Sacramento News & Review’s Good Overview of HSR
Every once in a while you see a newspaper that actually does a decent job of reporting the status of and politics around the California high speed rail project. Today’s example is a feature story in this week’s Sacramento News & Review titled “Track to the Future: 20 Questions on California high-speed rail.” It gives a good sense of what both supporters and critics have to say, and provides a fair analysis of where the project stands and where it will be going.
Gary Patton, the ringleader of the anti-HSR and pro-oil forces in the state, is given some extensive quotes showing his virulent opposition to passenger rail in California. But just as much space, if not even more, is given to people like Daniel Krause, executive director of Californians For High Speed Rail and Emily Rusch of CALPIRG to explain some of the project’s benefits:
What happens if we don’t build high-speed rail?
“To me, this is the core question that California should be asking,” said Emily Rusch, with the California Public Interest Research Group. “Forty-two billion dollars sounds incredibly expensive. But highways aren’t cheap. Airports aren’t cheap.”
In environmental-review documents for the project, the Authority has estimated that, without high-speed rail, the state would have to spend $80 billion on other kinds of infrastructure—including 3,000 miles of highway lanes and 92 airport gates.
Doing nothing to upgrade California’s infrastructure is probably not a politically palatable option. And most policymakers seem to agree that the state needs to significantly cut carbon-dioxide emissions out of its transportation system.
Still, a significant number of people are ideologically opposed to high-speed rail. Among them are the folks who see spooky similarity between the HSRA logo and the Obama campaign logo.
“There certainly is a set of people who think high-speed rail is just a boondoggle. It doesn’t matter what the details are, they just don’t think it’s worth money,” [Sacramento Assemblyman Roger] Dickinson said.
Emily Rusch’s point is key, and it’s the question that people like Gary Patton and other anti-HSR folks will never, ever answer. Because they can’t answer it in a way that does anything other than bolster the case for high speed rail. The cost of oil, the cost of expanding freeways and airports, the cost in climate change, are all quite significant. Yet we know that HSR around the world does well, attracts riders, and covers its operating costs – and that is also true of the Amtrak Acela. HSR will save California money, even if some people cannot get over their ideological opposition to rail.
The whole article is worth a read and does a good job of capturing the basic nature of the HSR discussion in California. It’s clear that anti-HSR folks like Patton are getting some traction, but they also have to reckon not just with the facts of a climate and energy crisis – they also have to reckon with widespread public support of the project that remains, even in the face of efforts to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt about the project.
It’s also a good encapsulation of the political scene in California today. The state has its problems, but a big one is the flat refusal of those still wedded to a failed 20th century way of doing things – burning oil, driving everywhere, fighting any effort to rely on sustainable transportation – to allow the majority of the population to pursue the changes that are logical and in fact already unfolding. The question is whether there is political leadership in the state to help push through the obstacles and ensure that California is prepared to – and actually will – invest in the future, or whether it will be content to slide into oblivion just to make a few NIMBYs happy.
Some people really can’t see past next week. Anybody who says “we can’t afford it” needs to immediately be ignored. Population WILL continue to grow, and nobody can stop that. It’s idiotic to think that more and more people can keep relying on infrastructure built 50 years ago. Money has to be spent, unless you want the entire state to start following an amish lifestyle. Im sure that will do wonders for the economy.
joe Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 9:48 pm
Think of all the Ag jobs Kings County will lose when we build a HSR station in Hanford. Seriously, that’s a concern of the head NIMBY of Kinks’ County: Losing ag jobs without replacement jobs after we connect Hanford to SJ, SF and LA, SD. Losing jobs.
The elevator isn’t going to the 2nd floor there.
Kings county top employer by revenue income is the Government, not Ag.
YesonHSR Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 1:07 am
200 poor Mexicans paid sub minimum wage by Red/Repubs white land owners getting AG subs and cheap water is nothing HSR should not go thru..at 200mph
Andy M. Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 5:47 am
Just to pay the devil’s advocate here. But isn’t it so that 100 years ago or so most industry and jobs were concentrated up in what is now the Rust Belt, states with a cooler climate streching from the Atlantic across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. Then aircon was invented and suddenly lief further South became very comfortable and people and money started moving there. That’s why states such as California and Texas are still growing whereas the old Rust Belt states are declining. Now as energy prices continue to rise, penalising those busineses that depend on aircon, won’t that possibly reverse the tendency, making California and Texas the rust belt of the late 21st Century and bring growth back to the North? I mean, do we really know that California will continue to grow forever? Or will it only grow if it also remians hyper-competitive, with HS being one peice in the puzzle that makes that competitivity?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 11:38 am
The Rust Belt isn’t declining, it’s just not growing as fast as the Sunbelt. Cheap oil makes the Sunbelt attractive. I suspect water is going to be the constraint in the Sunbelt. Here in the Northeast ( and in the Midwest and Southeast ) it just falls out of the sky.
JJJ Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 12:58 pm
You dont need A/C to be comfortable in San Francisco.
And of course California will continue growing. Just look at the population gains over the past decade. People love California. Dont let claims that “every is leaving” fool you, those are simply lies that a quick census search can debunk.
And as adirondacker12800 mentioned, the Sunbelt is in deep shit if their droughts hold up. Mind you, California is in equally deep dung if we get hit with our own extended drought.
Alai Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 2:37 am
Ho, ho. In SF A/C is called “opening the window”.
There are other ways to keep cool, too, even in hot places. Just check out places which were built before AC, or aren’t rich enough to use it. Houses would be constructed a lot differently. Social changes (like siestas) can help.
Spokker Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 3:07 am
I thought that the only reason California has positive population growth was because of immigration.
StevieB Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 3:42 am
In 2008 California recorded 551,567 births and 234,072 deaths. You thought wrong.
Spokker Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 5:50 am
But what people would ask is whether or not those births are the offspring of immigrants, illegal or legal.
Look, I think the whole “people/businesses leaving California” thing is a big fat myth. But the way some people tell it is that they are disappointed that white people are leaving California and brown people are moving in (or simply having more children). I’m wondering if that is the case.
VBobier Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 2:42 pm
I think It is the case, Sad to say. Bigotry seems to rule parts of the GOP, They hate Gays, Seniors, Disabled People, Latinos and who knows who else. I’m surprised that they don’t hate Catholics or those whose ancestry comes from Ireland.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 3:28 pm
They used to but got over it.
Don’t examine the calls to return to being a Christian nation too closely. It’s code for Protestant, more specifically a branch of Protestantism that most Protestants don’t adhere to.
Spokker Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 6:02 am
StevieB, here’s an example of the sentiment I am talking about.
“I can’t wait to get outta here! Hoping to move within the next 6 months and I couldn’t be happier. What is this state going to do when all that’s left are illegals, unemployed and welfare recipients? I asked that question over a year ago and it seems to be happening…”
Even though California has a net population increase, the claim is that all of the productive people are leaving and the losers are staying.
Elizabeth Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 7:31 am
California still has more births than deaths. This is basically:
1) Continued high hispanic birth rates http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/reports/projections/fertility/view.php
2) Low deaths – right now the depression babies are who is old (and dying). This is small cohort. This will change over next decade as baby boomers age.
Immigration (both from other countries and other states) has gone from being a major contributer to being a small one. LA had negative immigration and most counties actually had more people move to other states than vice versa.
It is not clear to me why the DOF continues to forecast high growth rates when the trends and demographics show a clear deceleration. It also bodes poorly for schools. The number of people working may actually decrease (retirees) while the number of kids increases. Not good for finances.
Elizabeth Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 7:32 am
HEre is detailed demographic data on population growth:
http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/reports/estimates/e-2/2000-10/view.php
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 7:43 am
People stop having babies during a depression. They stop moving too. The economy isn’t going to be in the outhouse forever.
Elizabeth Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 7:54 am
These are trends in place for the last decade.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 8:01 pm
You misunderstood. The point is that California has a low death rate because the current generation that’s dying was small. The next generation that’s going to start dying, in 15-20 years, is the much larger Boomer generation.
Risenmessiah Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 7:55 pm
Elizabeth,
The fact of the matter is that most of the recent population trends in California had to do with immigration: specifically the 1986 amnesty law that allowed many people to settle here and start families. That dramatically expanded the labor pool for non-college educated workers in California, at a time when natives were not expanded and much of the highly paid union work was being shipped overseas. Then as immigration from Asia expanded, most of those immigrants had access to capital and with a surplus of cheap labor built the California of 2010…..
Two states within one.
It’s true that population estimates are wildly optimistic…but what can most bureaucrats do? The developers don’t want people to realize that the last fifty years of suburban development was a ponzi scheme and reconfigure society as we know it. As wacky as it sounds, the coming topping out of population in California and the US is perhaps the best ally of HSR there is. Because once the US has a set cap on productivity, then environmental and land efficiencies heretofore disregarded in the US become real…one worker at a time.
Elizabeth Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 8:28 pm
I was completely with you (particularly about how population growth is a ponzi scheme) until the part where you said this would help HSR.
The rest of the US is full of sad tales of regions which have low levels of education and shrinking populations. I am trying to think of an area like that which really turned itself around and I can’t.
While I think HSR is a big win for cities like San Francisco, I think CV towns should not expect much and if I were them I would be lobbying for more slots at the local universities and better goods transportation because, yes, they are going to fight hard to have a good outcome.
synonymouse Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 2:19 pm
There is a point where population growth starts to produce profoundly more cons than pros and the very notion of functional government becomes questionable. Consider Pakistan where Karachi numbers some 18 million souls, who “can’t just get along”, to paraphrase Rodney King. Over a thousand dead in recent days in what is euphemistically referred to as sectarian violence. And these folks have the bomb.
The population mongers, Wunderman and all the rest of the boosters, can go perform the classic anatomically impossible act, imho.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 3:24 pm
And there’s many many other metro regions in the world where everybody more or less gets along. One of the most diverse ones is right here in the US. metro New York City.
synonymouse Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 3:29 pm
Like Cairo, with its 17 million. Or Rio so long as the tanks are patrolling the favelas.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
The favelas are the safe parts of Rio – it’s the formal neighborhoods, policed by one super-violent gang (the police) instead of by several smaller ones, that have high crime rates.
Jon Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 8:40 pm
Yeah, because the fact that Karachi and (until recently) Cairo are major cities in politically unstable authoritarian police states has nothing to do with their violence and instability. Must be nice to be able to screen out every detail which conflicts with your own chosen interpretation of the world.
There seems to be a widening push, exemplified by Robert’s post, to conflate anti-Pacheco with anti-HSR. These are not remotely the same position. One can honestly and consistently be pro-HSR and anti-Pacheco, despite vitriolic claims to the contrary around here. Patton is quoted as saying HSR could be great, which is hardly the sort of admission you’d expect from a pawn of the oil industry.
YesonHSR Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 12:34 am
Stop Toll..HSR is going thru Pacheo Pass…death of the yuppie mountain lions not withstanding…The real question how we ram it thru 50 miles of arrogant ass hole fake green/liberal types ..NOW why dont you come up with something on that blog of yours
Clem Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 6:47 am
See what I mean?
Paulus Magnus Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 6:24 am
Is there a basic primer on the whole Altamount vs Pacheco thing for those of us who don’t know too much about it?
Drunk Engineer Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 6:52 am
There is the architecture-21 site.
Or just read the Executive Summary in the original EIR.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 6:58 am
Even better, just look at a map.
Peter Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 7:04 am
Note that a lot of the information on the architecture-21 site is outdated, such as the discussion of the Los Banos station (there won’t be one).
brandon from San Diego Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 11:12 am
Y’all are not telling the whole story..
- Altamont is longer
- Altamont is more expensive for capital construction
Operationally:
- Altamont takes longer to make the trip.
But most importantly, Altamont is not Operationally efficient. It will require more trains to operate the same level of service.
Peter Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
That too is only part of the story.
Altamont only takes longer to get to SJ from the south. Altamont is the same time to SF, and would be faster for Sac-SF and Sac-SJ.
Altamont would be operationally less efficient because they would have to do train-splitting, or have to run more trains to serve both SJ and SF. In preparation for Richard’s sarcastic put-down: As discussed in the EIR, while trainsplitting is done in HSR operations internationally, it is not done on mainline routes, only on less busy routes.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 1:14 pm
If it’s proposed and rejected in PBQD’s EIR, then by definition it is a straw man.
If you’d paid attention any time in the last decade or more — or weren’t just erecting straw men — you’d know that line capacity outside the Bay Area is effectively unconstrained, so in-service train make/break, which is done purely to reduce path consumption through critical network sections, is worse than useless.
The critically constrained section of the entire state-wide HSR system, no matter how routed, is the SF Peninsula in general and the Transbay Terminal in particular. Keeping empty seats out of Transbay is single most important operational priority. So no wonder that PBQD — and you — harp on an issue — splitting trains in Fremont to congest two different terminals — that has less than no bearing on anything.
At least PB has the Legitimate Businessmen’s excuse that they and their friends get to make an extra $10 to $20 billion from intentionally lying and conducting fraudulent alternatives analyses. Straw men can be very lucrative, indeed.
joe Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 1:27 pm
What would be harping on an issue? Oh yeah, the Altamont alignment.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 6:22 pm
Altamont = splitting service. Not trains.
A fraction of trains go one way, the other fraction go elsewhere. Oakland to the north, or San Jose and San Francisco the other way. Folks going through this, from SF/SJ or SoCal, are screwed becuase it means less train service. Folks on the Peninsula are screwed too, because, it also means fewer trains. To make up for that loss, more trains must be added along the Peninsula, and possibly to SoCal. That is where the higher operational costs come in.
If trains are not split and all trains loop around the South Bay to San Jose and then to SF, then it is a much longer trip. If schedule is headway-based, then more trains will be needed to support the service. Trips will also be longer…. that does not change.
That all said, the Board already made their decision. They are pursuing Pacheco.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 6:24 pm
Cutting revenue trains in half, splitting them, is confusing to passengers. It also cuts capacity to each segment that is served there-after.
Max Wyss Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 8:17 am
LOL; that is common practice all over the world.
But maybe the Californians are too dumb to find the right car… (assuming that service would be reservation-based anyway).
swing hanger Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 8:25 am
Likely will be dumb at first, then will eventually grasp the concept. Kind of like now
with people who think adding stations to a HSR line “slows down trains” since they
aren’t familiar with the concept of passing tracks and timed overtakes.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 8:33 am
People on the NEC can’t find the right car…..
joe Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 9:14 am
Since train operations have to 100% cost recover, splitting SF/SJ, IMHO reduces the chances of revenue recovery.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 9:54 am
Seat utilization is the key factor for operating profitability. Show us your operating plan that has both SF and SJ on the same train without running lots of empty seats up and down the Peninsula.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 9:57 am
Show us an operating plan that has all the seats full between San Jose and San Francisco that doesn’t run lots of empty seats between San Jose, Gilroy and points south.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 6:31 pm
Haven’t you heard? they are all going to get off in Redwood City and get on the express Caltrain train to San Jose. the one that is perfectly balanced with commuters between San Francisco and Redwood City. So that Caltrain isn’t running empty trains between San Francisco and Redwood City. All possible because the bridge to Fremont magically appeared one stormy night.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Aahhhhh, I am glad someone gets it.
Pardon me for not acknowledging before.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 7:23 pm
I’m trying to think of one correct piece of information “adirondacker12800″ has ever posted, and I’m drawing a blank.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 7:46 pm
you don’t want me to list all of the links to all of the schedules you’ve posted on that other blog that don’t have HSR service to San Jose, just a nice hike over to the southbound platform on northbound trips and from the northbound platform to the southbound platform on southbound trips. from/to the Caltrain express to/from San Jose.
Clem Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 9:56 pm
Again incorrect. His schedules show HSR to SJ joining the peninsula corridor at CP Coast in Santa Clara, and do not imply a transfer in RWC. Read the strings more carefully. Imagine that, HSR to SJ via Altamont, in direct violation of several laws of physics! (such as Diridon’s Third Law, which states that Los Angeles trains may only leave San Jose southbound…)
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 10:01 pm
the pretty colored lines end south of Redwood city in many of them
Clem Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 11:16 pm
And other pretty colored lines appear in Santa Clara towards San Jose… Still not seeing them?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 11:23 pm
So in addition to building a new trestle across the bay you are carving a new ROW through Milpitas. Sounds, cheap easy and fast to build to me.
Joey Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 5:03 am
The CHSRA would disagree with you. Their estimates pegged Pacheco and Altamont (both SF and SJ termini) as being more or less equal in cost.
Peter Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 6:54 am
Umm, most that you’ll find are crazily slanted towards Altamont, like CalRail and TRAC’s discussions of the issues. Probably the best discussion you’ll find is in the Program EIR.
Miles Bader Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 7:02 am
Oh I dunno, I found a few that are crazily slanted towards Pacheco…
Something about the issue seems to make people froth at the mouth.
Peter Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 7:09 am
Whose site is crazily slanted towards Pacheco? I’ve never seen any of those.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 7:12 am
Um, this one?
Peter Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 7:44 am
Advocating to get on with it and not refight the same old battles is not the same as boosterism.
Miles Bader Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 8:07 am
… and I wish they would just get on with it…
Unfortunately trying to re-open that particular can of worms seems to be one of the anti-HSR crowd’s strategies, presumably in hopes that it will bog things down and result in infighting — which to some degree maybe explains why some people might have the attitude Clem complains about.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 6:25 pm
Too late. The Board made it’s decision.
joe Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 8:27 am
Game over. It’s a decided issue and trying to reopen the alignment debate is going to undermine the project.
synonymouse Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 11:13 am
The game is hardly over if there is no funding. The budget wars are just getting started in DC.
Eventually the cost of bad planning comes home to roost. In the Northbay a grassroots movement to repeal SMART has started. It stems from the little taxpayers’s resentment at this irrelevant, ineffectual, yet gratuitously expensive scheme which will require large and ongoing subsidies, which will no doubt come out of other services, notably existing buses. Whether this will get anywhere up against the local branch of the Machine is questionable but the discontent is genuine and out of the woodwork, not concocted by the oil lobby.
Apparently there are going to a number of initiatives on the ballot in November of next year and I wouldn’t be too surprised if Prop 1A is one of them.
joe Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 11:40 am
Like my 4 year old who stood at video arcade games and played them. The screen flashes “Game Over!” but he was having fun “winning”. Keep it up. You’re winning.
synonymouse Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
The game is never really over but remains forever ongoing. Was the Pacific Electric able to declare “game over” ca. 1915 when its future looked ever so rosy and secure?
Conversely the “mobility” fanatics of the fifties thought the game was over and they won when they opined NYC could dispense with its subway system.
But bad planning and padding really does invariably extract a toll. For instance if the CHSRA regresses to the Palmdale-Tehachapi Detour it will push this megaproject further into the boondoggle category.
joe Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 1:23 pm
“Look Daddy! I’m winning.”
political_incorrectness Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 1:51 pm
Large subsidies? *sigh* Lets compare the amount with the road budget, then we’ll talk.
Clem Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 12:42 pm
I’m not sure that’s true.
Reopening the debate may in fact improve the project, given the new fiscal realities that everyone must ultimately face. I believe that it’s quite possible that you’ll see this coming from the Authority itself in the coming months. The cheapest and quickest San Francisco connection to HSR, in a new “Phase Zero,” would be to connect to BART in Livermore. No other alternative, least of all Pacheco, provides such a “Phase Zero” access to SF, which may be key to the entire viability of moving forward with Phases One (HSR direct to SF/SJ) and Two (HSR to Sacramento).
This project, if built at all, will have to be built in small steps–there is simply no realistic way to do it all at once. If you don’t like that, you can move to China.
synonymouse Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Cool point, Clem, but how about something really radical and provocative like dual-gauging underutilized but key BART trackage to get to Dumbarton?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 1:46 pm
BART doesn’t go to Livermore and the line that points at Livermore line doesn’t go to Dumbartion.
Joe C. Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 7:30 pm
The New Yorker is actually right about this.
Not to mention BART to Livermore(/random-suburb) is one of the worst rail projects around. ~$4B for 11.3 miles of rail (~$350M/mile!), before obligatory cost blowouts on every BART project, to a city with less than 100,000 people.
http://theoverheadwire.blogspot.com/2011/06/livermore-again.html
http://theoverheadwire.blogspot.com/2011/05/bart-to-livermore-horrible-idea.html
http://transbayblog.com/2010/07/01/bart-board-selects-alignment-for-livermore-extension/
Clem Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 8:10 pm
Yup, it’s a turkey. But every turkey of BART’s somehow gets built.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 11:07 pm
BART to Dublin is a turkey that should never ever have been built.
But since it exists, throwing one more station’s worth of bad money after good (ie extending it from Dublin to Livermore, as stupid as that is, taken alone) can make sense from a more global perspective if it delivers HSR to the Bay Area many years earlier and many billion taxpayer dollars cheaper.
Winston Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 8:32 pm
I still think that there is a better use of the I-580 median: Run HSR down the 580 median to meet BART at the East Dublin station then build an elevated structure that runs to 680. Along 680 there is plenty of space to build HSR east of 680 and west of the drainage canal. This allows a quicker trip to San Francisco and would allow a high speed commuter line with stops at the BART station, Livermore and points east. As importantly, it should be free of the NIMBY objections that would come from running through the residential parts of Livermore and Pleasanton.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 8:05 pm
Serious question: in a counterfactual world in which BART Livermore is in doubt, why send HSR to Livermore and not to Pleasanton, which is proposed as a stop for the full Altamont buildout anyway?
Winston Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 11:32 pm
BART to Livermore is not a done deal yet and using the ROW for is a really neat way to solve the potential NIMBY problems with the Altamont route as well as providing much better connectivity for HSR to the east bay and providing superior commuter service to points east.
joe Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
“The cheapest and quickest San Francisco connection to HSR, in a new “Phase Zero,” would be to connect to BART in Livermore.”
Awful idea. – always predicated on prioritizing the East Bay – Sacramento connection.
“No other alternative, least of all Pacheco, provides such a “Phase Zero” access to SF, “
Connecting HSR to Gilroy’s Caltrain ROW isn’t real.
“This project, if built at all, will have to be built in small steps–there is simply no realistic way to do it all at once. If you don’t like that, you can move to China.”
As Obama says: “Shì de, wǒmen kěyǐ”
HSR isn’t small – small steps is how HSR will be gutted to benefit local commuter interests – know of any?
Joey Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Okay seriously a connection at Gilroy is no connection at all. CalTrain currently runs 3 trains in each direction per day, during commute hours only, and UP is unlikely to let them run more (the ROW from SJ to Gilroy is owned by UPRR and mostly single-track in case you missed that). So an actual connecting service is impossible, nevermind actually through-routing non-compliant electric trains.
joe Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 7:11 pm
Caltrain can run more trains – they had more trains prior to the 101 expansion and ran trains for years prior if you ask any older resident about rail to SF.
It’s single track – yes but not all the way to SJ.
UP might say no to more trains and they might not. We might not make it past 2012.
Joe C. Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 7:39 pm
CalTrain south of Tamien is a lost cause. Ridership falls off a cliff, much like BART south of Daly City.
VTA failed to execute its option to buy the line years ago, making any public investments into it a fool’s errand. And they’ve poured hundreds of millions into expanding US-101, undermining the case for expanded rail service.
joe Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 9:50 pm
Caltrain south of Tamien has three trains as of today. Ridership fell when they expanded 101 but it’s being helped by increasing gas prices. Receipt recovery is pretty strong for the South – or so I was told by county/city reps. at the Caltrain meeting this year.
Is it a lost cause? If they drop South County, VTA will put that much less into Caltrain since they have an obligation to service the whole County and the population S of Downtown SJ isn’t peanuts. They’d need to rethink express buses. In fact cutting Caltrain S of SJ would be the question, why not run BART up the Peninsula from SJ?
synonymouse Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Of course that is what BART intends, and dumping Peninsula hsr in the process. So transferring to BART at San Jose is superior to transferring to the Empire at Livermore?
joe Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 3:57 pm
First, San Jose is is friendlier to rail than Livermore. It’s also the 10th largest city in the USA, 2nd in CA and named destination City in the Project and not equal to Livermore service. It’s not that much further than a Livermore build.
Yes – BART wants it all – it’s a typical lazy contractor. F’em. IMHO HSR is the only think that can stop them.
Caltrain is stupid enough to have BART eat their lunch and send us a massive bill to crap it out and flush. That doesn’t mean it will happen.
So the solution is build Altamont?
No.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 8:06 pm
Ridership south of San Jose today is a fraction of what it was in the 1990s, even though the ridership between SF and SJ has overall gone up.
Joe C. Reply:
July 11th, 2011 at 4:56 pm
CalTrain ridership south of Tamien peaked in early 2000s (still woeful numbers), US-101 expansion opened, and ridership is now at early 1990s levels (abysmal). No need to take my word, or Alon’s word for it, here are CalTrain’s numbers themselves:
http://www.caltrain.com/Assets/Stats+and+Reports/Ridership/2010_Caltrain_Ridership_Counts.pdf
Also if the VTA cared about providing effective public transport to the all of Santa Clara County, it shouldn’t be be pursuing BART to SJ like a rabid dog. A project with costs upwards of $10B, a sum that will bust the VTA like it did SamTrans, and lead to more local transit cuts and fare hikes. For less money, a sane standard gauge rail project from Fremont to SJ, running almost 10 yearsnow, with 15 minute headways all day and timed transfers with BART; they also could have paid their share for CalTrain upgrades including electrification, and bought the rail line down to Gilroy; and focused on bus and (gag) light rail projects for the rest of the county.
joe Reply:
July 11th, 2011 at 6:42 pm
Service will improve when those to run the system have to depend on it. We are not there yet.
Caltrain proposed cutting South County Service and held an outreach meeting in Gilroy this spring.
The outreach meeting was scheduled too early for many who used Caltrain to commute to Gilroy.
One may have made with the 5:30 train and rushed. Many of those dependent on the service – disabilities or lacked a car – took the day off work to attend.
Clem Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 3:19 pm
This is predicated on prioritizing the San Francisco to Los Angeles connection. It has nothing to do with Sacramento or the East Bay… those are just the cherry on top. Focus on the cake, not the cherry.
LA – Livermore HSR 2:06
Transfer in Livermore 0:10
Livermore – SF Embarcadero BART 0:57
TOTAL SF-LA via Altamont/Livermore BART 3:13
LA – Gilroy HSR 1:57
Transfer in Gilroy 0:10
Gilroy – SF 4th & King by Caltrain 2:00
TOTAL SF-LA via Pacheco/Gilroy Caltrain 4:07
It’s simply not a contest. Even for San Jose, LA – SJ downtown times would be approximately equivalent via Livermore BART once BART to SJ is built. So let me reiterate: No other alternative, least of all Pacheco, provides such a “Phase Zero” access to SF.
Oaktown to SF every day under the Bay Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 3:50 pm
You forgot to also add in the 12 to 15 extra minutes to get from Transbay to Market Street in SF.
That’s amazing!
Seriously.
So at a trip cost penalty of perhaps 20 minutes (2h40 + 12m LA-Los Banos-Transbay-Market Street versus 3h13m LA-Livermore-Oakland-Market Street) you
DON’T spend billions building an entirely new rail line Los Banos-Gilroy-San Jose.
DON’T piss off everybody along the Caltrain tracks from San Jose to San Francisco until AFTER they’ve seen HSR in action, and working well.
DON’T waste two billion on the crazy Transbay Terminal which probably will never work for trains anyway (see Clem’s blog. Crazy!)
DO get half of the “Altamont Overlay” done, for free.
DO get a third of the Sacramento line done, for free.
DO get great HSR connections from Oakland, Berkeley, all of downtown San Francisco, anywhere BART goes, for free.
DO get trains running and people riding HSR many years sooner.
That’s an AMAZING trade-off.
Seriously.
And once it’s going, Phase 1 and Phase 2 are closer.
This is an AMAZINGLY good idea.
Why isn’t anybody talking about it?
This is the most interesting and smartest thing ever read on the subject of HSR in California.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 5:53 pm
Except for the fiddly bitsof having to actually build BART to Livermore or San Jose.
Clem Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 7:14 pm
Fiddly bits? They’re further along in funding, environmental review, political and popular support than anything the CHSRA has ever generated. The fiddly bit to Warm Springs is already under construction. (cue deadpan reply: Warm Springs is not San Jose… I get that, but open your eyes to the big picture)
AndyDuncan Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 10:57 am
Further along in funding? Since when? They have a program EIR. That’s it. When did they get funding? The site says they’re still looking for funding sources.
Peter Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Only Livermore only has a Program EIR. Warm Springs and San Jose have full environmental clearance. Warm Springs has full funding, and San Jose has funding to Berryessa (the Mighty San Jose Flea Market) at least.
Joe C. Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 8:19 pm
BART is a political machine. It has a unique ability to herd large sums of money and political support for projects, regardless of their technical merits or value.
As Clem noted, BART to Warm Springs (Fremont) is under construction. VTA has the money for BART to Berryessa, home of the San Jose Flea Market. I believe construction on parts of it have already started, namely track and utility relocation, and grade separation preparation.
joe Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 7:22 pm
It’s so obvious, perfect and not going to happen because this hypothetical stop gap time table is not what decides how a system is designed and isn’t good in any regard.
But I do see how crippling HSR might result in improving local rail and help those causes. That’s the danger of pretending revisiting the alignment is for the good of HSR.
Clem Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 7:55 pm
3:13 SF-LA Isn’t good in any regard? It’s just 35 minutes slower than the full build, with modern electric connecting service every 15 minutes. And it’s nothing hypothetical: you can look up these trip times in the respective EIRs.
Pacheco, on the other hand, is one and a half hours slower than full build with an interim transfer in Gilroy, which might or might not have diesel service every half hour over UPRR tracks. And to build the first stage of Pacheco to Gilroy, many miles of tunnel are required, certainly far more than the modest tunneling required to reach Livermore.
Even the CHSRA isn’t immune to the obvious. Give it time.
joe Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 9:42 pm
Again, the biggest threat to HSR is from those who want to cut it up and repurpose money for local transit projects.
CA is not going to spend billions and realign the system to build a HSR on-ramp to BART in Livermore.
Politically, SF and SJ are not going to re-plan for a solution that links BART to HSR “just 35 minutes slower” than spending billions to connect both Cities. Their respective political and business interests are smart enough to know that’s a bad idea as well.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 10:24 pm
Yes they are going schedule trains to Gilroy and then have people loiter around for an hour and half so they can get on the local to San Francisco. While BART trains are going to right across the platform. Platforms that are equally undesigned as the ones in Gilroy.
Joey Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 6:25 am
UP limits operating flexibility while BART runs every 15 minutes anyway. Clem allocated 10 minutes transfer time anyway.
joe Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 6:28 am
Awesome, so now let’s fly to LA or drive since this alignment sucks for Sf and SJ travel.
Astoundingly, it’s great for the east bay, future capitol of California.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 7:47 am
If you are going to assume that nothing at will ever change between Gilroy and San Jose I’m going to assume that nothing will ever change between Livermore and Pleasanton. You are going to wait much longer than ten minutes for a BART train in that scenario.
Joey Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 9:52 pm
The only way things are going to reply change is if you build an entirely new ROW, at which point you might as well build the HSL to San Jose
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 10:55 pm
Not even that.
Unless your destination in SF is within a quarter mile of the Transbay Terminal itself (or, more particular, the Grand Hall of the Transbay Terminal through which the “architects” believe everybody from every point of a quarter-mile-long train ought to be funnelled in order to create a “sense of arrival”), or unless you’re taking a taxi (and the TJPA and its “architect” doesn’t completely screw up taxi queuing), then add in the extra time to walk to Market Street and then transfer to the transit lines there.
That 35 minutes more time to get from LA to Montgomery/Market (BART) than to Mission/Fremont (Transbay) is really only 20 minutes longer to the SF CBD or to the most important Muni lines in the city. To points in the East Bay (including Oakland), it’s going to be faster to ride BART from Live-no-more than HSR to SF then walk to BART then ride back under the bay. To nearly every point in Santa Clara County, a HOT lane trip down I-680 from Livermore right to your destination will beat arriving at the train station, unless your destination is an ice hockey game.
That’s a pretty fantastically good engineering trade-off. In fact, it’s about the most incredible trade-off you’ll ever find anywhere in the real world: against the downside of a perhaps 11% longer trip time (3h15 vs 2h40+15m to SF CBD), the upside is a cost saving on the order of $10 to $15 billion (Transbay Craptactular + Diridon Hyperdimensional + Caltrain SF-SJ HSR + SJ-Gilroy HSR + Gilroy-Los Banos-Fresno – Fresno-Merced-Tracy-Livermore – Dublin-Livermore BART), or 25+% of total project budget, while delivering real. competitive, attractive start-up Bay Area to LA service perhaps 5 to 10 years earlier.
Re that “5 to 10 years earlier”: remember what the annual debt payments on $40 billion of construction bonds amount to! Every day of delay of initial Phase 0 commercial service costs on the order of $5 million!
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 11:19 pm
Who has the designs for the cross platform transfer station in Livermore?
joe Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 6:41 am
Be honest here: Interest payments will come from the general fund in all scenarios. HSR income to paying for the costs of the HSR service. There’s no savings in this scenario.
joe Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 7:06 am
Looking at the map, Fresno to San Jose is 152 miles but to Livermore is 147 miles. About the same.
So for the same track distance from Fresno; HSR can connect to Livermore or HSR can compete to San Jose and Caltrain to SF.
Elizabeth Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 7:56 am
Getting to San Jose from Fresno is not trivial – in terms of money, time or complexity. The number changes but there are 10 -15 miles of tunneling required through Pacheco, plus crossing a major wetland area.
Peter Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 8:17 am
@ Elizabeth
Yes, but it avoids crossing the Bay wetlands and building a new bridge over the Bay in order to get to SF. And Altamont requires nearly just as much tunneling (or insanely deep trenching through the mountains. Is there any major technical advantage to Altamont? Other than not going through PAMPA?
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 9:08 am
The brains trust at work as usual. So summarise:
Time isn’t money.
Commercial paper is free.
Capital markets are an illusion.
Starting service many years later is better than running trains sooner.
Cost is no object to the State of California.
Facts are stupid things.
joe Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 11:00 am
Prop 1A bonds are repaid out of the general fund.
HSR ticket receipts will NOT pay Prop1a bonds or interest.
Starting trains sooner isn’t going to pay off one additional cent of the Prop1a bond or the interest.
“Cost is no object to the State of California.” Hyperbole.
File this false coupling under: “if we cut social security we can reduce the deficit. “
Clem Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
@Peter, I think you misunderstood. Getting from Fresno to Livermore requires little or no tunneling, take it from the CHSRA’s own alignment descriptions. Getting from Fresno to Gilroy requires 10 to 15 miles of twin-bore tunnel, which alone will cost $2 to 3 billion.
If you have limited funds (many, many billions less than $45 billion or $65 billion or whatever you want to call the phase 1 budget), then it behooves you to build a “Phase Zero” project that has actual transportation utility. Fresno – Livermore, (or perish the thought, Fresno – Pleasanton!) will be far cheaper and more useful than Fresno – San Jose.
Suppose we built 220 mph HSR from Fresno to San Jose. Now we’re looking at:
2:09 LA – SJ
0:10 Transfer at Diridon
0:57 Baby Bullet to 4th & King
3:16 TOTAL
Suppose we built 220 mph HSR from Fresno to Livermore.
2:06 LA – Livermore
0:10 Transfer at Livermore
0:57 BART to Embarcadero
The interim Altamont is $3 billion cheaper because of little or no tunnels, with lots of money saved later in Phase 2 because you’ve already built FULLY HALF of the Sacramento branch.
If money grows on trees, as was assumed for many years, then Pacheco + Altamont Overlay + Sacramento is your best bet. Except for one little problem: money doesn’t grow on trees.
VBobier Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 3:19 pm
@ Clem maybe 250-275mph would be better then?
Joey Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
220 is alredy getting into the range where it’s difficult to save much time because of low acceleration at high speeds. Plus, at this point, electricity and maintenance costs increase a lot. Many argue that anything over 200 is a waste.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Much over ~300kmh (~190mph) or so scheduled commercial speed is going to prove to be an expensive and profligate waste of energy once this “peak oil” business they keep blathering about even remotely begins to be felt. Yes, we can go faster. But that doesn’t mean we can or should or can sustain doing so. See: Saturn-V, Space Shuttle, Concorde, etc.
A very different and much less salubrious world is coming.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 8:12 pm
Clem, at least some of the 1:07 of travel time at and north of San Jose can be saved by electrifying Caltrain.
And Victor, the speeds you’re proposing don’t really exist yet. The low end will, but the saving over 220 mph is trivial once you factor in slow zones and acceleration. Ironically, it’s Pacheco where top speed matters less, because it’s shorter than Altamont and has more slow zones (namely, a longer 125 mph Peninsula stretch, and tighter curves and grades at the pass itself)…
synonymouse Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 1:08 am
My conjecture is that coming express straight up I-5 from Tejon toward Tracy would shave another 15 minutes off that 35..
joe Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 6:42 am
“Still winning”
jim Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 7:01 am
This isn’t SF-LA; it’s LA-SF. The modern electric connecting service every 15 minutes is from Livermore to SF. SF-LA is more problematical. There won’t be HSR from Livermore to LA every 15 minutes. What happens if the BART train that was supposed to arrive at Livermore 10 minutes before the HSR departure is delayed?
AndyDuncan Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 10:48 am
Then they have to wait longer, people get upset, ridership falls.
It’s a crap solution in the long term, I don’t think anyone is suggesting it’s just as good as bringing trains to TTC/Diridon, but it gets you a rail connection from SF-LA (and back) that is time-competitive with flying and it gets it a few years earlier and potentially cheaper. That is if you ignore the excruciating cost of the BART connection to Livermore, which as much as Richard masochistically wants to see happen so it will validate his (so far undisputed) belief that BART is corrupt and wasteful, is still not likely to be built any time soon. There is an EIR for the connection, but no funding and no schedule.
Without BART to livermore, you have a connection to ACE, a shuttle bus to the Dublin/Pleasanton station and the whole dragging a line to Livermore thing goes to shit.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 11:32 am
If you want cheap what’s wrong with buses? For every two to San Francisco there can be one to San Jose and one to Oakland…..
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 1:05 pm
It’s by no means “crap solution in the long term”, and it’s a off-the-charts good stretegy in the medium term. In any other engineering discipline in existence — or should I say, in any engineering discipline, since CHSRA is mostly about extracting money from taxpayers pockets, not about technically and economically informed allocation of effort and resources — people would be jumping over the moon at the prospect of delivering 90% of the benefit for 75% of the cost. (In fact, many wise program managers pretty much define good program management, of any type, as understanding when to stop throwing away resources in pursuit of rapidly diminishing rates of return: it’s always the “last”, and often unnecessary, 10% that takes 90% of the effort and doubles the schedule that screw up any poorly managed undertaking.)
Moreover, in the long term, it’s probably the best possible rail-based solution for connecting northern two thirds of the East Bay and even much of San Francisco to HSR.
You people really REALLY need to take a trip to an advanced industrialised first-world democracy sometime to see how transportation networks function to deliver services to people (rather than how disconnected individual projects deliver profits to the mafiosi). It’s eye-opening, and I have faith that even some of you might still capable of learning new things when presented with evidence in front of your eyes. Maybe.
joe Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 1:37 pm
The Livermore connection is horrible project management.
You’d guarantee to lose support form the stakeholders and the system funding would be easily terminated by rail detractors who’d flip your awesome argument against you.
Connecting to HSR SF and SJ directly is “throwing away resources in pursuit of rapidly diminishing rates of return: it’s always the “last”, and often unnecessary, 10% that takes 90% of the effort and doubles the schedule that screw up any poorly managed undertaking.)”
Altamont is all about terminating HSR at BART. It’s becoming pretty transparent that this is social engineering – no such proposal would pass a state wide ballot so drop the first-world democracy.
This is Railroad Tycoon.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 4:00 pm
@Andy:
BART-Livermore funding may be coming sooner than you think. The Alameda County Transportation Commission wants to go to the voters in 2012 with a sales tax measure that will almost certainly include considerable funding for the project.
Joey Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 10:00 pm
Altamont was never about terminating anything at BART. it just so happens that it makes a decent interim solution.
Clem Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 11:18 pm
But willfully misconstruing it as such sure makes a good case for Pacheco!
Spokker Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 2:48 am
“Altamont is all about terminating HSR at BART.”
And the Central Valley starter segment is all about terminating HSR at Borden. Oh wait, when they want to connect two small towns the defense, and rightfully so, is, “But you gotta start somewhere.” But when they suggest that it might make sense to go through Altamont and connect Livermore, “But you gotta start somewhere.” flies out the window.
AndyDuncan Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 11:34 am
Even *if* the sales tax measure makes it onto the ballot, and even *if* it passes, Chowchilla to Livermore and Chowchilla to San Jose are about the same distance. You’d be saving a little bit on the livermore line by not having to tunnel through as much of Pacheco, but you’d have to build a $4b BART connection when there’s already three connecting lines at SJ and soon to be BART (if you really want to take BART). And if you have to end the line in San Jose, then you at least are ending it in a city of 1million instead of a city of 100k. I think Diridon TransDimensional is as silly as the next guy, but I think we can all agree more people would be going to SJ than to Livermore.
synonymouse Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 12:24 pm
It is just as easy to conceive taking BART to San Jose as taking BART from San Jose.
Altamont foamers have something to fulminate about – the Altamont alternative has numerous positives that won’t evaporate under scrutiny but shine brighter. Just like Tejon and I-5.
My take on Boehner’s recent move to short term budget cutting is the coup-de-grace for any and all stimulus, of which Stilt-A-Rail is the poster boy.
Now if the geology comes back good for those Quantm route Tejon tunnels and all systems are go, somebody needs to talk sense to the Chandlers. HSR is not going to hurt their Grapevine barony.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Don’t be confused by artificial geographic boundaries. The Trivalley has have comparable population to that of San Jose, and the East Bay region has a higher population than the South Bay region.
That being said, one advantage for San Jose is that it is fairly simple to just string wires over the existing Caltrain ROW (as-is, even with the grade crossings, even with the primitive signal system) to permit a 1-seat ride into 4th King.
AndyDuncan Reply:
July 11th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
You can’t ignore ‘artificial geographic boundaries’ in one breath and then hold to them in the next. If you’re going to include Pleasanton and Dublin, heck even if you throw in Tracy, Manteca, San Ramon, Sunol, and Danville, you’re still not anywhere near San Jose itself. Then if you’re ignoring those pesky artificial boundaries, you need to include in the SJ total the (closer than Pleasanton is to Livermore) cities of Milpitas, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Los Gatos etc. etc. etc.
Really it comes down to how many people would be closer (temporally) to the station, and for the SJ station it’s roughly everyone in the east bay south of union city, the entire peninsula, and the neo-Los-Angeles Sprawlopolis that is the San Jose area.
For the Livermore Alignment, you’ve got the tri-valley (population what? 250k?), the Greater Walnut Creek/Concord area, and the upper east bay north of Hayward including Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond.
San Francisco is more or less a wash, probably faster for more people to head south, but the higher frequency of BART and more stations would be highly advantageous.
Oaktown to SF across the Bay every day Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 3:12 pm
You forgot to also add more time to get from Transbay to Market Street in SF. I walk this all the time (from the old Transbay Terminal, and sometimes now from the temporary one) and it isn’t free. No way. And nearly everybody is walking to the north of Market Street.
OK. Even without that, this is just an AMAZING idea!
Seriously. SRSLY!
So maybe 20 minutes slower to downtown SF. (MUCH FASTER TO THE EAST BAY though.) 2:55 LA to Market Street in SF if absolutely everything is built up and down California for $60 billion and the trains all run full tilt all the way along Caltrain … right … versus 3:13 with this bad terrible awful oh noes BART detour.
But it gets stuff done, SOON, and for that for only 20 minutes more to SF, as the Phase Zero. I want HSR SOON!
So anyway. For 20 minute sand a terrible awful detour …
* DON’T have to spend billions, right away, building an brand new rail line from the Central Valley to Los Banos to Gilroy to San Jose.
* DON’T piss off everybody, right away, all along the Caltrain tracks from San Jose to San Francisco. Odds are really good that ONCE they see HSR in action, working well, and once they get tired of driving to Livermore, they’ll want better trains also. That’s what happens other places.
* DON’T spend billions, right away, on that Transbay Terminal which sounds like it will never work for trains anyway (see Clem’s blog. CRAZY!)
* DO get half of that mythical “Altamont Overlay” done, soon, for free.
* DO get half of the Sacramento line done, for free.
* DO get Merced, Modesto, maybe Stockton, for free.
* DO get great (****GREAT****!!!!) HSR connections from Oakland, Berkeley, all of downtown San Francisco, ANYWHERE BART GOES ALREADY, for FREE. Wow.
* DO get trains running and people riding HSR years sooner. I like sooner.
* DO use BART trains that are EMPTY (literally, not figuratively) nearly all of the day. SF or Oakland or Berkeley or Walnut Creek to Livermore on BART is AGAINST rush hour. No problems with luggage, no problems getting a seat. Private trains! And they’re they’re already running, so, FREE.
That’s all really ****AMAZING****.
And once it’s going, Phase 1 and Phase 2 are closer. Years closer.
This is an AMAZINGLY good idea. This is the best thing I have ever read about High Speed Rail in California. Let’s GET IT DONE. Let’s GET IT DONE SOON, and CHEAPER.
Why isn’t anybody talking about this?
Wow.
PS So like the Eurostar line to London. Started off really slow in England, but it got there, then then built a section of high speed track and it got faster, then in the end they built high speed track all the way to the downtown terminal. But not all at once. Imagine if they’d waited from 1994 to 2007 because not going all the way is not perfect!
Oaktown to SF across the Bay every day Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
PS I looked this up about Spain.
Wikipedia Línea de alta velocidad Madrid-Zaragoza-Barcelona-Frontera Francesa
1. 2003: Madrid-Lérida max 200 km/h
2. 2006: Madrid-Lérida max 250 km/h then 280 km/h
3. 2007: Madrid-Camp de Tarragona max 300 km/h
4. 2008: Madrid-Barcelona Sants max 300 km/h
5. 2009: Madrid-Barcelona Sants max 350 km/h
6: 2016: Madrid-Barcelona Barcelona-Sagrera
Maybe in Spain they should have waited maybe until 2016 to have a PERFECT train ALL the way, instead of having sone trains part way bacj in 2003?
… Not!
Jon Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
There’s an elephant in the room when it comes to the Altamont, and that’s NIMBY opposition in Livermore and Pleasanton. There is huge opposition in Livermore to the BART extension, and in both cities to the Altamont commuter rail project; given this I don’t exactly see them welcoming a HSR station with open arms.
PAMPA may not like HSR but they do like Caltrain, and could be persuaded of the benefits of working with CAHSR to get Caltrain upgraded to modern standards. Livermore and Pleasanton don’t want rail in their cities, certainly not downtown. You could probably persuade them to accept a Vasco Rd station and a south of Livermore and Pleasanton alignment, but then you’ve just bypassed two of the major cities on the Altamont route, and are relying on the BART extension to Vasco Rd being completed without delays or alignment changes. ‘Phase 0′ HSR is not gonna be as simple as Clem makes out.
synonymouse Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 12:24 am
Caltrain has blown its political capital with PAMPA and besides appears to have been co-opted by the CHSRA. I suggest BART has as many supporters in PAMPA and in the Peninsula in general as Caltrain.
The BART blitzkrieg will roll over any “Nimby” opposition in Livermore as it has everywhere else in the BART imperial domain. Moreover, why should Livermore crave rapid transit any less than Palmdale?
joe Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 10:55 am
“Caltrain has blown its political capital with PAMPA”
Unless one reads the EIR for any development in PAMPA which refers to Caltrain to off load car traffic and allow each City to proceed with their development. Free Caltrain passes to employes.
FAIL again – Want to go back to winning the Arcade game?
Miles Bader Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 7:52 pm
The alignment must be chosen to give the best possible final result. And the final result should not involve riding BART/caltrain/whatever to some distant suburb to use HSR from SF.
Once they’ve done that, then sure, it makes sense to try and figure out good intermediate steps — but they are just that, steps to a goal. The configuration in “phase zero” should not be any kind of deciding factor in deciding the final route.
Clem Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 8:12 pm
There may not be a final result if the interim result stinks. With billions of anticipated funding that are not materializing, the interim result will become increasingly important, if not critical to the project’s ultimate success.
joe Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Backwards: A compromised system chosen for the purpose of picking a preferred interim solution is the waste of money and will cost political Support.
Run this pessimistic logic about HSR by Nancy Pelosi and she’ll be sure the interim solution doesn’t obstruct the system designed to connect SF to LA, and not be hijacked by local interests intending to optimize bay area rail.
Clem Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
The purpose of an interim solution is to demonstrate the utility of the system, and to justify spending further billions on it. If your interim phase fails, such as for example by offering nearly an hour worse SF to LA times with poor connections, and you run out of money, then the political support will evaporate and it will be as you like to put it GAME OVER. Everybody will look at what was half-built, and decide it wasn’t worth it… No matter what it says in Prop 1A and AB 3034.
Besides, the full build-out of Altamont is not compromised unless you happen to live in Gilroy.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 3:30 pm
And if your interim solution is to bus everybody from Livermore to Pleasanton where they can get on BART it’s not much better than busing them from Gilroy to San Jose where they can get on Caltrain.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 7:25 pm
I’m trying to think of one correct piece of information “adirondacker12800″ has ever posted, and I’m drawing a blank.
Again, Altamont and Pacheco alignmens offer similar benefit, serve similar amount of people. The reason that Pacheco got selected was that Pacheco faces less opposition, i.e. goes through fewer cities.
Also, at the time of alignment selection, cities on the Altamont alignment already voiced their opposition for the line through their downtown, making the dual usage of the line as a communter route moot. This all while San Jose put its support not only behind CAHSR, but also the Pacheco alignment.
If you are CAHSRA, which alignment would you select to get the ballot passed?
Arthur Dent Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 5:25 pm
Ahh, you’ve been doing shots of the outreach koolaid. Cue Clem, Synonymouse or Drunk Engineer.
“Still, a significant number of people are ideologically opposed to high-speed rail. Among them are the folks who see spooky similarity between the HSRA logo and the Obama campaign logo.”
Ah, Obama big whoopee boogie man. . .whoopee. . . .and let’s see, wheels are round, and that means Obama’s everywhere. . .why, he’s not only a Muslim from Africa, he’s a witch doctor, too, having apparently been around for hundreds of years. . .
How dumb can my fellow citizens get?
VBobier Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Dumber than shinola I’d think.
Hats off to Joe and AD12800 for striking down the Altamont foamers! I salute both of you.
There isn’t going to be a new bay crossing to support altamont without a decades longs environmental fight. So if we wanna wait until 2035 for service fine. But don’t expect a bridge over the bay by 2020. It won’t happen.
Clem Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 5:23 pm
That’ll be news to the construction crews currently gearing up to build a new tunnel under the Dumbarton and the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge. Or the folks preparing the EIR for Dumbarton Rail. Face it: the supposed impossibility of building a new rail bridge or tunnel across Dumbarton was trumped up solely as an excuse to select an HSR route other than Dumbarton.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 6:13 pm
It’s un-possible to construct a tunnel in the pristine Dumbarton corridor.
Miles Bader Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 6:32 pm
Note that a water tunnel doesn’t generate the same sort of high-powered opposition that HSR does, however. What was uncontroversial for water might suddenly become “controversial” for HSR…
[E.g., what has been reported here recently: the sudden opposition to HSR in King's county, where there was apparently no particular opposition to other more significant projects before.]
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 7:28 pm
THe “controversy” over a Dumbarton rail crossing comes entirely, 100%, without exception, from the construction interests behind the BART extension to San Jose. The entire environmental community, including the Sierra Club, was in favour of that route. That ought to tell you something, … but then you’d have to be paying attention.
Being in Japan and all I know that you might have failed to actually follow Bay Area politics over the last ten years or so, and somehow fail to be aware that, say, the mayor and councilmembers of, say, of Fremont say “how high” when told to jump. But I assure you — I was at the public meetings — that the Bay Division Pipeline projects were well known about and direct comparisons were drawn to them at the same time as as-yet-unindicted shills of the Diridon ilk were (in Diridon’s case, in direct contravention of his legal decision-making role on the CHSRA) were drumming up “spontaneous” opposition to the “environmental” problems of Altamont and Dumbarton.
Follow the money.
Clem Reply:
July 10th, 2011 at 8:45 pm
To clarify, Altamont to SJ would have worked best using the exact same railroad right of way that BART and VTA were at the same time trying to carve out for the San Jose extension. That is now Mission Accomplished, which has even New Yorkers crowing that Altamont HSR won’t work for a million poor souls in San Jose because there is no way to run trains from Fremont to San Jose Diridon Pan-Galactic.
By the way, the construction interests behind BART to SJ are the same construction interests behind HSR, which neatly explains why they didn’t want one project to cannibalize the other. Follow the money.
joe Reply:
July 11th, 2011 at 6:54 pm
I think the full story is the ‘environmentalists’ are concerned that Pacheco route will create sprawl around a Los Banos HSR station.
Was that Station removed from the HSR project? Yes.
Is the Sierra Club suing over the Pacheco route? No. I don’t think so.
Obviously they were paid off. Follow The Money – right?