Debt Ceiling Deal Confirms No New Federal HSR Funds Likely In This Congress
It’s news that won’t surprise anybody who has been paying attention to the insane 112th Congress, which apparently believes it has a mandate to cause a new Depression with their massive austerity: we shouldn’t plan on getting any new federal HSR funding until January 2013 at the soonest. That, at least, is my entirely unsurprising take from this McClatchy article on the debt ceiling deal and California:
And though the 74-page bill set for House and Senate approval leaves most cuts to be decided later, it’s a bleak foreshadowing for some specific projects such as California’s ambitious high-speed rail project whose initial route is supposed to run from Bakersfield to near Chowchilla.
“If you were to look at this Congress, you’d have to say it will be cutting high-speed rail,” noted Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Gold River.
Lungren is among many congressional Republicans who have already questioned further federal spending on high-speed rail. While the budget-cutting deal does not strip funds that have already been provided, high-speed rail’s future vulnerabilities are clear.
Obama already sacrificed $2.5 billion of HSR funding in April to placate Republicans, but this week’s act of appeasement makes that look like a drop in the bucket. The austerity that Obama just signed into law contains jaw-dropping cuts to federal spending that will devastate the US economy:
The initial round of budget cuts, amounting to roughly $917 billion over the next 10 years, will start with new spending caps. Members of the existing House and Senate appropriations committees, including Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, must translate spending caps into specific program cuts.
The next big round of $1.5 trillion in budget cuts will come from a special 12-person Joint Special Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.
Cutting $2.5 trillion in spending, even over 10 years, is the act of a madman. It’s clear that government spending is needed to produce and sustain economic recovery. Cuts, on the other hand, could produce 1.8 million job losses:
Specifically, there could be 1.8 million fewer jobs and a 0.6 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate in 2012 as a result of abandoning current budget policies. The national unemployment rate would average closer to 9% instead of trending toward 8%, as projected by the Blue Chip consensus forecast. This means little relief for the 14 million people who are currently unemployed or the many millions more who are underemployed. Roughly one in three workers will be unemployed or underemployed in 2011 and there would be little progress on this front in 2012.
High speed rail will have a difficult time in Congress under these conditions. Unfortunately, so too will pretty much everything else that makes a modern society function, from police and fire to public schools, road maintenance, health care, school lunch programs, and so on. HSR is getting caught up in the extremely destructive budget politics currently holding sway in Washington DC.
But those politics won’t last. Republicans likely overplayed their hand on this, with polls indicating voters are reserving their harshest judgements for Republicans, even as they’re deeply unhappy overall with the situation in DC. Nancy Pelosi is in excellent shape to reclaim her Speaker’s gavel in January 2013. And if Democrats hold the US Senate and Barack Obama holds the White House – neither of which are certain – then HSR’s future is suddenly a lot brighter, as one would expect that radical and reckless austerity would no longer be on the table.
HSR critics will crow about these ongoing struggles. But HSR’s troubles are just one example of the crisis engulfing the United States here in the summer of 2011. Just as the Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930 plunged the nation deeper into the Great Depression, and just as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s own austerity in 1937 produced a sudden and sharp recession, the austerity summer will lead to a much broader economic crisis in this country. HSR is an important part of the solution to that crisis, and if the project can be kept alive – and if advocates maintain their support even in the face of a hostile House of Representatives – HSR will eventually prevail and will eventually be funded federally.
Eh, I’m not worried about a lack of HSR funds in this Congress. If the focus is on stimulus, then you want to put any funds into the most cost-effective and shovel ready projects you can find. HSR is not terribly cost-effective relative to other transportation or infrastructure projects nor would further funding appropriations materialize into economic benefits for several years; holding until further engineering as well as rationalization of the line into the highest degree of cost-effectiveness is performed is not a bad thing.
Beta Magellan Reply:
August 2nd, 2011 at 8:59 pm
Although there is the obvious danger that CAHSR gets stuck in the engineering stage permanently…
Paulus Magnus Reply:
August 2nd, 2011 at 9:05 pm
Certainly. A two year delay in major appropriations isn’t a big concern however, I’m fairly confident the Tea Partiers will be tossed out in 2012, quite possibly with a worse election than the Dems had in 2010.
Tom McNamara Reply:
August 2nd, 2011 at 10:41 pm
I suspect the earliest that we see predictable federal funding for HSR is January of ’14…but that’s because the federal budget year begins in October.
My earlier post about Amtrak California (and the future ones I am submitting to Robert) presume this is the reality and that the Authority will have to be creative.
I think the Dems are in the House majority for a while, but only nominally. Speaker Boehner given the relative intransigence of the Tea Partiers will need Pelosi and her base for plenty of votes, especially on transportation. In some ways, it will mirror the Senate with the Democrats nominally in charge, but short of veto proof majority.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 2nd, 2011 at 9:21 pm
Just a reminder: over $600 million of your tax dollars have been sucked down by the “engineering” mafioso so far via the CHSRA money laundering front, all without a single shovel of dirt being turned.
Nice work if you can get it. So why not keep getting it?
Heads they win, tails we lose.
William Reply:
August 2nd, 2011 at 9:31 pm
if you can hold back anti-HSR people from demanding more perfect projections, then I am all for less studies.
Walter Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 8:26 am
Exactly–Richard, I’ll take you at your word if you’re willing to publicly call out Elizabeth and Nadia for funneling money into the pockets of consultants and contractors when they demand more work be done on impact studies, business plans and ridership models.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 9:37 am
They get a twofer out of it. Once they get the perfect study they can then complain that a ginormous amount of money has been spent, implying that the construction is going to be equally expensive.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:06 am
You should distinguish “studies” from “engineering.” Doing studies doesn’t cost much. It’s measured in the high hundreds of thousands, or very low millions. The $600 million that’s been spent has been on further engineering, both on the alignment level (investigating whether Tejon is feasible after all) and on the segment level (figuring out the optimal engineering in the Central Valley so that the proportion of viaducts is minimized). Extra studies delay projects, but don’t increase costs beyond what’s associated with delays.
VBobier Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:20 am
No amount of studies that show HSR in a Positive light will ever be good enough for those types.
Elizabeth Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:51 am
Seriously? The Authority’s latest plans are to spend almost $5 million fixing the current model, again paying consultants to fix their own mistakes. The current incentive structure is trulys
sick. We want the authority to consider other proposals. Berkeley I know offered to do a study for 1/3 the cost and 1/2 the time. I can’t speak to the merits but we don’t understand how theAurhority justifies the current no-bid process where Cambridge is just a Subcontractor to. PB.
Tom McNamara Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 1:02 pm
The Authority obviously saw how the White House handled the Iraq War with Halliburton….
Tom McNamara Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Okay, but what if each mega-neering firm demands a similar relationship with its consultants? Does the Authority really have the leverage to stop them? I suppose CHSRA could hire CALTRANS…but just think of the stink there.
I know that CHSRA wants to hire more people with contract and procurement knowledge. However, as far as the actual design process…you either want PB or CALTRANS…and your winner is?
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 9:46 pm
Who, Berkeley ITS? Hell no. We need an independent, objective, and unbiased group to do any new study. Berkeley ITS has shown they are biased against the project. They would be a totally unacceptable choice.
Elizabeth Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 8:06 am
Robert,
Your unwillingness to accept any criticism of any aspect of this project is getting to be quite disturbing. You are with us or against us.
Saying that Berkeley is “biased against the project” is on the verge of slander. This is an institution that has dedicated enormous amounts of time and energy to studying high speed rail over decades now. All the original studies that gave birth to this project took place there. Many of the members of the institute have talked openly about the possibilities of high speed rail in California to be successful.
Yes, they criticized a ridership study that is flawed after being hired by the legislature to answer questions. Their faculty undertook the review for less money than one of the new peer review members is being paid for a single review. They stood up and presented their results to the board who was outwardly hostile and verbally abusive towards them.
And now they made an offer to contribute their knowledge and expertise to try and help the project be successful. As one of the members asked the board, “Don’t you want to be better?”
Robert, is it worth for California to look at Taiwan method, where Government gave the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) contract winner development rights to large state-owned land (through eminent domain) near HSR stations, in exchange for private capitals?
I know Taiwan HSR got into financial trouble because of this borrowing deal, but this might be avoidable to require the BOT winner to form operating and land development company with state as a large share holder.
Good idea or bad idea?
Paulus Magnus Reply:
August 2nd, 2011 at 8:36 pm
There is enough political opposition to the project without the shitstorm that eminent domain like that would result in and the inevitable corruption.
William Reply:
August 2nd, 2011 at 8:52 pm
If it is done by a private company… is it still corruption?
Andy M. Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 2:33 am
If that private company has a state mandate, then yes.
Nathanael Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:02 am
Even if it doesn’t have a state mandate, it can still be corruption. Private companies can easily become nests of corruption these days, since the corporate governance regulations got eviscerated back in the 80s…
Beta Magellan Reply:
August 2nd, 2011 at 8:57 pm
IIRC, something like a BOT contract was one of the main reasons LA-SD HSR failed in the early eighties
Beta Magellan Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 7:20 am
Looked up the early eighties LA-SD project in Google Books, and I misremembered: the main issue wasn’t eminent domain per se, but rather the fact that the private company set up to build and operate the line thought it could get out of environmental review. Relevant passage from Anthony Perl’s New Departures here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=-B5NgROwk9wC&q=san+diego+eminent+domain#v=onepage&q=environmental%20revier&f=false
On an eminent domain-related note, Mica’s NEC proposal would do what William suggests in a sort of roundabout way, with a new authority (with eminent domain capabilities) being created and then awarding a DBOM contract to private bidder.
Robert, I fear that even if the Democrats regain control of the House (and hold onto control of Senate—and somehow manage to get nice things passed), the Democrats will continue their buy-in of austerity. After all, it is now, by and large, their policy too, and they might attribute their electoral success to their “centrism.”
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 9:47 pm
That’s certainly a possibility, but Pelosi and the Senate Dems have shown support for HSR. They would find enough funding to get the California project done.
Republicans overplayed their hands? Robert, there is no 2012 as a saving grace. There is no silver lining. There is no point.
Obama and the Democrats have just unconditionally surrendered. The debt ceiling agreement amounts to the Sack of Weimarica … excuse me, America.
All it takes is one bad action to set a precedent. The new standard operating procedure is to austerity harder as the economy continues to collapse. The IMF/World Bank templates for Latin America shows that the gravitational pull is inescapable. Either be straitjacketed to capital packages that will never be paid off or try to shirk the debts and watch capital disappear with none anywhere to be found.
trentbridge Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 6:19 am
I agree with Robert. With this debt ceiling fiasco, the GOP took “ownership” of the economic issues facing the country. They got 90% of what they wanted. Do you think this deal was a Democratic plan? No. They also are far short of having “deliverables”. By this I mean – having tangible benefits to take back to their voters. “We cut Government spending” but you won’t see any decrease in your taxes,you won’t see any more jobs being created. In fact you won’t see much of anything! What you do see is a rabid hatred of taxes increases on corporations and the wealthy. I think the GOP got just enough rope to hang themselves.
Nathanael Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:04 am
I agree with both of you and neither of you. The Republican madmen are destroying themselves, by by acquiescing to this insanity, the national Democrats are also destroying themselves. God only knows what the political scene will be like in 10 years; a conservative possibility is that the Green Party will be running the country, a more radical one is that the federal government will be overthrown by a fascist dictatorship.
We live in interesting times in the US. :-(
Alon Levy Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:08 am
Maybe, maybe not. The disadvantage of a bipartisan deal is that it scuttled the Democratic strategy of calling the Republicans out on their attempts to cut Medicare and Social Security. Now the Democrats own those cuts, too.
Steve S. Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:21 am
Annoyingly, every time the GOP seems to have enough rope, they always find a way to get a little more…I think it’s more like the Tea Party that’ll hang themselves this time. As a “movement” whose legitimacy has been questioned from the start, the travails that lie ahead can easily be pinned on them.
Frankly, I’m much more worried that the Democrats will claim a new “center”. Our center has been yanked further and further and further to the right for over 30 years now, and I feel like it’s time a new left coalition of some sort starts to yank it back. As it is, our politics seem stuck in a cycle of increasing regressiveness.
Wad Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 2:35 am
Steve S., there will not now nor ever be a left-wing counterreaction in the U.S.
Duverger’s Law says that American electoral politics will only sustain two viable parties. The Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court has effectively declared democracy unconstitutional by sanctifying bribes for policy (euphemistically called campaign contributions).
Campaign contributors can effectively bet the field by contributing to both parties, and because they have a stake in the outcome of the election, they can raise them and thereby exert more leverage over the political system.
This guarantees a campaign contribution arms race that guarantees a rightward drift in politics. No left-wing party could possibly offer a countervailing alternative. It would be futile to do so.
A left-wing party could not offer a program of a materially better standard of living, because the U.S. was able to accomplish this in the past through both parties without a need for a radical or revolutionary force. A left-wing party also cannot offer to dismantle the system, because the status quo will outspend them or resort to dirty tricks. Also, there’s also a political science axiom known as the Iron Law of Oligarchy that among other things, says any outside force that manages to find a place within the political system will turn its attention to maintaining its legitimacy rather than carrying out a program.
Wad Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 2:14 am
Trentbridge wrote: With this debt ceiling fiasco, the GOP took “ownership” of the economic issues facing the country. They got 90% of what they wanted.
And if/when they win in 2012?
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 9:48 pm
You’ll get no argument from me that Dems and Obama in particular fucked this up badly. But Obama could hang on an win in 2012, and Pelosi is in excellent shape to win back the House. I’m as angry as you, perhaps angrier, at the way the deal went down. But right now the Republicans are in a worse position because of it than Dems.
flowmotion Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 11:31 pm
Sounds like inside baseball to me. I think the voters will see this as an admission that the Democrats have no economic policy, other than to bandwagon on Republican ideas and claim to be less extreme about them.
Right now Obama looks like New Coke. Billion dollar ad budget, but it is a lot easier to sell “The Real Thing”.
One only needs to look at Obama’s approval ratings dropping like a rock – Republicans might have heart themselves. In fact they will likely lose seats in the house. but they will probably pick up the Senate and a good chance of the presidency barring an economic miracle.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:33 am
We’re talking about the same GOP without a single competitive candidate for president so far, yes?
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:46 am
We already have a Republican president. What more could they ask for?
synonymouse Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 11:07 am
You fellow keep taking symptoms for causes. The GOP will shortly schism so any worries about voter payback over debt ceiling wrangling will pale by comparison. The Tea Partiers don’t care whether they are re-elected or not because they see, rightly, that the current state of affairs is untenable. And nothing really ever changes – the Bloombergs dominate both mainstream parties and always get their way. panem et circenses
If the currency starts to sink the voters will turn on the neo-Keynesians and march them to the political guillotine. Hyper-inflation would be vastly more traumatic than all the TARP and savings and loans crises over the years put together. The Tea Party would be in power for decades.
Meantime back to Springer world. More laffs from the home of Intactivism:
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2011/08/san-franciscos-unlicensed-muni-drivers-still-employed
J. Wong Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 12:26 pm
“If the currency starts to sink”…
and that would be bad? If the value of the U.S. $ sinks relative to other currencies, it means our goods are more competitive, which means higher exports, which means more jobs.
Also, hyper-inflation won’t occur unless people who would actually spend the money get their hands on it. Right now, all the extra money in the system has been parked by the banks that have it on loan from the Fed.
BruceMcF Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 12:47 pm
The currency sinking slowly and steadily seems like the only prospect for avoiding a double dip recession ~ and since real unemployment rates will not have dropped below 10% since the onset of the first, what one would reasonably describe as a Depression.
Tom McNamara Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Wait, could you back up a second?
I’m confused about how the TRAC alignment somehow prevents a loss of dollar supremacy… I mean, surely we won’t get downgraded as a nation if we do the I-5 racetrack, right?
synonymouse Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 11:41 am
Uh, where do I start?
Curiously the dollar is rising but I think the more important story is that the Euro is undervalued. The real uncertainty about the euro is not just the PIIG’s dilemma but the fact that a great idea like the common currency and indeed the EC itself could go sour. The primary purpose of the EC was to bind France and Germany, one of De Gaulle’s great pursuits, but it got out of hand. I think stupid meddling by the US, anti-Russian and anti-Orthodox bias in particular, was a big factor. The US has been pressuring the EC to add fringe countries that really don’t belong to bug the Russians and pander to the Vatican.
If you know where the EC and the euro are going to end up tell everybody. The dollar is over-valued. All is politics. It has been pointed out that the Demos could easily have raised the debt limit last year when they enjoyed a majority, but they were too lazy.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 1:11 pm
People are actually buying Romney as the adult in the party, rather than as someone
who has flip-flopped on abortion, gay rights, and health care twice in the last 5 yearswhose views on abortion, gay rights, and health care have evolved twice in the last 5 years. I’d peg him as nearly even money against Obama right now, if he manages to beat unelectables like Bachmann.political_incorrectness Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 1:17 pm
Let’s look at Congress’s approval rating and then we’ll talk
King’s Co. Board of Supervisors pummels the FRA.
Supes ask feds to delay report release
Letter slams state high-speed rail authority’s handling of project
http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/news/local/article_39d20376-bde9-11e0-9bbd-001cc4c002e0.html
The 21 page letter to the FRA is at:
http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/hanfordsentinel.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/9a/e9a5ce4a-bde4-11e0-9af6-001cc4c03286/4e3968912227b.pdf.pdf
Peter Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 1:34 pm
The proper thing to do here would be to submit comments to this effect, and then file a lawsuit after the EIR/EIS is certified.
You can bet that the Authority will have these EIRs be bulletproof, since they can’t afford any delay.
Preventing the release of a Draft EIR/EIS is unlikely to be a successful move. But I guess it makes the County look good.
morris brown Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 2:13 pm
You can bet that the Authority will have these EIRs be bulletproof, since they can’t afford any delay.
Oh yes, yes indeed, just like the bulletproof EIR for the Peninsula, that was de-certified and is again in litigation. They certainly can’t afford any delay.
Peter Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 2:34 pm
“again in litigation”
Just because something is in litigation doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it or that it won’t be upheld. Get some understanding of the justice system.
Manteca Bulletin editor: Time for high speed rail to play its [Altamont] ACE
… meanwhile … will even India get HSR before the US does?
Indian Railways plan six high speed rail corridors>
tony d. Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 5:04 pm
I don’t think a small town paper can stand up to the SJ Mercury News or Silicon Valley political/financial machine.
Howard Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 5:15 pm
So little Manteca thinks that Fresno and Bakersfield are “nowhere”? If Fresno is “nowhere”, “where” is Manteca? That comment from them is hysterically funny.
political_incorrectness Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 6:06 pm
*sigh* If they want high-speed commuter trains so bad on the tab of Nor Cal, then pay up a bit. Otherwise, back of the line!
datacruncher Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 7:58 pm
That Manteca writer has been pushing for his area to have high-speed commuter rail to the Bay Area for some time. In this article from last year he talks about how Manteca would grow and benefit with HSR service to San Jose. Seems more like he has a pro-growth agend for his region and forget everyone else
http://www.mantecabulletin.com/archives/18817/
Alon Levy Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 8:27 pm
“Indian Railways plan six high speed rail corridors”
It planned the same a year and a half ago.
OPINION / OPEN FORUM
On High-Speed Rail : The great train lie
By Roger Christensen
In 2008, voters approved a $10 billion bond to begin construction of a bullet train from Los Angeles to San Francisco that would make that trip in less than three hours. So who knew that by 2011 the general consensus would be that the project is an ill-conceived, mismanaged boondoggle?
Former Amtrak spokesman and Reason Foundation writer Joseph Vranich knew. In 2008, before the state Senate Transportation and Housing Committee, he called the project “science fiction.” He said the train won’t travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than three hours because that exceeds the speed of all existing high-speed rail.
But on French railway schedules, a TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse) takes two hours, 38 minutes to go from Paris to Avignon. That’s 430 miles. The route for the L.A.to-San Francisco line is 432.
So what’s going on here?
It’s simple. Vranich makes stuff up. Adrianne Moore, vice president of policy at the Reason Foundation, says the Europeans are abandoning rail in favor of driving and flying.
Nonsense.
Transportation market share of European high-speed rail lines has grown steadily and many are near 80 percent. Rick Geddes, a professor at Cornell University who is also on Reason’s payroll, said on National Public Radio that the California system can’t be powered by renewable energy — except that the Hoover Dam generates four times what the train needs.
The Reason Foundation is funded by Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, the American Petroleum Institute, Delta Airlines, the National Air Transportation Association and, of course, the Koch Family Foundation. They know what will happen once Americans, furious about gas prices and the way airlines treat them, experience electrically powered 200-mph trains. But big oil and aviation can’t attack high-speed rail directly — that would be an obvious attempt to abort competition. So they hire a “think tank.”
Reason collaborates on research with James Moore III, a transportation engineering professor at University of Southern California. They parrot Reason’s “train to nowhere” nonsense, a phrase they apply to all rail projects.
It’s especially absurd in this case, because interim services will have high-speed rail trains slow and reach the Bay Area on existing rail lines. Reason’s minions claim there’s no business plan or ridership figures.
Except that anyone can go on the California High-Speed Rail Authority website and download them.
Where does the corporate cash and propaganda end and the legitimate criticism begin?
It was impossible to know in Florida, where high-speed rail was killed using the same techniques.
A modern 200-mile-per-hour rail link between Los Angeles and San Francisco will change America’s transportation paradigm. Just like in Europe and Asia, California will develop a profitable system joining all its cities. Nearby states, such as Nevada and Arizona, will link into the network, just like European countries did after France established its network. Jet airplanes will be used for what they were intended: long-distance travel. Automobile use will be reduced. This will save millions of barrels of oil. And that’s the real reason these lobbyists want it stopped.
Roger Christensen is a transit advocate from Los Angeles County (former chairman of the Metro Citizen Advisory Council) who has moved to the Central Valley, where he awaits high-speed rail.
ericmarseille Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 6:48 am
>Adrianne Moore, vice president of policy at the Reason Foundation, says the Europeans are abandoning rail in favor of driving and flying.
I almost spat my tea
Rickety bullet trains rankle rail travelers
A string of KTX breakdowns dampens confidence in homegrown technology, stokes safety concerns
Paulus Magnus Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Well, Useless won’t like that news at all.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Is the part about test tracks real, or is it just an attempt to get more funding for HSR construction? The Shinkansen uses revenue tracks for testing, or segments of future revenue lines that have been built but not yet opened.
Useless Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 5:54 am
@ Alon Levy
> Is the part about test tracks real, or is it just an attempt to get more funding for HSR construction? The Shinkansen uses revenue tracks for testing, or segments of future revenue lines that have been built but not yet opened.
It is real, as the existing primary corridor is heavily traveled(A 10 minute service interval) and leaves little room for test runs.
This problem will go away when the second corridor(aka the Bullet train to nowhere project) opens in 2014, built to 370 km/hr revenue service standard. The second corridor connects low population density villages and the service interval would be 30 minutes, so there is enough capacity for test runs.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
You know, some people in Jeolla would object to being called nowhere. I know the cities there are not as large as the ones in Gyeongsang, but still…
Miles Bader Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 6:41 pm
Ergh, well at least since their system initially used imported trains, they can always order more of those, right…?
Peter Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 6:48 pm
Or some AGVs.
So. I see clearly now why the airlines and big oil want to doom hsr. Thanks to our lack of hsr in cali, I have had to spend a small fortune and a huge waste of time and inconvenience. Not to mention having to eat the cost of non refundable plane tickets. I am being forced to use planes that drop me off in inconvenient places compared to where I need to be. I have had to buy plane ticket upon plane ticket to attend these upcoming shows. And since the band just added a show in palm springs, I have to eat one plane ticket, buy another plane ticket from vegas to long beach and then drive from long beach out to palm springs. then home from long beach. Plus the downtown La show which I can’t get to in time without flying into LAX which is no where near nokia. then I have to get a hotel. and spend 9 hours getting a train home while missing work. I dare someone to tell me how freakin much more convenient and fast it is to fly around californa. There’s nothing convenient whatsoever about this week in october. and it sure aint cheap
I WANT MY HSR.
jimsf Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 8:33 pm
and to add insult to injury, in order to get from long beach to lax, I have to take the metro through compton and watts, transfer, then get dropped off a mile from the terminal. At least at this end my subway actually takes me into the airport terminal ( the one so many here think is such a bad idea) what an ordeal its going to be. Im exhausted thinking about these trips.
http://www.city-journal.org/2011/cjc0803cw.html
High-Speed Train Wreck
In October 2008, Joseph Vranich, a preeminent authority on high-speed rail in the United States, testified before a hearing of California’s State Senate Transportation and Housing Committee. Vranich, the best-selling author of Supertrains, former CEO of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association, and a 40-year advocate of high-speed rail, had come to offer his thoughts on the state’s plan to build a high-speed rail line from Orange County to San Francisco. “This is the first time I am unable to endorse a high-speed rail plan,” he told the senators, saying that he found the California High Speed Rail Authority’s work to be “the poorest I have ever seen.”
tony d. Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 9:12 pm
Don’t you have anything better to do than constantly present us with anti-HSR garbage?
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 9:50 pm
He’s a NIMBY who lives right next to the tracks in Menlo Park – he’s going to keep posting this crap until the first trains roll from SF to LA, and probably even after that.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 4:25 am
Wasn’t he against the project even before Pacheco was finally selected?
John Burrows Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 8:12 am
Either Vranich or Ward are misinformed:
First—The travel time of 2hr-40min refers to SF-LA, not SF-Anaheim.
Second—According to the CaHSRA Route Map, the distance from SF to Anaheim is 465 miles, and the estimated travel time is 2hr-57min, which works out to an average speed of 157 mph not the 197 mph quoted by Ward. A difference of 40mph is a lot—More than the 50 kmph speed reduction that the press skewered the Chinese for making on the Shanghai-Beijing route.
So, what we have here is an article weakened because it relies in part upon incorrect facts. I assume that Vranich, being a “Preeminent authority on high-speed rail in the United States” was misquoted by Ward who I am sure is not a “preeminent authority”.
Jerry Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 8:17 am
The full article by Roger Christensen in the SFChron is now available at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/03/EDTD1KID15.DTL
‘Reality Check’ referred to the article previously. It discredits Joseph Vranich and his ilk. The article’s headline sounds as though it is against HSR, but it supports it.
@ Miles Bader
> Ergh, well at least since their system initially used imported trains, they can always order more of those, right…?
Alstom’s train sets are breaking down at equal frequently.
The problem is a combination of overly sensitive sensors and the labor feud between the management and the union going on since 2009. The sensors are said to be extremely sensitive that smoking in bathroom will trigger fire alarm and stop the train, and the heat monitoring sensors monitoring axles and wheels fire incorrectly and stop the train. So the majority of stoppages are triggered by false alarms.
And then the management, which was appointed by the current business-minded president(ex-Hyundai Construction Corp’s CEO) to run government agencies like businesses, implemented an aggressive cost cutting via labor restructuring, which according to the labor union is causing maintenance shortage. This is why even the proven Alstom TGV-K is now breaking down at the same frequency as KTX-II nowadays.
Useless Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 6:15 am
One of strange thing about Korea’s HSR break-down is that whenever a train breaks down(Not the false alarm), a replacement bullet train pops out of nowhere in 20 minutes, scoops up passengers and continue the travel.
So many suspect that this is actually a cost-saving measure or something like that. That it is cheaper to ready replacement bullet trains than to do preventive maintenance on all bullet trains.
Miles Bader Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 11:55 pm
You do realize this makes no sense at all, don’t you…?
Making this work at all — much less in a sufficiently optimized manner to avoid massive passenger dissatisfaction — would require pre-positioning hot-replacement trains all over the place, with crew, in ready-to-move condition, always; this would not be cheap. It would royally screw with train scheduling and cause the entire system to work badly. Even if you did manage to pull it off technically, there’s really no way to do so without pissing off passengers, and hurting the reputation of the whole system, causing fewer people to use it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some people think this, because random people think all sorts of silly and nonsensical things, but there’s no reason for you to repeat it; it just makes your attempts to defend the KTX look even more dodgy.
Peter Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 7:11 am
So Kim Chan-Oh doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he says “Our technology still needs improvement compared with those owned by countries like France and Japan”?
Somehow, I lean towards believing a local college professor’s assessment of the problem over an anonymous blogger’s assessment, especially when that blogger has a lengthy history of trolling in favor of the KTX-II.
Useless Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 7:56 am
@ Peter
> So Kim Chan-Oh doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he says “Our technology still needs improvement compared with those owned by countries like France and Japan”?
The dude isn’t a rail expert, but a news column personality on the issue of science and safety.
The real issue is the ongoing dispute between the management and labor union that basically doubled the service interval due to a “claimed” labor shortage.