Jerry Brown Calls for Statewide Rail Plan
Last month Californians learned something that those who followed state politics in the 1970s and early 1980s had already known: Governor Jerry Brown marches to the beat of his own drummer. He’s not someone who takes direction from the state legislature, and not someone who will sit there and simply ratify existing deals if he thinks they are flawed.
The legislature found that out the hard way when Brown vetoed the budget for the first time in known memory. When the legislature sent him a revised budget, he signed it, but with some line-item vetoes that came as a surprise to BART, Caltrain, and others who expected the governor to ratify their share of the Prop 1A funds.
Proposition 1A, approved by voters in November 2008, included $9 billion for high speed rail and $995 million for other passenger rail, including services that “connect” to the HSR system. Under that provision, BART and Caltrain had applied for funding and the legislature had appropriated $154 million to them and other systems.
But Governor Jerry Brown line-item vetoed that funding last Friday. Here’s his veto message:
Item 2660-104-6043 – For local assistance, Department of Transportation. I reduce this item from $154,261,000 to $7,000,000 by reducing:
(1) 30.10-Mass Transportation from $154,261,000 to $7,000,000.
While I am sustaining $7,000,000 to fund positive train control projects in various local rail corridors, I am reducing this item by $147,261,000. These funds are available from Proposition 1A bond proceeds to enhance local transit lines as feeder routes to the high-speed rail system. The High-Speed Rail Authority (Authority), the Department of Transportation (Caltrans), and local jurisdictions should work together to develop a comprehensive statewide rail plan. The projects identified by Caltrans and the California Transportation Commission appear unrelated to the high-speed rail project or an integrated rail plan. As plans for the high speed route are further developed, the Authority should work with local agencies to build mutually beneficial projects.
So what is going on here?
Wyatt Buchanan and Marisa Lagos of the San Francisco Chronicle shed more light on the cuts:
The largest vetoes were for items not in the general fund, however, including $234 million in mass transit projects that would have been funded through the high-speed rail bond. Included is $35 million that would have been used to replace and upgrade BART train cars and $27 million for the Muni Central Subway project in San Francisco.
In his veto statement, Brown said funds for BART and other agencies “appear unrelated to the high-speed rail project or an integrated rail plan.” The bond has money set aside for local transit agencies to connect and integrate with high-speed rail.
BART spokesman Linton Johnson said the agency is hoping to receive $250 million eventually from the high-speed rail bond for BART cars – a $3.2 billion project – and that the current cars are on their “last legs.” He questioned Brown’s reasoning.
“The governor, who used to ride our trains, may have lumped us in with other projects where that may very well be the case. But clearly there’s going to be passengers who leave the BART system and go on high-speed rail and vice versa.”
I’m all for new BART cars too, and Linton Johnson makes a very good point here. But Governor Brown seems to be making a different point: that there needs to be a statewide rail plan, and that the Prop 1A funds should not be treated as candy to be handed out to local systems without there being some clear coordination between the Authority and those local systems.
A bigger target of these cuts might be Caltrain. Perhaps not in a monetary sense, but in a political sense. Caltrain has become increasingly aggressive about wanting to chart its own course without being too strongly tied to the high speed rail project, and now counts Senator Joe Simitian as an ally in that effort. Senator Alan Lowenthal, of course, has long wanted to use all the Prop 1A money for local rail projects and doesn’t care one bit about high speed rail or connecting SF to LA and the Central Valley. It is possible that Brown’s line-item vetoes are a kind of brushback pitch, a warning to Caltrain that they have to play nice and participate in a true statewide rail plan and not just be out for themselves.
If so, that’s a good move. California needs a true statewide rail plan, figuring out how we move people around the state, between and within regions, and within cities. The plan should use the high speed rail project as a spine and local systems, such as Caltrain, Metrolink, BART, Muni, Metro Rail, and others as the bones, arteries, and nerves.
But it also matters what Brown has in mind with a “statewide rail plan.” Is he suggesting that the HSR route be modified along the lines of Simitian’s “two tracks forever” model? Or is he a full-throated supporter of the current HSR plan and thinks local systems haven’t been playing along as they ought to be?
That’s a key question here. Brown’s veto is typically hard to read, another Brown specialty, and so it’s not clear whether someone like Alan Lowenthal has won or lost. What it does remind us is that Jerry Brown makes up his own mind, isn’t easily lobbied, and is not afraid to ruffle feathers and outright piss people off with his actions. Once again, Jerry Brown is the key figure in the story of California high speed rail, just as he had been 30 years ago when the project was first proposed.
Brown friggin’ gets it. TBQH, I don’t get why SoCal gets zero “famous” rail services and NorCal (or more accurately, the Bay Area) gets two, even though both have equal passenger need (with San Francisco and San Jose making up the major metro areas in NorCal and San Diego and LA making the same in SoCal)
But really, it’ll help link to me in the Central Valley, which often gets forgotten in this Nor/SoCal big-balls contest. May whatever deity that watches over us all bless Jerry Brown in all his endeavors :D
Is he suggesting that the HSR route be modified along the lines of Simitian’s “two tracks forever” model?
Simitian has never advocated a “two tracks forever” model. His proposal did not exclude the possibility that additional tracks might be built on the peninsula, where actually needed for operational reasons.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 7:06 pm
After the dislocations caused by the grade separations you won’t be able to “upgrade” the line for generations. The Peninsula has a once in a century opportunity to upgrade the line.
Joey Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 2:31 am
If you’re building an aerial structure it’s rather trivial to build it on one side of the right-of-way and leave the other side (where shoofly tracks would presumably be located anyway) open for later use.
Miles Bader Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 2:58 am
There’s a (private) railway near my house that used to be double-tracked, almost entirely at surface level, which was expanded to four tracks. However the right-of-way was narrow and mostly through a fairly dense urban area, so not easy to widen.
What they did was build an elevated concrete structure over the existing surface-level tracks, using only a small amount of space on either side — without once shutting down the existing line (though there’s a 4-5 hour service gap at night). Now they have four tracks, two over, and two under. I thought it was pretty cool….
[I find this aspect of railways fascinating -- they do some very significant construction on and around existing operations, but simply do not have the option of stopping service for more than a few hours at a time, and so must go through some rather contorted procedures as a result.]
Peter Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 5:22 am
People have suggested that for the Peninsula, but that would not give them grade separation. So, they would literally be getting the worst of both worlds, elevated rail plus grade crossings.
joe Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 7:13 pm
Parsing the above I think Clem is saying Joe supports the Altamont alignment.
Joe sure didn’t correct Rep Eschoo who,at the Menlo Park station, said HSR was going to stop in San Jose.
IMHO Gov Brown’s veto does two things; strengthens the negotiating position HSR for those system they need funding, like our beloved Caltrain, and this anchors the current alignment by giving greater incentive for Caltrain to sharing more ROW with HSR. YMMV.
Clem Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 7:40 am
If I had meant that, I would have written that. But I didn’t, so no parsing is required. To find out Simitian’s favorite alignment, why not ask him directly?
YesonHSR Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 10:01 pm
Explain what that ass hole in PA wants clemmy
A statewide rail plan with high speed rail being the main component or spine of such a plan only makes sense; and thanks to Jerry Brown for reminding us of that. In most European countries – country wide rail plans combining high speed and local rail seem to be implemented totally effortlessly. Over here political ineptness and selfish NIMBYism work off of each other in trying to prevent a common sense and necessary statewide rail plan. A statewide rail plan with high speed rail being a main component can and would work if done right. Is this state capable of such a thing?
joe Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 7:06 pm
Brown has given the CA HSRA something to bargain against the entrenched local transit interests – a veto of their funding money despite the assurances of their local, state, and congress reps.
Gov Brown reminds the local transit that they HAVE to play nice with CA’s HSR Project and the HAVE to use the funding to support HSR. And no BART, buying more awesome BART cars isn’t mutually beneficial to HSR.
Risenmessiah Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 11:26 am
Very true, except it’s the Governor that has such authority not the agency. So it’s not something that Mr. van Ark has any control over himself.
And honestly, Brown isn’t afraid to tell local governments to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. After all, his first grand idea in the budget was realignment. Local agencies that weren’t cities thought they got off easy, but they were….wrong….
Having a statewide plan is not a bad thing, but in reality, being feeder to the future HSR system isn’t going to be the primary role of the local rail systems. Each local system should have sufficient local demand. Being a feeder is only a very nice function to have.
Freeways in the metropolitan areas are far more wider than I-5 in the Central Valley, which says a lot about local and intercity travel demand on our freeway system.
Miles Bader Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 6:18 pm
Well ultimately, the goal should be for local rail systems to be a viable local transportation system for all of life’s various uses, and being part of a wider transportation system is very much a part of that.
No, maybe they can’t start with that as the primary goal, and should concentrate on more immediate goals, but the “network effect” is very important for transportation systems, and must be thought about from the very beginning (retrofitting things will be far more expensive). Even if they can’t perfectly connect everything immediately, they need to think about how they could be connected in the future, and build the system in that direction.
Andy Chow Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Unless you expect high speed rail to be a longer distance version of urban rail (which some people will certainly use it for commuting, but I don’t think that is what HSRA has in mind), HSR riders will have different feeder needs that may not be compatible for urban rail. Urban rail thus would not be an primary feeder and that alternative transportation would be required.
Look at airports, airports themselves have a huge feeder transportation infrastructure associated with it: Long term parking, cell phone lot, rental car, shuttles to local hotels/rental car/parking, airporter buses, door to door shuttles, black sedans, etc. Taxis and charter buses rely a lot on airport business. Mass transit is also too, but primarily serve airport employees and budget travelers. When you have rail to the airport (like BART), there will be conflicts with people bring lots of baggage which takes spaces and slow down boarding. People also find navigating urban rail stations with lots of baggage inconvenient.
Many Amtrak and Greyhound stops have waiting areas and taxi stands to serve travelers with lots of baggage, even though they’re better served by regular transit than most airports.
So far I don’t see a problem with connections because they are already planned, but just don’t expect a shift in urban rail’s primary role and the likelihood that there will be some airport like feeder infrastructure to be included at those stations.
Miles Bader Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Er, I live in an area with great HSR service, and great local rail, and local rail is very much the primary feeder for HSR — and in fact that’s one of the reasons HSR is such a pleasure to use: it’s supremely well-integrated into the local transportation system (transferring from a local train to HSR, platform to platform, is a matter of a minute or two). There is no parking around HSR stations at all.
The network effect is Very Important.
Maybe in mega-carhead and NIMBY-riddled California it will take some more time to achieve this ideal, but it should very much be on planners minds. To not think about it is to drop the ball.
Spokker Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 7:49 pm
HSR stations in the US will need to have parking. I do not trust the local transit agency to provide adequate service to the stations initially. Some agencies won’t even be able to provide it unless something fundamentally changes about the way we fund transit.
Andy Chow Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 8:40 pm
Local transit agency might be in fact won’t get into the business of feeder connection if it means a lot of baggage or door to door. Currently airport is the primary attraction for most privately operated transit (door to door shuttle, parking/hotel shuttle, airporter, sedan service, etc). Should we expect more public funding to provide feeder service if some of those demands can be met through the private sector? Of course, publicly subsidized service (to airport) is necessary because of employees who work there.
Miles Bader Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 8:58 pm
Based on observation, typical HSR trips don’t involve a lot of baggage, and for many people, “door to door” service is simply not necessary. For people who need it, there are taxis, etc.
The same is true for airports, but this is particularly true for HSR, which by its nature tends to be “lighter-weight” than air-travel: closer to cities and population, used more for regional and short-term trips (whereas air travel is naturally going to used for overseas and long distance trips), tickets available with less advance planning, etc.
Your assertion that local transit is “only needed/used by employees” is just wrong. [Indeed, it seems to be a repetition of the hoary old "buses are for the help; real people drive" trope...]
Andy Chow Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 9:54 am
Airports hire a lot of people. So transit access is essential, not unlike large employment centers in downtowns and office parks.
Travelers can and should be able to use available transit to the airport. I have taken local transit to and from airports many times (SFO, OAK, SJC, Las Vegas, Dulles, Philly).
On the other hand, existing transit aren’t designed to serve high volume of airport travelers, and that not everyone is like me who could pack light, willing to walk further, or have a workable schedule.
Traditional (publicly ran) transit is just one of several options other than driving alone. You can’t consider it the only option.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 10:07 am
Airport shuttles are a special case, because of the combination of the following issues:
1. Airports are typically located far from the city center and are never walkable, so regular transit is at a disadvantage.
2. Airport travelers’ destinations are typically clustered in just a few macrodestinations (downtown, major tourist attractions), but within each macrodestination there are many microdestinations that are quite far apart. As a result, regular transit, which runs a relatively fixed stop pattern, is at even greater disadvantage.
3. Airport travelers often can’t drive and prefer a vanshare or taxi, due to long-term parking rates, the need to rent a car just to get to the hotel, etc.
With HSR, those issues don’t interact the same way. Issue #3 is still there, but because #1 is inapplicable, there could be very good transit serving the train station. For issue #2, because the train station is downtown or close to it, there’s no need for specialized shuttles – people can walk or take a taxi.
Andy Chow Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 10:38 am
Even a downtown station can still be many blocks away from hotels and convention centers. Some hotels may be walkable but not others. If say there’s a HSR station at Transbay, wouldn’t the local hotels run shuttle to Transbay just like the hotels near the airports do. I doubt Muni would be a reasonable alternative for many of the travelers, and I don’t think Muni should be in the business of taking people to and from hotels if the hotels can fund such service themselves.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 10:58 am
A shuttle would have no benefit over a taxi in that case. How many shuttles run to Penn Station?
jim Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 11:26 am
In a big city — New York, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles — a traveler arriving at the downtown train station and wanting to go someplace else in downtown is no different from anyone else in downtown wanting to go someplace else in downtown. The transportation mechanisms that exist are the transportation mechanisms that will be used.
It’s small cities where there aren’t adequate transportation mechanisms within downtown that hotels have to do something special. Richmond VA hotels run shuttles to and from the downtown train station. (on request).
joe Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 10:37 pm
If we don’t let HSR stations become park-and-ride stops, I don’t see any problems with private shuttles or sedans or cabs taking travelers with baggage to/from the station.
Miles omits that time-of-day is another factor. When I arrive in DCA late, I cab it. No wait for the Metro and late night walk to the hotel.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 12:28 am
…how much parking is there at Union Station? How much does it cost….. for that matter how much parking is there at Alexandria or New Carrollton?
..but then Union Station or Penn Station in Baltimore or Newark or 30th Street in Philadelphia or South Station in Boston or … aren’t in Real America(tm) Neither is MetroPark or New Carrollton.
…and Californians have no concept of what parking is like in Not-real America.
http://www.city-data.com/forum/washington-dc-suburbs-maryland/606852-tips-parking-new-carrollton-marc-station.html
jim Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 9:18 am
how much parking is there at Alexandria?
A couple of handicapped spaces, four or five taxi spaces and about twenty “Amtrak passengers only” spaces. Free. My impression is that a substantial number of Alexandria passengers walk, a similar number are ferried by friends or family (who see them off or greet them on the platform), fewer take Metro, a handful take cabs and another handful drive their own cars and leave them at the station.
But Alexandria isn’t an HSR station. It just sees a dozen Amtrak trains a day (six Regionals, five Long Distance and the Carolinian). A better comparison for California would be Wilmington. It’s an Acela stop as well as all Regionals, Corridors and Long Distance trains. There’s a garage right next to the station and a surface lot just round the corner. Long term rates are comparable to airport economy lot rates (without the shuttles). The garage also offers short term rates (supporting passengers ferried by friends or family seeing them off or meeting them).
If that’s a good comparison, the massive parking structures CHSRA is envisaging are overkill.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 10:22 am
None of the NEC or it’s branches are HSR. But it’s the closest thing we have to an HSR line.
People use many modes to get to and from the stations. Unless parking is nearly free at the staions they are going to do the same thing in California.
joe Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Union Station is a good example for Manhattan density which isn’t close to any city in CA but SF so it’s a bad example to make a point.
DC METRO stations in the burbs that have walkable establishments around them contrast sharply with those stations that are build for single purpose park-and-ride commuting.
HSR should NOT connect parking lot to parking lot. The BART model would suck.
The best way to stop massive parking is full-cost-recovery. Palo Alto estimated each spot would cost 50K. Over ten years that would cost $13 per day so I expect $15-20 at a minimum to park.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 4:32 pm
Joe: I agree with the rest of your comment, but your first paragraph is wrong. Washington Union Station is close to a lot of jobs, but it’s not Manhattan density, not even close. The highest density in the US outside Manhattan is in Little Korea in Los Angeles, at the end of the Purple Line, and Little Osaka in San Francisco, in the middle of what should be the Geary subway.
joe Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 11:29 pm
Alon:
Brain fart on Union Station’s location.
SF is 2nd most dense in US. Right again, not comparable to Manhattan as you said but to NYC: SF has 17,243 per square mile.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 11:45 pm
That’s true as well, but I wasn’t talking about general city density, but about neighborhood density. There are a few census tracts in Little Tokyo and Little Osaka that approach 100,000/mi^2, which are the densest in the country outside New York City, excluding a few census tracts drawn tightly around prisons. (The densest census tract in California consists of San Quentin.)
In general, LA and SF are quite dense, yeah – denser than anything in the Northeast other than New York. It’s evident in city density for SF, but LA becomes pretty dense once you throw out Bel Air and other places in the Santa Monica Mountains where hardly anyone lives that skew the average.
Joey Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 2:36 am
Park-and-ride is going to be a reality one way or another. Of course we should do everything possible to maximize transit as a first mile/last mile service, but many parts of California are simply not dense enough or just don’t have anything amounting to useful transit service.
joe Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 11:36 pm
Park and ride to me means that’s the station’s purpose. Ugh. When do we break the cycle? We also need to zone the areas near stations to allow for density.
I would emphasize mass transit, expensive short term parking and cabs/rental car at the station (like orlando airport).
Use a shuttle for long term parking. At 50K per spot in Palo Alto, a dense parking structure is costly so do full cost recovery on parking. I would also build parking as needed and not put the total anticipated 2030 parking in place in 2020.
Joey Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 12:03 am
What is it with people on this blog and only worrying about “primary” objectives? Like I said, try to maximize transit share, but there are places where people are going to drive to the station one way or another (even if they don’t constitute the majority of the station’s ridership), especially for stations with large catchment areas, for instance Gilroy — someone living in Pacific Grove is going to be driving whether the station is in downtown Gilroy or east Gilroy (keep in mind I’m not taking a stance on which is superior). And it’s not like most of the station locations are lacking in space on which to build parking.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 12:05 am
The cost of parking is more than just the land for it, Joey. Some parking is fine; a five-figure number of spots in a suburb that in principle has a decent connecting commuter line is a disaster.
Joey Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 1:17 am
I’m well aware that the amount of parking proposed in many places is ludicrous.
Travis D Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 5:40 am
Not all of us would be able to use it anyways. The nearest HSR station to me will be sixty miles away. If there was no parking at the station I would be in a real bind in how to use it. I would have to either park at another public transport station to get to the HSR station or rope someone into driving me the sixty miles to drop me off.
joe Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 8:02 am
No Parking vs no Parking at the station.
I live 67 miles from SFO and use that airport regularly for work related travel. For short trips I pay the long term parking which is not on site.
2nd, since the parking is paid by the town, not HSR, cities should add parking as it is needed and not build to full 2035 parking capacity by 2020.
There isn’t a requirement that parking be in one massive location so cities could have multiple, multi-purpodse garages.
BruceMcF Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 8:45 am
Precisely. And there are situations where double decking a parking lot is less $/space than a parking garage, which adds to the opportunities for multiple parking sites.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 9:15 am
since the parking is paid by the town
Why should the town pay for it? There are many privately owned parking companies that have the skills to build parking lots, decks, garages whatever and charge market rates for parking. If you want to be able to walk from your car to the platform I’m sure those companies can arrange it. At very attractive rates. Those rates might not be attractive to people who are used to finding free parking three steps away from the door of anyplace they are going but it can be done. Don’t want to pay 50 dollars a day to park, get on the shuttle bus to the lot 5 miles away from the station run by the company that specializes in cheap lots served by shuttle buses……
Those BART cars need to be replaced someday and that’s when we are really going to feel what it’s like to have a proprietary, overbuilt and gold plated metro on our hands, that is, when we have to rehabilitate the whole goddamn thing. And it won’t be a simple matter as going to the train store and buying the generic but just as good store brand off the shelf. This is custom-built West Coast Chopper kind of shit.
Los Angeles managed to resist a monorail and I’m sure as hell we didn’t get the bright idea to build a broad-gauge rail system.
Miles Bader Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 6:47 pm
“gold plated”?
Yeah, BART’s had its problems, the broad-gauge was kind of stupid, and the attempts at automation too ambitious for the level of technology available at the time, but from what I hear, in many ways BART is better than typical U.S. subway systems — e.g. most obviously, it avoids all the FRA bullshit and uses lightweight rolling stock.
joe Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 7:01 pm
“gold plated metro” is rail trolling.
I’m not a BART fan, but the technology is used in the DC METRO and due to what I think is more walkable design in DC, it’s fantastic there. yes the METRO stops in some suburbs stations are parking lots for park and ride.
Spokker Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Everything about BART is gold-plated. Even it’s Oakland airport connection, which isn’t even technically part of the BART system, is gold-plated. There’s a portion of the BART network that is the right size and should exist (possibly in some other form). And then there are the fringe elements that should not exist and should not or should not have been built, and should be another mode altogether, such as bus or commuter rail.
Andy Chow Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 8:47 pm
BART is building standard gauge DMU (same as NCTD Sprinter) line in East Contra Costa. At least they’ve gone non-gold plated this instance (some people are complaining that the stations won’t have restrooms, even though most LRT and commuter rail lines don’t have restrooms at most stops).
joe Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 10:16 pm
“Everything.”
This is Trolling – really. I don’t like BART but this criticism is a self-parody. Everything is gold plated. yeah, sure. It’s like reading a f’n shampoo bottle.
Joey Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 2:39 am
You’d be surprised at how much of BART is proprietary. Track width, loading gauge, floor height, signaling system, 3rd rail voltage — these are all things which are unique to BART and which make it more expensive to maintain and upgrade than it should be.
Andy M. Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 3:49 am
Most modern rolling stock manufacturers (especially Bombardier, Siemens, Stadler etc) offer almost all their products in modular form. So you can quite easily customize things like width, height, voltage and gauge without having to ask them develop anything from scratch and the price premium isn’t that prohibitive either. I admit that the choice of gauge was a bit stupid, but the consequences aren’t anywhere near as dire as some on this forum are claiming.
Clem Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 7:45 am
Seconded. Track gauge is not a strong driver of cost.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 9:32 am
The bogies they use on standard gauge track for one system are then used on another system and then again on a third. The designs are frequently reused for decades. Change the track guage and you are redesigning almost every piece except the wheels. That gets very pricey. Especially when you can’t reuse the design on another system.
synonymouse Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 9:52 am
But having an orphaned track gauge really discourages multi-use of underutilized ROW’s. But what about dual-gauging BART and calling Bechtel-PBQD-dba’s bluff?
Risenmessiah Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 11:22 am
Synonymouse:
Calling Bechtel’s bluff on dual-gauging is an incomplete strategy. What you really need to do is promote a return to standard gauge as a way to build express trains/ or in concert with an expansion of service. The biggest complain I hear about Bay Area transit today is that it’s slow…not that people jump up and down yelling that they can’t stand using broad gauge and that standard gauge is so much of a better ride….
Joey Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 11:41 am
Track gauge, while annoying, won’t bring up costs too much. Everything else will though. That, and the fact that I wouldn’t put it past BART to have their new rolling stock designed from scratch by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing (again).
Andy M. Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 6:29 am
airondacker12800: If you can make standard gauge bogies you can also make broad gauge ones. The technology is the same. Maybe you’re going to have to re-run your FEM silumations and fit slightly different dampers on account of anything that simulation throws up. But such a bogie is still at least 80 percent standard parts, and the things that are different such as the axles and cross members are more the low-tech bits that aren’t difficult to re-engineer. The more high-tech stuff such as traction motors, brake assemblies and interfaces will be standard and off-the-shelf mass produced parts as used and proven on standard-gauge trains. The extra costs caused by a non-standard gauge are only a very small part of the overall cost.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 10:17 am
If you can make standard gauge bogies you can also make broad gauge ones.
They could make dishwashers or airplanes the same plant too if they wanted to.
To make broad gauge bogies they have to redesign almost everything. For one customer. It’s critical life/safety equipment, it’s not a matter of adding a few inches to the width. For one customer. They then have to retool the factory. For one customer. And then retool it for the customers they will be serving for the next few decades. Once they get a prototype or two out the door they have to find test track to run it on. For one customer. All that expensive testing gets billed to …one customer. A low volume customer. It’s going to be hard to find vendors who are willing to go to all that trouble, inexpensively, when they can make a tidy little profit turning out standard gauge equipment.
…if it’s so trivial why are Japanese and Iberian high speed trains standard gauge?
Alon Levy Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 12:15 pm
Japanese HSR is standard-gauge because narrow gauge is incompatible with high speeds, and Iberian HSR is standard-gauge because it’s about to be connected to the French rail network.
Max Wyss Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 1:47 pm
to adirondacker12800: Trucks/bogies are made in a workshop environment, not in a conveyor belt environment. Particularly when it comes to non-commodities like high-speed units. This means that it is not a factory which has to be changed from one type to another; a workspace in the factory can build a broad-gauge truck, and the next one being built there is standard gauge etc. So, there is really no big concern about that.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Okay, I give up, BART cars will cost twice as much as anywhere else because of the extra special pixie dust they have to put under the carpeting for service in the Bay Area.
thatbruce Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 2:17 pm
@Alon:
Japanese HSR is standard gauge, not because narrow gauge is ‘incompatible’ with high speed, but because their narrow gauge alignments of the time were ‘incompatible’ with sustained high speed operations (ie, they curved a lot). Their original plan called for both passenger and freight high speed standard gauge operation on new, straighter alignments, as part of progressively upgrading most rail operations in Japan to standard gauge (like most of the world) and better alignments.
@adirondacker12800:
Anyone implementing HSR in Europe wants to be able to interoperate with other, existing HSR installations in the same geographic region, because passengers hate stops in the middle of no-where in order to change to a different train for no readily apparent reason.
Regarding retooling, it may come as a surprise, but there are a number of manufacturers out there with the remarkable ability to produce concurrent runs of similar parts for customers with differing requirements. Some even produce railway equipment of differing gauges. The argument that a factory will need to be retooled and shut down production of other parts in order to do so speaks of poor management practices, or just plain old FUD.
Mike Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 2:56 pm
@adirondacker12800, don’t overlook the low vehicle weight requirement as a cost driver. BART’s elevated tracks were designed and built assuming an exceptionally light “heavy” rail vehicle. DC Metro rail cars, though they appear similar, have much heavier axle loadings.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 7:03 pm
@thatbruce:
No, it really is an issue of track gauge. Broader gauge gives more stability and allows higher speed. Japan couldn’t do 200 km/h on narrow gauge (in fact, no country has done so); if it could, it would’ve built the Shinkansen to be compatible with the legacy network to allow trains to run through in urban areas, just as SNCF did with the LGVs, instead of having to poach commuter tracks and build a new through-station in Osaka.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
‘Tis a pity that Brunel didn’t win out.
thatbruce Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 11:53 am
@Alon:
No, it really is an issue of track gauge. Broader gauge gives more stability and allows higher speed.
You’re only partially correct. A broader gauge gives more stability against lateral forces, for instance crosswinds going across bridges and going around curves on non-banked track. It is straighter alignments and banked curves (etc) that allows higher speeds.
Japan couldn’t do 200 km/h on narrow gauge (in fact, no country has done so)
Let’s examine why ‘no country’ has 200+km/hr operation on narrow gauge. For instance, a brief search shows that Australia has a narrow gauge High Speed Tilt Train capable of 210km/hr operation (and apparently holding the Australian rail speed record for over a decade), but it does not see timetabled speeds of more than 160km/hr. Like Japan, the narrow gauge tracks that this operates over has alignments dating back to when the area was constructing lines ‘on the cheap’, that is, narrow gauge, light construction, lots of curves, light axle loading and restricted loading gauge. In regular service, it simply doesn’t have anywhere to really ‘stretch its legs’ and approach its top speed for extended periods. Most countries with extensive narrow gauge networks suffer from the same problems; alignments too curvy for high speed operations, and hence, no reason to invest R&D into narrow gauge trains capable of high speeds, unless there is also investment in straighter alignments.
Think back to when Japan started its Shinkansen project. They had a rail network which was narrow gauge, extremely curvy alignments, low maximum loadings on critical things like bridges, and in parts operating at capacity. The leaders in rail technology of the time (30s, 40s, 50s) were the Europeans and Americans, who used standard gauge. Rather than upgrading their existing alignments to support higher speeds, they took the decision to construct new alignments, building on imported technology and selecting standard gauge based on those same technology requirements.
Thus, we end up with the Shinkansen being a separate network using a different gauge. Unlike the original plan, the Shinkansen network does not carry freight, and other parts of the Japanese rail network have not been upgraded to standard gauge (excluding mini-Shinkansen).
In summary, narrow gauge is capable of high speed, but most existing narrow gauge networks are not straight enough to allow for sustained high speed. Please research your assumptions before repeating them.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 8:10 am
Sure, but BART’s loading gauge is uniquely restrictive. It’s generally easier to adapt a product to a wider loading gauge than to a narrower one. (If I’m not mistaken, outside BART the most expensive subway rolling stock is for the deep-level London Underground lines.)
Max Wyss Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
Thirded… trucks are built to order anyway, no matter which gauge they have. They will still have the standard design. In fact, wide gauge may even have some advantage, as there is a bit more space to fit in motors, gears and brake disks (something which may become quite a bit of a challenge with narrow gauge.
synonymouse Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Broad gauge “kind of stupid”. I’d say monumentally stupid, except of course in that it makes it much more difficult for bigger and better “statewide” uses like the CHSRA to grab BART ROW’s. But no problem latching on to the standard gauge Caltrain. The Peninsula should have voted for BART in 1962 – PB-CHSRA would be without an entree to the inner sanctum.
Yeah, LA is beginning to look smart and the Bay Area stupid. Incredible. The Rose Pak Memorial Central Subway is even dumber than intactivism.
Spokker Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 7:43 pm
The Oakland Airport Connector is so overbuilt, gold-plated and expensive that it’s too big to fail.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/10/BAS91JEFI2.DTL
It’s like a monster that cannot be stopped.
synonymouse Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 7:57 pm
I am afraid the monster that cannot be stopped is the Empire of BART, of which the OAC is merely a a peripheral. It was merely the BART unions that didn’t like it for obvious reasons.
joe Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 10:12 pm
Diamonds gold and silver.
lather, rise, repeat.
Joey Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 2:41 am
The OAC is problematic, and it’s not just a bunch of nutjobs commenting on a blog that say this.
joe Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 11:38 pm
Saying BART is gold plated isn’t reasonable and repeating it is silly. I don’t like BART but don’t consider it gold plated.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 6:39 am
No subway system in the US has to deal with FRA bullshit. Even PATH, which is legally a railroad, runs on a bunch of waivers that let it use rolling stock that’s nearly fully compatible with New York’s numbered subway lines.
What’s true is that BART has a good operating plan for a commuter railroad. But because of FRA bullshit, the broad gauge, and proprietary systems the cost of this San Francisco S-Bahn is huge, more akin to an urban subway than to a commuter line.
Soooo…..
* Language in Prop 1A (TEH PEOPLE HAZ SPOKENS!) somehow magically got inserted late in the sausage making process to ensure that no non-BART rail line was build between Fremont and San Jose.
Remind me again who is the primary mover behind and direct and undisputed beneficiary of extending BART south of Fremont again? Oh that’s right, the CHSRA’s lead consultant.
* Language in Prop 1A (TEH PEOPLE HAZ SPOKENS!) somehow magically got inserted late in the sausage making process with a “connecting” rail slush pile that somehow Muni’s Central Subway — the very worst rail project in the world, as far as I am aware, and one that has less than zero connectivity to HSR — was magically eligible to suck down.
Remind me again who is the primary mover behind and direct and undisputed beneficiary of the Central Subway again? Oh that’s right, the CHSRA’s lead consultant.
* Language in Prop 1A (TEH PEOPLE HAZ SPOKENS!) somehow magically got inserted late in the sausage making process with a “connecting” rail slush pile funding formula that gave hundreds of millions to BART.
Now even though BART (and MTC, and anybody with slime mold level of awareness) has known for decades that a multi-billion fleet replacement capital need is coming up REAL SOON NOW, BART has systematically diverted its capital funding to nose-bleed expensive pure boondoggle system expansion plans, most particularly south of Fremont. It has been allowed to get away with this under the fig-leaf that somehow a gigantic pile of HSR bond slush pork will rain from the skies, and magically back-fill the glaringly obvious gaping hole in its core system maintenance / state of good repair / keep from falling apart budget. Full speed ahead to the San Jose Flea Market, never mind that the wheels are falling off the jalopy.
Remind me again who is the primary mover behind and direct and undisputed beneficiary of BART extensions again? Oh that’s right, the CHSRA’s lead consultant.
Nice job.
TEH PEOPLE HAZ SPOKENS!
political_incorrectness Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 9:53 pm
At least Brown knows how and when to throw some agencies under the bus. BART needs to be taught a lesson and same with MUNI with these idiodic projects that make rail transit look bad. If BART was instead investing billions into a Geary line like they should be, there wouldn’t be such an issue since it would work very well for an HSR feeder.
joe Reply:
July 3rd, 2011 at 10:27 pm
Wheee. Richard’s back ! We all suck ! And BART. And San Jose’s a flea market.
I did not know that BART’s delayed upgrading and maintain the infrastructure. Oh my.
Unlike the rest of the US, BART’s been slacking. I can’t think of another gubberment or private system where maintenance hasn’t kept pace. For shame – good catch Richard.
And BART’s contractors are profiteers. Oh my again. That’s so rare and uncommon – we really need to shut down everything.
I thought this shit has been going on before Rome build Ostia. But no, it al began with BART.
Spokker Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 8:08 pm
You’re so vain, you think this song is about you.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 9:28 pm
Probably.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 9:45 pm
Eww does that mean we can expect him in Saratoga? Racing starts in a few weeks…. Can’t he just go to Nova Scotia for the total eclipse directly from California?
YesonHSR Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 9:59 pm
Can you move??? Richard..to outer Mylar space… cadet
Rick Rong Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 10:25 pm
Are you lonely out there?
YesonHSR Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 10:35 pm
No..I dont live in a lame SF pennie town along Caltrain…wooried that my stupid/stuccotype1950s house and yard that is up against a 140 year old railroad will somehow be ruined
thatbruce Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 2:23 pm
@Richard: I don’t see anything in AB3034 that prohibits anything non-BART on the east Bay (in fact, 2704.04(b)(3) lists Oakland to San Jose as a possible HSR route); which clause are you referring to?
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
Los Banos HSR is wired in by the (unattainable, regardless of route, but they’ll pretend otherwise) SF-SJ and SJ-LA times that TEH PEEPLZ OF CALIFORNIA HAZ APPROVED.
Los Banos HSR means that non-BART Fremont-SJ rail will never happen, because there just isn’t enough money in the world to do twice what can’t be justified even once (as a stand-alone, not as part of inter-regional network access). And that’s a very very VERY VERY VERY good thing for the people behind the Fremont-SJ BART extension … who just so happen, incredibly enough, who could possibly imagine such a coincidence, to be the CHSRA’s lead consultant and the people who wrote the Prop 1A language.
The incredibly simple equation that’s pretty much determined everything in Bay Area major capital project transit funding for the last 15 years, is:
(Altamont HSR) + (BART Fremont-San Jose) ≤ 1
I dont like seeing transit being cut, but it makes sense. New rail cars for BART in 2013 (thats around when theyd arrive right?) has absolutely no bearing on a HSR line planned to open in 2020.
And isnt the San Joaquin more of a feeder route into HSR than BART will ever be?
Folks will board the San Joaquin in places like Wasco and Madera and transfer to fast trains in places like Fresno and Bakersfield. That sounds like a feeder system to me.
If BART was a feeder system, why doesn’t Continental condeshare with BART like they do with Amtrak to Stamford, CT?
The entire premise of this post is constructed on quicksand. To suggest that Brown “marches to a different drummer” and that his veto “reminds us that Jerry Brown makes up his own mind, isn’t easily lobbied, and is not afraid to ruffle feathers and outright piss people off with his actions” demonstrates a lack of understanding about the veto itself or the history of the HSRA’s budget.
Caltrans pulled this same HSR-money-grab stunt last year and was rebuked by Schwarzenegger nearly verbatim. This veto was handed to Brown’s staff to massage into an updated vocabulary; it’s not an original work and therefore there’s not much we can conclude one way or another about Brown’s feather ruffling, etc. based on this veto. Since the veto was drafted a half-year before Simitian came on the scene with a proposal for the peninsula, tying those together is baseless, too.
Schwarzenegger Oct 2010 veto:
Brown July 2011 veto:
You had the right idea to cover the veto, Robert, but the real point to be made is that Caltrans and a gaggle of agencies such as BART, Muni and others do not miss an opportunity for attempted money grabs. They are like vultures circling. (Which technically makes them a committee.) Fortunately someone in the gov’s office is watching.
Governor Brown mush have spoken with the authors of AB3034 and learned of their true intent for the funding identified to local rail agencies. I say this because what he’s has done is not specified in the law.
AB3034 funneled funding to agencies based upon a formula… track miles, vehicles miles, and ridership.
This formula has nothing to do with local physical constraints for coordinating HSR with local rail. I.e. grade separations between the different rail modes or station access coordination.
Perhaps the AB3034 formula was drafted in haste, and, Brown is now correcting that. But, the formula implies to me is that local rail agencies benefitting from AB3034 have greater flexibility in use of the funds than what Brown indicates. Basically, leaving to locals the decision in how best to maintain their respective systems. Replacing rail cars seems appropriate. So does maintaining existing systems… tracks, cars, etc.
That said, I do support a Statewide Rail Plan. At the end of the day, I would like to see more State funding directed to maintaining and expanding local rail systems.
For what is is worth, shortly after AB 3034 was approved, I completed a small research effort to estimate how much each local rail agencies would be apportioned (and consistent with AB 3034; based on FY 2006 available data at the time). Here is what I observed:
Agency & Service Prop 1 Funding
SF BART $246,716,744
LA Metrolink $133,406,304
LA Light Rail $65,805,707
SD MTS Trolley $59,378,027
SF Muni $56,348,179
LA Heavy Rail $49,295,276
SF Caltrain $41,247,490
Sac RTD $30,437,632
ACE $24,953,910
SJ VTA $23,543,247
SD NCTD Coaster $15,013,845
SF Cable Car $8,099,595
SD NCTD Sprinter $5,754,044
Total $760,000,000
80% of the $950 million was to be distributed by formula. Not certain if the North Coast Sprinter would have qualified, but, it only represents about 1% of the total.
Risenmessiah Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 11:05 am
“True intent of the law”?????
Uh no, as the Governor, he can nix certain appropriations by way of veto. It’s a hardly radical move. Brown’s substance is correct.
The $0.950 billion is going to go fast if transit agencies use for any old thing. BART and the gang know this, but they also know that their ability in Congress (and coincidentally Congress’s ability) to fund massive transportation projects may be waning.
I look at the bright side however, at least synonymouse will get the I-5 Tomlach alignment he craves…it’s just going to be part of BART…(badoom ching).
VBobier Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 7:57 am
For the moment transit funding may be on the wane, But this will not last, Congress will change, Eventually, and by then hopefully things will be back on track and a lot saner…
Risenmessiah Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 11:45 am
I don’t think transit funding is on the wane. I think what might be on the wane is using Congress as a blank check to fund them might be. Also, I think the political strength of some individuals like Pelosi has shrunk…but…if Congress isn’t the most important avenue to fund projects then again, the only losers in that fight might be the agencies and unions reputedly joined at the hip to her.
The $950 million was added as a “bribe”, basically to buy off the other rail (transportation) agencies. Thus they agreed not to oppose the HSR bond measure. There is only so much money to go around, and the huge Prop 1A measure would suck up all available funds for years.
At one session I recall the MTC lobbying for $2 billion and not $950 million to be added for these purposes.
Eventually these funds will be distributed, if the financial health of the State improves and issuing new bond debt doesn’t become so much of a problem. Pork, always seems to find its home.
Spokker Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 8:11 pm
The bribe didn’t work so well in Southern California, where Will Kempton and Art Leahy came out hard against the LA-Anaheim leg. They basically sent them back to the drawing board with one letter.
YesonHSR Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 10:12 pm
So now its a super waste of money..HSR needs to stop in LA Union station..F ..Orange (RED) county and it no on Prop1A..they should be left out
Paulus Magnus Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 8:33 am
LA-Anaheim needed redoing, CAHSRA’s initial plan for the segment was absurdly overbuilt and goldplated.
YesonHSR Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Any more spin old thaaaannggg
joe Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 11:45 pm
Any NIMBY Peninsula resident blasting pork for Caltrain needs his or her head examined.
Caltrain reduces auto traffic. The EIR for many projects depend on Caltrain so much, the employers give away free bus/Caltrain passes to meet project restrictions. mass transit and Caltrain is essential for any House hugging NIMBY who doesn’t want to choke on cars and auto pollution.
Without Caltrain you don’t get companies staying and expanding locally the area and propping up your awesome property values.
Somewhat OT, but why (as is suggested above), should BART build an extension out Geary, not Muni? I agree that that constitutes a big hole in SF transit, but surely Muni is a better choice, since its stops are much more frequent. And of course it doesn’t cost nearly so much.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 7:14 pm
Doesn’t really matter who runs it, but good service should be standard-gauge (since BART’s broad-gauge Transbay Tube is at capacity anyway, and a second tube should be standard-gauge), stop about once per kilometer like a normal urban subway, and have seamless fare integration with Muni, BART, and AC Transit.
I don’t know if Muni really builds things for cheaper than BART. The Central Subway is a pretty big disaster of Muni’s own. It boils down to what infrastructure is built and where.
synonymouse Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 9:16 pm
BART will insist that any line it builds on Geary be broad gauge. Why? BART is malicious. As good an explanation I can come with for BART’s longtime weirdness.
YesonHSR Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 9:56 pm
As a San Franciscan…lets hope you get run over by a union driven bus on Market street…
synonymouse Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 11:20 pm
By a bus that never showed because the driver called in sick? haaah
YesonHSR Reply:
July 4th, 2011 at 11:53 pm
They would show up for that….
synonymouse Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 11:02 am
Naah. The driver was too distracted texting, missed, and ran over an oxycontin dealer by mistake, the City having trendied up from crack.
synonymouse Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 1:31 pm
The “Union driven bus” is too “challenged” to hit run over squat.
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2011/07/parking-placards-disabled-found-muni-workers-autos
The Pelosi machine is correct tho that the TWU 250A mindset will be a perfect match for the CHSRA hubris. Better than Amalgamated-BART.
Peter Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 3:21 pm
Ummm, relevance of the article you posted to, well, anything?
Jon Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 11:56 am
A Muni light rail line would be more cost-effective than a BART line, as it could be above ground west of Gough street, greatly reducing costs. Geary Blvd can easily lose two traffic lanes to become dedicated LRV lanes, with signal priority and properly spaced stops the above ground section would not be much slower than a subway.
My suggestion: subway stations at Transbay, Union Square and Van Ness. Above ground stops at Laguna, Fillmore, Divisadaro, Presidio/Masonic, Spruce, Arguello, 7th, Park Presidio, 19th, 25th, 30th, 36th, 42nd, 48th. That’s one stop every 550m/1800ft, or every six blocks in the avenues. I base that on the stop spacing of the Muni Metro extension along the Embarcadero, which seems about right to me.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 12:12 pm
The problem is capacity, not speed. Subway-surface lines have a huge mismatch in capacity between the subway and surface segment. They’re justifiable when there’s branching that allows several lower-capacity surface lines to be combined into one higher-capacity subway, as is the case for the existing Muni Metro.
Another problem is that the local merchants became huge anti-LRT NIMBYs. So politically, it’s a subway or BRT.
synonymouse Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Trolley coaches are an option that could be implemented reasonably quickly and would benefit from having the bus barn on route. The subway-surface alternative would have to cope with the atrocious pedestrian-auto conflict on Geary. As ugly as they might appear, pedestrian overpasses would be necessary, I think, for safety reasons.
A full-blown Geary subway would create tremendous developer pressure to convert all those Richmond District houses into tenements.
Jon Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
Another problem is that the local merchants became huge anti-LRT NIMBYs
I must have missed that. Why, when building LRT will involve exactly the same amount of disruption and lost parking spaces as building BRT?
Not sure I follow your capacity argument. Throughput (which is what we really care about) is a function of vehicle capacity, average speed, and frequency. Granted, average speed is a bit lower for LRT compared to subway rail, and vehicle capacity is much lower, but frequency can be increased to compensate. So instead of running an eight car train every 10 minutes you run a two car train every 2.5 minutes.
Miles Bader Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Of course, a subway (or dedicated ROW surface rail) can give you the best of both worlds — very long trains and very short headways.
Jon Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 4:09 pm
Sure, but at a cost. No doubt that subway is the best solution if money is no object.
Miles Bader Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 4:34 pm
Meh, it’s an investment.
I’m always very confused about whether SF wants to be a real city or not…
jimsf Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 4:40 pm
What do you mean a “real city” sounds kind of condescending . You realize that cities come in many sizes shapes and styles right? That doesn’t make some of them real and some of them fake.
Miles Bader Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Sorry, not being serious… :]
[I was born in SF, so I'm allowed!]
jimsf Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
oh ok thats fine then never mind. you get a pass. ;-)
Jon Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 5:22 pm
Calm down Jim!
The problem is that SF is a smallish city in a large urban area. It’s too small to fund a proper subway system itself (i.e. Muni) and a regional approach means that every exurban town gets a line before large parts of SF (i.e. BART).
jimsf Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
And who’s going to cough up that investment cash. If someone wants to write a check to the City and County of San Francisco for 15 billion dollars I’m sure city would gladly build a citywide subway network provided the residents approved of it.
Perhaps what you meant by “real city” is a place where decisions are made by politicians and developers outside the realm of public input and democracy for the shear benefit of the politicians and developers or place where citizens are uninterested in what goes on around them or in participatory democracy. There are words for those things but they are not the definition of “real city”
jimsf Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 4:53 pm
So you see here, so as not to be confused, sf is actually a real city:
–noun, plural cit·ies.
1.
a large or important town.
2.
(in the U.S.) an incorporated municipality, usually governed by a mayor and a board of aldermen or councilmen
— n , pl cities
1. any large town or populous place
2. (in Britain) a large town that has received this title from the Crown: usually the seat of a bishop
3. (in the US) an incorporated urban centre with its own government and administration established by state charter
Alon Levy Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 6:52 pm
Don’t shoot, I’m just the messenger. I’m told that local planners proposed Geary LRT, but the local merchants opposed it on the grounds that an overhead wire will make the area less desirable.
If the expected ridership is 100,000 per weekday (equal to that of the buses along Geary and parallel corridors) then it should be fine to spend $2-2.5 billion on a subway. That’s about $250 million per km, which is normal or even slightly on the high side for such projects outside the US. Even at Central Subway costs it’d be about $4.5 billion, high but less per rider than Milwaukie MAX or any outward BART extension.
Miles Bader Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 7:04 pm
… and a real subway is pretty much guaranteed to increase the area’s desirability…
political_incorrectness Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 7:24 pm
You would be better to spend Central Subway on a Geary Line which will actually relieve street traffic and provide a much necessary line. At least BART ridership would then be above 400k and almost to 500k. Add another urban line in SF and a few in Oakland, you’d have the ridership per track mile of DC.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 12:11 pm
Q: Why do you rob banks? A: That’s where the money is.
The political reality is that BART has squandered tens of billions of dollars of cash on constructing new and highly visible rail lines, while Muni cuts service all the time and replaced the 15-Third bus with a streetcar that is slower, less reliable and more expensive to run. So if you think you want a project delivered, you’re going to look a lot harder at the politically juiced four-letter agency with the blue strips on the cars controlled by PBQD/Bechtel rather than the politically juiced four-letter agency controlled by PBQD/TWU-250A that never delivers anything.
Moreover, people’s universal experience of riding BART is that it though it is is expensive, it arrives pretty much on time all the time, and operates frequently. People’s experience of Muni is DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE.
So the naive vox pop respondent is pretty much guaranteed to want BART service, not to be reamed by Muni, if presented with a (false) all-other-things equal choice of the two.
Lastly, there’s constant whining bullshit heard from nowhere places in eastern Contra Costa and Alameda Counties about how they’ve been paying for BART service for decades and don’t have a personal subway line to their ranchette subdivision. (Kind of like the Monterey and HSR routing.) Well, far more — VASTLY MORE — people in San Francisco have paid vastly more BARTD taxes and they have nothing to show for it either. So “BART should build a subway along Geary” is a (completely valid and fully justified) riposte to “BART should build a subway line to Livermore/the San Jose Flea Market/some strip mall/a cemetery/etc.”
jimsf Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 4:33 pm
Theres no need for subways on the west side. The brt wil be fine and can be converted to lrv when the money becomes available. The merchants dont want a subway because they think that tearing up streets will hurt their business. The residents dont want a subway because they don’t want it to put growth pressure on the neighborhoods. The drivers don’t want brt or lrv because they don’t want to lose two lanes of traffic. So, piss off the merchants, or piss off the homeowners, or piss off the drivers… the merchants and homeowners have more pull than the drivers at city hall as they are in town and much of the car traffic is from out of town.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 6:53 pm
In the US, BRT has never been converted to LRT. Even in the one case where ridership exceeded the capacity of buses, the Orange Line, they bagged an LRT conversion because it’d disrupt the BRT line and would cost money (money they should’ve spent on going straight to LRT in the first place).
Drunk Engineer Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 8:10 pm
You’re using n=1 sample size to spot a trend? (Ok, n=2 if we are generous and count Boston.)
Miles Bader Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 8:27 pm
Wait, there’s only one BRT system in the U.S.?!
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
Only one that was expected to have enough traffic, in the foreseeable future, that would need LRT eventually.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 9:20 pm
n = 3 if you go to North America and add Ottawa. They want to LRTify the Transitway, but it’s going to be costly.
Man, I’m so glad about that. The governor seems to know more about HSR than all of Legislature combined.
I’m definitely not happy with the way SD MTS is expanding its system. Right now, most plans only benefit tourists. Who on earth needs the Mid-Coast trolley between UTC and Old Town?? What we need is a trolley that connects the urban areas. I think the biggest issue is space because the transit authority procrastinated for so long.
The only way to connect the areas that would most likely use public transit is through a line that runs underground North-South along 6th Avenue around Balboa park, and Hillcrest. It would then pop up at some point at El Cajon Blvd. That road is more than wide enough to share space with light rail. At some point it would have to dive again run along University Ave to terminate at 54th St. That would probably be the most expensive line, but it would add FAR more riders than any other proposal. Of course they won’t do it because of the money and choose to procrastinate until it is almost impossible to serve the densest communities.
political_incorrectness Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 8:44 pm
Indeed, SD MTS seems like they are walking with a dunce hat on. The lines built did not cover major employment and population centers and instead avoided them. Have they considered frequent feeder buses timed for the light rail at all?
Risenmessiah Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 10:28 pm
If I recall correctly, SANDAG is actually the MPO… MTS is just the operator.
More lawsuits involving Amtrak. No wonder the UP does not want to have anything to do with the CHSRA. The latter’s main supporter is the political machine that is joined at the hip with the trial lawyers.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-illinois-amtrak-employee-sues-after-deadly-nv-crash-20110704,0,315171.story
And if limits on compensatory damage awards are thrown out they may not want to accommodate Metrolink, etc. any more.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 10:20 am
Truck rams into the middle of a train and that’s Amtrak’s fault. Hmmm. How’s the weather on your planet?
Peter Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 10:31 am
Did you read the article? The case isn’t about who caused the crash, but about the fact that a baggage door was locked causing the plaintiff to have to double-back and expose herself to greater smoke inhalation.
The case is going to turn around what Amtrak’s policy was for locking the baggage door, and whether Amtrak was negligent for either having a policy of locking the door, or vicariously liable for an employee’s possible negligence of locking the door against policy.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Yes. A truck ran into an Amtrak train. Everything else that happened after that happened because a truck ran into the train.
Peter Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 6:13 pm
Your terms of the day are comparative negligence, contributory negligence, and vicarious liability. They’re kind of important for tort law. Look them up.
Peter Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 10:36 am
“political machine that is joined at the hip with the trial lawyers.”
Ahh, you’re a tort reform advocate. Ever seen “Hot Coffee”? It’s a very interesting documentary on the issue. I’d recommend it to you if I thought you actually cared. For anyone else, definitely watch it.
synonymouse Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 10:59 am
Why would the UP want to put itself at risk to the Gloria Allreds of the world, especially since the ambulance chasers are allied with political antagonists like Nancy Pelosi who just happen to be main movers behind PB?
The CHSRA should look for ROWs’s that are already public property such as freeways and, most definitely, property owned by the holiest of holies – BART. MTC would be screaming.
Peter Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 11:20 am
You really will take about just about any argument and try and squeeze it into your agenda, won’t you?
synonymouse Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 11:46 am
As if the honchos at PB took any interest in my “agenda”, which is pretty fluid since I did vote for Prop 1A, and originally supported Pacheco and 99. Always was appalled tho at the Dumb Detour.
STill at the end of the day Tejon and Altamont are the much better routes, and I-5 could be a real bargain. And, news of the day, the BART vs Caltrain smackdown continues unresolved. Never “misunderestimate” BART-MTC
thatbruce Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
Yup, he will.
wu ming Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 3:00 pm
it’s a turing test botscript.
Ken Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
I wish there was more stronger support to tie in both air and rail travel together as well not just local rail.
Frankfurt am-Main Int’l and Paris Charles d’Gaulle Int’l works incredibly well by having a high speed rail station directly at the airport instead of half a town away. LAX could definitely use some high-speed rail love than schlepping all the way to Union Station on a Flyaway bus.
Andre Peretti Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 5:04 pm
Link: AirInsight article
This is only possible when the station is inside the airport. At Paris CDG transferring to the TGV is often easier and quicker than boarding a connecting flight.
There is one victim of foreign airlines codesharing with the TGV: Air France. Thanks to their deals with the SNCF its competitors have access to the main French cities without the cost of a local agency and maintenance team.
Ken Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 8:15 am
Correct. I believe in this aspect, SFO has a great thing going by having a HSR station that directly connects at the airport. Chicago O’Hare seems to be interested in bringing Amtrak directly to theirs as well.
Too bad there’s no room at LAX to do so there too.
Brown wants to see a statewide rail plan?
its right here… Did he even look or call across the street to caltrans?
Paulus Magnus Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 5:16 pm
It’s more a case of Robert overblowing something minor and reading hopes into it (like the folks who thought Obama would pay off their mortgages for them).
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 7:54 pm
That’s not the same thing. The State plan is addressees intercity rail. The funding identified in AB3034 that is the topic du jor concerns local urban rail system. BART, LA Metro Rail, SD Trolley, SF Muni, etc.
Risenmessiah Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 10:36 pm
Actually, it appears that indeed said link is one and the same as the “State Rail Plan” but…big but here….the State document doesn’t include BART, but does include CalTrain and Metrolink. Hence, Brown is saying that BART is attempting to get around the plan.
Is this line eligible for Prop 1A funds? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHgICrotQZY