The Great Boondoggle By the Bay
Its cost doubled over initial estimates, with critics charging its final price would be as much as five times what voters approved. It was the target of numerous lawsuits and was denounced as an unaffordable and unnecessary boondoggle.
“It” is the Golden Gate Bridge, widely regarded as one of the great triumphs of California infrastructure. It is a worldwide symbol for both the city of San Francisco and the state of California, beloved by many. And it is also an economic lifeline to Marin County, whose wealth and quality of life largely depends on the bridge.
This blog has made the comparison before. The Golden Gate Bridge was approved by voters in November 1930, as the Depression was unfolding. Its costs rose and with federal assistance, construction finally got underway. It was a difficult and controversial engineering challenge, but once it opened in 1937, it was hailed as a stunning achievement and ever since has gone on to play a vital role in the region’s economy.
Now it’s Fresno County Supervisor Henry R. Perea who is making the comparison in a Fresno Bee op-ed:
I want people to remember what history has taught us about infrastructure when reading about California’s high-speed rail project. During the 1930s, America was in worse economic times than it is now. Like today, unemployment was the root cause of our nation’s financial woes; budget deficits and cuts were merely symptoms of the underlying problem.
Even with this economic stress, visionary leaders saw the need to connect San Francisco to Marin County. According to the Golden Gate Bridge District’s website, the first cost estimate for the bridge was $17 million. Anti-bridge officials believed the cost was closer to $100 million. The estimated total cost for the project was about $35 million, over double the original prediction.
Almost 80 years later, the Golden Gate Bridge stands as a testament to California’s legacy as a leader in transportation infrastructure. Would anyone today say that building the bridge was a bad idea?
Supervisor Perea hits all the right notes here. The case of the Golden Gate Bridge is a rebuke to critics and opponents of the California HSR project, showing the value of solving early challenges and moving ahead with an important piece of transportation infrastructure rather than giving up and doing nothing.
The Golden Gate Bridge didn’t bankrupt California or the counties that comprised the bridge district. Quite the contrary. Today most people take Marin County’s prosperity for granted. But imagine if it was only connected to San Francisco by ferry and not by a bridge. Marin would never have seen the postwar growth that it did, and would never have attracted quite as much wealth and economic activity. Marin would have been isolated.
The bridge project also provided a massive economic stimulus to the region in the depths of the Depression. California high speed rail can do the same today, as Supervisor Perea explains:
We need the income and sales tax 100,000 new employees will bring. Also, economists say every dollar equals about $3.5 circulating through the economy. This means every new employee will help create jobs in other fields by spending money in their local economies. Our only other option would be to do nothing and watch our state face higher yearly deficits.
The choice is clear: California can do what we did during the Depression and build transportation infrastructure that stimulates the economy now and provides the basis for growth and economic prosperity for decades to come. Or we can sit on our hands and do nothing as a small group of people, all of them among the lucky few who still have prosperity, tell us we are crazy to want to build high speed rail.
Californians faced that same decision point in the 1930s and they made the right choice – to build. Californians faced it again in 2008 and chose to build. They faced it once again in 2010, when Meg Whitman came out against the project, and Californians chose to build by giving pro-HSR Jerry Brown a third term as governor.
Californians understand the stakes pretty well, and they understand that it is far better to invest for a better future rather than do nothing and suffer in poverty. That’s why, despite the challenges, high speed rail still has a bright future in California.
Great choice for an example.
wikipedia sez:
Sure, let’s say the bridge hadn’t been built. Marin County would’ve remained rural; the wealthy people that live there today would’ve instead lived in the city, in the East Bay, or on the Peninsula. Although Marin has some commercial activity, it’s for the most part a bedroom community to San Francisco; it’s not rich because of its own productivity, but because rich people choose to live there because it’s scenic, close to the city for commuting, and far from poor city residents. The common term for such development, at least when the highway infrastructure is not as pretty as the Golden Gate Bridge, is sprawl.
joe Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 11:02 am
Where do you live again, it’s certainly not in the bay area.
synonymouse Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 11:11 am
On the contrary the Northbay is too expensive for large job expansion. Many jobs have come and gone for this reason over the past decades. The real job expansion is in the Sac area, which has plenty of cheap room.
Give you a concrete example. My son-in-law works in a fancy-schmancy company to remain unnamed that caters to the elite and is located in a city south of Larkspur. He is stuck in commute traffic every day and would love to take public transit. The GG express bus was eliminated and SMART will be lucky to get to San Rafael. So he has to smog it every day on 101. SMART sux.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 11:33 am
The sprawl that the bridge created was based on the commuting patterns of the postwar era, not on those of the 2000s. I’m well-aware that the traditional city-suburb division is changing, but Marin County’s population quadrupled between 1940 and 1970 and has gone up only 25% since; the rich people moved in for the suburbanism, not for the jobs.
Even now, Marin County is very much a net bedroom community. The gross commuter earnings numbers have disappeared from the BEA site, so you can’t see just how much money is earned by residents who work in other counties, but there’s still a huge contingent of people working in SF. Out of 126,000 employed residents as of 2000, 79,000 work in-county and 31,000 work in SF.
I’m not going to comment on SMART; I don’t know anything about its route. My complaint is specifically that the Golden Gate’s main consequence was to enable sprawl, and people shouldn’t cut it slack just because it’s architecturally iconic.
joe Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 11:55 am
Your definition of sprawl is pedantic and pooly applied in the GG exmaple.
The Marin headlands is an example of preservation, not sprawl, and it is next to a major city. The areas near the GG are not sprawl. Expanding a city across the bay is very common and it reduces sprawl in the east bay if we were to magically adjust population and move them further away from SF by restricting marin access.
You also treated wealth as a universal constant – the number of rich people is constant and they would have moved elsewhere. Economics Fail.
My 1st and 2nd hand experience in Marin is the GG bridge created more economic activity that created more wealth – GG did not enable Marin to draw more wealthy residents from a fixed population of wealth. it helped SF become more economically active and a desirable city for locating corporate offices and intellectual talent.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 12:40 pm
My definition of sprawl is low-density suburbs where everyone drives. What is yours?
joe Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
That’s the united states but not San Jose since it’s the 3rd largest city in CA, 10th in the US.
The GG bridge links SF to a preserve and historic cities north such as san rafel which was established in part due to the sunny climate.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=san+rafael&hl=en&ll=37.881899,-122.528114&spn=0.159876,0.306244&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&t=h&z=12&vpsrc=6
I don’t consider Marin a good example of sprawl – there’s good zoning and limits on growth – car dependent yes but with clear city centers and businesses but watersheds protected – no trucking water across the state.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Zoning means density limits, parking minimums, and separation of uses; it’s what helped the spread of sprawl, not what contains it. In the suburbs, they love their zoning – that’s what they use to prevent developers from building apartments and causing housing to no longer be scarce. Irvine is tightly zoned. PAMPA is tightly zoned. Manhattan in contrast lets you build high, mix residential and commercial uses, and not build any parking.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
Manhattan probably has the most byzantine zoning of them all.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 4:25 pm
Manhattan zoning isn’t that byzantine, outside the special districts. The UES and the other dense residential neighborhoods are actually pretty simple.
Tom McNamara Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
You know there is a place where there is no zoning… it’s called “Houston”.
Alon, you are making my earlier point here. Once the legal standing of real covenants and equitable servitudes was diminished, the next technique to come into vogue was zoning. California could adopt statewide planning…guess what…there would still be problems….
Joe Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 5:48 pm
Houston ugh!
Zoning that encourages walkable neighborhoods, Good.
Zoning that ties urban development to added parking, not so good.
Marin preserved open space, probably a mix of accidental initially and for water.
VBobier Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 6:48 pm
That may be, But as to Earthquake building codes, California beats the whole East Coast and that includes the nay sayers in Washington DC.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 7:53 pm
Houston has plenty of zoning – it has higher parking minimums than comparable cities, minimum setbacks, and incentives to deed-restrict properties to single-family, and up until recently it had a large minimum lot size. It may not call these rules zoning, but they’d fall under the zoning code on the coasts.
Steve S. Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 7:56 am
Zoning is a tool. Tools can be made to facilitate, or hinder, based on who is wielding the tool. Ev Even Euclidean zoning can be made to facilitate, if the tool is properly handled.
joe Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
And here is a map made in the 1990′s by USGS researchers using historic maps.
http://landcover.usgs.gov/urban/umap/pubs/asprs_wma.php
1940 – GG completed to the present (at the time of publication) and you see the growth in the bay area is southern and east bay.
Michael Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 9:50 pm
True. The North Bay had significant settlement from the 1860′s on. Consider that ferries and other watercraft can conquer water while there was no early ways to breach the East Bay Hills. “The San Francisco Bay – A Metropolis in Perspective” is by far the best book on the development of the Bay Area, even if it was published in 1959.
JBaloun Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 10:22 pm
Very interesting maps of the growth of the bay area. Ironically between 1900 and 1940 we had a fraction of the population yet we had more rail transport than today.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 1:46 pm
Marincello.
joe Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 2:23 pm
Failed.
jimsf Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
not all sprawl is bad. Not everyone wants to be crammed into cities. A lot of people prefer the suburbs. I’d rather they live out there where they like it, than be crammed in here where they don’t wanna be.
Steve S. Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 7:54 am
Or another way to put this: The Golden Gate Bridge facilitated growth patterns which were considered desirable by a majority of Californians (and Americans) when–or more accurately, just after–it was built, in the same way the HSR project will facilitate growth patterns which are–or will be–considered desirable by a majority of Californians (and Americans) for the next several generations.
Tom McNamara Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 11:23 am
Alon:
Your comparison is a tad incomplete. The only way Marin County would have stayed rural is if racial covenants had never been struck down. There are plenty of commuters who can get to San Francisco by ferry from across the Bay. Freeways are the natural(?) extension of the “streetcar suburb” model that you saw at the start of the 20th century. There has always been pressure to expand outward even before you had cars.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 12:08 pm
The only way Marin would have stayed rural is if an epidemic had wiped out half the population of the US in 1948.
joe Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
I saw that movie in 1971.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q_fLr7hCZE
Marin relies on local water so they protect watersheds (hello LA) from development, limit growth and maintain interesting city centers.
Michael Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 9:46 pm
No, they have a pipe from the Russian River north of Santa Rosa built after the drought of the late 70′s, built to supplement their watersheds.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 4:29 pm
I know it’s incomplete, and I know suburbanization to some extent would’ve happened either way. But there’s only so much sprawl you can squeeze out of ferries. If it hadn’t been for the GG, Marin County would’ve looked more like North Vancouver. In similar vein, I think it’s uncontroversial that if the Bay Area hadn’t built the Interstates or upgraded 101 to a freeway, development on the Peninsula would’ve followed the rail line at high intensity, rather than spreading to cover all available flat land.
Tom McNamara Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 4:56 pm
Keep in mind there is also the 580 and the Bay Bridge. Even with no Bay Bridge, those would have been built because of the freight needs associated with the port.
Moreover, the Peninsula would still have lots of people taking a car to the CalTrain station and riding into the City.
The irony of the situation is that the Bay Area has pretty strong land use controls for a metro area in the US, and pretty high transit ridership. And North Vancouver looks pretty urban to me…
Alon Levy Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 7:49 pm
Yes, North Vancouver is pretty urban. It has to be: development has to cluster around the SeaBus terminal. Dense urbanism is not sprawl; low-density, auto-dependent suburbia is. Of course, bona fide rural land is not sprawl, either. In California, a good measure of how sprawly a region is is how vulnerable it is to wildfires: land under cultivation is wildfire-resistant and cities don’t have much to burn, but exurbs in the forest periodically burn.
Fewer freeways do result in less sprawl, all else being equal. Again, compare Vancouver with any American city. Even Calgary, which is not a dense city by any means, has a higher transit mode share than the Bay Area, on the strength of its decision to build light rail instead of freeways. Those two cities have freeways, but less than American cities, and their freeways do not penetrate deep into the urban core.
joe Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 7:57 pm
North Vancouver has no geographic and ecologic similarity to Marin and counties north.
What is the BC equivalent to Santa Rosa Co.?
It receives 30″ of rainfall with dry summers — has vernal ponds. The lands N of Marin and Marin itself it is quite productive and of course the entire northern state of CA *with* people lies above Marin.
GG linked SF to a quality food and resource supply.
North Vancouver is on the road to Whistler skiing and rugged mountains.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 8:30 pm
I don’t get why you’re bringing up ecology. If it’s about my comment about wildfires, then you misunderstood; I’m not saying wildfires are a good measure of sprawl in British Columbia, only that they’re a good measure of sprawl in most of California (not so much coastal NorCal, though).
GG linked SF to a food supply region, and to a new area to which suburbanization could expand.
joe Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 9:20 pm
Ecology as in the biology & environment, not preservation.
GG linked SF to Marin and it benefitted the bay area and marin. Yes people moved there too but they would have moved there anyway given the land and environment are outstanding.
GG probably saved the Marin area from sprawl. The easily accessed open spaces provided recreation and public incentive to protect the land. The city provided jobs and income for residents.
Marin and Satna rosa were not going to sit undeveloped – the fact it developed so well is a credit to the GG bridge and SF’s wealth. As they say in Ecological economics, the open space provides “Existence Value” to the city residents. It was protected.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 11:16 am
Sure. The Houston suburbs are not going to sit undeveloped; clearly, the 24-lane Katy Freeway is not going to promote any more sprawl. Staten Island was not going to sit undeveloped; clearly, the Verrazano simply saved it from sprawl. The Valley was not going to sit undeveloped; clearly, the 5 and the 405 didn’t promote suburbanization there. Highways in general don’t ever create sprawl – people just really want to live in cul-de-sac hell and if they don’t it’s only because evil urbanist planners have declared war on suburbia.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 9:37 pm
Marin has sprawl, but not nearly to the extent that the other Bay Area counties do. It’s mostly in the Terra Linda and Novato areas, and not so much in the core of the county from San Rafael southward.
thatbruce Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 10:11 am
@Tom:
Freeways are the natural(?) extension of the “streetcar suburb” model that you saw at the start of the 20th century. There has always been pressure to expand outward even before you had cars.
The impetus to build freeways depends on the local history, geography and mindset. There are some areas, yes, even in the US, that started out with the ‘streetcar suburb’ model, and due to a variety of reasons, never shifted to the freeway building phase. There are others that started on the freeway building phase, but had strong incentives to keep development restricted to existing development, with the result that their area’s freeways solely connect to other cities without sprawl in-between.
GoldenGate bridge is an iconic project.
CARRD and other critics focus on CAHSRA and use Estimating and Controlling Project Costs as a measure of HSR’s value and importance.
While there are articles regarding costing megaprojects, it seems these focus on the politics for estimation and miss the point. I looked at some old software costing articles and ran across an old SE expert who wrote this summary in 2009; the end of his long career on SE and measuring and controlling project costs,
Paulus Magnus Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 11:36 am
And if you look at the cost-benefit considerations of HSR, it’s in the realm of Project A, not Project B.
joe Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 12:02 pm
You make this so easy sometimes:
Downtown San Francisco to Downtown Los Angeles in 2:38 minutes.
Fresno to LA 1:24
Fresno to SF 1:20
Paulus Paucis
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
But is getting there faster a benefit in his calculations? Does he consider getting the, by any mode, a benefit?
Paulus Magnus Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Those can be expressed monetarily, typically by passenger revenue. It does not mean a very large sum. SNCF’s analysis, iirc, was a 2:1 cost benefit ratio, which is not terribly large.
joe Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
What would you quantify?
Linking Fresno to SF in 1:20 and LA in 1:25 isn’t valued by comparing ticket price to airfare. It becomes a day trip and with wi-fi, a productive trip.
The HSR project only provides trivial benefit because you choose to measure and discuss trivial things.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 10:11 pm
Sigh. You’re going to have a fairly minimal number of day trippers at $90-125 round trip.
As for benefits, SNCF estimates 2.9:1 almost entirely from highway users switching to HSR (which means LA-ANA & LA-SD is providing most of the benefits). 2.9:1 is not a terribly high number and it does require close attention to costs and accuracy of ridership estimates in order to remain positive.
The GG Bridge project was the culmination of a more and better roads movement that had started in earnest several decades earlier. There was an interest in improved rural roads even in the horse and buggy days but the country just went ape over the automobile.
The people who were behind the Bridge and similar highway projects were as strongly anti-rail as they could get away with. Railroads were to be obsoleted as trucking progressed. And of course they immediately targeted urban electric railways for liquidation. Between 1929 and 1960 they virtually all disappeared. Freight railways were harder to get rid of but the Interstate Highway System was meant to do the trick.
So the Golden Gate Bridge has next to nothing to do with the current hsr-infrastructure crusade but everything to do with the highway lobby. The latter has never been doing better and there hardly a pol in office that will utter a word against freeway expansion.
PB sleeps with the enemy and only gives lip service to the passenger rail cause because there is easy money in it. You guys think Wunderman is a friend and Tolmach an enemy. You could not be more wrong.
joe Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 10:56 am
Crazy.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 12:39 pm
I’ll happily sign my name to the first two paragraphs in your post. But I’m skeptical about the third. Although the various transit advocates, including Robert, are for HSR and against freeway expansion, on the lobbyist level there’s no mode war, but instead the construction industry wants to build everything. Consider the following recent developments:
- APTA teamed up with the AASHTO to oppose the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill on the grounds that some of the carbon fees collected from cars would not be dedicated to transportation.
- A construction industry-funded outfit released a (shoddy) study claiming a high death toll from air pollution caused by traffic congestion, without mentioning uncongested car traffic, and proposing to build more freeways and mass transit as a solution.
Steve S. Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 8:05 am
And if you go by that kind of thinking, would you not agree that there is a renewed rail movement in the United States and that the contest is between it and what is now an entrenched road economy? And that if, by that metric, Golden Gate was a culmination of the nascent road movement, then the HSR project is emblematic of a nascent rail movement? Hm…even fuzzy logic is leading to rational conclusions.
Or conversely – you could say the GG Bridge:HSR as more and better roads:more and better rails
You see its an ANALOGY, not a point by point comparison.
synonymouse Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 10:58 am
The primary issue is political, not technical or environmental. The highway lobby is inherently anti-rail but the at-large business establishment will support any initiative that is growth-mongering.
The closest analogy to the hsr scheme is BART, and that’s a nasty case of sibling rivalry.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 9:39 pm
Precisely. Support for high speed rail is strong in California because people are fed up with having to drive everywhere or suffer the inconvenient and obnoxious experience of flying. People want choices, and they know that means rail has to be a much bigger part of the transportation system.
I’m not sure what part of 2/3 voter support for Measure R in LA County, BART to San José in Santa Clara County, and SMART in Sonoma and Marin counties synonymouse doesn’t understand.
synonymouse Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Comparing the GG Bridge to the cause of rail transit was so far removed from reality that I had until just now that I had forgotten its real historical impact.
Which was of course within 3 years to kill off the ferryboats and the NWP electric operations to Mill Valley and Manor. Real, ie. steam and diesel, NWP passenger service was successively cut back to San Rafael and Santa Rosa with the last RDC’s to Eureka gone in the sixties. The GG Bridge is the ancestral enemy of rail.
Today, with the new, much lighter roadbed the GG Bridge could accommodate a second deck for light rail but naturlich that would be entirely too logical, too moderate for the PB mindset rabidly infected with Brutalism. They would eschew theGG Bridge to Marina or Geary approach and demand slapping broad gauge across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and cutting a scorched earth 5′ 6″ swath, no doubt on stilts, to Santa Rosa. Unfortunately for Wunderman et al BART has lost its alllure in the Northbay as it has become associated with urban grubbiness, mean streets and gang crime.
Tony D. Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 1:37 pm
You have absolutely no room to talk about REALITY.
synonymouse Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
The GG Bridge killed passenger rail in the Northbay – reality.
In the case of the P&SR the SP killed off the passenger service immediately upon taking possession of the property in 1932 altho the wire stayed up until 1946. There was at least one support pole from the P&SR overhead on D Street in Petaluma until a few years ago.
Petaluma to Santa Rose would make a nice streetcar operation with a stop at the RP casino to be. They need a catchy name for the casino.
I have read nearly every post since this blog started.. And this is the single-most powerful post to date. Thank you for making the detailed comparison between the Golden Gate Bridge and HSR, the economics and choices then vs now. This is spot on.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 9:40 pm
Don’t thank me, thank Fresno County Supervisor Henry R. Perea for the op-ed that inspired this post!
OT: Committee may Vote on <a href="ftp://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/dailyfile/asm/assembly_Regular_Session.pdf/" Lowenthal and Galagani HSR bills tomorrow.
Appears both versions would place the Authority under the Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency. Budget would go through BTH Secretary, and depending on the version different rules would apply to employees and Board members.
Tom McNamara Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Excuse me:
and
Tom McNamara Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 12:47 pm
ARGH!!!!!!
Lowenthal: ftp://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/dailyfile/asm/assembly_Regular_Session.pdf (pg 29)
Galagani: ftp://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/dailyfile/sen/senate_Regular_Session.pdf (p. 34)
We need to create a California High Speed Rail District, like the Golden Gate Bridge District, to collect a high speed rail transit impact fee on all new development in the district. This is how many road projects are paid for. The district could also provide revenue guarantees, through gas or sales taxes if necessary, because Prop 1A prohibits state operating subsidies but it does not prevent a special district from doing so. This district would only including counties served by California High Speed Rail.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 2:24 pm
So, basically you want to ensure conservative opposition dooms it?
There is also no need for such revenue guarantees or operating subsidies unless you build a system uniquely shitty compared to all other HSR systems.
Howard Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 3:36 pm
If (when) CHSR makes profits it will not need revenue guarantees and therefore no taxes need to be collected. It is only a hypothetical Plan B that should never need to be used, but it existence should reassure investors and therefore attract the private investment we need with low interest rates. The district would not include the rural and conservative counties that would vote against supporting high speed rail. In fact if polls show it necessary Orange County could be left out and therefore the LA to Anaheim segment could be put off until a Phase 1.1 that would be paid for by Phase 1 operating profits. After Phase 1 is generating operating profits the CHSR District could be expanded to include Phase 2 counties to accelerate the funding and construction of Phase 2.
Stephen Smith Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 4:21 pm
If (when) CHSR makes profits it will not need revenue guarantees and therefore no taxes need to be collected. It is only a hypothetical Plan B that should never need to be used, but it existence should reassure investors and therefore attract the private investment we need with low interest rates.
Kinda like all those state taxless finance schemes for canal and railroad projects in the beginning of the 19th century, or the federal taxless finance schemes that led to all those transcontinental railroads. And those turned out great, amirite?!?!
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 5:37 pm
Just like the tolls on the Interstates pay for the system….
joe Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 6:47 pm
Other 19th century failures: Erie Canal, “Seward’s folly”, The Brooklyn Bridge and the clearly unconstitutional Louisiana Purchase.
Unrelated:
On Wednesday, the city of about 15,000 is scheduled to go before the Fresno Local Agency Formation Commission to seek approval to expand its so-called “sphere of influence” — by 3,220 acres. The move is basically the first step to expanding city limits.
“The footprint of Parlier’s [proposed] expansion is almost as big as the footprint of high- speed rail in the San Joaquin Valley,” he added.
Read more: http://fresnobeehive.com/news/2011/08/land_rush_on_in_rural_fresno_c.html#comments#ixzz1Vz6DEfMw
Won’t someone lease think of the olives!
In other news, David Crane has resigned from the Authority Board, and Jerry Brown has appointed his jobs czar, Michael Rossi, to serve on the Authority. Of particular note, Rossi lives in Pebble Beach, so Robert and Michael can carpool together to go to Authority Board meetings!
joe Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 8:10 pm
Wow.
Two dudes with experience in finance and and eye into how the 3.5 B ARRA funding translates into taxpayers who buy stuff.
why doesn’t hsr add facilities fees and other taxes to the ticket price the way airlines do
Tom McNamara Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 4:44 pm
The Passenger Facility Charge, at least in the US, was a novel idea from 1991 that assumed what was necessary to encourage greater deregulation and competition in the airline marketplace was to build gates that were not owned by legacy carriers. Up until this point, airlines owned outright their gates and they could in effect completely deny access to an airline that wanted to operate.
Although I’m not sure, I believe that since other HSR systems are in effect monopolies, there is an incentive for them to expand facilities to reach the optimal amount of demand. (At least in theory.)
But given that airports and cities float debt all the steenkin time, it would seem pretty reasonable for the Legislature to allow a city with a station to slap on a PFC up to a cap ($5) and use that to secure bonds to help construct the station. The key is making sure cities can’t raid the money, and that it’s in line with the true cost of the bonds….
Andre Peretti Reply:
August 24th, 2011 at 6:35 pm
In France, the tracks belong to RFF, to whom the SNCF pays tolls, but the stations are SNCF property. That is expected to cause problems with the deregulation of passenger rail. The SNCF won’t be too keen on expanding facilities for its competitors.
Andy M. Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 3:07 am
Depends.
In many cities we see Amtrak and Greyhund sharing facilities, or operating facilities in close proximity. Different operators and different modes may be rivals but the sum is so much more than the parts so interconnections offset the abstracted traffic. So I guess SNCF prefers its rivals to share its facilities than to create their own in unconnected locations.
Safety of high-speed rail’s viaducts questioned
Miles Bader Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 3:44 am
Hmm, so is TRAC (whose newsletter that is) some sort of NIMBY organization? The spittle-flecked screaming tone of that newsletter sort of suggest so, but ya never know…
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 6:37 am
It’s a Tolmach publication, the guy hates high speed rail for reasons known only to himself.
Miles Bader Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 6:45 am
I have actually noticed many “classic rail” fans hating on HSR for no coherent reason…
Steve S. Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 8:09 am
It’s European! And Japanese! And Europeans and Japanese only know how to make “toy” trains! Argh!
That really seems to be the attitude of some pro-rail anti-HSR advocates. These are the same advocates who seem to think the FRA is some sort of godsend rather than the nightmare it really is.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 8:36 am
Did any of you read the article?
Oh, that explains it. Continue typing away. NIMBY! NIMBY! NIMBY!
PS I did read the article. (Shocking in the cahsrblog context, I know — you might have to take a minute to breathe deeply and calm down when confronted with radically shocking concepts of this type.) I don’t agree with all of it. But I agree with some of it, which makes me a NIMBY by group-think definition.
Peter Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 9:15 am
“Did any of you read the article?”
Yes, and, as usual, it’s typical Tolmach trash. The only thing that makes any sense is his call for reducing the number of viaducts, which I think pretty much everyone agrees on. Other than that, trash.
Miles Bader Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 9:25 am
Hmm? Of course I read it, but I don’t have the expertise to judge whether any of its many rather dubious sounding claims are true or not.
As the tabloid tone and rather extreme use of pejorative language definitely screams “POLEMIC!”, it seems pretty natural to first check whether this guy is a known crank or not….
[Though I suppose the language might seem calm and mild-mannered to you Richard ... :]
synonymouse Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 10:41 am
Tolmach is, of course, correct, as he has been right along.
The chance of his critiques having any impact on the CHSRA scheme – nil.
Why, Simple, yet so simple it is hard for foamers to appreciate. The raison d”etre of PB-Bechtel-all known dba’s is to waste as much taxpayer money as possible. Pouring concrete is the nec plus ultra of waste and aerials are the ideal mans to effectuate this goal.
Grotesque waste, grotesque stupidity – it’s all around you. Every time you see BART footage on the tube there is that bulbous, bombastic trackage laid out right in front of you, like Bechtel-SP’s middle-finger salute across the generations.
Or consider the hopelessly dysfunctional Muni Central Subway, designed by a ward healer and influence peddler. What more do you need to know about the real purpose of infrastructure “investment”. What a blinking joke.
Miles Bader Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 3:49 pm
Hmm, well if synonymouse says he’s correct, he must be a crank!
Leroy W. Demery, Jr Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 7:02 pm
Yeah, ‘mouse, and it’s also clear that “evil entities” such as “PB” (aka “Parsons”) could be brought to heel within the framework of existing contract law.
Even more clear is the fact that no one – most of all the “good ol’ girls and boys” of all stripes – wants to do this.
Leroy W. Demery, Jr Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 6:58 pm
It’s well established that Randal O’Toole (no introduction necessary …) is a “classic” railfan and a steam train buff. He tosses about phrases such as “as much as I like trains…”
More recently, Robert Poole (Reason [or lack thereof] Foundation) wrote that he “likes trains,” and even listed the (overseas) regions where he’s ridden them.
I’ve read that even Thomas Rubin claims that he “likes trains.” (Rubin is the ex-LA County Transportation Commission controller who was pushed out of his cushy job then LACTC merged with the old SCRTD to form today’s LA County MTA).
I’m reminded of a segregationist’s retort from the ’60s “… some of my best friends are ‘Negroes’ …”
Leroy W. Demery, Jr Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 7:31 pm
Oh dear, did I forget to mention …
I refuse to ride any Amtrak train – unless I have absolutely no other choice (which does happen on occasion). The reason is because of the racially-motivated profiling that I get subjected to – even before I pull out a camera.
(Oh, double dear … the “r” word … and the “p” word…)
Police used to tell me )e.g. during traffic stops) that they thought I was “Arab” (“middle eastern,” “Moslem [sic],” “Turkish,” whatever). There once was a time when I found this entertaining – hell, I’ve even mistaken “for” Arab “by” Arabs). Today, no U.S. cop in his (or her) right mind would dare say that to me – and it ain’t funny anymore.
“Islamophobia” ain’t gonna go away anytime soon. So, as for CAHSR:
If Amtrak is the operator, then I shall not ride it.
Ever.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 27th, 2011 at 3:29 pm
It’s not exactly the same, though. O’Toole is a pro-auto hack. He likes trains the same way I like the Golden Gate bridge – something fun for an art museum, but not real transportation. It’s different from criticisms of HSR among actual rail supporters – e.g. the kind of people who think the Empire Builder is subsidizing the Acela rather than the reverse, who think Amtrak and the FRA’s present operating culture is fine and view HSR as a foreign importation unsuitable to unique American circumstances, who are against megaprojects on principle, or who just want the US to restore the 1920s-era train system. For example, William Lind is the last kind of pro-rail anti-HSR commentator; and the URPA has a large contingent of the first and second kinds.
Reality Check Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 12:22 pm
I’ve known Tolmach for over 20 years, and he’s among the biggest transit and intercity rail advocates I’ve met. He’s knowledgeable, thoughtful and well traveled and seems to know his stuff. Back when he was working for Caltrans Division of Rail, he did lots of advocacy and lobbying for Amtrak California corridor routes and was, I believe, in charge of designing their timetables. As a “technical“, he doesn’t go easy on what he sees as incompetence or corruption or sub-optimal/wasteful plans, and his style has long rankled the “let’s not rock the boat” or “all rail (even if wasteful or poorly-planned/operated) is good!” type of “political” advocate.
As I see it, Tolmach’s problems (or, as Robert characterized it, “hate”) regarding CA HSR relate solely to how the HSRA and its consultants have been (mis) managing the project.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
Look, I’ll buy Altamont and even Tejon. But I-5 is just out there. Viaducts are insanely expensive, but one thing they’re not is unsafe in earthquakes. And $247 billion is a number pulled out of a hat, used to just move the Overton window to make $65 billion suddenly look like a medium estimate.
Reality Check Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 2:20 pm
Hey, it was just a long-winded way to say the Tolmach I know does not — as Robert said — “hate” HSR. Does he “hate” the HSRA? Yeah, probably … but that’s hardly surprising or news since I doubt there are many pro-HSR “technicals” who don’t have major problems with the HSRA’s “work” so far.
synonymouse Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 2:24 pm
The point about I-5 is that it is cheap. That is the reason why it is where it is. If they could have done an I-5 magnitude freeway cheaply along 99 they would have. And they avoided all the disruption and fights with stakeholders who would have had their property either taken or trashed.
Sound familiar? I-5, while not perfect, is pretty good. It is fast, cheap and express. It will do nicely for a starter and is at most 50 miles displaced to the west from 99.
The monies saved can be applied to connecting to Sac from the outset. Well worth it to serve the state capital, a major traffic generator.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 3:41 pm
50 miles is a lot. If you want to just avoid hitting populated areas, going on a greenfield alignment is equally cheap, and gets you within a few kilometers of Downtown Fresno. Land acquisition is a small part of the cost of construction; I-5 saves you trivial money and time, while cutting out two major intermediate cities. And in a funding-constrained environment it’s even worse, because LA-Fresno is not useful if there’s no stop in or near Fresno…
adirondacker12800 Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Ah but with all the money they save they can bypass Merced and Modesto too.
synonymouse Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 5:37 pm
You will have an upgrade of the UP to 110mph, pretty good considering there are a lot of stops.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 27th, 2011 at 3:23 pm
You know, if UP could be convinced to let passenger rail run on it at acceptable speeds, we wouldn’t be having any of the discussions we’re having on this blog. They’d all be pointless. We’d be debating the American equivalent of Stuttgart21 instead.
Leroy W. Demery, Jr Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 7:07 pm
Re: “[Tolmach] hates high speed rail for reasons known only to himself.
As someone who gets his share of “bad press,” Robert, you certainly know darn well that the line above is not true. Shame on you for propagating it.
joe Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 7:27 pm
Oh Please.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/24/BAII1KRJ7U.DTL
A child can parse the Man’s blantant opportunism.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 27th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Leroy, for someone who thinks very little of Flyvbjerg and his cost-overrun arguments, you sure like defending someone who is claiming a factor-of-5 cost overrun. Even Wendell Cox thought $80 billion was enough for a made-up figure and saw no need to concoct $247 billion.
Andy M. Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 8:20 am
there is some sense in it. Viaducts, once built, need to be inspected regularly and at some point refurbishment programmes will have to kick in. On-surface rail is basically build and forget. In areas of low-density/ low land value I think surface rail has clear merits.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 9:45 am
And don’t expect refurbishment programs to be counted as an “operating” expense.
thatbruce Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 10:38 am
‘Build and forget’ may work for freight carriers, whose approach has been to reduce speed as the track decays, but no serious passenger operation can utilize this approach and remain profitable, or in business for too long.
Andy M. Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 11:37 am
Of course I’m not suggesting the track shouldn’t be maintained. But on a viaduct you are maintaining the track as well as the structure whereas with ground level track you are maintaining only the track. Any levelling, infill or dirt moving work you do during construction is thus basically build and forget, at least compared to the maintenance responsibilities that come with viaducts.
Miles Bader Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 7:21 pm
Viaducts may be more expensive and entail extra maintenance, but that’s no excuse for the article’s silly laundry-list-of-dubious-claims approach to attacking them.
If they’re more expensive, it suffices to say “they’re more expensive so try to minimize their use.”
Paulus Magnus Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 8:50 am
Epic lulz.
There are two things you are getting wrong. The cost at the time that the bonds were approved was $27 million. The final completed cost was $35 million.
That is a cost overrun of only 30%, which is very good on a cutting edge, first of a kind project. CAHSR has not built anything and it is already overrunning by more than that.
The second point is that the ability to build large projects like the Golden Gate and CAHSR went away when laws like the National Environmental Quality act was signed. The Sierra Club opposed the Golden Gate Bridge, but thankfully they were unable to stop it. Today’s enviromental movement has many more opportunities to sue. The Golden Gate Bridge could never be built under modern enviromental law. It was a hard process, even under the much saner laws that existed in the 1930s.
You mention in the post that the Golden Gate enabled growth in Marin County. Yes it did. Marin County would be a good example of sprawl if it wasn’t inhabited by rich people. That sprawl generated jobs and wealth. CAHSR has been designed not to enable sprawl, and for that reason CAHSR will generate far less jobs and wealth than it should.
Steve S. Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 8:15 am
For some reason I’m thinking of Schrödinger’s Cat right now…hmmm…
Anyway, (1) Current environmental regulations do increase the cost of large new works. They should also hamstring sprawl, since that is what is most degrading to the environment right now, but whatever.
(2) Would you consider the industrial pollutants status quo of the 1930s “sane”? That’s what the current environmental law was designed to hamstring. Of course, when the Clean Air act was signed, nobody really knew how disastrous sprawl would be to the environment.
(3) The sprawl regime is dead dead dead right now. CAHSR will generate more ancillary jobs and wealth right now than any sprawl-centric project, such as a freeway widening, ever could.
Another parallel is that just as the Golden Gate Bridge opened up new areas for cimmuting, so will HSR make commuting possible from places that are now just too far to make commuting realistic. It is thus opening new areas for commuting and so relieving pressure on the urban housing market. It’s smart sprawl if you like.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 9:39 am
So, to summarize.
Big engineering projects we think are totally kewl = “smart sprawl”. Plus, Netroots-focussed, Facebook-savvy, economy-growing, iPhone-enabled, environmentally-positive, paradigm-shifting, NIMBY-confounding and post-Baby Boomer. Also, awesome.
Big engineering projects we don’t like = “sprawl”.
Peter Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 9:45 am
Prick.
joe Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Mister Mxyzptlk:
Plus read his website and join the open standards based rail project on sourceforge.
Miles Bader Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 9:56 am
Sprawl is vast low density (but with a disproportionately high impact) development.
Rail network can be used to encourage development over a wide area, but which is not evenly distributed and low-density, by encouraging higher-density development near the stations.
That sort of thing isn’t sprawl.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 10:06 am
And HSR will do that how, by magic? Commuter rail might do that. Intercity, not so much.
Andy M. Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 10:14 am
Why not. The doability of a commute is determined by the time travelled, not the distance.
Look at places like Ciudad Real to see that people are commuting by HSR.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 11:22 am
Depending on the pricing, intercity rail can do that, at a few places. Mishima is the standard example – it’s way too far from Tokyo for commuting on legacy rail, but on the Shinkansen it’s realistic, and with a season pass it’s expensive but affordable if you’re upper middle-class.
Andy M. Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 11:45 am
People are commuting from Ciudad real to Madrid. People are commuting from Lleida to Barcelona. People are commuting from the Kent Coast to London. And it’s not just the uper middle-class. People may have other reasons to live in those places and maybe fork out the extra money for an annual ticket. High travel costs may be offset by low costs of land (at least initially). Sometimes people can’t pick and choose where they work and suppose the husband works in SF and the wife works in LA, there will be places in the middle where both can do that. Also there are the people who already live in those places and don’t want to move because their children are at school etc, but then suddenly have the opportunity to look at jobs that were previously not doable without moving.
Elizabeth Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 12:18 pm
It should be noted in all the cases (and especially spain) that the commute service is not being provided by the mainline high speed rail service.
Renfe has another service called Avant which uses more basic trainsets and offers fares that are highly subsidized by the government. Those expecting similar kinds of bumps will be very disappointed unless they get their regional transportation authorities to step up and provide a similar service.
Someone occupying a seat for the last 80 miles of a 480 mile train ride generally means an empty seat for 400 miles so long distance operators go out of their way not to serve the long distance commute. They do it by schedule and price.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Um, what? The short-distance local Shinkansen runs are operated by the same companies that own the lines and operate the express trains. The TGV commuters ride regular TGVs, operated by SNCF.
Peter Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 2:33 pm
A lot of passengers on the ICE are commuters. In fact, there are “Express” ICEs specifically for that purpose.
Peter Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 2:41 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercity-Express#ICE-Sprinter
joe Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Elizabeth;
In the UK study of HSR benefits to German towns with a HSR station vs neighbors without, they found economic benefits due to the ability to commute to a wider range of opportunities.
Also, the time between Fresno and SF is 10 minutes shorter that the time between Caltrain to/from Gilroy and Palo Alto.
Is it cost effective? If you work from home 2 times a week and pay a Fresno mortgage – maybe.
Andy M. Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 3:38 am
“Someone occupying a seat for the last 80 miles of a 480 mile train ride generally means an empty seat for 400 miles so long distance operators go out of their way not to serve the long distance commute. They do it by schedule and price”
On many routes in the UK a surcharge is charged for travelling into London at peak times (well, officially they say it’s a discount if you don’t, but it amounts to the same thing). The trains are packed with commuters nevertheless. And they’re not all upper-middle classies either. So the higher fare may limit that type of commuting somewhat, but not make it totally unnattractive.
joe Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 7:00 am
I would trouble too much over CARRD’s confusion.
If I board at Fresno and ride two stops I’m in San Jose in 51 minutes, Palo Alto in 1:03 minutes. Doing that 3 times a week makes me a commuter, from Fresno!
That commute is faster than some Caltrain trips to Palo Alto/Stanford. 1:30 from Gilroy.
I’m sure CARRD will fret over ticket prices and filling trains and etc.
Clearly the access HSR provides the CV is transformational. Also, massive demand for more trains.
Miles Bader Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
Or even middle-middle class … I know someone who commutes by Shinkansen, and they aren’t rich — their company (for whatever reason) pays for their commuter pass…
Andrew Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 6:16 pm
I commuted on shinkansen too, Shin-Yokohama to Tokyo, about 15-20 miles, one stop (back then anyway). Company paid the base rate and I paid the difference in order to ride shinkansen. Well worth it. This is another reason hsr needs to connect more cities, creating more short and medium distance options, rather than just blindly prioritizing SF-LA (like Altamont and I-5). The system needs to enable trips like North Bay-SF, North Bay-South Bay, SF-Monterey Bay (via Gilroy), North Bay-Sacremento, etc.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 6:54 pm
Please distinguish the I-5 racetrack insanity from Altamont, which connects the Bay Area to more commuter towns than Pacheco. There’s already a largish base of commuters from San Joaquin and Stanislaus Counties, and to a lesser extent Merced County, to the Bay Area. If it were Japan, and SF, Santa Clara, and Alameda Counties were designated cities, then all of those three Central Valley counties would be considered part of the metro area.
joe Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 7:23 pm
If we were Japan, we would have both alignments.
Andrew Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 7:35 pm
Altamont creates a dead-end spur line that enters the Bay from the side, making it impossible to connect the major nodes of the Bay Area TO EAHC OTHER, and permanently locks the North Bay (via Vallejo and Fairfield) and Monterey Bay (via Gilroy) out of the system. by contrast, a route that enters thru Pacheco, goes up the Peninsula, across to Oak and out thru I-80 corridor, with a few aux. lines including ACE, connects all 9 bay counties plus S Cruz and Monterey counties, and allows for virtually any kind of intra-regional trip, PLUS quick service to Sacramento and LA from anywehre. Altamont, although it incidentally enables some nice mid valley to bay area trips, fundamentally sacrifices connectedness (quantity of places connected to hsr and quantity/variety of trips that will be able to take advantage of hsr) in favor of a simple route built for long-distance trips from a couple of major Bay Area nodes. Great for the nodes that get included, but permanently kills the possibility of TOD elsewhere. Ie, the same mistake as I-5.
Despite the name, the ultimate point of HSR is not high speed between regions; it’s convenience and connectedness (largely as a result of the auxiliary lines and related TOD that it catalyzes). Having high speed between regions is not the ultimate goal. It’s just part of the formula for overall convenience and connectedness. There are a few commenters on this blog who get this, like jimsf and Peter I think, but based on what I’ve been reading these past couple weeks it seems like even most supporters of chsr haven’t figured this out yet.
Andrew Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Another point about Altamont: dead ends are inherently inefficient. The pacheco + I-80 corridor route eliminates TWO dead ends from the system (SF and Sac) and eliminates the terminal capacity problem at SF. Trains would enter Sacto. from both directions, allowing onward trips and reducing empty seats out of that station.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 8:17 pm
So how is the weather on your planet, that being the theoretical speculative sci-fi planet on which a new Transbay tunnel to SF is remotely physically feasible?
HSTSheldon Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 8:22 pm
Agreed Andrew. I admit to being an outsider looking on but Pacheco + Capitol Corridor seems to have more long term potential. As you say, Altamont is really a compromise in the name of cost and does not address the Northern parts of the Bay Area. I dont think you will avoid the SF dead end however, at least with the current configuration of the terminal. There may be opportunities to leverage the 4th and King depot however with a 2nd TransBay crossing.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
And Pacheco does?
HSTSheldon Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 8:49 pm
Pacheco much more than Altamont leaves open the option of a 2nd TransBay crossing and going up the Capital Corridor. You have heard this before. Andrew stated as much. I did not think I had to repeat. You may comment on the cost of a 2nd TransBay tube, which by the way may be a good insurance policy if built somewhat removed from the existing tube for seismic evacuation issues.
Andrew Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 9:56 pm
Despite Richard’s usual tactic of deliberate overstatement (or, in Richardspeak, “desperate, gasping, hyperventilating, hyperbolic, extreme overkill overstatement”), a second Transbay tube is an established part of the discussion, even among real engineers! (or, to balance out Richard’s overstatement, I should say “utterly inevitable”? Hey this tactic is fun, maybe people won’t even realize I’m exaggerating!).
Joey Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 10:32 pm
That article, which I’ve seen, is notably lacking on the technical details of how that would actually work. Especially since there are a few large buildings in the way. A few few maps still http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4465574586/in/set-72157622518181915/exist showing 2007 alignment plans for a second tube. These are from the Bay Area Regional Rail Plan (which took HSR and the DTX into account). Regrettably, no Eastern connection to the TBT has been possible since the construction of 301 Mission. The best you can do is (a) A Mission to 7th tunnel which would be limited to regional trains only or (b) A new terminal between Beale and Main which would of course preclude through-routing.
Alon Levy Reply:
August 27th, 2011 at 3:15 pm
If California were Japan, it would build one alignment, and construct a terminal with enough capacity that the limiting factor to running more trains would be the mainline feeding into it. And it would build just one alignment; Japan is only doing two alignments on Tokyo-Osaka because the Tokaido Shinkansen is old and unimprovable and at capacity.
While Pacheco leaves open the option of spending a few extra billion dollars on the CC, which Altamont obviates, neither really deals with the Transbay Tube. A second crossing is far superior to all other alignments except in its construction costs and thus obviates the need for anything else. If it is built first, then Dumbarton won’t be built (making service to RWC faster isn’t worth the added Bay crossing), and if any Altamont option is built first, then Pacheco won’t be built (cutting 20 minutes from LA-SJ isn’t worth a second mountain pass tunnel), but the operationally inferior options may require CAHSR to go and build superior alignments later.
Joey Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 10:33 pm
Minor formatting error, but you get the idea.
Joey Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 10:33 pm
Oops, that was supposed to be below my post. Double fail.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 10:25 pm
Deliberately lobotomize the system to force politicians to come back with more money to fix a self-inflicted problem? You would make a great MTC planner….
Miles Bader Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
I’m not saying HSR will [necessarily] do that, I’m saying that to the extent HSR has an effect on commuting patterns, it will be similar to the effect of any rail system, and that isn’t “sprawl.”
[It's mostly anti-HSR people who are pushing the commuter thing, screaming "OMG HSR = sprawl!1!"]
Andre Peretti Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 11:57 am
It’s generally admitted, in France, that the TGV has created smart sprawl, very different from the oppressive sort of sprawl you have around big cities. An often cited example is the City of Tours, 200km (125 miles) from Paris. With the TGV, it is now 1 hour from Paris, which means you can now have a job in Paris without having to move there. This is especially interesting for families with children. For the price of a tiny appartment in Paris they can have a comfortable house with a garden in Tours. It more than compensate the money spent on peak-hour fares.
The TGV has created a specific type of migration: families leave Paris and childless couples or single people move to Paris.
Saying (as some anti-HSR ecologists do) that the TGV has created dormitory towns is unfair. This migration indirectly creates or conserves many jobs: teachers, doctors, plumbers, postmen, etc… It has also revived local cultural life.
Andrew Reply:
August 27th, 2011 at 8:13 pm
I think that the number of people who use the TGV to commute is pretty small. In the case of Tours, there are only 3 TGVs inbound in morning rush hour to Paris, and the trip time is 1 hour 10 minutes. The TGV is not a very popular way to commute because (a) ticket prices are high (b) infrequent train schedules make commuting inconvenient (c) the time it takes to travel from home to the train station, and from the train station to work. For many people a commute on the TGV from Tours to Paris would be a 2 hour commute, each way. Even the Shinkansen in Japan and the domestic high speed trains in Southeast England, which are much more heavily used for commuting than the TGV, carry a tiny fraction of all commuters to Tokyo/Osaka/Nagoya and London respectively.
So much for the BART protests having a point: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/25/BAB91KRBA5.DTL
In his article Tolmach levels two serious charges against PB-CHSRA which need to be rebutted by the Palmdale apologists on this site if they are avoid being viewed as PB mouthpieces.
One is that the true mileage differential between Tehachapi and Tejon is at least 48 miles, almost twice the 25 miles the CHSRA is claiming. Secondly PB-CJHSRA has studiously ignored the seismic dangers posed by the White Wolf fault, while presumably palpitating over the seismic issues at Tejon.
I eagerly await the official spin on these allegations.
Eric M Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 11:24 am
So is your name John Tinker?
Peter Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
What is he comparing “Tejon” to “Tehachapi”?
Best I can tell is he’s comparing his I-5 alignment plus Tejon (about 240 miles from Los Banos to Santa Clarita) to the Authority’s route via Fresno and Bakersfield and Palmdale (about 300 miles). Somehow his comparison seems just a little bit disingenuous.
In contrast, the difference between the Authority’s route and a Tejon alignment via Fresno and Bakersfield is about 25 miles.
synonymouse Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
That would be disingenuous, but my presumption is thatTolmach is indeed comparing LA to Bakersfield via Tejon vs. via Tehachapi. My guess is that he is saying the final and real Tehachapi alignment is much more circuitous than advertised and perhaps the optimal Tejon routing is shorter than stated. This needs clarification, definitely.
Peter Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Spend 2 minutes on google earth and compare it to the alternatives they’re looking at for Bakersfield-Palmdale and Palmdale-LA. Then tell me the route is “much more circuitous”.
synonymouse Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 4:17 pm
Tolmach would be undercutting his own argument if he were comparing long routes. But I don’t think that is the case as his route scheme has a direct line from Tejon to Bako.
He needs to be more specific.
synonymouse Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 4:29 pm
It looks like I mis-read the TRAC pdf. Apparently they are saying that the CHSRA preferred alignment LA to SF via Tehachapi is at least 23 miles longer than the CHSRA claims.
Peter Reply:
August 25th, 2011 at 8:11 pm
Which is an utterly ridiculous claim for him to make, especially without backing it up with any data. He would have to say what specific alignments he’s referring to in order to make that even the slightest bit believable. If he can’t (anyone want to a bet that he can?), it’s just further evidence that he is a crank.
No