SF Chronicle Op-Ed Slams Reason Foundation HSR Deniers
This op-ed from Roger Christensen, a Central Valley resident, is a classic must-read that exposes the Reason Foundation for the oil-company shills they are:
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.
The whole thing is worth reading – it is an amazing piece of work, and it’s really good to see others making these points as well – especially in the pages of the Chronicle.
The Reason Foundation is a key part of the anti-HSR strategy being waged by the right-wing alliance of Republicans, NIMBYs, and oil companies. Exposing that alliance and their methods is a key first step to defeating that axis.
Howard Cosell would be proud of him. He tells it like it is.
This is truly stirring stuff. I hope you’ll engage your allies in Uzbekistan to root out fifth column NIMBY phalanxes.
William Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 8:07 pm
Richard, if you stop proposing “solution” that’ll gut the status-quo, then people might listen to you, then you won’t be so angry all the time.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 8:09 pm
You know, just because I might be paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get me. . .
Miles Bader Reply:
August 4th, 2011 at 8:56 pm
Hold on, Richard is getting on someone’s case for overheated rhetoric?!
Oo
Sounds like supporters are starting to get really pissed at those threatening our future. Here is another hard-hitting piece, this time a letter to the editor (San Mateo Daily Journal):
Editor,
I was appalled by statements made by my Assemblyman Jerry Hill in your article “Support growing for ‘blended’ rail” published in the Aug. 1 edition of the Daily Journal. Mr. Hill had the audacity to threaten the existence of the high-speed rail project stating: “If the third business plan in October doesn’t pencil out, it is time to pull the plug on the project.” I guess the will of the voters is unimportant to Mr. Hill, and he thinks he has the right to pull the plug on a project the voters approved in 2008. He seems to “pencil out” the thousands of jobs the project will create next year and beyond. It is shocking to see a Democrat take such anti-democratic and anti-job positions.
Jerry Brozell
San Mateo
Jeff Carter Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 4:40 am
Jerry Hill represents the 19th Assembly District, which includes Burlingame; at the forefront of anti-HSR fear mongering misinformation. Hill is reflecting the concerns of a small but vocal and well organized group of his constituents.
Dan Walters has a pretty awful editorial in today’s Sac Bee about HSR.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/08/05/3818361/dan-walters-jerry-brown-has-a.html#disqus_thread
D. P. Lubic Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 4:47 am
Same old, same old, from the same old grump. . .whoopee. . .
synonymouse Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 1:01 pm
This is a curious article but not at all extreme for Walters. He is correct in calling for putting Borden to Corcoran on hold – it has true debacle potential. Fast track the Tejon link instead.
I find Walters’ comments on diamond lanes curious as they have evolved into a highway lobby scam, a subterfuge to expand freeways. After a few years they dumb-down the carpool limits to next to nothing. Environmentalists are easily conned, I guess.
thatbruce Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
Which of California’s freeways once had higher carpool limits than they do today?
synonymouse Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 3:01 pm
101 in Marin
thatbruce Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 3:50 pm
Looking through Caltrans District 4 reports, in particular the 2002 HOV one, October 1988 does indeed mark when a number of HOV lanes in Marin went from requiring three to two people (1992 for some other freeways in the Bay area). Pages 91&92 show that as a result of this change, the number of vehicles using the HOV lane tripled, resulting in two to four times the number of people using the lane, likely not what you were expecting.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Pretty much all of them.
It works this way, every single time.
1. We need to expand the freeway to ELIMINATE CONGESTION FOREVER while REDUCING POLLUTION!
2. It’s an ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAM! Because we’re adding “HOV” (“HOT”, whatever the flavour of the month is) lanes! That’s ENVIRONMENTAL! Also, traffic that moves FASTER is SAFER and more fuel EFFICIENT just like it says on the back of this slip of paper just passed to me by my good friend over there who owns the construction company.
3. (Less than a year after freeway widening) Traffic will move FASTER and MORE EFFICIENTLY and MORE SAFELY if we get rid of the HOV lanes. THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN! My constituents, including a disabled soccer mom who is forced to make a 5 hour commute to pick up her daughter from Team USA luge lessons, are clamoring with a united voice to do away with these stupid restrictions which not only decrease safety and slow traffic, but are profoundly UNDEMOCRATIC.
4. Repeat. Works every single time without fail.
One example of scores or hundreds of instances:
http://articles.sfgate.com/1998-04-23/news/17719995_1_car-pool-pool-lanes-pool-rules
(Wow, an MTC-promoted greenwashed project solely benefiting the concrete lobby with phony justifications and fraudulent analyses … couldn’t ever happen again, could it? Nah!)
“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.”
Problem is that the ridership figures are “flawed, overstated, inaccurate” and so on… The “experts” at the “prestigious” UC Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies say so.
The business plan is “flawed” and has been widely discredited by the State Auditor, Legislative Analyst, and so on…
The NIMBYs continue advancing these issues with unhindered determination.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 10:18 am
The ridership numbers are flawed and inaccurate according to anyone with half a brain. Scare quoting around the Berkeley stuff just makes you look like a tool.
trentbridge Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
I agree – the report says the ridership estimates are inaccurate -meaning the actual ridership numbers could be far higher or far lower than currently projected. I think the report concludes that CAHSR should update their estimates to try to achieve a higher degree of accuracy. This “flaw” in itself is not sufficient grounds for terminating this multi-billion dollar engineering project. I believe the CAHSR has plenty of time to produce more “accurate” ridership forecasts before a shovel of dirt is turned. I also know that critics of HSR will denounce any ridership numbers produced for the CAHSR as being too optimistic even if Moses descended from Mount Whitney with them carved on stone tablets.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 5:56 pm
Sorry, but there is pretty much no way that the numbers are going to be far higher than projected. And really, the numbers are obviously disconnected from reality considering that Anaheim is supposed to be the second busiest station in the system after San Francisco (in reality, LA would at least be higher and likely first given commuter utility and terminus of all useful Pacheco lines).
Brian Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
And you became a better expert than Cambridge Systematics, Berkeley ITS, and the peer review members when?
Oh that’s right you got “Truthiness Power” so real world experience, professional judgement, and even lowly arithmetic have no power over you. Just say “no one with a brain” and poof! You point auto-proves itself regards of what egghead profs, sleazy consultants, and those nasty real-world comparisons say or show.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 7:35 pm
Since I passed that philosophy class in logic apparently (hey, I guess the prof was right, listening to Palestrina does lead to better results!).
The ridership’s boarding numbers quite simply fail the most basic stage of analysis, the WTF stage. Look at what comes out, see if any of the results make you go WTF (as any reasonable person ought to do with Anaheim having more daily boardings than LAUS). 99/100, that means something was wrong with the model.
Tell me honestly, do you truly believe that Anaheim will have two thirds again as many daily boardings as LAUS (23,500 vs 14,100)? That’s symptomatic of a broken model.
Dude, you are aware I’m an HSR supporter and often refer to real world comparisons, yes? This “100% on board with everything proclaimed by CAHSRA or nothing” nonsense gets rather annoying.
trentbridge Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 7:28 pm
CAHSR states for 2030: In Phase 1 high-speed trains run from San Francisco to Los Angeles Union Station and Anaheim, and from Merced to Anaheim and San Francisco.
So Anaheim would be the station used by San Diego passengers, and everyone from the Bay Area, and the Central Valley going to Mexico. Leaving aside the three million Orange County population and the visitors-to-Disneyland effect, it isn’t too far-fetched to see that a HSR line terminating at Anaheim would have as many passengers as LA.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 7:40 pm
2030 presumptions include the Phase II to San Diego and Irvine I do believe.
Andre Peretti Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 6:58 pm
I read the Berkeley report and was very disappointed. I expected something more researched and documented from university professors. Instead, I found a polemic pamphlet of Reason-Foundation level.
“We have nothing against HSR, but…”. The very beginning reeks of hypocrisy.
An example of their sloppiness on page 26:
“We know that every high-speed rail system in the world is subsidized.”
They know, but how do they know? Where are the references and figures? Not very scholarly.
Further down:
“Only two segments worldwide, one in France and one in Japan, supposedly break even.”
“supposedly” casts doubt on a fact that has been repeatedly documented in more serious works. These two lines not only break even but have paid their construction costs.
“The only supposedly break-even French TGV segment, Paris-Lyon, charges $0.399/mile, two-thirds higher than the CHSRA’s pricing model input.”
They first accuse CHSRA of choosing the highest airfare as reference but they select the highest peaktime TGV fare, the one you pay for a last-minute seat on a full train. Most people pay far less than that, but they don’t mention it. Very dishonest.
I still think the U.S. has some of the best professors in the world but I have just discovered it also has some of the worst.
Eric M Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 7:17 pm
Maybe someone should question them on that. Good points
political_incorrectness Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 7:21 pm
Andre, mind sending this on to some of the small papers? I would love to see the headlines of “UC Berkley report slammed”
Elizabeth Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 7:44 pm
What Berkeley study are you referring to? This http://www.its.berkeley.edu/publications/UCB/2010/RR/UCB-ITS-RR-2010-1.pdf is the only one I know of.
Andre Peretti Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 5:28 am
Sorry, I was misled by an anti-HSR website which pointed to
CHSR-Financial_Risks-101210-D.pdf
as the only existing official report. Seing the prestigious names (Oxford, Stanford) in the heading, I naively didn’t check the origin.
The Berkeley study you link to really looks like university research work and it will take me some time to read it carefully and form an opinion.
Editorial: The slow death of high-speed rail
Loss of federal money will be the nail in the coffin of doomed project
synonymouse Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 11:04 am
I do not believe it is necessary to trash Prop 1A if Van Ark is able to make the necessary modifications. So long as the courts reaffirm the basic principle that changes can be made in the light of “new information” that still retain the essential thrust and purpose of the hsr enabling legislation.
Two tweaks need to be made immediately:
1. Definitively ditch the Tehachapi Detour in favor of the Tejon direct route.
2. Dump Pacheco and go Altamont. Both San Jose and BART will have to be dealt with. Great moxie and political courage will be asked of the CHSRA.
3. Ask the San Joaquin Valley community and particularly the stake holders alongs the UP-99 corridor which they prefer – Stilt-A-Rail closely paralleling 99 or a deep-pockets upgrade of the UP thru the 99 cities and hsr displaced some 50 or less miles to the west along I-5.
And of course all of the available funding should be allocated to the Bako-LA missing link. Even the most conservative will have to pause on this one and allow that it is a real issue not a boondoggle.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 11:56 am
Why is a detour through Palmdale the worst thing in the world but a detour through Livermore the greatest thing since sliced bread?
synonymouse Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 12:29 pm
A route that is vastly less mountainous and leads directly to the central Bay Area. A much better choice for the initial hsr route.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 2:24 pm
What’s vastly less mountainous? Altamont? Pacheco? Tejon? Tehachapi? Define “Central Bay Area”. Most people would say that’s Oakland and San Francisco.
Reality Check Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 3:29 pm
Because not only does the Altamont “detour” serve a far more trafficked/congested/populated corridor, it also reduces system build-out route-miles and cost while also a time and distance shortcut for the majority of trips/riders. Yes, and while it even makes a number trips to/from SJ faster/shorter, and while it avoids some substantial and thus far potent pockets of Peninsula NIMBY opposition and eases operational/construction issues on the Peninsula and at SF’s mis-designed terminal, it adds maybe 10 min. (or so) between SJ and points south of Merced. Win+win+win+win+win+win+win-lose = a net winner by a long-shot.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 3:42 pm
I didn’t ask why Altamont is better I asked why Tejon is better.
synonymouse Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 6:26 pm
It would be very indicative – not just from a historical perspective – to know why the Santa Fe abandoned the Tejon project. My thoroughly unsubstantiated surmise is that it was too much money to raise in an environment that did not look promising for railroad expansion. Even on the eve of the Great War you did not have to be an Einstein to recognize that trucks and airplanes were coming on fast. I believe both the Moffett and Cascade tunnels were built in the 20′s but I suspect the planning dated from much earlier, so they benefitted from years of momentum. The Tejon project would have been on the order of magnitude of the Pennsylvania RR electrification in the 30′s and that had to be government financed.
The fact – lost initially on the CHSRA planners – that the Santa Fe wanted to undertake Tejon a hundred years ago says two things. One is that they grosso modo figured it was operationally feasible presumably even with steam and two they must have had a pretty low opinion of Tehachapi.
I wonder if the Museum in Sac will scan the original plans and put them online.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 6:37 pm
So they went for the cheap fast route through what is now Palmdale… hmmm
synonymouse Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 6:49 pm
They gave up. Remember it would have been highly embarrassing for the big and powerful Santa Fe RR to admit it could not raise enough capital for a big expansion. More politic to dismiss it as not feasible. Sound familiar.
Tehachapi does have the advantage of connecting east at Mojave whereas with Tejon you would have had to backtrack. LA was not yet, shall we say to be courteous, and that must have been a long trip behind small steam in a daycoach.
Hsr LA to SF has an entirely different modus vivendi and modus operandi and screams for Tejon.. But Tehachapi would be nice for a restored San Francisco Chief.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 7:06 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Chief
Nobody’s going to taking an HSR train from Oakland to anywhere anytime soon. And no one is going to be taking an HSR train from Oakland to Chicago, except for railfans, until planes are banned.
datacruncher Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 2:37 pm
You forgot Tolmach’s west of 99 plan as an option, it turns Fresno into an intermodal transfer point from HSR for Valley cities but still keeps Fresno with HSR service with about 80 daily trains.
http://www.calrailfoundation.org/HSR_files/0602_45.pdf
I doubt Fresno would agree to the idea of some upgraded Amtrak service (even say 10 or 20 faster Amtrak trains per day) in place of HSR mainline service. They would say no to I-5.
I-5 appears to have no traction elsewhere too, recent Valley comments coming out say use 99 as an alternative to Kings County farmland, not I-5.
Letter to the Editor August 4, 2011 – “I see no reason why the route cannot be modified to align closer to Highway 99 or the existing railroad tracks.”
http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_72d1f438-beac-11e0-825d-001cc4c002e0.html
News Article August 3, 2011 – “Using blistering language, the Kings County Board of Supervisors released a 21-page letter Tuesday asking Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Szabo to force the California High-Speed Rail Authority to delay its draft environmental impact report to fully reconsider an alignment along Highway 99″
http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/news/local/article_39d20376-bde9-11e0-9bbd-001cc4c002e0.html
From the Kings County letter dated August 2, 2011 – “The County Board, U.S. Congressman Jim Costa, and California Senator Michael Rubio have urged the Authority to reconsider and not foreclose a valid alternative alignment that continues along Highway 99 from Fresno, California, to western Visalia, California (see fn”). Visalia has offered free land at its airport for a station at the junctures of Highway 99 and Highway 198, and is more aptly situated near population centers.”
http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/pdf_e9a5ce4a-bde4-11e0-9af6-001cc4c03286.html
Looks to me like little to no interest in running HSR on I-5 no matter what they might get as an alternative, they aren’t calling for it to be studied.
Jon Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 3:32 pm
But it’s synonymouse’s favorite, so the route MUST be change IMMEDIATELY!
VBobier Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
Its too bad We can’t change synonymouses, as this one seems rather stale, His expiration date must have passed already.
Reality Check Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 11:15 am
I goofed up the story link, so here’s another try:
Editorial: The slow death of high-speed rail
Loss of federal money will be the nail in the coffin of doomed project
The first TGV line, Sud-Est, has a ridership of ~31 Million 10 years after its opening. Given that cities served by the Phase 1 CAHSR has roughly 2X the population of the Sud-Est cities, the 2030 estimate of ~39Million, about 10 years after the opening, is reasonable.
I believe CAHSR’s estimate has been peer reviewed by SNCF, as discussed in this blog, and SNCF believed the ridership is on the conservative side already.
No estimate can be 100% accurate, and one can criticize endlessly due to perceived flaw.
political_incorrectness Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 11:46 am
As I like to say, if weather forecasters were required to get it 100% right all the time, they’d be in jail already.
Joey Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 11:51 am
We don’t decide how to spend billions of dollars based on what weather forecasters say.
thatbruce Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Well, we do, but its predominately after the fact spending, such as disaster relief and infrastructure rebuilding. Not exactly the weather forecaster’s fault if people build their homes in the path of regular natural disasters after all ;).
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 3:36 pm
We do decide how to spend quadrillions of dollars based on what climate forecasters don’t say.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 7:15 pm
Weather forecasters are actually the most consistently right set of experts. 70% of the time they say there’s 70% chance of rain it actually rains.
Mike Jones Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Eurostar serves potentially twice the population of CAHSR’s initial SF-LA phase, and is much better connected via other rail services. It has 10 million riders per year.
ericmarseille Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 4:38 pm
International lines are not as successful as domestic ones.
For its first year of activity, the Est line in France drew 14 million passengers, although it doesn’t serve half as many as would SF-LA ; that said it occured in a country used to efficient and cheap high speed rail already.
But looking at it from outside, it’s impossible to figure that a well-designed CAHSR won’t be a great success over time, after a few years of accustomization.
I have been waiting for a response challenging Robert’s thread here which
celebrates the article in the Chronicle by Roger Christensen, titled
The great high-speed rail lie
The author writes It’s simple. Vranich makes stuff up while claiming that
Vranich’s position, the trip from LA to SF will take not less than 3 hours.
Christensen goes on to write
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.
The problem with this argument is that, as many here well know, the Authority’s
route from SF to LA is not nearly the same type of route as the French example.
Even using the Authority’s miles numbers, 432 miles, which are suspect:
The Paris-Avignon line cited has NO difficult terrain and entirely avoids
cities via bypasses. The 3.5 percent grades 100 miles outside Paris are not
sustained for any length and do not slow the service. By contrast, the proposed
California line has 70 miles of restricted speeds in the Bay Area, 70 miles of
restricted speeds leaving LA, a 3800 foot Tehachapi grade, plus runs through at
least 4 cities.
140 restricted miles run at an average of 100 mph taking about an 84 minutes. The
remaining 292 miles run at the French average speed of 160 will take about 108
minutes.The total then is around 192 minutes or 3 hr 12 minutes. This is why
Vranich and all other informed experts say the current project will not meet 2 hr
40 minutes.
So Robert wrote above:
The whole thing is worth reading – it is an amazing piece of work
It may be amazing ok, but it certainly is not accurate.
Vranich’s testimony given almost 3 years ago can be viewed at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS0RD6dqpKY
ericmarseille Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 1:24 pm
Morris, there is at least one factual error in your reasoning : there’s no need to run at french average speed on the 292 miles where you can run at maximum french speed, which is 199mph for now but can be pushed at exactly 217 mph (maxixmum authorized speed by RFF on its newest lines).
Let’s shave off 4 mph on average for acceleration and decelaration between restricted and unrestricted portions.
217 – 4 = 213
Unrestricted portions : 292 miles
Your calculation
292 / 160 = 1.825
Accurate calculation
292 / 213 = 1.371
Difference in hour tenth fraction
1.825 – 1.371 = 0.454
Conversion of this difference in minutes
0.454 * 60 = 27.24
There, you’ve already saved 27 minutes out of your schedule, which makes it now 2 hours 45 minutes, and I think it’s not the end of it.
morris brown Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 1:40 pm
Sorry: I used the 160 MPH figure because you will have to climb the at least 3800 feet on that section. Please don’t tell me that you think the train can manage 217 MPH even having to make that climb.
ericmarseille Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
Hey I don’t know, you said 292 miles of unrestricted speed, I don’t know the geography of California
Now, don’t tell me there are 292 miles of climb (where would be the fall?)
AFAIK, California seems to have a very flat space on quite a long run in the central valley, don’t know, seems very feasible to do it in quite less than 3 hours, maybe the HSR authority is pursuing two opposed goals (that’s my opinion, promising both a schedule of less than three hours and to service a whole lot of towns and/or stations on the way)
I recently falled on some other HSR blog in which it was exposed that Berlin-Munich, that I though was taking 3h – 3h30 (looking at the HSR network it could), took the extravagant total of 6 hours (Those Germans are crazy!) ; a German blogger was explaining in detail the reasons of such a disaster, but essentially it was down to too much stations serviced mandatorily.
Brian Stanke Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
Unlike in Germany (infamous HSR disaster) the California HSR Authority has by law a MAXIMUM number of HSR stations they can build, but NO REQUIREMENT to serve any station any particular amount of times. Therefore they can run all point-to-point expresses, all locals, or any combination of those that make economic sense.
The mandatory travel times all for the infrastructure to allow an express train to travel within the specified time. The track must be designed so that a HSR train CAN run express in 2h40min. No set amount of trains have to run that speed, but the design can not preclude such a speed (Like CARRD’s silly LA to SF via Livermore-then-Santa Clara design would).
Clem Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 10:01 pm
For the record, it’s not so silly to calculate ridership for an alignment from LA to SF via Livermore and Santa Clara, eventhough it is a patently absurd configuration. There is strong evidence that the ridership model was tweaked in certain ways to make certain alternatives come out ahead of certain other alternatives. These very same tweaks, if they have indeed occurred, will make this absurd configuration look very very good, potentially better than anything that was described in the EIR. The reason CARRD would like this studied is, if I understand correctly, as sort of a sanity check of the ridership model. Considering how little effort it would take to test this theory, I don’t see why not.
Brian Stanke Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 11:53 pm
So the idea IS absurd, but since you are sure it will be the “smoking gun” to prove Altamont was “robbed” then we should waste time doing it? Then CARRD can complain about all the money spent, and hopefully “prove” that “it was rigged.”
That is the MOST important thing now, proving a GOTCHA on the Authority? Building anything to improve travel in California? Nah, just shovel more tens of billions at Caltrans and let them rip. Who cares? Proving the Authority WRONG, now that is worth years and years of effort.
Really?
Btw, What about Morris’ phony math? Oh that isn’t worth responding to. The enemy of your enemy and all that…
Joey Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 12:09 am
So you really consider any criticism of the Authority to be anti-HSR?
Clem Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
It’s called model validation. You check boundaries and outlier cases to make sure the model gives the results you expect from another calculation or source of data. I smell some real fear about taking an honest and continued look at the Altamont / Pacheco question… there’s nothing to be afraid about if the models are solid, as you claim they are. So why get all defensive? It’s not about playing gotcha, it’s about spending billions of your and my taxpayer money as wisely as possible.
Yeah, it’s already been decided, yadda yadda yadda…
morris brown Reply:
August 8th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Brian:
You are going to have to do better than accuse me of using “Phony math”
What’s phony about it?
Same is true of your not really responding to Clem. You afraid of what is is is the real truth?
I guess you and so many other here, don’t really care what the Ridership or travel times really are. Just build it at any cost and in any way that gets it built.
Reality Check Reply:
August 8th, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Morris’ “build it at any cost and in any way” raises an interesting question for Pacheco apologists:
Just how much better — in terms of ridership, cost, etc. (you tell us!) — does Altamont have to be before you will concede that’s the route everyone (HSRA included) should be getting (back) behind?
Or are you “true believers” (you shall have no other God but Pacheco!) and is there no conceivable or quantifiable limit for you, as Morris is suggesting?
Joey Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 12:11 am
Wait wait. Many have said that CARRD is just a front for PAMPA NIMBYism. But CARRD is advocating studying a route that would go through Altamont and then go through PAMPA.
Eric M Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 9:02 am
Not if it goes across a new Dumbarton rail bridge. It would then avoid those cities.
Joey Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
But they’re asking to study a route that doesn’t go across the dumbarton.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Conforms well with advice in the concern troll’s handbook though.
thatbruce Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 3:01 pm
This is turning into a discussion on which generalized service model the CAHSRA will use, the French model of a small number of city pairs served on a given TGV run, or the German model of a large(r) number of city pairs on a given ICE run. Hopefully the schedule based on actual demand (rather than idealized) turns out to be more on the French model with enough transfer possibilities to support good connectivity through the state.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
The “French model” is a disaster for anybody except those travelling to or from Paris.
Those people would include US tourists, slack-jawed to encounter any train that runs faster than 80mph. Hey Martha! Wouldn’t it be swell if we have some of them Teegeevees back home in the states! Remember that trip we took from Paree to London.
Try living with the French model and come back and tell us all how wonderfully it works.
And those “transfer possibilities” from CHSRA? They’re presumably to the rich and dense and high-frequency and reliable regional rail networks that extend around every city in the Central Valley, in addition to the extensive RERs and metros of San Francisco and Los Angeles on your home planet, correct?
Brsk Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 3:54 pm
The RERs are called Caltrain and Metrolink, and the metros are BART and MTA Red/Purple lines (to the Sea by 2030) on OUR planet.
If you put down the Stadler Swiss-train porn long enough to look around, you would find people across the state trying to improve those systems and build streetcars in the SJ Valley too!
Of course actually helping your fellow Californians build better rail systems and cities is TOO HARD for you, and besides it would leave no time for your obsessive hatred of Diridon, Kopp, Caltrain, BART, VTA, SVLG, and every contact engineer to work for a Bay Area Transit agency, right?
jimsf Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
okaaaay
jimsf Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 4:14 pm
I just got an email from someone who also lives in france, ( Ive been chatting up my french customers for info for my big trip to france and keeping in email contact with them) concerning getting around in france he says:
respect for all the food, you will enjoy because it has restaurants of all kinds. restaurant prices are between € 10 and € 20. Of course you will also find fast food or good Italian pizerria cheap between € 5 and € 10 or even sandwich …
but I promise you will not be disappointed.
Travel, it moves very easily because you can take the bus, metro or tram. places are well connected.
you can also take the bus you will visit the city.
For customs, french are not as outgoing as Americans but they do not bite!
In France they kiss on the cheek and shook hands with that person to know that.
otherwise we all just said hello, we will not say how are you?
information when we know the person
Clearly this actual live french person, says, travel is easy. Ill take his word for it. he lives in Lyon.
jimsf Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 4:14 pm
note the part “well connected”
Joey Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 10:37 pm
Where in France does this person live?
jimsf Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 2:45 am
in Lyon
Joey Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 7:52 am
Lyon is pretty well connected. Have you asked this person how hard it is to get to central or Western France?
jimsf Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 8:45 am
no but would you like to me to ask? Looking here I can’t find a part of france that I cant get too.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 9:03 am
They have food and restaurants even in Lyon?
Joey Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Jim, take a closer look at that map. There are enough rail lines not heading to Paris, but heading west and southwest from Lyon, all the rail lines are quite curvy (i.e. slow) and no one’s putting any money into anything that doesn’t go to Paris, so they’re likely to remain that way. According to RailEurope, the fastest route to Bordeaux is actually to take the TGV to Paris and then back down.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 5:25 pm
It is exceeding generous of the taxpayers of the USA to provide Sheltered Workshops where the developmentally disabled can play at being engineers and planners.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 7:22 pm
Total weekday ridership on Metrolink and Caltrain, combined: 80,000
Total weekday ridership on the PACA TER: 100,000
Total weekday ridership on the Rhone-Alpes TER, sections of which are being RER-ified (“REAL”) due to general recognition that the TER service level is crap: 135,000
Total weekday ridership on the RER + Transilien: 3,600,000
ericmarseille Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 1:26 am
Remember that they are 22 regions in France and that PACA TER (what crap by the way!) is one region TER.
So multiply the numbers by, say, just under 20 and you should have the TER ridership for all of France.
Despite its absolute crapiness (but it’s improving) the TER blasts its ridership records year after year (very dependent on oil price)
Alon Levy Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 8:00 pm
The other provincial networks have much lower ridership – e.g. Nord-Pas-de-Calais at 57,000, Aquitaine at 25,000, Midi-Pyrénées at 30,000.
jimsf Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 8:04 pm
what is this TER and why is it crap? Should it be avoided?
Isnt RER the paris version of bart? It doesn’t go to the alps…
Joey Reply:
August 7th, 2011 at 12:16 am
TER = regional (low-speed) trains in France. How you get around if you don’t live in Paris/aren’t traveling to Paris.
And yes, the RER is something like BART. At least something like what BART tries to be…
ericmarseille Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
I live in the french model and it is already wonderful and with just wisely doubling the length of the LGV network (all the lines in the pipeline, completed, will do just fine) and just a bit of common sense it will be almost perfect, sorry.
The french model isn’t transposable directly to California because it uses :
- the historical lines network
- quite a list of other forms of mass transportation
It is a very thorough hub and spoke model, and it works, man! only sometimes you’ve got to make some way back (e.g. : Lyon-Paris, then south to Orleans if you want to go to orleans ; so what? what you take in account is a) the cost b) the time, and it is still better than a train diverting and losing time to serve Orleans ; for that exists already and is called conventional rail)
Of course if you live in trifouilly-the-geese, well, don’t pretend you didn’t know it’s a car or nothing.
Seriously man, it works!
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 5:36 pm
Just as I said.
ericmarseille Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 1:06 am
Except that you’re probably figuring that 80% of French people live in trifouilly-the-geese when I’m rather thinking 35% ; the rest can (rather say will, when all the network is complete) be served all the way in collective transport + HSR.
That said you probably don’t fathom the proportion of French people who, living in the most remote villages, simply drive their cars to the nearest train station, park them on its parking lot, take conventional rail to the next HSR station, then take HSR, then either take a taxi, rent a car or use collective transport, if available, to their final destination ; this is the usual reflex for many people.
The combination personal car + collective transport + HSR works just fine.
Andre Peretti Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 5:48 pm
“The “French model” is a disaster for anybody except those travelling to or from Paris”
But the fact is that most people want to do just that. What most cities want is a fast link to Paris. The SNCF just gave the majority what they wanted.
France has more than 1000 years of existence as a unified and increasingly centralised country. All paths lead to Paris. It’s very different in Germany or Italy which are recent creations. They were a collection of independent kingdoms and principalities, each with its capital. All paths don’t lead to Berlin in Germany or to Rome in modern Italy. Paris is France’s economic, cultural and political center of gravity and TGV lines just reflect that. Multi-centered Germany has other needs and long distances at high speed are not necessary there.
If CHSRA had SNCF executives (engineers+aggressive commercials), it would probably choose the TGV model. LA-SF is like Paris-Marseille with even more prospective riders. For the SNCF, it would be a no-brainer. But CHSRA is a political entity and its aims seem to be multiple. We have nothing of the kind in France, so I have no idea about which system would wotk best in California.
AndyDuncan Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 1:02 pm
California is neither organized around a central massive hub like Paris, nor is it a web of interconnected cities like Germany. The line from SF-SJ-Fresno-Bako-LA is much more similar in layout to the Tokaido Shinkansen, with a lopsidedly huge city on one end, a large city on the other, and a handful of large metro areas along the line in between providing disproportionately large numbers of commuter trips.
I think Jimsf is correct, we’ll see a true express each hour or so, but with most trains running as some flavor of local/semi-local. Even the “true” express is likely to be something more like the Nozomi, making a few stops along the way.
Even based on the Authority’s numbers, most of the trips aren’t going to be SF-LA, that will be a top city pair, but most trips will be shorter. Even SF-SJ. How much would you have to charge to keep people *off* a train that gets you from SJ to SF in 30 minutes?
I know it’s not the more popular purpose of the line, but this thing is going to function as a medium-distance commuter line as much as it will a long distance line (and I think even Richard would begrudgingly agree, given his preference of the Altamont alignment) if only because there’s nothing else to compete with it along those distances.
thatbruce Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 6:35 pm
@Richard:
The “French model” is a disaster for anybody except those travelling to or from Paris.
Certainly, that is one of the side-effects of building a rail network in a star-like system. For a lot of destinations the only possible transfer point is the center, which in the SNCF/TGV’s case is Paris. Surprisingly, California is long and narrow which doesn’t lend itself well to a star-like system, and thus there is no singular transfer point.
Hence we get to the essential gist of my previous comment of ‘a small number of city pairs‘, or to say it another way, ‘express trains with a limited number of stops‘.
So you run LA-SF, LA-SD, LA-Sac, SF-Sac express trains, with a small number of stops (north and south ends of the Central Valley for instance), bypassing the ‘local’ stations, and rely on ‘all stops’ services over the same HSR tracks and operated by the same operating entity to provide for connections between the express trains and the stations that they don’t stop at. And that’s before you get into the, as you put it, rich and dense and high-frequency and reliable regional rail networks (and non-existent, but we all understand that your posts come with an implied sarcasm tag) that extend around every city.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 7:59 pm
Bruce,
There are several conflated issues when attempting to make an analogy with or generalisation of a “French” or “German” practice of building train lines and operating trains.
The first and most important is geographical-demographical, with the imperial city of Paris dominating the country in a way in which none of the cities of the multi-polar federal (there’s another very significant difference) republic of Germany do.
Then there’s — to grossly generalise in the post-WWII context — imperial dirigisme and the culture of grands projets versus somewhat more piecemeal and regional undertakings.
Then there was the political imperative of post-1989 east-west unification projects versus — again to hugely caricature — a willingness to let the provinces rot, as they always have done.
And finally there was in Germany a legacy of moderately well-used and very dense and moderately well-functioning regional transportation (rail-based and otherwise), while, to a large extent before quite recent times, you were on your own (ie screwed) if you lived outside the Ile-de-France.
Put this altogether and you tend to find in Germany a patchwork of upgraded legacy lines, a few sections of strategic (technical strategy far from unmixed with politics) high speed bypass lines, and an overwhelming proclivity to make the patchwork function as a system. One side effect or implication of this is that while intercity trains may pop onto a high speed track for a bit, they end back on the legacy tracks at the legacy station in the larger cities with few exceptions (eg Kassel.) And for a couple reasons — the first is that is is fundamentally extraordinarily rude and socially unacceptable to blast through somebody’s town and past people’s back yards at 200+kmh; the second the regional political imperatives of serving medium to large size regional cities — this means that long distance inter-city trains tend to make more stops than they do in a more airline surrogate hub-and-spoke TGV-esque model of bypassed cities with isolated peripheral “beet field” stations, if any stations.
So it’s not as if Germany and France they build the same line with the same stations A-B-C-D-E-F but operate it with two different stop patterns (A-B-C-D-E-F vs A-F), but that they built fundamentally different lines (roughly, “high speed bypasses of circuitous bits of old lines” vs “high speed bypasses of everything damnit”) in two very different political cultures.
As for California, it’s no secret that I think a truly awful and fundamental mistake was made in the decision to route the highest speed trains through the centres of the Central Valley Cities. This combines “Germanic” route selection with “French” operations, and I predict disaster, in the sense that there is no way it can either be operated as promised OR deliver the airline-surrogate trips promised.
Given the hand that has been dealt (and by “dealt” I mean of course “imposed upon us by subcretins”), and assuming that any of this is ever built (increasingly and sadly unlikely), I’d have to say that sacrifice of SF-LA express time for the reality of slowing down and even stopping (the horror!) in the boondocks is inevitable. It’s doubly inevitable since crack-addled (that’s a charitable euphemism there) consultant traffic “projections” will never be borne out, meaning that there won’t be enough trains to support the “projected” PBQD/CHSRA mix of stopping and blast-through-express trains in the Central Valley, meaning that either no trains stop or nearly all of them do. This all adds up to being forced to do things “Germanically”, like it or not.
(If you really want to know, I believe the right thing was a largely greenfield route up the Central Valley, with a combination of lower-speed loops lines (Italian(!!) direttissima-style) where justified and peripheral (beet field) stations where not. That way it is politically and socially possible to maintain high speeds on express trains, while still having a plausible story about actually serving intermediate cities, and while simultaneously saving billions by avoiding doing Extreme Engineering in the form of 350kmh quadruple track alignments in freight RR ROWs in the middle of conurbations.)
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 8:15 pm
the first is that is is fundamentally extraordinarily rude and socially unacceptable to blast through somebody’s town and past people’s back yards at 200+kmh;
This must come as a shock to the Americans who have trains blasting through their backyards at 215 and have for decades.
ericmarseille Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 2:19 am
>As for California, it’s no secret that I think a truly awful and fundamental mistake was made in the decision to route the highest speed trains through the centres of the Central Valley Cities
+1 (for once)
Of course I’m an uninformed outsider, but the no-brainer to me for Fresno, Visalia, Bakersfield, etc. was a spur solution branching onto the main line, Nancy-Metz style (french Est line).
Joseph E Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 2:23 am
” I believe the right thing was a largely greenfield route up the Central Valley, with a combination of lower-speed loops lines where justified and peripheral stations where not.”
That sounds quite expensive. So we would have central stations in Bakersfield and Fresno, as well as new bypass alignments around the cities?
It’s not as if the freight rail alignments are going thru pristine neighborhoods of tidy cottages and elementary schools. Most of the UP alignment thru Fresno, and BNSF thru Bakersfield, are up against warehouses and offices, between a pair of highways (The BNSF thru Fresno does go thru neighborhoods, but is curvy; not a good choice). There are a few houses 100 meters away, but they were built decades after the high-traffic freight route. The current horns and bells of the freight trains are at least as loud as a high-speed train, and subjectively more annoying.
Fresno and Bakersfield are begging for these train stations, and they certainly will be the biggest benefactors, since they currently suffer from terrible air service, and are a little too far from LA or SF to be a easy drive. If the noise is intolerable, they cities should certainly feel welcome to pay for a new alignment around the town for express trains. But should we pay an extra billion dollars for that?
jimsf Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 2:39 am
+1
jimsf Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 2:40 am
+1 @joseph
yes -cost prohibitive
Joe Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 3:14 am
The confederated legacy of the Holy Roman Empire vs imperial France is interesting but avoids the obvious difference.
The US west was settled and developed along rail.
Andre Peretti Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 6:01 am
I agree that California’s shape would call for a direttissima model. Or Paris-Lyon, which is, in fact, a direttissima. But California’s GDP/capita is higher than France’s or Italy’s. I suppose it allows CHSRA to choose expensive options that France and Italy couldn’t afford.
Joey Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 7:49 am
joseph – well then I guess we can forget about developing downtown Fresno. Especially if it ends up on a 60′ viaduct.
jimsf Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 8:41 am
Let me explain, again, the actual real live reality that is going to be for real when all is said and done and train are running…
first of all, and it never seems to sink in, the point of the hsr plan in cali is to connect as many people and places to as many other people and places as possible. It not for getting people from sf to la as its main priority. People think in those terms because it was a simple idea that people could grasp but it was never the end all be all goal of the system.
second – it has to be possible for an express train to make that trip in the 2:40 time. It doesn’t mea every train has to do it. The fact is the majority of trains will make the majority of stops when all is done. So they will not be blowing through at 220. Watch, you will see. and those that dont will not blow through downtowns at 220 but probably at somthing like 125, maybe 150.– and again the majority of trains are actually going to be making the stops.
I know you all may think otherwise but its not going to be a daily sked chock full of sf-la true express. Maybe one per hour at peak hours only at the most.
YOu don’t believe me but I will be right. Just watch and see.
To suggest that train go both through town and around town, on double the infrastructure would be political suicide and would be decried as waste. it would never fly.
Please people. Just stick with the plan Its the one youre gonna get.
focus on the benefits. Its hard for us bay and la people to believe that there is anything worthwhile outisde sf and la, but there is…. all the rest of california – a very big place with lots of people who are also californians. So much to do and see. So many people freinds and family you will have access to. so much opportunity for stuggling cities finally being able to tap into the statewide economy in a more equitable way – giving them a fighting chance. Imagine the changes and potential of this midway cities and towns.
for me, I know it is going to be a dream come true to be able to step on and off trains and get nearly anywhere ( except northern california- the real one) as easily as I can now step on and off bart trains and get around the bay area.
To any of you who think this railroad wont be used that way – you are wrong – people are already using the railroad that way. they just need to be able to do it more quickly, more comfortably, and a lot more often.
This new fast mobility in itself will be a stimulus to local economies and a whole lot of fun for always on-the-go-anyway californians.
youll see. Im right. just wait.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 8:45 am
Viaducts in Fresno would be just awful.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 8:54 am
Very eloquently said, Jim SF–and interestingly, it speaks of California HSR as a systems application. This is in contrast to a number of people here who claim system design is badly compromised by things like excessive viaduct construction (which is true to a point, and certainly suggests you need some new designers/contractors at some stage).
On another subject–do you think you will get to meet some of your French contacts face-to-face? Do you think you will get to visit Andre’s island, and the narrow-gauge road there?
I hope you get to see some steam locomotives in operation, too!
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 9:00 am
Thank you, Captain Obvious. Now settle yourself down in a comfortable chair with with Google Maps and have a poke around using the mouse thingy at, say, Sweden or Korea or Germany or France or Poland or Japan or Italy or Russia and note that, by golly, most of the time time the train line that was built by transportation engineers of the 19th century to serve the City of XXX does in fact run into and out of the City of XXX, even if not on a straight 350kmh-readly line. Incredible but true! (Yes, you can find plenty of counter-examples of Roman and mediaeval town centres, but I can name counter-counter examples. On the whole, it’s true.)
Four approaches suggest themselves:
* Bulldoze through a 350kmh route (this is also the generic 1950s US urban “renewal” freeway modal);
* Ignore the existing station and build a new peripheral/parkway/”beet field” station outside (you can also see with with US freeway development around some smaller towns);
* Slow everything down and make everybody take the old route through town (see for example San Francisco’s 19th Avenue and Van Ness Avenue, the legacy of the city not allowing itself to be fully destroyed by freeways); or
* Keep the fast bypass staff outside town while allowing local traffic to divert onto the old route.
Of course. But is is more expensive?
The technical and legal and urban design and logistical issues of constructing a right-of-way-fillling (somebody else’s right of way, at that), extremely high speed, uniformly four-track train “super-freeway” in people’s back yards may be so different in scale, and even so qualitatively different, that they cost more than an alternative.
Think of it this way: you want to construct four tracks, two of them to serve 350kmh trains and two to serve 100kmh stopping trains, and two platform faces. You can either put all these things in one place, in which case the “350kmh” part absolutely determines alignment, environmental mitigation and some civil engineering for the “100kmh” part (including where the platforms can be sited in relation to the city); or you can put the 350kmh stuff somewhere like a agricultural field where it’s easier to draw a straight line on a map while building less of the 100kmh stuff in the city centre and doing so in a more flexible, cheaper and less disruptive fashion.
In other words, 2 * cost_factor_1 + 2 * cost_factor_2 < 4 * cost_factor_3, for some cost factors.
I’m not saying the bypass ROW is free, or the added rail junctions are free, just that they have the potential to be less costly than the alternative (up-front cost as well as ongoing operational cost.)
BTW this exact argument is why attempting to shoehorn two HS-only tracks into a rail ROW Redwood City-San Jose is batshit insane: it’s cheaper and easier to put them somewhere else (disused rail ROW to the Bay, tunnels to Sunol, new ROW over Altamont Pass.) Two pairs of two tracks still, but 2 + 2 is not necessarily 4 in the real world of construction and logistics. The very first rule of successful engineering is “don’t borrow trouble.”
D. P. Lubic Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 9:09 am
Thought you might find this interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z65GRiq9LnI&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUCcuT2zlMk&NR=1&feature=fvwp
American-built engine from the postwar reconstruction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmIDTY2wUNI&NR=1
D. P. Lubic Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 9:17 am
Again, an American 141-R in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNxQCYQCgN0&feature=related
American built locomotive, with American sounds, boiler contours, and running gear design; French specs include a close-fitting cab, link and buffer couplings, inward-opening firedoor in cab, and tender design.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKj-6XEKMmA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8r3EvOyKYM&feature=related
D. P. Lubic Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 9:29 am
Big French power:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8eZkIogZxE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6vlQYSvRKY&feature=related
We’ll close out with a classic: Jean Mitry’s short film adaptation of Arthur Honegger’s “Pacific 231:”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKRCJhLU7rs
Have fun, enjoy your trip.
Joey Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 1:28 pm
adirondacker12800: They need even taller viaducts to go over the existing viaducts.
Or so they claim.
Given that this thread has once again turned into a Pacheco vs. Altamont argument, Altamont supporters may be interested in page 17 of this presentation:
http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/assets/0/152/281/bead5f47-c686-4f7c-8e71-294ee6284842.pdf
The HSR route on this slide is basically what Richard Mlynarik has been arguing for as an initial operating scenario. What’s significant is that it’s in an official CAHSR document from earlier this year.
synonymouse Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 1:16 pm
I suspect that more detailed costs of the Pacheco mountain crossing will be pivotal in any Altamont resurrection. And it will be instructive to see how they compare to those of Tejon, which were initially dismissed as prohibitive.
We will see just how much extra they are willing spend to pander to San Jose. And apparently spending extra to pander was precisely what was going on with Palmdale.
William Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
True, Pacheco was never decided on cost alone. As long as San Jose interests supports Pacheco, it is unlikely CAHSRA would switch to Altamont. Given Pacheco’s advantage of SJ-LA over Altamont in frequency and run-time, SJ would not accept any thing less.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
Tejon wasn’t eliminated because of cost it was eliminated because of risks. Many different ones.
morris brown Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 10:54 pm
Tejon just like Altamont was eliminated because of politics.
Because it involves tunneling Pacheco does indeed present “risks”, but curiously that never seems to come up, only when discussing Tejon.
Politics really are a serious handicap of the public ownership model. Private entities are more likely to gag on extraneous distractions, deviations, diversions that are more expensive to construct and operate.
Unfortunately bad ideas just won’t go away with the years. Their proponents and protectors just die off and they are “declassified”. Does anyone know if BART has ever done a mea culpa over Indian broad gauge?