Peninsula HSR Opponents Organizing in Central Valley
This should come as no surprise, but Peninsula NIMBYs and high speed rail opponents are starting to organize in the Central Valley, hoping to block a project they don’t want in their own backyards by going where the action is:
A group of Kings County citizens opposed to the state’s high-speed rail project are hosting a series of public workshops about the system’s environmental impact documents. [Note from Robert: these were held on September 8 and 10.]
Called Citizens for California High Speed Rail Accountability, the nonprofit organization is hosting the free meetings to provide an update on the Fresno-to-Bakersfield segment as well as prepare citizens to submit public comments on the environmental documents.
The group, which is not affiliated with the California High-Speed Rail Authority, has hired attorney Gary Patton to review the documents and provide written comment. Patton is a former Santa Cruz County supervisor and counsel to the Sacramento-based Planning and Conservation League. He has been a vocal critic of the high-speed rail plan.
Gary Patton, of course, is the virulently anti-passenger rail fanatic who bragged about killing rail to Santa Cruz (and thereby causing huge traffic problems and sprawl). He believes in dependence on oil, sprawl, and freeways – exactly the things that have undermined the economy and quality of life in the Central Valley.
Patton, the Planning and Conservation League and the Peninsula NIMBYs aren’t satisfied blocking improved passenger rail in their backyards but also want to do it in the Central Valley as well. There are a small handful of farmers who oppose HSR as well, but clearly Patton and his allies want to exploit that opposition for their own purposes.
Again, this isn’t surprising, so why write about it? This is significant not just in terms of keeping tabs on the HSR opponents, but also in understanding the larger importance of the project.
For decades, the Central Valley, and the San Joaquin Valley in particular, have been left behind by people in the rest of California. People in the Bay Area and Southern California generally look down on the Valley. Growing up I was always told Fresno was the “armpit” of California and Bakersfield was something even worse. A hot, dusty, backward place is about all people on the coasts know of the Valley.
That cultural disdain is matched with a deep political disdain, the point that the Valley has been consistently left behind by major public investments and projects. The federal government helped in the 1930s with the Central Valley Project. The State Water Project, approved in 1959, largely bypassed the Valley to deliver water to Southern California. In the 1960s, Interstate 5 literally bypassed the cities of the Valley, who were left with a substandard freeway that even today is not fully up to interstate standards. Only in 2005 did the San Joaquin Valley finally get a UC campus.
Instead of bypassing the Valley cities, the high speed rail project was designed to connect them while carrying passengers between the larger coastal metropolises. This investment and the project have the potential to dramatically reshape the Valley economy for the better. Putting cities like Fresno and Bakersfield within two hours – in some cases within an hour – of the job engines of the Bay Area and SoCal will provide a transformative boost to the economic fortunes of Valley residents.
And it has benefits for the state as a whole. Businesses can set up shop in the more affordable locations of the Valley. Mid-route cities on European HSR lines, like Zaragoza and Ciudad Real, have seen significant benefits from being connected to larger cities. And with less unemployment in the Valley, the state will save money on social services and have more money to spend via increased tax revenues. The Obama Administration directed HSR stimulus funding in California to the Valley precisely because it has some of the highest unemployment in the state.
No wonder Valley cities like Merced, Fresno, Bakersfield and Visalia are so strongly supportive of high speed rail. And it’s one reason why HSR advocates have been working to organize supporters in the Valley, and helps explain why those efforts are being stepped up as we speak.
It also shows just how wrong it is for Peninsula NIMBYs to attack the Central Valley HSR section. It reinforces the long tradition of coastal California spitting on the Valley, of abandoning the Valley, of leaving the Valley behind. When NIMBYs and HSR opponents call for redirecting the billions in HSR funding already earmarked from the Valley to the coasts, they are saying to the Valley “your fate in life is to be poor, to breathe unhealthy air and to be overly dependent on a single industry. It’s telling the Valley that they can never aspire to anything greater, and can never share in 21st century prosperity.
Gary Patton already caused serious damage in Santa Cruz County, whose transportation system is completely broken, where sprawl has eaten up some of the state’s best farmland, where workers have a hard time participating in the Silicon Valley job market. Now he wants to do the same thing to the Central Valley. There are legitimate issues to be resolved in the Valley, and I understand the reasons why some farmers are upset, even though I completely disagree with them. But they should know that Peninsula NIMBYs do not have their best interests in mind with this organizing effort.
High speed rail is key to the Valley’s future. Stopping it is a good way to ensure the Valley’s economic crisis lasts for a long time to come.
1. The CV population is growing disproportionally from the coasts, Bay Area in particular. Register and get them voting.
2. IMHO, destroying infrastructure is an anti-growth strategy. One objective is to muck up transportation; make it difficult to move locally about don’t let locals commute to jobs to contain the population. I’ve seen this in Montana – it fails. The environment is degraded by local needs driven by the lack of economic opportunity.
synonymouse Reply:
September 11th, 2011 at 9:19 pm
I don’t like at all like freeways, especially urban ones, but the highway lobby case for I-5 is a strong one. It provides a highway link between the ends of the state, is fast and therefore as fuel efficient as trucks are going to be and it parallels other utilities, ie. the Aqueduct and Path 15.
It occupies lesser quality land for agriculture and was cheap. It is reasonably straight and can be used as a bargain hsr ROW. All of the freeways that have trashed the Bay Area are much worse from the environmental POV. You can hear the noise from miles away both in town and in the “burbs”. You want to see ugly try the Embarcadero Freeway or any other in SF. That’s the kind of abomination they would have imposed on the Valley towns had they built I-99 in the ’60′s.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 11th, 2011 at 9:43 pm
I-99 would be somewhere in the Atlantic or maybe, in some alternate universe, parallel to US 9 south of Woodbridge New Jersey. If they upgrade SR99 to an Interstate it would probably be I-7. Much of it is Interstate grade without massive viaducts.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 11th, 2011 at 11:56 pm
I thought there were plans to designate it I-9.
James Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Some odd number between 5 and 15 according to the Interstate numbering system. 9 would leave open the option of using 7 later and 9 is similar to 99. It would be nice to have the problem of assigning a name to the 20th or 30th HSR line.
Misanthrope Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
I-99 already exists and serves the State College and Altoona areas of Pennsylvania between I-70/76 and I-80
For the most part, this article is right on, but saying Patton believes in sprawl and freeways doesn’t match my experience. I believe he is anti-growth, based on his connection to Landwatch, which has derailed planning and development in Monterey County.
Daniel Krause Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 5:21 pm
Patton may not believe in sprawl, but wishing away growth by limiting infrastructure leads to the worst kind of sprawl. In the Central Valley, no HSR (along with the TOD it will engender) = more freeway expansions and more sprawl.
Having a no growth philosophy actually leads to destructive growth. Having a philosophy that considers the facts of life, that growth is happening b/c population growth will continue until it levels off at around 9 or 10B people, can lead to pragmatic decisions such as providing more efficient ways for people to live. Patton’s philosophy is one of denialism and it is tragic because the outcomes are the exact opposite of a better environment.
Daniel Krause Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 5:34 pm
On more point. Even if Patton has been successful in limiting growth in Monterey County or some other areas during his career, this does not change the fact a strictly no-growth philosophy of environmentalism ultimately fails at a larger scale. While communities such as Monterey (and the Peninsula who he now represents) may prevail in restricting growth and infrastructure investment, the growth will simply be shifted to other areas, and usually to communities with less resources. In my view, no growthers aren’t really environmentalists at the macro scale but they often delude themselves they are as they limit their view to a small local and choose to ignore the impacts that shifting population growth to other areas (usually in exurbia at the fringes of the urbanized area).
Peter Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 6:04 pm
VERY true.
Nathanael Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 10:54 pm
*Real* no-growthers concentrate on promoting contraception and the education of women, which are, in the long run, the only documented and proven ways to slow population growth.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 8:06 pm
LandWatch isn’t this insanely anti-transit and pro-sprawl. They do good work in protecting agricultural open space in Monterey County, the very same space that was destroyed in Watsonville in Santa Cruz County when Patton helped block greater density in Santa Cruz and the transit needed to concentrate growth within existing corridors.
One of Monterey County’s current supervisors is very close to LandWatch and she is anything but anti-transit, and was supportive of the proposal to link Monterey, Seaside, Marina and Castroville with light rail.
Patton hates trains. It’s irrational, but it’s true.
Robert- do you (or anyone else) have more detail, beyond the post you linked to, regarding the train to Santa Cruz scuppered by Gary Patton?
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 11:04 am
Here you go.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 11:44 am
Your link doesn’t work.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 11:45 am
Let’s try this again
Peter Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Hmmm, it appears his hopes of keeping Santa Cruz County “independent” of Santa Clara County didn’t really work, if the daily traffic on Highway 17 and 152 are any gauge. I guess that constraining growth is more important than people’s lives when those people who have to drive to San Jose or Palo Alto or so every day.
Jon Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Thanks for the link, but… urgh. We don’t want LRVs for travel between Santa Cruz and San Jose, nor do we want old-tyme dinner trains for the tourists. If you’re gonna go to the expense of rebuilding the old line then DMUs and make it time-competitive with driving.
Jon Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Also- “A monorail alternative was first raised in August 1969 by Santa Cruz County supervisors but nothing came of it.” Heh!
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 5:19 pm
There are DMUs that are LRVs…..
Jon Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 10:15 am
The point is the trains should have a higher speeds than can be achieved by LRVs.
Peter Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 10:48 am
Yeah, they were looking at 75 minutes between Santa Cruz and Los Gatos. About twice as long as by car, on a good day. The main problem isn’t the top speed of the trains, but the curviness of the route.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 12:58 pm
LRV can go 90 MPH if you want them to. They did it fairly regularly up until the 30s.
Reality Check Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 2:13 pm
It’s true. I remember Patton as a member of the SCCo. Board of Supes worked like hell to kill plans by Eccles & Eastern to rebuild the old South Pacific Coast line over the Santa Cruz Mountains in the Hwy 17 corridor. I attended a number of the public meetings (overrun by “mountain folk” NIMBYs whose rugged and independent way of mountain living was going to be destroyed — or so they said) and collected the various alternatives analysis documents at the time. All on paper, of course, since this was well before public agencies began routinely putting electronic versions of such things on the Intertubes.
Among the interesting bits were the tunneling experts they brought in to evaluate how restore the tunnels and also with the alignment around the part of the historic route now under the waters of Lexington Reservoir.
Mike Hart, one of the principals of Eccles & Eastern, went on to be the owner/CEO of Sierra Railroad which has since (apparently morphed into) Sierra Northern Railroad (apparently without Mike) — the likely operator of the future Santa Cruz – Davenport tourist/dinner train when the Santa Cruz Co. RTC completes the purchase of the UP (ex-SP) Davenport Branch.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 8:08 pm
Thanks to the folks above for providing the background. The link I included goes to a report from the September 2009 Palo Alto teach-in, where he bragged of his role in killing the rail project. It was a huge loss for Santa Cruz County, which has been dealing with the aftermath ever since.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 11:30 am
A huge loss for railfans, certainly (And yes, I have an irrational small boy’s attachment to and prejudice towards trains.)
The transportation value was and is entirely unclear.
Choof choof foam foam.
Get a grip.
Why don’t we give the hsr to a private company to build and run? That would be a start to doing it right.
synonymouse Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 1:02 pm
A private company would immediately drop Palmdale-Tehachapi and Pacheco. My guess is they would go for I-5 if they could get the median free from Caltrans.
One of their problematic concerns would be getting and keeping a cheap union(s).
I wonder if they might try to snag some extra revenue by handling high end freight over Tejon and take some pressure off the Loop. Dunno if you could run diesels at 3.5% thru a couple of 6 mile tunnels. That would be like two Moffatt Tunnels back to back.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 9:04 pm
Very few people build in the medians today. When the Europeans use a freeway corridor, they build alongside the freeway rather than in its median.
Travis D Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 11:22 pm
They would not drop Palmdale. Though they might build some sort of Grand Union Station in Livermore or Dublin/Pleasanton
But, that’s beside the point, soon private money will be rolling in to complete the route from San Jose to LA.
Nathanael Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 10:57 pm
*Exactly like* the CHSRA, a private consortium would attempt to figure out which of the Grapevine and Palmdale routes was cheaper and more straightforward to build, and would do whichever it was.
(I’m beginning to suspect that the best approach is to go south from Palmdale and then west, which wasn’t really considered before.)
Andre Peretti Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 4:46 am
A private consortium will want to have quick returns on investments. That means building the line through cheap unbuilt land and bypassing many cities. They won’t try to get the highest, but the most profitable ridership. Getting people out of their cars won’t be their prime target and neither will be job creation. They will try to keep labor costs as low as possible. A good business plan doesn’t necessarily coincide with town-and-country development.
Profitability has a price.
synonymouse Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 11:25 am
Thank you, M. Peretti, for bolstering my contention that a private entrepreneur, like a Richard Branson, would would want the fastest, most direct line at the best price. Enter Tejon-I-5-Altamont.
Joey Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 11:46 am
I’m pretty sure Andre Peretti was talking about a greenfield alignment that would still serve cities with beetfield stations, rather than an alignment that serves no one.
Andre Peretti Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 5:25 pm
Beetfield stations are the result of lobbying by local politicians. Scenario: First, SNCF plans no station. Then, under political pressure, it reluctantly accepts to build one without altering the planned route.
Aix-en-Provence TGV, with 4.5 million riders/year, is considered successful.
Haute-Picardie TGV, with only 400,000 is considered a failure. It was the result of a judgment of Solomon. Amiens and St Quentin wanted a station. As two was one too many, SNCF built a station in between to satisfy both. It actually satisfied neither.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 7:23 pm
Perhaps that how SNCF/RFF works in Paris-centric France, but if you look across the Pyrenees, you’ll find that Spain is full of peripheral stations on new high speed lines.
The only city centre stations are in major cities in which all trains will stop. The only cities which have no station are small towns.
Otherwise, the high speed line bypasses the city (one would have to be insane to propose 350kmh operation right through the middle of conurbations) and a station is designed (from the start) and built on the urban outskirts.
Now some of these stations are white elephants of the first order (eg Requena AVE serves 40-50 passengers per day), but to make up for that Spain constructs such stations for circa EUR15m. (Perhaps a fifth of CHSRA=PBQD costs.) But all of them were built in from the start, and that is more than reasonable: a high speed line passing through a region has to have some regional benefit, otherwise this is all just an imperial project in which the “flyover towns” get the noise and construction and no service.
No 350kmh trains on 15m viaducts or at ground level through the middles of Cuenca, Segovia, Plasencia, Guadalajara, etc, etc.
The larger cities with stations at which all trains will stop generally have existing rail lines through their centres complete with extensive obsolete freight yards and historical workshops. These lines are being rebuilt, very often in tunnels, the central stations completely renovated, and extensive urban improvements (parks, apartment buildings, etc) are being developed as part of the new rail access.
No suggestion of 350kmh trains on 15m tall viaducts or at ground level in Sevilla, Valencia, Zaragoza, Valladolid, etc.
On the whole this seems a reasonable way to design a politically and economically feasible network.
Nathanael Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 9:54 pm
“The larger cities with stations at which all trains will stop generally have existing rail lines through their centres complete with extensive obsolete freight yards and historical workshops. ”
Sounds like pretty much every one of the Central Valley cities, now, doesn’t it?
Joey Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 11:15 pm
Certainly, but note that every one of these cities either (a) every train stops or (b) A station loop is built and non-stopping trains bypass the city entirely (see: Zaragoza, Cuenca). There is no talk of running trains at full speed through the city center, which is problematic for a number of reasons.
Also note the part about tunneling the existing line making the downtowns they pass through much more pleasant and livable.
Andre Peretti Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 4:06 pm
I wasn’t taking sides. I just wanted to stress that a network granted to a consortium on a build-and-operate basis would be fundamentally different from one designed by a political entity.
A hybrid solutions might work, like designing everything first and then inviting private funding. In that case, private investors will take no risks on a project developped with no input from them. They will want their investment 100% guaranteed.
synonymouse Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
I couldn’t agree more.
Beetfield, greenfield, no matter it is still eminent domain, most likely with extreme prejudice, and is going to cost money. Freefield is much better and obviates tactfully the political requirement to serve low-revenue stations and provides a faster, express, more direct service for the deep pockets market at the two ends.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 5:04 pm
CHSRA hasn’t been designed by a political entity.
It’s all been done by a limitlessly corrupt private corporation, one with a long and unbroken record of fraud in public works megapropjects in California, one which has an unbroken record of manipulating the political system to ensure the largest public-to-private wealth transfers for capital construction projects, and one which has an unbroken record of leaving the public holding the bag, haemorrhaging money to operate ill-conveived and wasteful boondoggles.
What’s happening with PBQD=CHRSA is that capital costs are being maximized, ridership and construction costs are being systematically and fraudulently overstate and understated, and absolutely no attention is paid to operating efficiency. That’s somebody else’s problem, long after the criminal class of construction mafiosi have cleaned out the till.
The advantage of having a private corporation involved that had any “skin in the game” — ie any financial stake in and risk exposure to the operations of a system — would be that there would be any attention at all paid to “return on investments” (not just “quick” returns), and a carefully economically justifiable and risk-minimising construction program would proceed only to the extent that it would support ongoing operating success.
But that’s not what we have. The consultants who control the CHSRA have zero risk exposure and every possible incentive to do the most costly and wasteful thing at every single step.
The system we have, in which a private corporation has every incentive to maximize capital cost, every incentive to lie about “demand”, and absolutely no incentive to minimize operating costs or to maximize operating success, is one in which failure is guaranteed.
It’s heads they win, tails we lose. It’s perfect rational rent-seeking crony capitalism.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 6:10 pm
So this whole HSR between SF-LA is a clever ruse to build useless infrastructure?
synonymouse Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 8:01 pm
I am afraid that Richard is utterly and sadly entirely correct in his interpretation of events. The level of incompetence stretches credulity to the point where seeming paranoia becomes the only possible reaction. For instance even if Muni management was only asleep at the wheel how could they possibly have come up with something as “degueulasse” as the current Central Subway? You could make a case for “intelligent design”(on the part of an evil deity) over evolution with the Central Subway. It is so bad it had to be the product of a higher(?) mind not random probabilities.
Consider this motley cast of usual suspects:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/13/BU181L3SUQ.DTL&type=business
When MTC is involved you just know something ominous is afoot. Apparently in Italy the political system has deteriorated so badly that all the parties – from Communist to Fascist – as soon as they achieve power immediately strive to set up all their friends and cronies in sinecures and of course keep them there as long as possible. We are fast closing in on that same pathetic state of affairs.
Nathanael Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 9:55 pm
Syn and Richard are just hostile because their pet features have been dropped.
Syn doesn’t know jack about Italian politics, either, BTW.
Joey Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 11:18 pm
Putting synonymouse and Richard Mylnarik in the same category demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding. Look closely – Richard’s criticisms are based on experience, research, etc, whereas synonymouse just latches onto any conspiracy theories he can get a hold of.
Joey Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 11:20 pm
Not all high-speed lines are created equal. There’s nothing wrong with SF-LA high-speed rail in principal, but it seems to be being built in a way that maximizes costs and minimizes usefulness/ridership.
Gary Patton, of course, is the virulently anti-passneger [sic] rail fanatic who bragged about killing rail to Santa Cruz (and thereby causing huge traffic problems and sprawl).
Transit expansion doesn’t help cure congestion.
If we expect the opposition to tell the truth, then we need to start doing it ourselves.
Brian Stanke Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Turning your economy and cities into the equivalent of Detroit is the only way to “cure” congestion. No one I know wants their economy or property values to resemble Detroit’s. The link shows that both transit and road expansion do not “cure” congestion, but smart growth is still being studied as a way to improve congestion.
Derek Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 5:32 pm
The SR-91 express lanes in Orange County have cured congestion. “The average speed of vehicles in the express lanes averages over 60 mph when considering both on and off peak traffic, while the average speed in the freeway lanes averages less than 15mph, considering both on and off peak, with typical speeds averaging 1-5mph during peak hours.” http://www.sirit.com/Case_Studies/SR-91_Case_Study_Final.pdf
Peter Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 6:06 pm
They’ve only “cured” congestion in the express lanes. The freeway lanes obviously are all still congested to hell.
Derek Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 7:06 pm
This is why all freeway lanes ought to be express lanes!
J. Wong Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 8:11 pm
That’s right, don’t let anyone exit or enter the freeway, then they won’t get congested for those souls condemned to forever drive on them.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
I think you misunderstood. What Derek’s saying is that all freeway lanes should be tolled; he’s not commenting on local/express lane systems.
Peter Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 5:12 am
I’m sure J. Wong got it, sounded a lot like sarcasm to me…
Derek Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 7:47 am
Ah yes, when you can’t find a flaw in your opponent’s argument, dismiss it as sarcasm and walk away. That always works.
Derek Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 10:10 pm
“That’s right, don’t let anyone exit or enter the freeway, then they won’t get congested for those souls condemned to forever drive on them.”
Doesn’t a congested freeway already prevent people from driving on it?
Peter Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 8:21 am
Obviously not, otherwise it wouldn’t be congested.
I love how the HSR claims all of these benefits, especially the one about how people will commute to other bigger cities to work. How much will it cost to ride the train?? Oh that’s right they quoted the price of a ticket at slightly below that of an airplane ticket. How many people will commute if they have to pay over $100 a day to get to work? The answer – none it doesn’t make sense. But of course if you are talking about common sense you wouldn’t be discussing HSR, because it doesn’t make any.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 12:56 pm
It’s 83% of an airline ticket between Los Angeles and San Francisco, coming out to about 25 cents per mile. In SoCal commuting will certainly make sense between Palmdale, Riverside, Anaheim/Irvine, and Los Angeles, with perhaps some upper class commuting between Bakersfield and Los Angeles as well (unless Bakersfield subsidizes some seats for their own commuting venture to LA). Similarly, Riverside-Murrieta-Escondido-San Diego will see a good many commuters. Pacheco rather screws with commuting up north I’m afraid, although Modesto-Stockton-Sacramento is certainly viable (and of course Gilroy-San Jose-San Francisco to a certain degree).
joe Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 9:42 pm
Gilroy-Stanford is ~100 miles or $55 round trip in a car if you choose to use the per diem rate. Holister and Prunedale riders commute to the Caltrain line and ride.
With a Palo Alto HSR stop, Fresno-Palo Alto is quicker than currently taking Caltrain from Gilroy or SF to Stanford.
RisenMessiah Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Hang around Oakland Airport at 5pm on Sunday. You will see strange people who commute from the Bay Area to Los Angeles and back. Some are Raider fans…but others…are professors and other workers who do not have 9-5 hours. There are also judges, lawyers, scientists, and all manner of people who are prime pickings for HSR.
Peter Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 3:24 pm
How else could Southwest alone justify 14 roundtrip flights from OAK to LAX, 11 SFO to LAX, 10 SJC to LAX, 8 SJC to BUR, 5 SJC to ONT, 8 SJC – SNA, 7 OAK- SNA, 13 OAK – BUR, 8 OAK – ONT, and 6 SFO – SNA? That’s 88 roundtrips daily that Southwest makes. And that number doesn’t even include the roundtrips that didn’t require a change of aircraft in Las Vegas or Phoenix. I’d wager that most of those passengers make that trip on a regular basis.
Clearly, no one commutes between the SF Bay Area and the LA basin.
Peter Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 3:38 pm
*And that number doesn’t even include the roundtrips that require a change of aircraft in Las Vegas or Phoenix.*
Bah.
yoyo Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 4:16 pm
Just imagine all the billions we’ll save if we didn’t have to expand the various airports across the state by reallocating our precious airport capacity to the longer haul flights. Remember, SJC renovation alone is >$1B, and we didn’t even add a runway.
RisenMessiah Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 4:46 pm
Doubtful in California, but true elsewhere.
The only airport to serve HSR directly is SFO, which is the most accursed beast in all the Golden State.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Ontario and Burbank airports will have direct HSR connections and SD is considering doing so as well.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 5:33 pm
Burbank is thinking about a direct HSR connection, with shuttle buses. The official plan thankfully still calls for a downtown Burbank stop, raising the possibility that maybe LA County will pull its head out of its ass and build some connecting transit there (*cough* Orange Line *cough*).
joe Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 9:31 pm
Bypassing airports still reduces flights.
I prefer SJ-BUR airport over LAX but if the rail went *in* town, I’d ride direct: Gilroy to Burbank and not even bother with an airport.
yoyo Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Was your post suppose to add anything to this discussion?
Risenmessiah Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 10:56 pm
Yeah, our infrastructure isn’t well positioned in California to avoid airport modernization via HSR. But in nearly every other part of the country it will. That has nothing to do with high speed rail, it’s that public works construction has been very contentious in the Golden State for the last forty years and as a result our infrastructure is a lot older and less compliant than what you find elsewhere.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 12:42 am
To be honest, I think it’s the exact opposite. In California, a huge percentage of flights is in-state or to nearby cities that could be served by HSR. The five LA-area airports have about 80 million annual passengers, of whom 26 million are traveling to the three Bay Area airports, SMF, LAS, and PHX. For reference, see Table 1 here. Avoid Brookings’ list of city pairs, which underestimates the ridership of the QLA-QSF air market by a factor of 2, though it gets QLA-LAS and QLA-PHX right.
In contrast, elsewhere the flights that are replaceable by HSR are a much smaller proportion of traffic at the congested airports. It’s the minor airports that would be practically emptied if trains were faster – for example, Providence. In contrast, passengers between NYC and HSR-range airports (Boston, Buffalo, Norfolk, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Rochester, Syracuse, Washington) are only 8.5 million out of a total of 100 million in the airspace; if you add flights to the three North Carolina airports, at whose range HSR is marginal, then you get 4.5 million additional passengers. HSR has some benefit to New York out of making PHL a realistic relief airport, but that’s an entirely different can of worms.
Risenmessiah Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 1:45 am
This is highly speculative Alon, but there’s two separate arguments here. The gist of what I’m saying is that eventually, there are going to be four major intermodal airport hubs in California with HSR. The problem is that none of them are built yet. We are going to need three new international class airports at Castle AFB, Oakland, San Diego, and some where in L.A. This is going to dwarf what you are probably think of…the billion dollar expansion of Ontario or SMF or….
Meanwhile, even though we don’t exactly know what the contours of HSR will look like nation wide….Newark, PHL, and BWI are all serviced by Acela, and Logan is very close. O’Hare isn’t going anywhere, and there are other really overbuild airports like Cincy’s and Detroits that ensure there will be spare capacity.
Peter Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 8:25 am
Castle ain’t never going to happen. But if you need another major hub in northern California, why not instead turn Travis into a hub? It has more runways, is closer to the population centers, and the Capitol Corridor already passes right by it.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 8:38 am
Philadelphia isn’t on the Northeast Corridor, it’s on a branch line – the Airport Branch. Acela doesn’t stop at BWI or EWR. TF Green – Providence RI – is on the NEC but Amtrak doesn’t stop there, the platform ins’t electrified.
RisenMessiah Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 10:14 am
You guys are terrible. :)
My point is the same. Right now, all of the East Coast’s major airports are very close to the NEC. You could easily build HSR stations there and some connecting people mover and it’s a done deal. Not so for California, even though cities are working hard to improve rail access to airports.
Castle would pool passengers via HSR from as far north as Sacramento and as far south as Bakersfield by offering an hour ride or shorter to connect. There are going to be plenty of places in LA and the Bay Area where an hour ride to the major airport meanwhile…is going to seem short….
Alon Levy Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 1:51 pm
I think we’re talking about two different things. You’re talking about airport-HSR connections, whereas I’m talking about the value of HSR in diverting passengers from short-haul flights, easing airport capacity issues. In California, the cost of doing nothing is not just about making the flying experience more pleasant; it’s also about providing physical capacity in terms of new runways and gates. HSR’s usefulness as an airport connector is overrated; people in Fresno and Bakersfield need good transportation to LA and SF more than to the rest-of-world destinations they could access with HSR-airport connections.
RisenMessiah Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 3:47 pm
You could actually make the argument that we are overbuilt for air traffic. Legacy carriers routinely and explicitly (as I sent you the report I did) hoard gate space. It’s also impossible to know if all this local traffic Sacramento – LA are end to end or part of longer journeys. But there’s another point to consider:
As international travel from Asia increases, there is going to be a big push to see the less developed and preserved part of the state. Flying to Castle to get to Yosemite is much preferable to going to SFO and then riding on the bus for four hours….
Alon Levy Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 7:17 pm
Is there really all that much demand to go to Yosemite, as opposed to LA, LV, and SF? My only knowledge of this is anecdotal – when my family traveled to California in 2003, the CV hotels we stayed at, relatively close to Yosemite, were a Comfort Inn in Delano and a Holiday Inn in Bakersfield – but it suggests most tourism clusters in the coasts and in Vegas. I doubt people from China are going to visit California for Yosemite but skip the Golden Gate and Hollywood. More likely, intercontinental tourists want to visit the entire state, which means HSR would shuttle them for in-state trips from the city they’re flying to. It’ll be like how tourists use the Shinkansen.
You’re right that it’s impossible to know from the dataset I brought up how much of the traffic is connecting and how much is O&D. I vaguely remember Elizabeth saying it’s 50-50.
It’s also possible to modernize airports without too much concrete. For example, larger planes. Or, as you say, non-hoarded gate space.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 7:29 pm
No, this is all “lines on a map” train enthusiast boy nonsense.
Kind of like plane enthusiast boys imaging they live in a world in which California needs “three new international airports”, or on a planet in which every last drop of fossil fuel will be burned flying businesmen from Tokyo to California.
Peter Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 6:15 pm
I’m a flight instructor, and even I think that the “California need ‘three new international airports’” stuff is ridiculous. Same as the people that want to turn Castle into some huge air cargo and passenger hub for the Central Valley, when there are already three large airports that can serve the same purpose.
The number of tourists going to Yosemite can easily be handled by a few extra YART buses. They already run a number per day. No need to spend a crap-load of money on rehabilitating a hundred miles or so of mountain railroad for that.
Donk Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 12:32 am
They are now spending $4B on LAX International Terminal reconstruction. That’s only for the International Terminal, not the other 6 terminals. And this doesn’t even include a people mover from the Green Line station.
Donk Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 12:34 am
…did I mention that was $4B ONLY on the International Terminal!!??!!? They could build the transbay terminal, Unions Station, and ARTIC for that price. I won’t include the San Jose Intergalactic terminal, as that will probably end up being grander than the rest.
Joey Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 1:05 am
Minor nitpick: The TBT itself only costs $1 billion (though still a lot for just one building), but if you include the DTX project (which the TBT is somewhat useless without) you come out to $4 billion.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
All those bus passengers – there will be bus passengers forever and ever since the design of TBT precludes ever shifting them to rail – don’t count for anything?
Alon Levy Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
They count for the above-ground portion of the building, not the train box.
Joey Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 3:03 pm
A billion dollars is a lot for just a bus terminal.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 3:13 pm
They’ll find it useful whether or not there are trains in the basement.
jimsf Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 6:16 pm
It is going to be useful period. It will have have trains. It will have buses. It will have tax revenue generating retail. It will have property tax generating development. It will create jobs. Stop pretending otherwise.
Peter Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 6:46 pm
Well, it will have trains if anyone actually gets the money together to connect 4th & King with the TBT.
Joey Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 8:45 pm
Be careful with language like “it will create jobs.” For instance, a lot of us are critical of the “Buy American” requirement for rolling stock. Not because it wouldn’t create American jobs, but because you could create a lot more jobs by buying foreign rolling stock and investing the money elsewhere.
Donk Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 4:07 pm
I second that. I live and work part of my time in LA and also have a business on the Peninsula. I fly Southwest to LA-SJ and back 2-3 times/month. Flying is a hassle, as I can’t get any much work done, and driving is completely unproductive and wears me out. I am one of many business travelers who would pay a higher price than a plane ticket in order to have the convenience of being able to work on my laptop for 3 hours and minimize wasted time and fog delays at SFO, and arrive refreshed.
There are a lot of people that do what I do, and this will only increase further now that it is possible to work remotely, from with your laptop/tablet/phone. We are not in the 1970s anymore, where everyone still works 9-5 at the office.
joe Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 9:25 pm
As I, flying is a drag and driving is tiresome and dangerous.
Ken Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
I fly LAX-SFO four times a month and everytime I hate it because of the hassle to fight the traffic to go to LAX, clear security, weather delays, “please turn off all electronics until we reach cruising altitude,” and just when I’m finally able to fire up my laptop, it’s already in descent for “please turn off all electronics as we prepare for landing” again, and schlep myself from SFO to Downtown SF using BART.
I’d rather just hop on a train at LA Union Station, start up my laptop from the upon sitting my butt onto the seat, work for 3 hrs and be in Downtown SF.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 5:22 pm
I’m certain you’re all nice people and all, but there is something profoundly wrong — fatally wrong, in fact — with our society when easing the laptop sufferings of business road warrior dudes appears on any Top One Thousand list of Issues That Require Addressing.
Nathanael Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 9:59 pm
No, not really. Work time for business types, *leisure time* for everyone else. Increasing leisure time is a definitive and important good.
Thank god for Gary Patton. The only one supporting the productive side of California
Brian Stanke Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 1:00 pm
So only selfish no-growthers, who love stopping any new jobs or housing for the next generation in their town/city/county and dumping much more destructive leap-frog sprawl in the next county over, are “the productive side of California,” really?
You realize that without the amenity of a HSR station downtown neither Fresno, Bakersfield, Merced, or Gilroy has a chance of ATTRACTING a large % of new business and housing to locate in their downtowns and inner neighborhoods (infill). Without infill are the population and job growth will destroy FAR MORE farmland through sprawl development.
You want to support farmland preservation, support HSR, local rail transit, and unshackling infill growth from overly restrictive zoning in the current city centers. That will allow growth in the existing cities, where it is most productive, and preserve farmland for farmers and farming.
Gary Patton wants to deny you the train AND take away your car and access to planes. He said so himself in that Palo Alto meeting. Third world mini-buses for everyone, that is his self-proclaimed goal. Is that the “productive” future you want for you and your family?
TafFy Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 4:07 pm
Have you been to the central valley. Our business is Ag. If we wanted our area to be like LA or Sf we would have moved there. Our businesses can’t survive because of taxes to pay for projects like this. Also if we had businesses and promoted a business here live here we wouldn’t have to have a high speed rail, just commuting public transportation. And if you are so worried about growth in the valley support pumping water from the delta, support building a new
Dam, support a wider and better I-5 and 99 corridor. So when I say productive, I meant having goods that are sellable, taxable, and traded with every corner of the world. I did not mean productive as in overinflated government and union wages to produce a product that will eventually become tax payer funded.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 4:14 pm
How does I-5 promote growth in the Central Valley that HSR doesn’t?
TafFy Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
It would provide a better corridor for trucks to haus goods around. A safer a better roadway so trucks aren’t brutally beaten every time they drive the 5 or the 99. Realize city people growth to us is economic. We don’t want more people, around my area were happy as is.
TafFy Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Typo, haus is supposed to be haul.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Improving the freight rail system is a far better way of hauling goods around than is widening the 5 and 99.
mrcawfee Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 4:53 pm
taking auto traffic off of I-5 also has that effect
Alon Levy Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 5:31 pm
Your lungs, your choice. But I-5 is a through corridor for LA-SF trucking more than a local CV artery. So I’m going to have to question whether you’re supporting this out of a farm-centric transportation policy, or out of the joy of annoying people in cities.
And the only safe road is one that doesn’t have cars or trucks. You’d expect that safety improvements like grade separation or seat belts or speed limits would reduce fatalities, right? Well, it turns out road fatalities decline at a constant rate per VMT. The only way to beat the curve and reduce them on an absolute basis is to reduce the amount of driving, as happened in e.g. 1973. When they built the Interstate system, traffic accidents actually went up; even per VMT, they remained constant, that is to say, they temporarily did not decrease.
Alan Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 7:28 pm
You’re more than a little presumptuous to try to say that you speak for the entire CV
when you say “we”. The major cities are very much in favor of HSR, and cities up and down
the valley are fighting for the maintenance facility. If you want to delude yourself into
thinking that you still live in the 1950′s, that’s your business. You don’t have the right
to impose that view on anyone else.
RisenMessiah Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Uhhhhh…..
Right now, the only intercity rail service in the San Joaquin Valley competes with freight traffic to the Port of Oakland because there is not an alternative option for that service. Every plane that travels between the Bay Area and Southern California reduces the amount of petroleum for use as fertilizer and motor fuel because of our unique blend and our isolated location on gasoline supply lines. Any person that chooses not to fly between the South and the North has to use CA- 99 or I-5 to get there…clogging those arterials with more traffic.
So explain to me again why building a HSR line through the Valley that takes drivers off the road on I-5, Amtrak off the Union Pacific line, and puts gas back in your truck’s tank…why is this a horrible, reprehensible idea when you support by your own admission a really expensive Peripheral Canal that oh yeah…. half the state doesn’t want and might actually support if you were a little more kind to HSR….
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 8:11 pm
Those other projects and HSR are not mutually exclusive.
Besides, if things in the Valley are working out so well, why is unemployment so much higher there than the rest of the state?
joe Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 9:21 pm
Daffy;
Kings County residents earn more from Government Jobs than from Ag.
Then of course, dairy producers in Kings County have taxpayer funded price supports.
So it’s reasonable to ask for some consideration, 100ft ROW, so CA can continue to help out Kings county.
Travis D Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 11:43 pm
>>”Have you been to the central valley. Our business is Ag. If we wanted our area to be like LA or Sf we would have moved there. Our businesses can’t survive because of taxes to pay for projects like this. Also if we had businesses and promoted a business here live here we wouldn’t have to have a high speed rail, just commuting public transportation.”
Hello there fellow central valley resident. You say that your businesses can’t survive because taxes for infrastructure projects? I call complete BS on that. More anti-rail corporatist lies from the sociopaths that have taken charge of large commerce.
Trust me, taxes are not your problem. And no taxes are being taken for HSR at this point anyways.
Now unmitigated sprawl is a huge problem. And HSR fixes that. It will promote higher density living in the cities. It will mitigate against future traffic increases on the major highways. That way when those highways are improved (and they will be) freight hauling will be even better.
Better yet, HSR means less competition for precious gasoline resources. If it can keep gas prices lower then that improves the business end of big agriculture.
So do you have any other issues with HSR you’d wish to address?
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 1:03 pm
Fairly sure that he isn’t supporting SoCal. If, perchance, you were mistakenly referring to the CV, well, I’m afraid that almonds just aren’t quite as valuable as aircraft, industrial diamonds, and electronics.
TafFy Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
Obviously you don’t grow almonds, nor pistachios
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Nope, nor do I suspect. In any event, my growing pistachios or almonds has nothing to do with whether growing a few crops warrants referring to the CV as “the productive side of California” which it most certainly isn’t in comparison to the more urban areas.
joe Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 9:36 pm
Nor you Daffy
1) CV producers are running out of fresh water – the limiting factor is access to fresh surface water. Well water is too saline.
2) HSR reduces pollution which reduces the EPA’s regulation on Ag pollution sources. I’ve been involved with the almond growers assoc. and THEY know air pollution restrictions will require cleaner farmer equipment unless we can get people out of cars – a la HSR.
OT: China to build world’s biggest airport
Beijing has started construction on a new mega-airport that will be roughly the size of Bermuda and have nine runways.
elportonative77 Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
Clap clap clap.
Donk Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 4:08 pm
So I assume this means that they are abandoning the Tainjin airport in favor of HSR from Beijing-Tainjin.
Nathanael Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 10:04 pm
China had, for decades, a curious policy of requiring ALL foreign air travellers to enter and exit via Beijing. Even if you were headed to Tibet, Xinkiang, Shanghai, Harbin, or Guangzhou (Canton). It’s as if all flights into the US were forced through New York, including the ones from Japan to California.
I believe China has relaxed this somewhat and now has a *few* direct international flights to a *few* other cities. However, this old policy still has massive effects on Chinese policy — a vastly disproportionate number of flights are routed through Beijing airport.
Expect a lot of airports in smaller cities in China to shrink and close, in favor of taking trains from Beijing’s mega-airport.
Donk Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 10:11 pm
Uhh, have you been to Shanghai airport? It is colossal and handles hundreds of international flights.
For those writing comments please reply if you have started reading the EIR/EIS repot
TafFy Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Once again a typo. Report. Sorry
Alon Levy Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 5:24 pm
For the Central Valley? I read through it, but I looked mostly at the cost estimates.
Peter Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 5:26 pm
I started reading on Day One. What’s up?
Travis D Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 11:49 pm
I’ve read through it.
So what do you want me to say? The grade separations are well designed and shouldn’t be too intrusive. There are a lot of crossings to allow for a continuity of agriculture production on both sides.
It’s obvious (or maybe not) but if the Peninsula NIMBY’s don’t stop HSR dead, then it will eventually come up the Peninsula to SF. They realize that if HSR is built in the Central Valley, then the momentum will be to connect it to SF (and LA), and the only way it will get to SF is by coming up the Peninsula. Like I’ve said before, once they break ground in the Central Valley, the Peninsula NIMBY’s will have lost.
Off topic, but this is the handiest place to put this, and it may be of interest: younger people going car-free in the District of Columbia:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/in-bicycle-friendly-dc-going-car-free-is-increasingly-common/2011/08/15/gIQAHDc7KK_story.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/in-bicycle-friendly-dc-going-car-free-is-increasingly-common/2011/08/15/gIQAHDc7KK_allComments.html?ctab=all_&#comments
The American Jobs act is proposing $4 Billion for HSR and $2 Billion more for intercity rail.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/64723281/American-Jobs-Act
Alon Levy Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 9:05 pm
Weren’t people discussing $50 billion just a short time ago? Sigh.
Jack Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 10:04 pm
50 billion was the infrastructure bank in the trans bill right?