because it really should hit the larger population centers in New England, not skip north of Providence to Woonsocket RI. It should be mentioned that the 7 largest cities in New England are in order of population are: Boston, Worcester, Providence, Springfield MA, Bridgeport, New Haven, and Hartford. An inland route through Hartford to Springfield MS to Worcester would provide HSR and/or the current NEC to all seven.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 9:42 pm
There is an alternative to the eastern half of the Shore Line – I-95. It’s pretty straight, it’s flat, and the only nontrivial construction issue there is the alignment through central New London. A few km of greenfield transition from I-95 to the straight bit of the NEC in southern Rhode Island would be limited to a ruling grade of about 3%.
I agree that Woonsocket is a terrible idea, but Worcester isn’t very good. A stop there would necessarily be suburban, on the way to Boston – and the town is very unwalkable. It may have a large population, but it doesn’t have the urban area size of Hartford, Providence, or New Haven.
Emma Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 10:45 am
$117 billion for construction?? Even with $1 billion in net income, that would mean that the system would pay off in 117 years.
Are the tracks made of gold? Or wait, is it a maglev train? Otherwise I can’t explain this ridiculous price tag.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 11:11 am
Three-word explanation: Amtrak is incompetent. Here is an explanation for why 10% of the budget, to be spent on gold plated tunneling in Philadelphia, is completely useless. The same is true for most other items, but the link focuses on Philadelphia transit issues.
VBobier Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 11:21 am
If Amtrak is so incompetent, then why do they have one arm tied behind their back? Freeways, Airports all get money, Yet trains are told, Sorry You’re a monopoly and We won’t give You a Dime, Or Yer Amtrak and You get way too much already and are forced to not be able to expand or acquire new rolling stock to replace really old equipment or to expand their own track and instead depend outside of the NEC on Trackage rights from Freight RR’s. Amtrak does make a profit, Just not everywhere, A lot of areas break even and some lose money and It’s the break even or the lose areas that need capital investment to make them profitable.
Joey Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 11:34 am
Just because Amtrak has issues doesn’t grant it license to completely overbuild when it has the chance to request capital upgrades.
Beta Magellan Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 12:42 pm
And proposing overbuilt infrastructure just hobbles Amtrak in the long run, since it further undermines their credibility as a passenger carrier. And since they’re the only intercity passenger rail service in the continental US, they’ll also end up undermining the case for non-Amtrak passenger rail as well.
jim Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 11:51 am
I don’t think Amtrak is incompetent. I think they sometimes try to be too clever politically. The Philadelphia tunnel is a good example of that. It was first proposed in the Penn Studio study. In that study it’s defended on development grounds. With the HSR station at Market Street (roughly where Reading Terminal used to be) and the conventional station at 30th Street, there is a stage set for revitalization of Center City. Since the Penn Studio was held in Philadelphia, Amtrak assumed that important Philadelphia interests were behind the tunnel and the Market Street HSR station. So, to buy their support for NEC HSR, Amtrak included it in their plan.
Now, it’s likely there really isn’t support for this idea among Philadelphia real estate circles; that the students in the Studio were letting their imaginations run away with them: it could happen. If so, sooner or later the tunnel will be quietly dropped, probably while Amtrak is negotiating with possible funding sources. But until then, it’s part of the plan and Al Engel’s job in public is to push the plan. I have, in the past, cheerfully asserted that we would implement features that I knew we couldn’t afford. By the time I shipped, those features had been deferred to Version 2 or dropped altogether. Once something’s in the plan, it’s part of the project until it isn’t. When you defend the project, you defend all of it.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 12:40 pm
The problem is that the entire project consists of things like this. Amtrak could have checked the pulse in Philadelphia and Baltimore and seen that nobody has any interest in Market East or Charles Center, and that Center City is already fine and doesn’t need any more megaprojects than it already has. Philadelphia ought to be satisfied enough with high-frequency trains traveling to New York in not much more than half an hour.
And the same is true elsewhere – the plan does not even try to fix the Metuchen curve, or talk about first-rate rolling stock to avoid building unnecessary infrastructure (the one time someone asked the FRA for a waiver they got it; what’s Amtrak afraid of?), or do a tradeoff between tunnels and takings in Connecticut… it’s a set union of all gold-plated ideas that have floated around in the last 3 years.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 12:40 pm
Penn Studio plan was an exercise in how to connect SUNY Stonybrook to Uconn to make it easier fro horny 20 year olds at Temple to boink someone from either with the added bonus of passing through Springfield and making it easy to get to all the colleges in western Mass. It’s not a good idea to let nearly destitute 20-somethings who ain’t gettin’ enuf to plan transportation projects.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 1:57 pm
What is your preferred alignment, then?
VBobier Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 11:12 am
It amounts to a lot of track to build or upgrade, If It were cheaper It wouldn’t be any good and would be a waste of money. Investments in the future are never cheap.
Joey Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 11:33 am
No. The issue here is that Amtrak is planning to build regular HSR for the cost of Maglev.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 1:14 pm
Any Year of Expenditure plan for an HSR penciled in for 2030 to 2040 is going to look expensive. In 2010 dollars its more on the order of $40b to $50b.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 1:56 pm
According to Amtrak, it’s $42 billion if you assume 7% inflation. More precisely Amtrak states it in terms of discount rates, but it’s equally true for inflation. I think we can both agree that 7% inflation is not happening anytime soon; if you assume a more likely 2% inflation rate then it becomes $87 billion instead.
$87 billion divided by the length of new track is less than the per-km cost of the Chuo Shinkansen, but not by much. Even $42 billion is way up there with HS2 and higher than anything in the non-English-speaking world except for maglev and base tunnels. For a line that according to Amtrak is only 12% in tunnel, it’s Pentagon-grade waste.
jim Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 2:36 pm
No. It’s $42B in constant dollars. Discounting at 7% gives $117B YOE. You always do initial cost estimates in constant dollars and then inflate them to get YOE.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Amtrak did the opposite – it came up with a constant dollar figure, and then applied a 7% discount rate to come up with $42 billion NPV.
Joseph E Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Oh, that’s not as bad as I thought. While inflation will be only 2 to 5% over the next few decades, construction costs have been going up at 7% a year for a long time. It’s reasonable for Amtrak to plan for 7% construction cost inflation, because labor costs, energy costs and materials prices have far outstripped the cost of inflation in the past generation, and will in the future. And land costs in the NE corridor will go up fast.
But I still think it could be done for cheaper than $42 in 2010 dollars. Most of the alignment from NY to DC is just fine (if the cantenary and trains are upgraded), and there are cheaper solutions for getting thru NY and to Boston than those that Amtrak selected.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 6:03 pm
There’s a bit of the regulatory lock that Alon Levy complains about there ~ their notional alignment for the preliminary study did indeed follow DC to NYC, but of course it has to be a new corridor next to the existing one.
The alignments are notional, of course, and given a slated 2030 start date, other works in the meantime could change the alignment choice even under the terms of the preliminary study.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 7:47 pm
I think that my use of the term “Inflation” obfuscated too much. Sorry.
So here is a second attempt at explaining: Amtrak is saying that, in nominal YOE dollars, the line will cost $117 billion. The question is how much it is in 2010 dollars, measured in terms of the price index, not just construction costs. One data point is that Amtrak says that at a 7% discount rate, it’s $42 billion in net present value, i.e. costs the same as spending $42 billion as a lump sum today. If you think about it right, it means that at 7% inflation, it’s $42 billion in 2010 dollars not in net present value, i.e. with the money spent over 20 years. Make the inflation rate more realistic and it’s not much less than $100 billion in 2010 dollars.
There are two reasons I completely discount the net present value point. First, a 7% discount rate is excessive – US borrowing costs in normal times are about 4%. Second, delaying construction delays both costs and benefits; spending $42 billion as a lump sum today to get high-speed rail in twenty years is pointless.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 11:38 pm
A lower inflation rate reduces Year of Expenditure figures by an equivalent amount.
Year of Expenditure means the costs that are assumed to prevail in that year. Its not an actual observed cost several decades in the future, with the inflation rate between now and then being guess at.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Yes, but Amtrak did not assume 7% inflation! It assumed an unspecified, presumably realistic inflation rate, and then discounted costs using NPV!
Alan F Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 1:54 pm
The $117 billion dollar amount – which was not broken out in any measurable level of detail in the Amtrak Vision plan – includes three seriously expensive tunnels and new underground stations: a 5 mile tunnel under Baltimore with a Charles Center station, a 7.5 mile tunnel under Philly with a new station at Market East, and a 11.8 mile tunnel under NYC to stations under Penn Station and Grand Central. The only one of these that I see as approaching a viable idea is a new HSR tunnel under Baltimore with a new station close to downtown. Running the HSR line to 30th Street station in Philly and using the new Gateway tunnels to Penn Station in NYC should cut tens of billions off of the $117 billion price tag with an acceptable trip time hit.
Caelestor Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 2:24 pm
30th St is a perfectly fine station, it’s quite to Dtwn Philly. Considering all trains need to slow down to stop in Philadelphia, there is no need to go to Suburban. I also don’t see the point of serving PHL, people need to realize that HSR’s purpose is to move people between large cities quickly and to not shuttle them to the airport.
I really like the proposal that the NEC HSR line should take the Airport line though, it bypasses dense areas and has a higher speed limit due to its straight track. This is probably the only way to service PHL for a reasonable cost.
And on a slightly related note, if Amrack is serious about the NEC, they need to do it in phases, starting with PHL-NYC, then to DC, and then north to Boston. Momentum is very important in such a large project, which would optimistically take at least 20 years to complete.
Alan F Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 3:15 pm
The incremental approach plan is what Amtrak is proposing or stair step as they call it in the press release. First improve the NYC to Philly section, then NYC to DC, then NYC to Hartford (then slower service over a electrified Inland Route by then I guess), and then Hartford to Boston.
If direct service from Penn Station NYC to Market East and Suburban Station is the goal, someone floated the idea on a railroad forum of building a flyover connector in north Philadelphia from the NEC tracks to the Reading lines running south to Market East. The Keystone trains could use the connector to go to Market East, Suburban Station, and to the upper level at 30th Street. The Keystones could then go from Harrisburg to downtown Philly to NYC without a time consuming reversal at 30th Street and back through Zoo interlocking. Would not be of use to Amtrak’s running south to/from DC, but the Keystone trains would serve as the direct downtown to downtown trains for NYC to Philly business travelers. And would provide Harrisburg & Lancaster direct service to Suburban station. Once they complete upgrading all the stations on the Keystone East to high level platforms, move some of the Acelas to the Keystone service once the Acela IIs enter service. Building flyover or underground connector tracks in North Philly would be a a damn site less expensive than a 5.8 mile tunnel under Philly. I would think that someone at Penn DOT or Amtrak has to have looked at this idea.
Joey Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 5:28 pm
The MNRR route isn’t as bad as it looks. There are a few bad curves, but the main speed restrictions come from the fact that MNRR limits the top speed to 90 mph and doesn’t allow tilting, mainly in order to preserve capacity on the express tracks. Solving this problem will require some creativity, but it’s cheaper than building an entirely new line. If you solve that problem, get an FRA waiver, and run some lightweight tilting trains, you could actually get some decent speed in that segment.
Joey Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 9:49 pm
Sorry, that was meant to be in response to your comment above.
Alan F Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 8:34 am
MNRR limits the top speed for Amtrak to 70-75 mph from the New Rochelle to New Haven except for a short stretch just north of New Rochelle. The reason for not allowing tilting is the close spacing of the New Haven tracks and that the Acelas are a couple of inches too wide for tilting for that segment. Perhaps when the upgrade and repair work on the New Haven line is finally complete with constant tension catenary, the draw bridges replaced, the 4th track restored north of Milford, CDOT (who owns the tracks in CT) will allow Amtrak to run at 90 mph over much of the line. But the catenary and bridge replacement work is not scheduled to be done until 2020 or so.
The lesson for HSR or higher speed rail systems elsewhere is to not let the commuter train operator to have complete control over the tracks for the approaches into the city. Commuter operators with frequent stops are not interested in max speeds above 70-75 mph, so they won’t be inclined to spend their money to maintain the tracks for higher speeds.
jim Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 8:52 am
To bring this conversation back to California: Caltrain!
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 5:32 pm
That’s dragging people around in central Philadelphia for the sake of dragging them around in central Philadelphia. If you want service to NY from Market East go to Suburban, the upper level of 30th Street and go to NY. If you want service to Harrisburg do the same. If you want fast service from Harrisburg to NY skip Philadelphia. all you have to do is inspect the track from the eastbound Main Line to the northbound NY Line.
jim Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 2:32 pm
The 11.8 mile tunnel under Manhattan and the Bronx was intended to cut off the East River tunnels, the meander through Queens and the sharp curve at the Hell Gate bridge, as well as add trans-Hudson capacity. Something will have to be done to address these issues, even if it isn’t an 11.8 mile tunnel under Manhattan.
I assume that at some point there will be a New York to Boston Program EIR which will consider the various possible alignments. My own preference would be along the LIRR Mainline into the North Fork and then a tunnel under the shallower part of the Sound to join the Shore Line in far eastern Connecticut. My guess is that that alignment won’t even be considered :).
There are two arguments for the Baltimore tunnel: (1) the development argument is much stronger than for Phiily (2) Amtrak does want to run NYP-PHL-WAS expresses; there is operational value to being able to run non-stop trains at full speed through Baltimore, which they won’t be able to do just by upgrading the existing approaches to Baltimore Penn Station.
And yes, I agree that the Philly tunnel is a bad idea and Amtrak should drop it (when they can get something for dropping it, of course).
Alon Levy Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 3:17 pm
The Hell Gate Bridge has a radius of about 600 meters. At full superelevation and Shinkansen cant deficiency, it’s a 140 km/h zone. More than 200 in the city is a fantasy, especially if in tunnel, and the time penalty of a slowdown from 200 to 140 is about 15 seconds. The curves within New York City are not very bad, and because urban construction is always expensive should be considered good enough.
Trans-Hudson capacity, from Amtrak’s perspective, is unlimited – remember that ETCS is worth another 7 tph through the tunnels. If they still need another tunnel pair, build a stripped-down Alt G and make sure to price it separately from HSR, since it’s purely a commuter rail project. Organization before electronics before concrete, etc.
Alan F Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Oh, I understand the reasoning behind the 11.8 mile tunnel from northern NJ to Penn Station to Grand Central to emerge somewhere on the Hellgate line in the Bronx. And, yes, there is the long term goal of connecting intercity service to Grand Central. I guess the concept is that the tunnel will go so deep as to run under everything. Well, except perhaps for the water tunnels. It would be an impressive engineering feat. But I see the concept as so hugely expensive and taking decades to build, that it is very unlikely to get past the first serious alternative analysis phase. The Gateway, Moynihan station, and plans for 2 more East River tunnels – if they all happen – are likely to consume so much funding for NYP improvements, that there will be little appetite for a deep 11+ mile long tunnel under NYC for HSR use only.
So, I figure the new HSR trains will use the current route, albeit much improved, through Penn Station through the East River tunnels to Queens. What route and how the HSR line would get from Queens to Hartford (or New Haven) is likely to be the subject of numerous engineering studies and considerable public & political discourse. I can see the utility of running eastward partway out in Long Island and then under the sound because the people of LI are not well served by the current NEC alignment.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 5:37 pm
No reason why the express from New Haven or Trenton couldn’t use it too.
“The confusion, that many exploit, comes from S&P ratings:”
You have to laugh at S&P ratings – California cannot default by law – so why again is S&P downgrading the debt? Credit Rating Agencies have a bad track record
http://www.publicserviceeurope.com/article/330/eu-has-credit-rating-agencies-in-its-sights
“And Chountis’ colleague Jürgen Klute said that lessons had not been learnt. “They failed in the crises of the 1990s, they failed again in the Enron case, they provided incorrect assessments of financial products based on US mortgages in 2007 and they kept on giving Lehman Brothers high ratings, although the investment bank was already teetering.” He said CRAs should have warned about the danger of financial crisis well before it happened.
It is an opinion shared by many Americans, where commentators and academics – and a congressional report – have pointed the finger of blame at CRAs for their role in the subprime mortgage crisis which triggered the recession, as well as for giving Enron a clean bill of health right up until its collapse in 2001.
Andre Peretti Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 5:16 pm
No-one doubts rating agencies are often judge and party, which is totally unethical. But they are a fact of life and their reign is not likely to end anytime soon.
I just wanted to remark that California, whose economic health is at least as good as France’s, has a much lower rating and thus has to pay crippling loan interests.
The reason given by S&P is lack of political consensus, absence of a readable fiscal policy. In the long run, this will be costlier than building HSR. If lawmakers agreed on a common policy California would recover AAA rating and billions would be saved.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 6:07 pm
Yes, if California adopted a non-broken budgeting system, it would save substantially on interest costs.
As we learned again last night at 6:00 PM—When you predict the future there is an excellent chance that you will be wrong. But that doesn’t stop us from making predictions.
So here is my prediction in regard to high speed rail:
The release of the 2011 business plan in October will be critical for HSR in California, and the part that will be the most critical will be the estimated cost of the two sections between Merced and Bakersfield. The 2009 Business Plan has estimated the cost for these 2 sections at $8.1 billion.
CARRD, the Peninsula watchdog group (whose $65 billion plus estimate for phase 1 appears nearly everywhere you look) has come up with an estimate of nearly $16 billion for the same 2 sections.
“Value Engineering” will be successful and the estimated cost of the system from Merced to
Bakersfield will be much closer to the $8.1 billion 2009 business plan estimate than to the CARRD estimate. Accurate costs for the other 5 sections of Phase 1 will still not be available, so a lot will be riding on the 2 San Joaquin Valley sections.
Staying on or close to budget here will be a huge plus and will wipe out the biggest argument against high speed rail in California—That phase 1 will cost $65 billion, or $81 billion, or $100 billion, or $200 billion— And it will also become much harder to make the “boondoggle” argument.
Peter Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 1:48 pm
Agreed. I think the effort to stretch the “limited” money available through value engineering will show its fruit and will take a lot of wind out of opponents’ sails.
CARRD’s “estimate” was in fact nothing more than amateurish guesswork, although nothing as ridiculous as Reason’s $81 billion projection, that even they couldn’t say how they came up with it.
VBobier Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 3:12 pm
Reason probably just added $20 Billion or so on to CARRD’s “estimate”.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 7:37 pm
You realize that when Reason published its
random number generator outputestimate, CARRD did not exist, right?BruceMcF Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 11:40 pm
So its more causally plausible that CARRD started from the midpoint between the Reason number and the number from the CHSRA 2009 business plan, and then applied a random +/- fudge factor.
Spokker Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 10:10 pm
They went into the fucking source documents and calculated what the goddamn thing was going to cost using original costs for materials but updated quantities of materials.
So some building material costs X amount of dollars, and you needed, say, 100 of them in the past. But then they released documents that specified, say, 200 units instead. So, assuming the unit price didn’t magically decrease, that looks like a cost escalation and people want to know what’s going on.
The real deniers are those who keep insisting that there is nothing wrong here.
Clem Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 10:09 pm
That’s rather uncharitable. CARRD’s estimate was fairly well reasoned, if you actually took the time to understand it rather than dismissing it out of hand. That’s why it got great traction in the press and in political circles.
Spokker Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 10:26 pm
When the updated cost estimate is released and it is more than $43 billion, or the $43 billion ends up building less HSR, will you be able to come to terms with it or will we have to put you on suicide watch?
Spokker Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 10:30 pm
By the way, Elizabeth is a professional with a background in econometrics, a field that deals with advanced statistical methods.
But even a professional has to work what the the CHSRA gives them. She has made a case with limited information that the cost estimates not accurate, and an updated figure should be released as soon as reasonably possible.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 11:44 pm
And often with abusing advanced statistical methods by adding unsubstantiated assumptions that economic modelers find make models easier to work with.
Spokker Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 5:45 am
The CHSRA is no stranger to unsubstantiated and absurd assumptions.
Risenmessiah Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 6:31 am
Okay, stop.
Elizabeth is a …. retirement planner. She obviously uses econometrics to aid in assumptions and calculating the value of various investments over time. It’s not so crazy to think that she could find holes in the estimates developed by PB and company.
But there’s a much bigger problem here. She got stonewalled in part because government agencies and contractors know that the more information you distribute publicly, the easier it becomes to find all sort of “irregularities” and “problems” with the data. This is because public infrastructure projects are not the same as hiring someone to put in a pool in your backyard or getting stuff from Home Depot to build a deck….
First, there’s the engineering component. What do you think it would take to actually construct what you want to build? In the case of a deck or a pool, there’s lots of comparisons, in the case of a tunnel underneath Tejon Pass…not so much. Then there’s the cost of the materials, which in the volume of which you need will cause prices to fluctuate. For example, early in the Iraq War plywood became scarce and expensive because the market didn’t automatically adjust to pump more out. And then there’s the nagging issues of labor, inflation, and all that good stuff.
PB, of course, is a creature of the federal government’s “cost-is-no-object” legacy from the Cold War. Their problem is that current economic realities are working against them: instead of inflation disguising escalating costs, there’s been a measure of deflation combined with higher raw material costs. So even if you hired them to build your pool or deck, they would still have issues.
The bottom line is that a good man (or woman) is hard to find in the public sector on this topic because the consulting firms pay better. As long as the Authority is given resources akin to a roaming food truck everyone will be able to take shots at it.
Spokker Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Then what is the point of public input when even an educated woman with a background in statistics will be shot down because, “PB’s ppl are rully smart and know wat dey r doin and you don’t!”
Might as well not even invite the public to comment.
Risenmessiah Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 5:31 pm
Shot down? Shot down?
It’s not like she gets covered in rotten tomatoes if she talks at a Board meeting. The point isn’t that she has nothing to say, it’s that knowing statistics and econometrics is different than project management. Lots of people teach physics to high school kids…not all of them have built airplanes or spacecraft….
I don’t find CARRD’s criticism constructive, instead it just seems like they will take the argument (however sound it is) to call the project into question like one of O.J.’s defense lawyers. Are you sure this project will cost $43 billion BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT? How do you know it won’t be one dollar more? You don’t…oh then it’s a lie! Lie! Lie! If the track don’t fit….
Planning people provide estimates, not certainty.
Spokker Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 5:45 pm
-What is constructive criticism? The HSR supporters shoot down every single criticism whether it is valid or not, so it can’t be that no one knows how to make constructive criticism.
-I don’t think a cost escalation is the end of the world, but I want to know what’s going on.
synonymouse Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 6:03 pm
One salient point about “the hsr supporters” is that they have pets whom they will support no matter what. Pets like Palmdale, Merced, San Jose. Everyone is equal but these examples of favorites are wierdly more equal. No way Merced rates service over Sac and now way San Jose should be allowed to dictate route selection.
The hsrt foamer’s hostility towards TRAC’s most reasonable position. Remember Bechtel’s intransigeance about BART broad gauge. Impervious and immune to reason and reality.
Spokker Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 6:05 pm
It’s unfortunate that few people were willing to stand up to San Jose interests. Sometimes when you have a bully on your hands, you realize they aren’t so tough when you fight back.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 7:00 pm
all the decision makers at Bechtel and BART, who made the decision for broad gauge, are long retired and most are probably dead. They aren’t going to have much influence on HSR.
Spokker Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 7:07 pm
The current decision makers are still pushing BART to San Jose, which is a giant waste of money.
Joey Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 2:07 pm
“Value Engineering” will be successful and the estimated cost of the system from Merced to
Bakersfield will be much closer to the $8.1 billion 2009 business plan estimate than to the CARRD estimate.
But wait, is that with or without electrification, signaling, etc?
John Burrows Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Trains not included, but I believe that both the CaHSRA 2009 business plan figure of $8.1 billion, and the CARRD estimate included electrification, system elements and overhead.
YesonHSR Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 5:31 pm
Passing some kind of HSR funding transportation bill in 2011-12 and opening bidds with resonable cost will shut up alot of this nonsense over this project..
Jerry Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 5:55 pm
Robert Reich said 5-1-11 in the SF Chronicle that, “If the super rich paid taxes at the same rates they did three decades ago, the’d contribute $350 billion more per year than they do now — amounting to trillions more over the next decade. That’s enough to ensure that every young American is healthy and well educated and that the nation’s infrastructure is up to world-class standards.”
Special photos for Nathaneal; electric exhibition freight at the Western Railway Museum, which runs on the right-of-way of the former Sacramento Northern interurban line:
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=31434
The Sacramento Bee Editorial Pull plug on high speed rail? Why? rips on the May 10 Legislative Analyst’s Office report.
Giving up federal funding would mean the end of the project. This is the correct conclusion and the goal of the report.
VBobier Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 3:08 pm
And that’s what Simitian, Lowenthal, Eshoo, the LAO, Morris, Synonymouse and a few other Sore LOSERs want, they couldn’t win in the 2008 election and their mostly Losing in the courts, When track is starting to be laid they will have almost lost entirely & later when service starts, Their loss will be complete.
synonymouse Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 4:07 pm
Naah, it won’t be my loss, but that of future generations, who will be saddled with a turkey, if they hurry and build out the Kopp-Diridon-Palmdale transmogrification of the hsr concept. They will have to pony up the taxes to defray the operating deficits and watch the red ink seep as Pelosi’s pet transit unions go out on regular strikes in lan attempt to match the prison guards’ ever-inflating perks.
Witness Spain, with 20+% unemployment, and on the verge of civil unrest. And all because they spent like drunken sailors and now may end up restoring, what was it, the peseta. Crank up those printing presses.
Risenmessiah Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 4:34 pm
Wait a minute.
Even though I am well aware that you constantly invoke BART as the ultimate Frankenstein-esque fate of HSR because of the former’s shortcomings….I kind of don’t get how you reach such a conclusion.
Can anyone really imagine the Bay if there was no BART? I mean, unlike every other metropolitan area in the country, the cost of auto traffic into the City is very acute. It’s not like Chicago, Atlanta, or Los Angeles when there was no stopping sprawl. In addition, ridership and farebox recovery bears out that as a system BART is very successful, and is growing more so, not the other way around.
So what exactly, is the threat of HSR as BART? Because there is a possibility that it might not cover its costs? Because it’s unknown if Americans will embrace the technology?
Although lots of people like to point out here that no form of transportation is without subsidy, isn’t your real fear that BART has figured out the ingredients for successful transport and that if CAHSR emulates them it could actually turn a profit and be a boon for public sector unions, urban growth boundaries, and alternative fuel sources?
political_incorrectness Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 4:44 pm
Hold on one second, successful transport? I hope that does not include San Jose, Livermore, and Anitoch BART. The dedicated funding and preferred mode parts I would like, but how the board spends money like a drunken sailor on projects such as the Oakland Aiport Connector with very few benefits is something CAHSR should not have. That would be the equivalent of tunneling for the Penninsula NIMBYs.
Side note, if BART says safety is their no 1, why did they pull $70 million from their seismic retrofit funds to support OAC?
Risenmessiah Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 5:26 pm
I’m not saying that BART is perfect. I’m not saying BART is great.
I’m saying: the Kopp-Diridon-Palmdale transmorgifcation is probably going to do well in terms of revenues and ridership, even if costs escalate. And that’s a problem if you think that what makes BART BART will be its undoing, even as BART looks stronger by the day.
Peter Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 5:39 pm
I think they are pretty confident they’ll be getting the money for seismic retrofit replenished.
synonymouse Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 6:11 pm
A sizeable part of the sprawl that BART alleges to alleviate BART in reality helped to create. That’s why Wunderman and the developer mafia love BART so much.
BART’s broad gauge is an abomination but it does accomplish it objective – totally tie the hands of transit planners and eliminate versatility and any possibility of multi-tasking, multi-purposing the BART Empire. The UP must chuckle at what its predecessor the SP accomplished in the way of transit sabotage. Hang a scarlet letter on Bechtel.
Peter Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 7:03 pm
Any reference to back up that statement? I mean, other than your intuition?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 7:30 pm
His gut.
Clem Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 7:08 pm
ridership and farebox recovery bears out that as a system BART is very successful
BART’s farebox ratio is something like 61%, which means they lose 39% of every operating dollar, which is to say absolutely nothing about the billions spent on ever more far-flung extensions. To reason foundation types and green-eyeshade venture capital types, BART would be an even greater abomination than HSR because BART’s business plan (which it does not need, by the way) would have absolutely no hope of penciling out.
synonymouse Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 7:57 pm
BART has the typical Bay Area excessive payroll.
You can argue chicken and egg but California costs chase business away.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 8:14 pm
California costs chase business away
You have a cite for that? From someplace other than a frothing anti-tax think tank.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 11:48 pm
So you are saying if BART would tighten up their ship and get to 67% farebox recovery, they’d be equivalent to motorists, who impose on the order of $1 in external costs for every $2 in costs they cover?
Joey Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 12:40 am
Ehh? Just because BART is a better alternative than driving doesn’t mean it can’t be more successful. And however much we may have been convinced that you must trade off between ridership and revenue when it comes to HSR, commuter (or sorta commuter) systems are a different story, in that ridership and farebox recovery tend to increase together. Oh, and also, BART lags behind other systems like the comparable Washington Metro when it comes to riders per mile of track.
Risenmessiah Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 1:56 am
It is true that WMATA has more riders per track. But, that’s not a fair comparison for two reasons. First, in the DC Area all government agencies (one of the largest employment centers by far) are located in downtown DC and inside the WMATA’s inner ring. SF has plenty of jobs but it’s proportion is far less. Secondly, in Washington all federal employees receive a transit subsidy to take WMATA. That’s also not going to be true in the Bay Area.
BART has the highest farebox recovery in the US… (supposedly SEPTA also does very well). That’s nothing to sneeze at if you realize it’s not because the agency is so well run, inasmuch as you can’t have everyone drive into SF. HSR is premised on that not everyone can drive into SF (or LA) either…
Alon Levy Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 12:50 pm
The New York City Subway has a 67% farebox operating ratio. NYCT only operates at 55% but that’s because of the buses.
And SF has several advantages over DC in terms of transit: the central city is denser, both SF and Oakland are older, and there are choke points.
Clem Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 9:21 am
No, I’m saying that HSR is being held to a much, much higher financial standard than just about any other form of transportation. The CHSRA has capitulated to this double-standard by allowing the program to be judged on the merits of a “business plan” which is being turned by opponents into a never-ending game of bring-me-a-rock.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 10:16 am
Indubitably. But the political reality is that the state-wide HSR bond measure appeared on the ballot and was approved under those terms. (It’s not as if Cruickshank doesn’t go on and on and on and on and on about the parts of Prop 1A he picks and chooses to like, such as SF-SJ in 30 min.) I very much doubt that the ballot measure would have either appeared or been approved, here in California in the world’s foremost warmongering nation here in the early 21st century, under any other conditions, and I’m positive any attempt to alter the financial terms of the deal at this point would go down in no-nothing no-new-taxes plebiscite flames.
So unfair, no doubt at all, and South West Airlines is the deveil incarnate freeways get a free ride, etc, but a more competent or reality-based or public-serving (as opposed to purely contractor-serving) or professional organization run and overseen by grown ups would Deal With It.
Risenmessiah Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Wait a second…Clem is arguing for HSR…what the…
The business plan is important because there is no dedicated source of funding. It’s sort of like, you know, Cal Train. Schwarzengger’s resistance to any type of tax increase whatsoever made things more complicated. In the end, I agree the project is getting way too much scrutiny vis-a-vis a similar project. But what’s important isn’t necessarily getting it to “pencil” but rather the Authority talking about the ways to complete it and different options that are available.
That’s all, that’s it.
But you have dead-enders on both sides think the feds or private investors are going to “solve everything for us”. Fat chance.
Clem Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 8:25 pm
Wow. I didn’t know I had ever been against HSR.
Latest commentary from Bruce McF, and California is the subject:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/22/978354/-Sunday-Train:-Fighting-FUD-on-the-first-California-HSR-segment
StevieB Reply:
May 22nd, 2011 at 11:39 pm
Here is a humorous quote from the commentary.
People will say what they are told to for pay. The Tobacco Institute told their lies for 40 years.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
May 23rd, 2011 at 3:50 am
And it’s awfully discouraging that the Tobacco Institute and the firms that back it weren’t called on those lies a heck of a lot sooner than they were.
We don’t have 40 years to wait on the peak oil question; indeed we’ve been waiting almost that long now since the first oil embargo in 1973, with all the problems of oil dependency festering since then. . .I just hope we have enough time.
Current edition of “Destination Freedom” (from National Corridors Initiative), with historic notes about New York-Boston operations and comparison with today.
http://www.nationalcorridors.org/df3/df05232011.shtml
Off topic, even for an open thread day, but there is a nostalgia site called “Roadside Peek,” about vintage neon and such. Why the fuss? Well, they have an entry about a now-gone place in Yermo, and I thought Victor would be interested:
http://www.roadsidepeek.com/roadusa/southwest/california/desert/deserteats/desertcoffeeshop/index.htm#internationalcafe
General link:
http://www.roadsidepeek.com/
Have fun.