Richard White Doesn’t Care What the Evidence Shows
Stanford historian Richard White has some interesting quotes in this KQED interview. While White’s concern about private companies screwing Californians with taxpayer dollars is a totally legitimate issue, the interview strongly suggests his actual objection to the California high speed rail project is that nobody rides trains in California. It’s an absurd claim that flies in the face of the evidence, but he makes it anyway:
KQED: Proponents say people like you are ignoring the cost of not building the system, because we have to accommodate projected population growth.
White: What will high-speed rail do? It’s not going to take pressure off the roads that are most congested. This is a proposal to shuttle people up and down the San Joaquin Valley, between SF and LA, with some stops in between. They’ve left out Sacramento and San Diego already.
And I don’t think it’s going to be able to compete with airline routes. We have fairly efficient airline transportation between the Bay Area and Los Angeles. I don’t see really what good this is going to do.
Once again, White shows he has a difficult time with the facts. Evidence from this country and from the rest of the globe shows it’s actually airlines that have a hard time competing with HSR, not the other way around. The Acela has over half the rail-air market share on the Northeast Corridor. In Spain, where Barcelona-Madrid had been the world’s busiest air corridor, airlines lost over half their ridership to the AVE high speed train within 2 years of it opening in 2008.
Further, airlines actually want high speed rail, including JetBlue. They point out that air travel from SF to LA isn’t actually very efficient for them. It’s costly to operate, with mid-range and long-range flights actually being more efficient and profitable. Airlines like JetBlue prefer that trains carry the short-haul passengers, opening up more terminal slots for flights.
White continues:
KQED: So what would the right time look like?
White: When Californians are ready to get onto trains. Which they’re not.
It should be built after you take care of the low-hanging fruit. Why not regional transports around SF and LA, projects that will get people off the freeways where they’re the most crowded? I-5 is not pleasant, but I wouldn’t say that it is our major problem in California transportation and that’s all this is going to fix.
Also, this does nothing about trucks. What railways have been good for is freight. That’s what we should be getting off the road. I don’t see passengers as the real problem.
I agree that we need more freight rail and more local rail, no doubt about it. And Los Angeles is building that better local rail, thanks to voter passage of Measure R in 2008 – something White appears to not know about. But as I have consistently argued, this isn’t an either/or issue. We can and must do all these things, including build high speed rail. After all, the days of cheap flights are passing quickly and as oil prices rise – something White does not acknowledge to be a problem – alternatives will be essential.
But more importantly, White’s core contention is that Californians don’t ride trains. This is nonsense. Let’s look at the facts.
The most recent Amtrak California ridership numbers show rapid growth and strong ridership, especially given that these are trains with a top speed of 79 mph but usually average slower than that:
Capitol Corridor (September 2011):
- Ridership: 145,894 riders; +11% vs. September 2010; +8% vs. prior YTD
- Revenue: $2,194,480; +17% vs. September 2010; +12% vs. prior YTD;
- On-Time Performance: 94%; YTD OTP of 95% (again keeping the Capitol Corridor service #1 in the nation).
- System Operating Ratio: 49% YTD vs. 47% in FY10; continued growth in ridership and revenue keep ratio at standard; however, diesel fuel prices remain a budget concern.The Capitol Corridor route continues to be third busiest route in the country, with ridership at recordbreaking 1.7 million for the last 12 months.
________________________________________________
Pacific Surfliners (September 2011):
- Ridership: 210,528 passengers; +5% vs. September 2010, and +7% ahead of prior YTD
- Ticket Revenue only: +20% vs. September 2010, and +12% vs. prior YTD
- On-time performance for September 2011 73% (YTD FY 2011 on-time
performance: 78%)
__________________________________________________
San Joaquin (September 2011):
- Ridership: 85,736 passengers +19% vs. September 2010, and +9% vs. prior YTD
- Ticket Revenue only: +19% vs. September 2010, and +14% vs. prior YTD
- On-time performance for September 2011: 90% (YTD FY 2011 on-time
performance: 90%)
Still, Amtrak California is an imperfect comparison, given that it is slower, has to share tracks, and doesn’t connect SF to LA. High speed rail around the globe has none of those problems and has much higher ridership levels. California’s HSR system will have high ridership too. And the independent peer review of the ridership proposals found those projections to be sound.
Richard White knows how peer review works. For him to claim nobody will ride the trains and ignore the work of the peer review committee would be like a bunch of transportation planners dismissing White’s pathbreaking book The Middle Ground because they saw a John Wayne western that told them a different story about Native Americans and therefore refuse to believe what White has to say.
White doubles down on his “nobody will ride trains in California” argument:
KQED: In California we seem to have this idea that we can take on huge projects, that we’re almost our own country. Is that changing?
White: Well, look at the big infrastructure projects that have worked in California. The interstate highway system: They had a dedicated revenue source to pay for that, plus a gas tax. The dams have subsidized major agricultural interests — in a very unfair way, I think — but at the same time, they built in a revenue source to pay for it, because dams produce power.
High-speed rail says it will have a revenue source with the passengers paying the fare, but that’s laughable. I don’t think anyone in their right mind thinks fares are going to pay for this.
Um, actually, a LOT of people think the fares will pay for this, just as they do in France, Spain, Russia, and Taiwan – just to name a few. Oh, and the Amtrak Acela is also profitable.
So yes, Richard, we who are in our right minds know that fares can pay for train operations. It’s because we look at the evidence before we make statements.
California also compares favorably to those other HSR routes, but White tries to dismiss this:
KQED: What do you think is the difference between America as opposed to Japan and France, where high-speed rail has been successful?
White: When you take a high-speed rail train in France, from Paris to Lyon, you’ve got an infrastructure of public transportation that gets you to the rail station on time, and when you get off you can simply get on public transportation after. The same goes for Kyoto and Tokyo.
That’s not true of SF and LA.We are building a high-speed rail network without the public transportation at either end of it. You need that because after the high-speed rail ride, people will have to get back in the car and drive a great deal.
Um, no. SF and LA have decent public transit systems (LA has the second highest ridership bus system in America) and by 2030 it will be even bigger. By that time, when HSR will be complete from the Bay Area to SoCal, Los Angeles Union Station will be the hub of a major rail network:
Even KQED was incredulous at that argument:
KQED: You say there’s no good public transportation in California, even in a city like San Francisco. Explain.
White: The secret to a good public transportation system is you don’t have a schedule, like in NY and Chicago. You just show up and you know that within 10 or 15 minutes something will come along. When you need a schedule and you miss it and you have to wait 45 minutes or so that’s not a real transportation system. In the Peninsula, bus service is for poor people, because they’re the only ones who are desperate enough to wait an hour for the buses to come along. It would be a joke to try to use public transportation on the Peninsula. We should be creating a structure where these things work.
I’ll be first in line to argue for better bus service. But he seems to ignore Caltrain, which is a very popular service with good ridership levels – especially on the Baby Bullet trains, which are the fast trains with limited stops. Kind of like high speed rail!
But notice what White does here. KQED asks him about SF, where Muni has its problems but is a very extensive system with high levels of ridership from the middle-class as well as the poor. But he doesn’t answer the question about SF, instead shifting the discussion to the Peninsula. He simply evaded the question entirely.
Again, I think White is right to raise flags about the problems that might come with private involvement at public expense. But the rest of his anti-HSR arguments boil down to the usual “nobody rides trains in California” crap that has been thoroughly debunked.
Maybe White needs to take a tour of rail in California. Ride a packed Caltrain, transfer to a packed Muni train, transfer to a packed BART train, then transfer to a packed Capitol Corridor train. Maybe take a nice San Joaquins trip to Bakersfield (and be surprised at how many people are on that) and connect to LA via bus, or take a sold-out Coast Starlight to Southern California. Once at Union Station, take a packed Metro Rail train out to Hollywood, or a packed Metrolink train to Orange County, and a packed Pacific Surfliner train back to LA Union Station.
Maybe then he’ll drop this “nobody will ride trains in California” nonsense?
The map you are showing of Los Angeles is not accurate as a depiction of a future system. LA is not going that way.
StevieB Reply:
December 8th, 2011 at 9:49 pm
All of the transportation lines on that map of Los Angeles are in operation, under construction, or in planning.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
December 8th, 2011 at 11:09 pm
All? I beg to differ.
Justin Walker Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 2:32 am
This map makes several major assumptions and has a few outright errors. It does offer a general feel of what is coming, however.
Several of the new lines on that map are still in planning and, in some cases, the routing and mode have not been determined. This includes the Sepulveda Pass Transit Corridor (between the SFV and the Westside), the Gold Line Eastside Extension Phase II (toward South El Monte or Whittier), and the West Santa Ana Branch Transit Corridor (toward Santa Ana).
Also note that the Pink Line is no longer in any official plans and full funding has not been identified for several of the projects on the map.
StevieB Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 8:48 am
The Pink Line is in official plans as Tier 1 Strategic Unfunded which places it atop the list of things Metro does not have money for. Also on this list are Green Line extensions east end to the Norwalk HSR station and west end to the south end of the Harbor Transitway.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 9:24 pm
The blog post says/references that LA will have a transit system like what is portrayed on the map by 2030. That is not true. For it to be true, a commitment is needed. Funding. That is not there. Further, the network is not possible as portrayed.
James Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 7:53 am
Ironically the potential build-out we may achieve by 2030 will be less than half what we had in 19390.
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/westtech/XMODERN2.HTM
James Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 7:54 am
Tried to type 1930.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 8:49 pm
Indeed, the US was monumentally, criminally stupid in its removal of train lines.
But back in the 1950s, most people thought trains were obsolete. Populations were low enough that auto congestion wasn’t a problem (except in a few big cities)… and most people were too stupid to realize that populations were going to go up to the point where it would be a problem. Nobody was talking about global warming (not until the 1970s). Peak oil would be addressed with magical infinite nuclear power (people were in deep denial about radioactive fallout). Airplanes were getting faster and faster, and people didn’t think there would be a limit to it — witness all the stories about taking rockets from NY to London (or whereever).
I can forgive the people of the 50s for most of that (except for ignoring radioactive fallout, which they already knew the dangers of since the 19th century — that was unforgivable).
What I can’t forgive is the Americans in charge the 1980s. The 1970s made the current situation absolutely, rock-solid clear. We should have been expanding electric train service from Carter’s administration onward. But instead we… didn’t.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
Nuclear power plants if they are designed with some care, don’t produce fallout. all sorts of interesting waste products but they aren’t fallout. Coal plants on the other hand irradiate you very effectively. So do oil and gas plants to a lesser extent.
The Americans in charge in the 80s wanted to um um .. annoy.. the dirty farking hippies. If it got the dirty farking hippies annoyed off, it was a good thing.
Spokker Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 2:23 pm
This is the correct map, but it hinges on 30/10 which is now called America Fast Forward.
http://urbanist.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83454714d69e201310fffb62d970c-pi
If you want the system with America Fast Forward failing, just look at the Measure R dates and disregard anything after 2030.
StevieB Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
The 30/10 plan does not change the 2030 Measure R dates. It would be a loan to build in 10 years and repay the loan over 30 years instead of waiting for Measure R sales taxes to trickle in. Other funds could be found for projects, e.g. the Crenshaw line was federally funded this year which was not in the previous plan moving up that project.
Spokker Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 3:03 pm
I’m just telling you what the map says.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 8:45 pm
30/10 does change the Measure R completion dates, because by “building in 10 years” the projects *all get started sooner*.
Just a minor quibble, but a mistake I often see- the Madrid-Barcelona air corridor may have been the busiest air corridor in Europe, but the Sapporo-Tokyo corridor has 3 million more passengers per year, and leads the world by far in terms of passenger seats flown per month, at 1.2 million- widebody 777′s and 747′s leaving on half hourly intervals produce those numbers.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 8th, 2011 at 10:00 pm
Actually, if you look at the Consumer Airfare Report‘s Table 1, you’ll see the total passenger numbers for LA-SF are 13 million a year. The city pair is just not included on most international tables because it consists of five airports on the LA side and three on the SF side, vs. one each for Tokyo-Sapporo.
Elizabeth Reply:
December 8th, 2011 at 10:53 pm
A lot of those are connecting passengers. The intrastate number is pretty well accepted to be between 7-8 million passengers. The latest biz plan ridership doc has a very extensive appendix with updated numbers.
YesonHSR Reply:
December 8th, 2011 at 11:12 pm
Woory about all cars driving in slliy PA..and not fast clean quite trains….
Alon Levy Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 3:29 am
Yeah, I know it includes connecting passengers. On the other hand, the same is true of Madrid-Barcelona.
I have two issues with the appendix’s O&D numbers. First, the latest numbers are as of 2009, a deep recession year with depressed air traffic. The numbers are still depressed of course. As I keep saying, the recession won’t last forever, and if it does, then we have bigger problems than HSR.
Second, the O&D numbers is that they don’t completely accord with other air traffic numbers. Not that those other numbers accord with each other, mind you, but still. For example, they list SoCal-Sac O&D traffic, excluding San Diego, as about 55% of the total traffic according to the Q3 2009 Consumer Airfare Report. The same is true of SoCal-Bay Area traffic.
In contrast, in both Sacramento and the Bay Area, the dominant carrier is Southwest; it has a near-monopoly on all NorCal-SoCal markets except those involving SFO, for a total of 66% of the market to the Bay Area and 86% to Sacramento by 2011 (see Table 1 again); moreover, a chunk of the remainder is run by JetBlue and Virgin (Virgin and Southwest have a majority of SFO-LAX between them, again as of 2011). Maybe California is an unusual exception, but Southwest passengers are overwhelmingly O&D rather than connecting.
In addition, why should passengers connect so much from SF to LA? SF is a multi-airline hub. It has flights by most major foreign carriers to their own hubs. It has frequent flights to the other major US cities, both coastal and inland, such that if a direct flight is impossible, there are plenty of two-leg options, with most carriers preferring that you connect at an inland hub like Denver or Atlanta rather than a diagonal trip through LA.
(Of course, the other possibility is that I completely misread the Consumer Airfare Report, and it’s in fact O&D only but the daily numbers have to be multiplied by 365 rather than 730.)
Alon Levy Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 4:57 am
I’m starting to think my parenthetical remark is actually correct. Main piece of evidence: going to Table 6, which has more complete data, and adding all the numbers for a given city, gives results that make more sense this way. For example, the total for Atlanta is 65,000; if you multiply by 730 and add back international flights you get 56 million, vs. 89 million actual, which means you’re still missing a lot. But for New York, the total is 140,000; if you multiply by 730 and add international you get way too much – but if you multiply by 365 and add international you get 85 million, which is very close and still below the actual number.
So it looks like the numbers I’ve been citing were O&D all along, just a factor of 2 too high, i.e. QLA-QSF is 6.5 million. Sorry about it.
Clem Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 11:06 am
Where’s our resident aviation expert when we need some sobering reality?
Peter Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 11:27 am
Maybe he took his tranquilizers again. Or went to anger management.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 8:17 am
Maybe some people actually do work for a living.
Do you know what that is Peter? Work?
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 8:24 am
Again, relax. Getting aggressive or angry about online discussions is pretty silly. We regularly trade insults. Nothing to get worked up about.
And yes, I do work. And I worked in aviation lineside and as a pilot for a number of years. And am now working in law.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 9:15 am
Flew with OO for 10 and DL for 5 years, then decided making an average of about $40k a year having spent a small fortune on my education at Riddle wasn’t going to work. Got out just before 9/11. Would have had my throat slit in the cuts.
Smart move for both of us it appears.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 9:26 am
Agreed. A friend of mine was in FIT’s Aviation Ops program, got her Private, and realized she wasn’t going to make jack by flying, and changed to airport design. Now she makes a LOT of money working for AECOM.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 9:07 pm
Yep.
(To clarify, the reason I brought up Atlanta vs. New York is that Atlanta is a huge hub for connections between domestic flights, whereas New York is a hub for domestic-international connections. Other cities on the coasts with very little domestic connecting traffic, such as Boston and San Diego, also have airport traffic that’s a little more than 365 times the total you’d get from Table 6; in contrast, domestic hubs, e.g. Chicago and Detroit, have way more traffic, just like Atlanta.)
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 8:17 am
Atlanta is the second largest hub in the world, period. You’re comparing Apples to Oranges.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 7:52 pm
Yes… that’s why I brought it up. The numbers are almost exactly correct for cities that have very little domestic connecting traffic, but are big underestimates for cities that have a lot of domestic connecting traffic. On top of it, the total national numbers they give, including all markets with at least 10 daily passengers, work out to 350 million passengers per year, which is much less than total emplanements, but in a way that makes a lot of sense for it to be just O&D.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 7:24 pm
That’s because the data only includes US, Canadian and Mexican carriers.
There are O&D, Connecting and through passengers. Enplaned = O&D + Connecting. You need a dataminer to parse out the through passengers.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 8:34 am
The data I’m looking at includes only domestic US flights anyway. There’s separate data for international flights, which does count foreign carriers (maybe not all, but definitely more than North American ones). So what I’m looking at is total numbers on Table 6, versus airport traffic minus international traffic.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 8:06 am
Ever consider their data is crap?
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 7:48 pm
Ever consider that the Office of Aviation Analysis is a lot more trustworthy than you are?
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 7:32 pm
Actually, they aren’t. Their primary data, the T-100 produces overcounts of passengers on the order of 10-15% because it doesn’t extract the through passengers – in effect double counting passengers on flights that pass through the airport (i.e. If you fly from Albuquerque to San Francisco on a flight that makes a stop at LAX you get counted twice in the T-100). Their O&D database is a 10% sample of tickets that are straight grossed up by a factor of 10 with no filtering. Also, some codeshare information is doublecounted as both airlines report a pax count to the DOT. This results in O&D market overstatement by 2-3% depending on the market size.
Without a dataminer and the ability to cross check the data, the DOT information put out by OAA is useless.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 8:36 am
Well, 2-3% is a lot less than the uncertainty coming from picking one quarter’s data and pretending that it’s the same for the rest of the year anyway. 10-15% is bigger, but still something one can live with, and also flights that make stopovers tend to not be in certain markets (say, NYC-QLA).
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 6:27 pm
Yeah, but a 203% miss on a forecast can mean $100 million or more in over estimated revenue when you’re talking about a 40 million passengers. 10-15% can easily hit half a billion.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 6:27 pm
Should read 2-3% not 203%.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 6:53 pm
Doesn’t matter, the estimated margins are way higher; that’s one reason why European practice is to build nothing with a cost-benefit ratio under 1.2-1.3 (the other reason is cost overruns). Ridership estimates are never so precise as to be true to within 2-3%. A 10% miss is considered normal. The main issue is paying off construction, and that’s less sensitive to small changes in ridership.
J. Wong Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 11:48 am
“[W]hy should passengers connect so much from SF to LA?”
I did just that. It was $300 cheaper flying to Japan out of LA than SF even with the added fare on Virgin America. When I was trying to book the flight, the cheaper fares kept connecting through LA on the majors. So I tried booking out of LA instead. It was about $400 cheaper. Virgin America doesn’t let travel sites book them, but I knew I could get a cheaper fare through them then the majors connecting from SF to LA.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 7:55 am
That is the exception, not the rule.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 8:19 am
Strike that, I just realized you connected through LAX saving money. This is the norm.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 8:14 am
Southwest is a point to point carrier genius. Of course they are largely O&D.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 8:43 pm
The recession will last until we get sane government — sane in the sense of understanding Keynes’s principles of macroeconomics.
Of course, that’s connected with HSR, because a sane government would be building HSR. Fast.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 8:53 pm
The depressing point is, given the complete insanity of
(a) practically every single EU government
(b) every Republican in the US
(c) most of the Democrats in power
I don’t expect us to get out of the recession until some revolutions happen. This is the Second Great Depression and we’ve got Herbert Hoover policies almost everywhere — and worse-than-Hoover policies in some places.
Iceland is out already, because they’ve already HAD their revolution. Switzerland’s government was sane in the first place. The rest of us in the so-called “First World” are not so lucky. South American and Chinese governments know better.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 8:37 am
Israel’s main problem right now is inflation, not unemployment. People are protesting housing prices, not lack of jobs.
Nathanael Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 6:59 pm
Ah. I wasn’t counting Israel as “first world”, but I suppose some do. It’s certainly not dealing with the same political and economic forces as the US and Europe, let alone the same history.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:08 pm
But it is. The legacy of an economic system where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is there just like in the US, Europe, and Japan. It didn’t even industrialize all that late – its economic growth history is more like Japan’s ex-liquidity trap than like South Korea’s (and the Tigers must be considered first world today).
The main difference: Israeli wages are still substantially lower than American wages. Tel Aviv University is offering a postdoc that pays about $27,000 a year, about half what most American research universities offer. (European universities offer somewhere in the middle – I’ve seen numbers ranging from €2,000/month to €2,500/month net. If you add back social security taxes paid by the employer, it’s closer to the US than to Israel.)
Alon Levy Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Anyway, the reason Israel doesn’t have the same liquidity trap problem is that its central bank did the right thing and choked off unemployment. Unemployment right now is at a multi-decade low. It’s just that housing prices have been soaring, and wages haven’t been increasing all that much.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 8:06 am
The annual O&D is 3.5 million each way per year. The market peaked at 4 million in 2007. This includes the following airports:
LAX, BUR, LGB, SNA, ONT, SFO, OAK, SJC.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 8:11 am
Peaked referring to the peak before the recession. The market as a whole is in decline. It supported 4.7 million passengers each way in 2000.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 10:02 pm
Yeah, that makes sense given the numbers they give (6.5-7 million a year roundtrip).
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 7:56 am
Exaggerate much? 1.2 Million widebody’s a year?
Try 51,178 total flights – annual, not all widebody’s and that includes flights to both Tokyo Airports (Narita and Haneda).
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 8:04 am
1.2 million seats flown each month.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 9:09 am
Never-the-less, he’s still wrong. It’s not 1.2 million seats and because Narita is out in the sticks, when most people talk about the that market its typically exclusive to Haneda which is less than 1 million seats a month and just over half a million passengers. These flights run about 56% loads on average.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
You know, you should think twice before dismissing what everyone else said out of hand. They may know what they’re talking about.
When you say something like “Less than 1 million seats a month” when I have a source that says it’s more than 1.2 million, it makes me doubt other numbers you give. Maybe you know less about load factors than you think you do. Who the hell can tell when you never provide references to anything?
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 7:32 pm
Or not.
Evidence is mounting that automobile usage not immutable but cost sensitive. Studies show $5 a Gallon Gas Could Spur Up to 1.5 Billion Additional Passenger Trips On U.S. Public Transportation Systems and every 10 percent increase in fuel costs led to an increase in bus ridership of up to 4 percent, and a spike in rail travel of up to 8 percent. In Manhattan higher tolls to drive in led to increased train ridership. Higher automobile costs do make a difference in public transportation usage and costs are going to increase. People do ride trains when it is a cost effective alternative to driving.
“or take a sold-out Coast Starlight to Southern California.”
I would not suggest this option.
http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?overrideDefaultTemplate=OTPPageVerticalRouteOverview&c=AM_Route_C&mode=perf&pagename=am%2FLayout&cid=1241245648567
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 8:54 pm
It’s a nice trip, you just have to expect to arrive 4 hours late. This is, by the way, entirely Union Pacific’s fault.
Once again I’m stunned whenever someone says nobody will ride a train in CA, especially when he says there is not frequent service. Here in SF, both Muni rail & BART are packed to the gills with too many people especially during commuter hours. Both systems operate with about 10 minute spacing in frequency during off commuter times. Both will be easily accessible from the Transbay Terminal. This guy epitomizes the ivory tower that he apparently never leaves. Christ, how hard would it be for him to ride BART or Muni before saying such ridiculous things?
YesonHSR Reply:
December 8th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Every day I ride on the Goddam Muni its full..so will HSR …all the lame experts aside that’live” on this board that say otherwise are equally lame
Howard Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 12:48 am
It looks like the total transit ridership in the TGV Paris-Lyon area is only double that of the total CHSR area transit ridership (2 billion a year verses 1 billion a year). Yes, the Paris-Lyon TGV line has twice the local transit connections, but it is not the huge 10 or 100 times difference that anti HSR commentators seem to imply. In fact, for a truly fair comparison of “Is there enough local transit at each end to justify HSR” the comparison should be what the Paris-Lyon TGV area local transit ridership was the year before the TGV opened vs. the total forecasted CHSR area transit ridership the year before Phase 1 completely opens. Does anybody have any idea what that comparison would look like? Would the “opening day” year local transit ridership of the two systems be the same or close?
Alon Levy Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 2:31 am
You’re not counting apples to apples. Total rail ridership in the Paris region alone is 2.3 billion a year – 1.3 billion on the Métro and 1 billion on the RER and Transilien. The RER A, by itself, has more than a million daily riders, which is more than Muni Metro, the LA Metrorail, and BART combined. Maybe you’re comparing just subway lines in France to all public transit, including buses, in California?
Howard Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 8:18 pm
Then a better comparison would be total Bay Area & LA area vs. Madrid & Barcelona transit ridership. I found a combined Madrid & Barcelona metro ridership at 1 billion a year. That is about equal to the total Bay Area & LA area; however, we also need to account for Madrid & Barcelona bus ridership. I cannot find what that is; however, based on what you said about Paris let’s assume the Madrid & Barcelona combined bus ridership is not more than the combined Madrid & Barcelona metro ridership. That still shows that a successful HST can be done with just double today’s CHSR Phase 1 area local transit ridership. How much can we increase the CHSR Phase 1 area local transit ridership by CHST Phase 1 opening day? I think it will work if we even get close.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 9:04 pm
The problem is that Madrid-Barcelona is not a high-ridership corridor. It’s hard to judge because it opened too recently to have had time to achieve full potential, but if past AVE lines are any indication, it’s not going to break the bank. Figure somewhat more than 10 million per year.
Where the projections for 60+ million riders on LA-SF come from is by taking past HSR lines’ ridership and scaling it to metro area population. LA is a megacity and Madrid and Barcelona aren’t; of course LA-SF should get higher ridership.
The connecting transit argument, likewise, is purely about performance relative to metro area population. If you ask both critics who know what they’re talking about (Richard) and critics who don’t (Wendell Cox), the ridership they predict is in absolute terms comparable to or higher than single European HSR lines. It’s just much lower than what you’d expect by scaling those other lines’ ridership to the higher population of LA and SF. And, in the case of the people who know what they’re talking about, it comes from the fact that LA and SF have low transit ridership relative to their population.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 9:19 am
I think one of the biggest mistakes being made on the passenger end for this is that a transit ridership model is being applied to what is essentially point-to-point rail service. They are not the same, their ridership characteristics are completely different. Very few people are going to ride this thing to work everyday.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 7:44 pm
You misunderstand; the model being applied is specifically tailored for intercity transportation, not for urban transit. SNCF calibrates it to existing LGVs, for example. Give rail planners some credit.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 7:33 pm
Yet they continue to use an unfiltered data set to project passenger demand.
thatbruce Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 4:16 pm
More reliable to compare 2 years before, vs the year before, which might have some increase (or decrease) in ridership if the local transit authority finds itself revising existing routes to be centered around a new hub.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 6:52 pm
Sorry, I just now reread your comment and saw what you said about comparing ridership before. You’re right that it’s more useful, but in the late 1970s and early 80s, both Paris and Lyon were aggressively expanding their local rail network. Paris had just completed the core RER network, which opened in 1977 and was experiencing soaring ridership, and was busy adding more branches; Lyon was building its metro, which was (and still is) very short measured by route length but gets intense ridership.
There’s some analog of this in California, with the Caltrain Transbay extension, the BART extensions, and LA’s 30/10, but it’s not at the same level of intensity as what Paris and Lyon were doing. The BART extensions, and many of the 30/10 projects, are very low-performing outbound extensions. The RER has those two, but the focus then was on building the core lines, and most of the new branches are well-patronized.
Howard Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 8:26 pm
What transit projects would you implement that would maximize transit ridership in the SF Bay Area and the greater Los Angeles area (and maybe Fresno and Bakersfield) to feed CHST?
Peter Baldo Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 9:44 pm
Come up with a standard fare-collection system that works across all transportation modes in California. A smart card or transponder or smart phone that can be either pre-loaded, or alternatively can bill the rider’s credit card every month, would reduce hassle for both transit workers and passengers, would streamline boardings, and keep track of ridership in real time. The transponder would work whether the mode charges by distance, or just by the ride. If the rider has paid for a monthly pass for a certain route, that could also be encoded in the card.
The idea is obvious and is often discussed, the technology gets better and better and gets adopted everywhere else, but out on the buses and trains, things just get more and more byzantine. I think the state should step in and require this change as a condition for funding. The little transit fiefdoms will never change on their own. Riding transit should be as easy as walking down the sidewalk.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 10:11 pm
That’s basically Clipper, and it’s a half-measure. What you need to streamline fare collection is a fare union. This means, no more having to pay two fares every time you transfer between different agencies’ territory. BART tickets ought to be valid on Muni, Metrolink tickets ought to be valid on LA buses, LA rail lines should have free transfers, etc. This can be done independently of any technology. There’s a fare union like this in Singapore, with a national smartcard system, and in Paris, with a regionwide one; there’s also a fare union in Zurich, where tickets are printed on paper.
Peter Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 5:58 am
Verkehrsbund Bay Area
Reality Check Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Verkehrsverbund Bay Area (VBA) … I like it … and it *is* what was — and still is — needed.
Peter Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Right. Forgot the “ver”.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 5:20 pm
Bay Area Transport Association (BATA). As per the German tradition, we should not borrow words, but translate them into their English equivalent. The English equivalent of the German Verkehrsverbund and the French syndicat de transport is the transport(ation) association.
And at the other end of the state, Southern California Transport Association, i.e. SoCTA.
bixnix Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 10:57 pm
>> Metrolink tickets ought to be valid on LA buses
I believe they already are (good for both Metro rail and bus) … one of the little perks of paying through the nose for Metrolink. Hey, I still like riding Metrolink, even though it’s pricey. Sort of like a big limo.
And speaking of integration – TAP card adoption goes so slow that the cards will expire many times over before it’s fully implemented. I’ll be six feet under before LA County gets fare-integrated like the Swiss…. It would be a boon for tourism if there was a “Eurail” pass for California, including HSR.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 7:43 pm
Ugh. Well, I’m pretty sure I read on TTP a few years ago about how LA keeps charging for transfers on Metrorail – you need to buy a separate ticket if you use two different lines.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 8:56 pm
Given that Metro chose to not actually sell TAP cards in stations (!!!!!), of course it’s never going to be adopted.
I marvel at the stupidity of some agencies in fare collection schemes.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 10:21 pm
I’m less sure about what can be done in SF, except do what Clem and Richard propose about Caltrain.
At the LA end, what needs to be done is not currently politically possible – the region needs to divert money from low-performing extensions like Foothills and Crenshaw and into the Subway to the Sea and the Regional Connector. It should also build an above-grade Green Line extension to Norwalk Station. A low-hanging fruit is to extend the Orange Line east to Burbank, and thence to Pasadena, feeding a secondary HSR stop from two directions.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 12:07 am
Isn’t the Orange line at capacity? If it is, is adding riders a wise thing to do?
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 8:57 pm
The Orange Line is indeed at capacity, and needs to be converted to light rail (which is what it originally was). This requires action by the LA City Council to repeal some stupid ordinances put in by Zev Yaroslavsky.
StevieB Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 1:00 am
The Westside Subway and Regional Connector are a very long way from completing environmental reports so diverted money would have no where to go. The Crenshaw line obtained federal funding that will not go to the projects of your choosing. Pasadena is connected to Union Station by the light rail foothill section of the Gold Line so I do not see the need for extending the Orange Line buses to Pasadena for HSR.
bixnix Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 10:29 pm
The draft EIR for the subway and the draft EIR for the connector have already been released.
I have read some guesses for the final EIRs being released w/ in the next 6 months.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 8:59 pm
They’ll both go fast. The Westside Subway EIR work was mostly already done the first time, when it got suspended due mostly to the problems of digging through the La Brea Tar Pits; I assume they’re going to address that in detail, but the rest of the work there is easy. The Connector is very short and goes through nothing which is going to cause problems.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 8:59 pm
Also, the Connector design has already been revised to address community concerns (and the new design is better). The EIR process should fly.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
Of course, both are already funded.
The subway isn’t funded west of the expressway, but that part also doesn’t have an EIR ready….
Alon Levy Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 1:38 am
Adirondacker: they’re extending the Orange Line farther out, despite those capacity issues. Extending it inward shouldn’t be a problem – the extra ridership would be between Pasadena and Burbank or between North Hollywood and Burbank.
StevieB: USDOT didn’t throw darts on a board to decide which Measure R project to fund. LA applied specifically for Crenshaw, to the exclusion of more useful projects (projects that it plans on completing by 2017 if it gets money). It can apply for a change, too. And the Gold Line is slow, and the point of connecting to Burbank is to offer both a link to a secondary job center and incentivize using a station that’s going to be less crowded than LAUS.
A while ago, I wondered in comments why no eastward Orange Line extension was planned. The answer I got was that transportation construction in LA County is based on different planning regions, so that the system is built on building a project per region. Because Pasadena and Burbank are in two different regions, there’s no plan for line connecting them, just for lines connecting their regions to downtown.
StevieB Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 3:48 am
The Gold Line takes 45 minutes to travel from Pasadena to Union Station. Do you think an Orange Line bus from Pasadena to wherever the HSR station in the San Fernando Valley is built would be faster? Where would you put a dedicated bus right of way from North Hollywood to Pasadena to extend the Orange Line?
Alon Levy Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 4:48 am
Doesn’t the PE ROW extend to Burbank?
Either case, beyond where they have an existing ROW, they can carve one by taking two traffic lines and physically separating them. It may piss off drivers, but that’s what it takes to build transit that’s mildly useful.
StevieB Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 11:29 am
The former SP branch line is now used for the Orange Line bus in the San Fernando Valley. Between the end at the North Hollywood Red Line station and Burbank is the Chandler Bikeway. The bikeway was built at the insistence of the city of Burbank which is opposed to a transitway. If you could convert the Chandler Bikeway to Orange Line buses then getting from there to Pasadena has no readily available right of way and no demonstrated need.
bixnix Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 10:08 pm
The Gold Line takes about half an hour from the far side of Pasadena to Union Station. If you time it from central Pasadena (Old Pas) to LAUS, it’s about 25 minutes.
Why not just run a express bus on the freeways in this corridor? Use the carpool lane or make a HOV lane.
StevieB Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 8:21 pm
22 minutes from Memorial Park station in Pasadena to Union Station not 45. My mistake reading the schedule. I have taken the train and should have have caught my mistake. In any case speedy enough that a bus to a San Fernando Valley HSR station from Pasadena would be much slower.
thatbruce Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 10:35 am
Why not just run a express bus on the freeways in this corridor? Use the carpool lane or make a HOV lane.
The freeways that run directly between Pasadena and downtown LA (CA-2 and CA-110) do not have carpool lanes, physical space to easily add them, or the political muscle to convert an existing lane to a carpool lane. The existing services on them are brought to a crawl along with everything else during the normal commute hours.
I am always amazed that these academic types who have had long distinguished careers and have steller reputations are willing to so brazenly throw their credibility in the rubbish bin by blantanly ingnoring basic facts that aren’t debatable. Their whole career was supposed to be about unbiased research but in today’s America one’s agenda (often based on selfish interests or of the interest of those who pay for their grants) trumps all other factors and squelches all integrity.
Andre Peretti Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 10:35 am
He doesn’t get it all wrong. When he says having to wait up to 45 minutes for a bus is like having no transit at all, he is right. For transit to be effective you shouldn’t have to wait more than 10 minutes for the next train or bus. Otherwise, it’s just a welfare service for people who have no car, a tiny minority nowadays.
Concerning buses, it seems they don’t attract car commuters. Statistics in Europe (and also in the US, according to Wikipedia) show that about 50% of light rail users are former car commuters while the percentage in buses is so small that it can’t even be reliably measured.
When Grenoble (France) replaced bus lines with light rail, ridership went up 58% in a few months.
Why do motorists hate buses and like trams? There must be an explanation but I couldn’t find it anywhere.
Derek Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 10:41 am
Trams are quieter and don’t rock as much as buses.
synonymouse Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 11:01 am
It is well known that trams, aka streetcars, provide a “sparks” effect.
And perhaps more than any it was the highway lobby who was aware of this. Still in existence is GM’s hit list of street railway properties that it had singled out for liquidation. A cute trick of theirs, documented in Cleveland, was to award a dealership to city coucilmen who voted to rip up streetcar lines.
Andre Peretti Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 12:51 pm
In France, the oil and automobile lobbies were as successful as in the US. By 1930, most cities had ripped up their light rail lines. Now, they’re all rebuilding them.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 7:49 pm
Andre, we have a fair amount of documentation on what has been called “The Great American Streetcar Scandal” (although some people question whether it was as big a deal as transit advocates have said it to be). Is there comparable documentation of this in France?
Andre Peretti Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 2:49 am
I just got my info from French Wikipedia. What they say is that the lobbies financed campaigns against the tram and inspired news articles. Trams ended up being considered “ugly monsters that paralyse our cities”. Accidents were hyped (“the tram has killed again”!). I must say trams, at the time, were not the sleek low-floor trains we have today.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 6:38 am
We had some of that here, too. Trams were old-fashioned or “Toonerville” (a reference to a comic strip, “Toonerville Trolley,” by Fontaine Fox, that featured a dilapidated line inspired by a real one in the Louisville, Ky. area), were considered a traffic nuisance (they blocked cars), etc. while buses were “sleek, streamlined, modern,” or something else.
There was an incident in Pennsylvania in the 1950s or early 1960s in which a school bus was hit by an interurban, in which the bus turned in front of the rail car (the private right of way paralleled a road, and the bus was turning off). There were fatalities. Some preacher wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper saying this was murder! As if the tram jumped out to smack that bus!
As I’ve noted elsewhere, ride quality of a ca. 1940 design bus was less than desirable, despite some comments about them have “smooth” transmissions. Ha! How well I remember that single-ratio locking torque converter GM used from the 1940s to the 1970s! The engine would scream and whine in the back at full speed from a stop, and continue to do so until the speed got up to 40 mph (if you had occasion to actually get up there), and then it would lock with a kick that shook the whole bus. Go up a hill with the transmission in locked mode, listen to the engine begin to lug, then have it feel like the rear end fell out as the torque converter would unlock, speed would fall way off, and the engine would go from a hard working speed just above idle to full speed (and maximum noise).
There was a reason truck drivers called their GMC two-stroke Diesels “screaming Jimmies.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_%22old-look%22_transit_bus
In this clip, the bus accelerates rather quickly by virtue of being empty; the converter locking occurs at 1:22:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFVSR4CS9-o&feature=related
The “New Look,” introduced in the late 1950s, sounded and rode the same, although with a V-6 engine instead of an in-line 6:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=9iEhtcY_Ruw
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 6:58 am
Hell, we even get the “trains are dangerous” shtick in California. The string of suicides-by-Caltrain caused a huge outcry of people calling for Caltrain to implement a slow zone through the middle of Palo Alto.
Obviously, Caltrain ignored them.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 7:24 am
Hrummph, that sounds like Palo Alto!
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 7:26 am
Wouldn’t you want it, too, if a number of high school kids kill themselves within a few weeks in the same location?
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 7:36 am
As in, I understand where they’re coming from, even if I don’t agree with their solution.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 11:56 am
Hmm, that’s serious, but it also suggests a cluster of problems. Could have been any number of things, a “cluster” of clinical depression, drug abuse, alcoholism, assorted pressures from teachers, parents, other students, possibly all were on some sort of medication with bad side effects (there is reason to think the suicide of a person my wife worked with may have had the last one as a trigger); maybe something else entirely.
Was there any sort of investigation, and did it turn up a possible common thread?
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 5:24 pm
Copycat suicide string. One suicide begets another. The chain was luckily broken.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 6:41 am
The Toonerville Trolley in animated form:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stqYQnONiSI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLYKhLA6dGc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2Ke8fEneGA
Tom McNamara Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 11:56 am
Oh the easy reason is that any fixed guideway transportation that has set stations is always preferable to a bench on the street. Buses transit is inherently more confusing for passengers because until they bus gets there, they can only hope they are in the right place and usually are out in the elements.
Streetcar routes are more obvious, and have designated stops. It also doesn’t help that the racial transformation of America cities turned most bus riders into minorities while whites held fast to commuter rail….
Max Wyss Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Many European standard bus stops are well marked, and user friendly. In those places, what nowadays is sold as “BRT” is the minimum standard for bus stops.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 1:47 pm
Yep. In New York, the main branded feature of BRT (“Select Bus Service”) is off-board fare collection. The way this works in New York is that there’s a modified TVM at every BRT stop that, instead of selling MetroCards, let you swipe your card and prints a receipt for you. Everyone has to do it, even people in possession of a monthly unlimited card. It’s impossible to buy a ticket on board. Then the inspectors board the bus, make it stand still during the inspection, and ask all riders to show their receipts. Because the procedure is onerous, most locals think that off-board fare collection is a weird, expensive thing that should only be done on the busiest routes.
blankslate Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
Wow, that is a really bizarre interpretation of BRT.
Jon Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
…which is why it’s classed as ‘Not BRT’ by this ITDP report: http://www.itdp.org/documents/20110526ITDP_USBRT_Report-HR.pdf
Max Wyss Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 4:12 am
This is indeed a totally bizarre approach. I do understand the machine handing out a printed receipt for a cash purchase. Although it would be as easy to create a “single ride” metrocard. I have seen that system in Lyon, where the tickets have a magnetic track, and the ticket checking staff has a device to read out the data from the ticket.
Stopping the vehicle for ticket checks is not that unusual, but only done when there are not many passengers, or a good number of staff. I know about the system in Zürich, where they sometimes have “full checks”, but in that case, they also have the police on site (for identity checks of suspicious people or the ones who have no ticket)
Max Wyss Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 1:23 pm
There are issues with buses. Very often, they are very cramped, with a minimum of seat pitch. So, even if the seat would be kind of comfortable, it is just too cramped. And, yeah, USAn kids are stygmatisised with buses, when they are forced to use rebuilt trucks, aka mega-tuk-tuks, aka schoolbuses. …at least, in France, the schoolbuses are regular vehicles.
I recently had to sample experiences in Avignon, while my car was out of order, and my wife in the Centre Hospitalier. On weekdays, it was kind of acceptable, but on Sunday, I got to the downtown train station and noticed that the next bus will leave in 45 minutes; I called the taxi dispatcher, got promised a car, but then, I ended up using the bus… at least something which worked.
So, yeah, the perception of the bus system is with or without good reasons rather bad. This can partly be overcome with the “operating culture” (which includes the friendlyness of the drivers). Actually, I have never before encountered a city bus network where passengers systematically greet the driver, and shout a “thank you, good bye” when they get off through the rear door (yeah, that’s Avignon).
Andre Peretti Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 3:47 pm
Southern France is a different world. Unfortunately, northern indifference is spreading and we’re getting more and more northernized.
StevieB Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 3:10 pm
Buses average 15 mph while Light Rail trains average over 30 mph in the USA. There are several reasons for this including the bus has to navigate through other vehicles and stop for lights and stop signs, a bus usually has more frequent station stops, and a bus typically loads in single file from the front while light rail loads from two doors on every car. A bus also is a less comfortable ride with a narrower isle that has to be navigated to a seat, more rapid and frequent acceleration and deceleration that produces a jerking effect, and often heat that builds up in the back section of the bus. Light rail trains are preferable because of a faster and more comfortable ride.
JJJ Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 8:20 pm
Um, your story here isnt comparing bus vs rail.
Youre simply comparing local transit versus regional transit.
StevieB Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 3:57 am
I do not have a car so I take a bus or light rail when I go out. I will take the light rail whenever I can even though it is a few minutes more walking because the ride is more comfortable and the time riding is less.
Emma Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
Ha? StevieB hit the nail on the head.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 7:45 pm
I concur about ride quality of streetcars when compared with a bus. Quite a few years ago, I took my wife-to-be on a shopping trip to Pittsburgh, Pa. (we lived in Wheeling, W.Va. at the time). Rather than fight that traffic, I looked into taking a trolley into town. This was before the system was rebuilt to become the light rail line it is today.
That trip was a revelation! Ride quality was very good compared with a bus, even on the worn track that Port Authority Transit had then, and the ratty PCC cars in use at the time. Most notable was the lack of a kick in the pants with transmission shifts on every bus I have ever ridden, along with better sound quality (in other words, motors instead of an angry-sounding GM two-stroke diesel). No pothole impacts that rattled seats, windows, and your teeth, either.
Much of the route we used was on private right-of-way, which undoubtedly contributed to the trolley’s survival into current times. Despite this, some curves were (and are) amazingly sharp to someone out of the steam railroad tradition, and some clearances are so tight they have to be seen to be believed; those cars go places you couldn’t get a bus to fit.
The return trip was most amazing for the motorman we had. This fellow was the most bored looking individual I’ve ever seen; he looked like he was ready to nod off at any time. However, he would have been great in the old Harold Lloyd trolley flick, “Speedy.” This guy used full power going away from stops, and an awful lot of braking power coming into stations. What was really cool was the street running in Dormont; this fellow would “drag race” the automobile traffic from traffic lights, and win! He didn’t believe in slowing down for anything, either. People on the track? “Ding, ding, ding, ding!” Autos on the track? “Ding, ding, ding, ding!” A dog on the track got a special touch–”Honk!”
I used to know a lady here who was from Pittsburgh, and she said the trolleys were more fun than the Washington Metro, and were the equal of any ride at Kennywood Amusement Park!
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 9:04 pm
A light-rail (streetcar, tram, trolley) right-of-way can be narrower than a single lane of roadway. If you’ve got a narrow corridor to get transit through, you *want* light rail.
Joe Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 10:43 am
Dan;
I dropped my wife off to pick up the 522/22 bus so she, like many of the poor, could ride the bus to Stanford using her Stanford staff bus pass.
What the hell do you think the staff and students think about a facutly member that considers bus use a sign of poverty when his school provides free bus passes for their valued Staff.
White is the typical pampered academic who was lucky enough to get tenure at a time of fat budgets and hasn’t a fucken clue about anything but himself, his next talk and his newly minted celebrity.
Tom McNamara Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 11:59 am
Dan,
How do we not know that White is doing this at the behest of UP? I wouldn’t be shocked if they are preparing to give a major donation to Stanford and access to some of their company records. And if White is able to broker that deal, it would be huge for the university.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 1:49 pm
I’d be shocked if it were like this. There are big interest conflict issues in biomed and other fields with a lot of money attached, but in history and other relatively poor fields, they’re pretty good about cracking down on this.
joe Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 6:38 pm
Ochams’ Razor.
The professor is clearly unqualified to evaluate transportation projects. He’s being asked to comment on things for which he lacks expertise. He is too vain to know better and his contrary position makes him interesting for quotes.
One thing I’ll say about Stanford professors, they are difficult to buy let alone bribe. Once funded, they will research just about what ever they think is most interesting and important. That research may or may not be relevant to the grant’s intent.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 9:05 pm
Wasn’t there evidence that White’s house was next to the Caltrain line (but not near a station), or was I thinking of someone else? That would explain his behavior easily enough.
The Acela has over half the rail-air market share on the Northeast Corridor.
Amtrak has over half the market. In addition to Acela there are Northeast Regional trains carrying passengers between Boston and DC.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 2:41 am
If you’re willing to wait a few hours to a few days, I’ll hunt down exhaustive references to why the Boston Globe is wrong to say that the Acela has the majority of the air-rail market share. Media outlets make mistakes, and because we’re all conditioned to think that what’s written in a reputable newspaper is true, at least when it doesn’t concern things we have personal expertise or knowledge in, it’s easy for those mistakes to percolate. It’s still a lot better today than it was before blogging.
(If someone wants to do my work for me: look up air traffic numbers on the Consumer Airfare Report; look up rail traffic numbers both on Amtrak’s monthly performance reports and on the NEC Master Plan and compare; then hunt down the Amtrak press release stating that Amtrak has 60% or whatever of the market, rather than that the Acela does.)
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 9:53 am
The Boston Globe said Amtrak had…. not Acela… They make liberal references to Acela but they also make liberal references to Amtrak
“Amtrak now transports 55 percent of passengers in the Boston-New York air-rail market, up from 16 percent in the mid-1990s, according to the New England Transportation Institute, a nonprofit research organization in Vermont.”
became
“The Acela has over half the rail-air market share on the Northeast Corridor.”
jim Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 6:36 am
It’s not as wrong as it sounds. Washington-New York Regionals hit higher speeds and maintain greater average speeds than any planned higher speed rail in the country except CAHSR. There’s not that much difference between Regionals and Acelas — Acelas hit slightly higher speeds and make fewer stops, and are more comfortable. So a claim that highish speed rail has 60% of the Washington-New York air-rail market would be accurate. Of course, there’s no such thing as an air-rail market (people whose only choice is between air and rail), but that’s another story.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 9:08 pm
The car travel market between any two cities is unmeasurable (people don’t report their car trips to any centralized authority), so that’s why it’s ignored.
You can come up with an air-rail-bus market, if you can get numbers out of all the fly-by-night Chinatown bus companies….
Alon Levy Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 8:40 am
Is it really unmeasurable? There are travel surveys, and Amtrak seems to have precise numbers for the mode share of car travel.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 3:15 pm
…EZPass.
Nathanael Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:19 pm
The hard part is measuring traffic specifically between a city pair. You can do surveys, but do you have random samples? And do people even remember where they travelled?
If you’ve got tolled bridges, you can measure traffic across the “cordon”, so Amtrak can pretty easily tell what percentage of the crossing-the-Hudson market it has, but how much of that is going to Washington specifically? :-P
Given the way data about car travel is collected, you can make a much better estimate of Amtrak’s total percentage of the “intercity trip” market than you can of its percentage of the “trip between DC and NYC” market. You can try to do the latter, but it’s going to have a lot of error in the esimate.
Robert “shifting argument” is exactly what happens. These people make claims based on incorrect assumptions, and when presented with the facts they can either:
1) Apologize for making a wrong claim, and thank the person for the facts
or
2) Shift the argument so they don’t seem to be wrong, or, worse, double-down on the wrongness
Guess which one they choose every time?
Argument: Nobody rides trains in California
*present numbers showing large amounts of riders, which keep increasing at huge rates*
Response: Oh yeah, I mean, like, compared to cars, it’s nobody. And have you seen the Redding stats? Nobody rides trains in Redding!
Argument: Nobody rides transit in LA
*present number showing 1 million+ do every day”
Response: Oh yeah, um, I mean, have you see the OC transit revenue numbers? Theyre terrible!
Argument: Won’t be profitable
*present peer systems showing profits
Response: Amtrak isn’t profitable!
So on and so forth.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 2:36 am
You’re missing another argument: “yes, in absolute numbers LA has a lot of train riders, but relative to population, it’s puny. Small cities in Australia beat LA’s transit mode share, by a lot. European cities that begin to approach LA’s size have six or seven times LA’s mode share – and many of them have had even faster ridership growth, despite not starting from near-zero the way LA did.”
Since LA has okay transit if all you want to do is reach Union Station, this opens an entirely new can of worms about the importance of frequency, the weak link in the LA commuter rail system, and about how important connecting transit is for competition with cars. But the brushoff that Amtrak’s ridership is less terrible than it was ten years ago is not a discussion starter, but a bad attempt to shut down discussion.
Brian Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 7:32 am
Twenty years ago and two days ago Amtrak Capitols did not exist. (Yesterday was the 20th birthday party I heard.) For the first many years it was three trains a day. Given how little equipment Amtrak California has and how slowly it’s equipment and fleet have grown the decade + of double digit ridership and/or revenue growth on its lines (except for 2009) is very impressive.
We dug ourselves into a huge hole out west here destroying all electric rail but SF Muni, all commuter rail but Caltrain, and all interurbans. LA and the Bay Area has a lot of reconstruction still to do.
synonymouse Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 10:49 am
And the destruction of the electric rail system was called for and carried out by the same types who are responsible for Stilt-A-Rail. That would be the self-styled transportation experts – the Bechtels of and for all ages. These constitute the same class who tried to kill off the cable cars and gave us a proprietary BART. All in the name of progress and modernity.
And it was “NIMBY’s” and preservationists-restorationists like Friedel Klussmann who saved the cable cars. Against the establishment, against the propaganda juggernaut. Private interests planned to benefit – they wanted the real estate where the carhouses used to be(the former Cala Foods for example) just like the Palmdale real estate developers plan to skew hsr to their interest.
And the unions were involved too. The insistence of the carmens’ union on two man operation helped to seal the fate of the streetcar lines just as much as the higher price of PCC’s over buses and the need to relay the wornout Market Street Ry. track. So even today TWU greed is giving Muni grief.
But you know the PB-CHSRA scheme is in deep doo-doo when the SF Chron runs a hostile cartoon, like today. That paper is a Pelosi machine mouthpiece.
VBobier Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 5:41 pm
You mean the Red Cars and the Yellow Trains that were in Southern California? That was Big Oil according to My Dad, Dad was born in 1918 and He said this in the 60′s to Me, I wish It had been around when I grew up, I had to either walk to a Bus Stop or ride a 10 speed bicycle that I’d built, a Red Car would have been interesting, Hey I could travel down Del Amo Blvd and keep up with the cars in North Long Beach and Lakewood CA, posted speed limit back then I think was 45mph.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 9:09 pm
As VBobier says, the electric rail system was destroyed mainly by Big Oil.
Also Firestone Tire and GM. The Great American Streetcar Scandal is well documented, and those were the three agents: oil companies, tire companies, and car companies. Nothing to do with construction companies.
synonymouse Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 10:01 pm
That does not tell the whole story.
The post-war mindset was that street railways and interurbans were old-fashioned, obsolete. This attitude was extended in short order to long distance passenger trains.
This attitude was entirely taken up by companies like Bechtel, who were so ashamed at building a subway in BART they called it a duorail and sabotaged it with phoney innovations, ie. Indian broad gauge and a unique operating voltage. Corporate America, encompassing the highway lobby elements, and construction companies like Bechtel embraced the the internal combustion automobile as solely modern surface transport, all else to be rooted out, save publicity stunt gadgetbahns like monorail, pneumatic tubes and the like which they knew were hopelessly impractical.
All that saved San Francisco streetcars was the narrowness of the Twin Peaks Tunnel and a crafty lease-purchase scheme with St. Louis to purchase its PCC’s. By that time the union had screwed itself and was stuck with buses, which of course did not feature a conductor.
The same transport guru mentality that gives you the Palmdale-Tehachapi detour was in place in 1946 when the City decided to trash most of the streetcar lines. Identical stupidity from the same class of professional consultant geniuses. At least Col. Marmion Mills had enough sense to recommend trolley buses in lieu of diesel.
Joey Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 10:31 pm
BART was part of a first-wave response to the shortcomings of postwar auto-oriented culture. But you’re correct that the aversion to rail as it was known in the day likely lead to it being built in the proprietary way it was.
As for San Francisco’s streetcars, the ones that were preserved were the ones that used dedicated right-of-ways. For the KLM this was the Twin Peaks Tunnel (the M also has a bit of it’s own ROW beyond it), for the N it was the Sunset Tunnel, and for the J it was the ROW just south of Dolores Park used to get around the hill. All others were removed.
synonymouse Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 12:38 am
Charlie Smallwood told me that Muni had wanted to convert the Twin Peak Tunnel to buses(this would have been around 1956)but concluded that it was too narrow but that the Sunset Tunnel could be busstituted. The lease-purchase deal with St. Louis to get around the city charter was a stroke of genius and I understood it was Charlie Miller who pulled it off.
Muni still wanted to abandon the J but gave in to public demand to save it.
Joey Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 1:08 am
It does not surprise me that such a plan existed, though I have no idea how much support it had/if it would have happened even if it were feasible.
synonymouse Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 11:28 am
If I remember correctly, in the mid-fifties(I believe 1954)the outer ends of the K,L, and M lines were converted to bus operation, with streetcar operation terminated at West Portal. And I think the M was totally out of operation for a time. There was a Muni budget crisis(always is)and the war with the union over 2 man operation had not yet concluded with a union rout.
The B was lost in December, 1956. with the St. Louis deal coming shortly thereafter. The private right of way argument is not supported by the loss of the #40 interurban to San Mateo in 1949. Muni should have retained streetcars on Mission – once again your transit Einsteins in action. They could not even pull off a connection to the M line.
synonymouse Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 12:55 pm
I forgot the 7 line ROW in the west end of GG Park. Beware of modernizers.
Peter Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 9:11 am
I’m interested that you think that BART was “sabotaged” by Bechtel somehow. If it was sabotaged, I would expect it to have failed somehow. Sure, it could have been better, but it seems to have worked out fair enough.
synonymouse Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 11:10 am
BART’s functionality underscores just how robust and practical electric traction tech is and has always been.
SP wanted BART versatility constrained by the broad gauge fiasco in such a way that BART trains were hard-precluded from operating on SP tracks. And it had the leverage at Bechtel to make it so.
But you are missing my point that consultant transport soi-disant “experts” are faddists who are are in it primarily for the money. They were collaborators in the post-war wipe-out of electric rail and are not to be trusted. That the Bechtels and PB’s are to be constantly monitored, kept on a tight choke leash, is reaffirmed by the current botched CHSRA scheme.
Nathanael Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:24 pm
Consultants tell you what you pay them to tell you — this has always been true and will always be true.
(As long as you aren’t asking questions about whether you need consultants — then they’ll always say yes, obviously.)
The blame for bad designs goes generally to the people who hire them, not to the consultants. Parsons Brinkerhoff has done perfectly good design when the client *wanted* technically good design. Politicized clients in the US generally want to satisfy as many constituencies as possible, before even trying to get good design, so PB obliges. When the constituencies have stupid demands, like PAMPA or Caltrain or that district in San Jose which wanted to make sure the rail line wasn’t straight or fast… you get predictable results. When the constituencies want good design, as in Fresno, PB obligingly alters its originally-not-so-good designs to make them good.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Yes, there’s a lot of room to grow. And there are a lot of positive developments in California (i.e. the Expo Line, the Regional Connector, and the Subway to the Sea). But overall, the growth isn’t that impressive given that California is starting from zero. In Switzerland, rail traffic has grown 50% last decade, in terms of both passengers and passenger-km – and that’s a country that already had a high transit mode share to begin with. There’s a real problem with the slowness of the American transit revival.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 9:10 pm
Of course, Switzerland has no equivalent of the US’s Republican Party — no know-nothings bent on utter self-destruction. Even their fascists are more sensible than ours.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 8:41 am
They really aren’t. Gingrich is still not issuing campaign posters with minarets as missiles or with hite sheep kicking out a black sheep.
Nathanael Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:25 pm
Their fascists are racist monsters, but they aren’t preaching policies of economic self-destruction, which makes them more sensible.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:29 pm
I don’t know what their views on fiscal and monetary policy are (if they have any – their Dutch brethren literally have no clue), but they’re anti-welfare except for farmers, and pro-car.
Get these airlines like JetBlue and Southwest to drop their SF to LA and LA to SF routes and either the freeway traffic would go up or the North-South Passenger Rail traffic would go up or both. I mean If their barely making a profit now, what would push them into the red on this route?
J. Wong Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 7:19 am
Actually, if that were to happen, airfares between SF and LA would skyrocket. The airlines learned their lesson during the 1990′s and 2000′s. Given a supply-limited environment, they will raise their fares and not increase supply.
Others here (@Sobering Reality) have made the claim that capacity between SF and LA can easily be increased by flying larger airliners. Unfortunately, none of the discount carriers Southwest, JetBlue, or Virgin America can do so because they only have a single type of airliner in their fleets; they don’t have larger planes! And without that competitive pressure from the discounts, the major carriers have no incentive to increase supply by flying larger airliners because they can make more money increasing fares in a supply-constrained environment that by increasing volume. Oh, well!
VBobier Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 10:38 am
That & Bigger Planes cost lots of Money to buy, more money for Fuel & would be less profitable on a short haul route as maintenance still needs to be done, unless one likes more Ceritos airline crashes again, maybe even money losers…
Joe Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 10:50 am
I submit that larger airplanes would increase headway between flights and thus decrease convenience and ridership.
Oh and you need a additional crew, more experienced crew and viola, need pilots certified to fly the more expensive planes. Pilots cannot fly anyold plane. So train a 380 pilot and put him/her on shuttle service. Lastly, you spend more time at the gate loading snd unloading the plane. More cost.
Airlines want HSR.
VBobier Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 1:27 pm
And A380′s wingspans are so big that LAX had to rebuild the runways just to allow them to land, takeoff and taxi to and from the Terminal buildings without interfering with other airplanes and/or buildings. Those Euro made planes, they can’t dump fuel in an emergency, as they were not designed to do so, European directives there, so instead of landing quickly, they have orbit until most of the fuel is burned off, no choice, but then No airliner today is designed to land with a full or nearly full load of fuel.
Clem Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
The A380 can dump fuel like any other airliner.
Eric M Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7R0_VNxQbM
Peter Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Ummm, not quite. From wikipedia:
The ability of an aircraft to dump fuel does not depend on whether it was built by Boeing or Airbus, but on other regulatory requirements.
thatbruce Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 4:33 pm
The LAX improvements for the A380 were not to the runways themselves, but to the clearances of various structures between the runways and the 2 (?) A380-capable gates, and those gates themselves.
joe Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 7:26 pm
Some airports have runways capable, others do not.
The airbus was not designed for shuttle service – the economic argument for the plane was hub-spoke with the A380 being the hub-hub connecting plane.
Headway is important – one A380 might do the work of three 737s. That’s two fewer flights a day and less incentive for me to use that airline – headway matters for air-shuttle flights. Oh and I love to board 3o minutes sooner and wait 15 more minutes to depart that massive plane.
Clem Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 9:06 pm
Try five 737s. In an all-economy config, the A380 seats upwards of 800 passengers. Air Austral has ordered theirs with 840 seats.
Andre Peretti Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 5:19 am
Air Austral’s two A380s will have 840 seats. They will fly between La Réunion and Paris. Réunion is a French island with a population of about 800,000 located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar. It has won recognition as integral part of French territory and its inhabitants therefore benefit from “continuité territoriale”. It means they get lower fares than non-residents when travelling from/to mainland France.
The A380 will reduce the cost of territorial continuity by transporting more passengers with fewer flights
Andre Peretti Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 8:13 am
Reducing costs by reducing frequency makes sense for a 9,200km flight such as Réunion-Paris. You don’t board that sort of flight on a miss-one-take-next basis. For a regional shuttle service, loss of frequency means loss of business. I don’t expect the A380 to dethrone the A320 or B737 any time soon.
joe Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 8:19 am
How much longer do you think it would take to board and disembark 800 passengers ?
Clem Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 10:39 am
Not suggesting the A380 be used as a short-range shuttle. The airframe isn’t built with those cycles in mind; it’s built to spend 18 hours a day airborne, with maybe two cycles a day.
That said, disembarking with two aisles, wide doors and three jetways won’t be much slower than a single aisle through a narrow door to one jetway. After all, during the evacuation test they got 853 passengers and 20 crew out on the ground in 77 seconds!
Andre Peretti Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 10:53 am
The two decks are accessible separately and airports use specially built double-deck jetways allowing passengers to board the two decks simultaneously. The problem will not be boarding but what happens at the airport before boarding. Getting 840 passengers at a time through customs and security will demand faultless organization.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Depends on how many doors you have. A NJTransit 12 car multilevel can empty out so fast that you measure it in seconds, multiples of ten seconds, but seconds. They then spend moments milling about at the bottom of the staircase but they aren’t on the train anymore.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
The A380 isn’t desgned for a high cycle environment. The mechnical problems that would arise from trying to use it in a high cycle environment would be a nightmare. Over the years Boeing has had to make numerous mods to their aircraft for them to operate reliably in the Japan market where they abuse the ever living hell out of 747′s and 777′s.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 1:42 am
The short-haul widebodies are used on very thick markets, like Tokyo-Sapporo. Those can support high frequency of large planes.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
A 787 would be all that is needed between LAX and SFO. Not that they’d do it, but a domestic quick turn for this aircraft with 260 seats has been tested at 56 minutes.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 1:54 pm
The problem was and to some extent still is (depending on where you are on the airport) runway to taxiway, taxiway to taxiway, and taxilane to ramp area separations. The new Bradley expansion will remedy most, but not all of this.
VBobier Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 5:36 pm
Ok I was going on incomplete info, My apologies.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 1:46 pm
Ya think?
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
Airlines want HSR?
Really? I’ve seen this claim before. Its 100% horseshit.
The airlines make a killing on short haul, low cost, high yield, high density routes that HSR would supplant.
Maybe airlines that can’t gain access to a market want HSR to knock down the competition, but you’re living in fantasyland if you think a company like Southwest want’s HSR on one of their most profitable corridors.
Airlines want HSR. You’re funny.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
[citation needed]
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 7:35 pm
This is universally understood in the aviation industry. Allow me to explain – granted this is a simple explanation but its considerably more complex as most flights aren’t all out and back:
On a short haul flight, like LAX to SFO, the per seat cost is about $39 for Southwest. They have an average yield of about $98 and a load factor of just over 71%. At that yield, they only need to sell about 40% of the 137 seats on the plane to break even (about 55 seats). At a 71% load factor, 98 of those seats are occupied for a net profit of roughly $4,300 per flight. Multiply that by 7 trips a day and you net $11 million a year in profit off that route from one plane.
Now take that same plane and run it LAX to Chicago. That has a seat cost of about $91. The average yield that Southwest gets between LAX and MDW on the non-stop is $161. To break even they need to sell almost 78% of the seats. Southwest does well on this route with a 97% load factor so they make about $8,930 a flight. The difference is the utilization declines from 7 flights a day to a maximum of 3 so your annual profit off that aircraft is at best $9.8 million a year. I say at best because the actual utilization is two, not three flights per day on the LAX-MDW run. You have to do a redeye to get the third flight per day. With that the profit delta favors SFO-LAX by $4.5 million a year.
Make no mistake, airlines make a killing on short haul, low cost, high yield, high density routes that HSR would supplant.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 9:16 pm
There may be a confusion of the term “short haul”. LA-SF is not exactly a short haul.
Contrast Dallas-Houston. It’s starting to get to the distance where it is just not worth it to run plane flights. There’s not much cruising between takeoff and landing — the per seat cost doesn’t drop proportionally with the distance — and the airlines are competing with *cars* at this point, so their top price charged is limited. The airlines want to get rid of this sort of run.
Portland, Oregon to Seattle is a more extreme example, and New York to Philadelphia an example which no airline would run, except that they can charge some ludicrous rates to very silly businessmen who don’t realize that Amtrak is faster.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:09 am
Nate, anything under 500 miles is short haul for a plane that cruises at 424 Knots. Okay?
I work in this business called aviation. Specifcially route analysis. I don’t need you to explain to me what is and isn’t short haul.
BTW there are 33 round trips a day between Ney York and Philly and there were 12 round trips a day before Acela, what has changed with regard to air service is USAirways inability to defend against competitors at PHL.
Those flights are there for two purposes: Capture the business traveler that still wants to fly between the two points and funnel people through EWR, JFK and (in the reverse direction) PHL on connecting flights. If you dropped real HSR into that market, there will still be air service and not for the reasons you describe. The idea that airlines “don’t want to serve these kinds of routes” is complete and utter bullshit.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
Before there was Acela USAirways hub was in Pittsburgh. USAirways decided that having a hub in Philadelphia made more sense. Pittsburgh is nearly a ghost town now. From Wikipedia, about Pittsburgh Intl. with a cite to back it up “US Airways now operates an average of only 39 departures a day exclusively to domestic destinations, compared to 2001 when it was a hub with 500+ flights a day with service across the United States and to Europe.” In 2000 if I wanted to fly to an former Alleghenyh or Piedmont Podunk I changed planes in Pittsburgh. In 2011 I would change planes in Philadelphia.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 6:50 pm
USAirways dumped the hub in PIT for three reasons: merger systemwide capacity reductions, PHL had a larger O&D passenger base to support the hub, and it makes little sense to have two hubs within 300 miles of each other, one of which being a medium sized market.
It had nothing to do with Acela.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:03 pm
But I can’t change planes in Pittsburgh anymore. Which means I take the really stupid flight from LGA to PHL.
Nathanael Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:05 pm
You make my point for me. Airlines no longer believe that it is profitable to provide point-to-point service to a city as large as PITTSBURGH, for God’s sake.
Airline service is fundamentally unprofitable, but the long hauls are the least unprofitable.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:33 am
By the way, if the airlines didn’t want to serve the short hops as you say, they would drop them tomorrow. Airlines are not required to provide air service to a market.
Kind blows a whole in your theory doesn’t it?
Tom McNamara Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 8:03 am
You are sidestepping two important issues however:
1) Most legacy carriers would drop some routes and give Southwest or Jet Blue a near monopoly (and open up the market for HSR) if they didn’t need to offer connections from their international hubs. The Bermuda II agreement gives the British preferential treatment as far as landing slots in the US and thus you can ride BA from almost anywhere in the US to London. But if you want a flight to Zurich, Venice, Helsinki, you are at the mercy of the codeshare rules, which often dictate flying to Minneapolis or Detroit or Cincinnati, or Dallas to fly internationally. This is a big deal even for CAHSR because as the polar routes open up, SFO and LAX will be able to compete for these interior cities (or India and the Middle East) as much as they do for Asia and Australia. That’also part of the reason your yield is so high…because they are connecting through.
2) Airlines are required to provide air service to markets in the form of the federally subsidized rural flight programs. It’s no secret that as airlines have found these markets unprofitable they have cut service (angering the local Congressmen) used subsidiaries to hire very junior pilots and risked safety by using smaller and smaller planes. Yet because of demographic growth, not many people are aware of the issue and don’t realize how quick airlines would be to convert the route they take to Embraer planes if traffic declined.
Also, don’t forget that the airlines realize if they dump rural flights wholesale many older members of Congress will consider this a breach of the agreement that ushered in deregulation. If that happens, you can damn well bet that those rural guys in retaliation will get behind the urban Congress members and subsidize HSR like nothing. The airlines won’t know what hit them.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 2:58 pm
The connecting “flights” from Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton Intl on Continental to EWR are buses.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 6:39 pm
I’m not sidestepping anything. Bermuda II has been dead since 2008 so I don’t know what relevance that has today in any context. Second, EAS is not mandatory. If an airline doesn’t think the service will work with a subsidy they won’t bid it. The government isn’t going to force an airline to provide service. If it doesn’t work even with the subsidy they’ll dump it like Delta is doing to a bunch of theirs. If another airline thinks it will work, they give it a go.
Neither item you mention is relevant to the high density markets we’re talking about. Finally, if you think the loss of service to a bunch of small markets like Alpena or Laramie that can’t fill up the a special school bus each week are going to spur some kind of rail revolution your off your rocker. Like adirondacker points out, markets respond on their own and maybe that demand is met by a guy with a bus.
Nathanael Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:04 pm
Ping ping ping.
“not many people are aware of the issue and don’t realize how quick airlines would be to convert the route they take to Embraer planes if traffic declined.
Also, don’t forget that the airlines realize if they dump rural flights wholesale many older members of Congress will consider this a breach of the agreement that ushered in deregulation. If that happens, you can damn well bet that those rural guys in retaliation will get behind the urban Congress members and subsidize HSR like nothing. The airlines won’t know what hit them.”
That accounts for most of the spoke routes, including conurbations which are actually *very large*, such as Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, where Continental has *already* abandoned service.. As for the rest, the few which are between giant cities? As I say, they exist solely to (a) funnel travellers to longer-haul flights and (b) for the sake of very silly businessmen, who aren’t that large a market.
Derek Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 8:03 am
I don’t think it’s silly. They will go a little out of their way to fly, on the company’s dime, of course, in order to get the frequent flyer miles.
Nathanael Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Oh, that, of course. People did that more often before airports had barefoot lines, nudie scanners, and bans on beverage bottles.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 7:42 pm
So American and Continental support HSR in Texas because they are masochistic and want to lose money. I see.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 11:43 pm
And Delta is lowering fares and adding departures in an attempt to out compete Acela and the Regionals.
…it is still the Delta shuttle isn’t it? I try not to think about flying in or out of LaGuardia.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 11:55 pm
Delta and US Airways, I think. I’m masochistic enough to ride Amtrak, but not nearly enough to fly.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Southwest’s focus in the Triangle is on the O&D, they control 68% of the O&D market but only 48% of all passengers in the Triangle. Southwest also puts downward pressure on fares out of the airports in question. AA and CO might support HSR in the triangle because it could potentially eliminate a competitor – Southwest – not because they want to dump a route. AA still wants passengers out of Houston and Austin to connect on flights out of DFW and CO (UA) still wants passengers out of Dallas and Austin to connect on flights out of Houston.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 9:21 pm
But who would actually *do* that?
When I’ve had trouble with delays on a final leg coming home from Philadelphia to Ithaca, NY, I’ve cancelled the final leg, gotten my money refunded, and rented a car.
Once you’re in the 4-hour drive range, the airlines *are competing with driving*. This means that they have a effective cap on the price they can charge. Airplanes are horribly inefficient for short trips, so they have high costs, as well.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:25 am
Apparently you’re oblivious to the fact that airlines still overlap short haul HSR routes in Europe. Those flights feed the hubs they will continue because the are neccesary to the carrier.
Again, I’m telling you as someone who has the knowledge and understanding of airline market dynamics that you are completely wrong in your assumptions bout what is and is not viable and what is or is not efficient. Take Southwest for an example. Over 50% of their flying is done on routes that you say airlines don’t want to fly yet they have been the most successful airline ever in terms of returning a profit. If what you said were true, they would have been finished long ago.
Effective Cap… LOL. The only cap is the money a passenger is willing to spend. It has nothing to do with a car.
Nathanael Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:07 pm
The key point regarding running ridiculously short air routes is, if driving isn’t competitive with ari,, the airlines want to run them, and would rather not compete with trains. If driving is competitive, the airlines would just as well have people take the train rather than drive, because they aren’t going to make profits connecting those places by air.
The definition of “short” and “long” for these economic purposes may not match your definitions for cost purposes.
Nathanael Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:12 pm
“The only cap is the money a passenger is willing to spend. It has nothing to do with a car.”
It has everything to do with a car.
Who’s willing to spend more to fly than it costs to drive, *when the flight takes just as long*? Only fans of flying, or people with some special desire to collect frequent flier miles. Most people won’t spend extra to suffer through airline security for a longer trip!
When the drive time is three hours, *the flight takes just as long*, because that’s the minimum time once you deal with the ridiculous security rigamarole.
At this point, there really is a cap on how much airlines can charge and still fill seats. (They actually charge more than that amount and fail to fill seats, usually — but mostly, they stop running the flights.)
Alon Levy Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 8:31 am
Or maybe AA and CO think the short-hop trips are uncompetitive and want to use HSR as the airport feeder, the way they use HSR to reach Lyon and Lille. For what it’s worth, the Texas T-Bone proposal is very airport-oriented – one of the heads of the organization said specifically “It will run to airports” as a selling point (I can hunt down the link if you’re interested), and the tentative map looks like the line just hits DFW, instead of serving both Dallas and Fort Worth as e.g. the SNCF proposal does.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 6:43 pm
Lyon-Lillie and the Texas Triangle are apples to oranges comparison. There is far more demand in the triangle. I don’t need to have you hunt down anything, I’m familiar with the dead project. As far as boasting airport stops as an alternative is mostly wishful thinking on the part of someone who doesn’t understand the objectives of an airline in a deregulated operating environment.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 6:54 pm
Not Lyon-Lille, but Lyon-Paris and Lille-Paris.
StevieB Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 11:37 pm
Airlines are deregulated so they cannot be told to cancel routes. Economic pressure can be used to alter routes. The SFO EIR plans raising fees at the airport to make it less profitable for domestic carriers, not so they will not fly from L.A. to the bay area, but so they transfer flights to Oakland and San Jose. So while it will probably cost more to fly to the bay area I do not foresee freeway or rail traffic increasing substantially.
joe Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 8:22 am
Sounds like congestion pricing at SFO airport.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 1:51 pm
You can’t do that either. It discriminates against a certain aircraft type by way of pricing out a targeted capacity – a capacity that some airlines may not have. If anything, the east coast proves that in a free market, average capacity declines as a market becomes congested. Between LA and the Bay Area, the average number of sepast per flight is 140. On the North East Corridor where capacity and delay is a larger problem its 97 seats per departure. This is because its cheaper to cancel an RJ than it is a 737, or a widebody for that matter.
Look, if HSR is all it’s cracked up to be, the airlines will respond by dumping the route to a point where it’s sufficient to support connective flow leaving a majority of the O&D to HSR. If it’s not, HSR will be a financial disaster. It’s really that simple.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 11:39 pm
Anytime the East Coast airports suggest in the vaguest of terms that they start pricing things by demand the screeching in the halls of Congress can be heard in New York. Imagine trying to tell the 15 airlines that all want to schedule a flight out at 5:00 that they might have to pay extra for that. Or even worse have to bid on it.
Sobering Reality Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 7:45 pm
They do. That’s why LGA and DCA are slot allocated.
Robert, please write a “How to Talk to a Bullet Train Skeptic” article in the spirit of Grist’s “How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic,”[1] give it a permanent link, and keep it up to date as the arguments and evidence change. This will make it easier for HSR advocates to craft quick responses without having to search through cahsrblog to find the supporting evidence.
[1] http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics
Missiondweller Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 9:26 am
Great idea.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 8:23 pm
Here’s a place to start:
http://www.narprail.org/cms/index.php/main/printable/passenger_rail_myths_facts/
http://www.narprail.org/cms/index.php/resources/more/myths/
You might want to be careful with this one, though; America is supposed to be “different” from some other places:
http://www.narprail.org/cms/index.php/resources/more/five_myths_gas_prices/
I can’t believe this author of the article actually used Acela as an argument for high speed rail, Acela first, is not high speed. Not even close. Second, it is funded by the feds and is bankrupt. It has never made a prfofit and likely never will. It derails often. Imagine if it were high speed,yikes!)
It is not a cheap ride and the train is hardly a step back into luxury travel so it doesn’t have that going for it. I believe, and I must admit I do not have the facts for this assumption, that the biggest ridership is for PA to NY, NY to Boston and other rather short hop trips. Not as a high speed option to get from Dc to Boston (or NY)
jim Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
or for anything else.
StevieB Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
He did get that Acela is high speed by US standards but not international standards. Everything else from profits to bankruptcy to derailment and finally to DC ridership he got wrong. If you were an optimist you could say he was partially correct.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 5:14 pm
As cited in Amtrak’s Master Plan, the top city pairs for Amtrak (not just Acela) are NY-DC, NY-Philly, Philly-DC, and NY-Boston, in this order.
DC-Boston is long enough (6.5 hours by train) that, as anywhere else trains take so long, most people fly; indeed, DC-Boston is a sizable air market.
Andre Peretti Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 10:58 am
DC-Boston is slightly shorter than Paris-Marseille which takes 3 hours by TGV. A real high-speed line would make DC-Boston highly competitive with airlines.
what about Stanford’s reputation?
The California High Speed Rail project is in deep deep trouble in Washington DC.
Last Monday, Mica’s committee had a long hearing hearing on High Speed and passenger rail, and the California project, on numerous occasions really got bad remarks.
On Dec 15th, at 10:00 AM, the committee will have a hearing dedicated to the California project. They have issued a briefing paper (fifteen pages). The title of the hearing:
California’s High-Speed Rail Plan: Skyrocketing Costs & Project Concerns leaves little to the imagination as to where this hearing is headed.
Link to briefing paper:
http://republicans.transportation.house.gov/Media/file/112th/Railroads/SSM/Briefing%20Memo%20FC%20Hearing%20%20%20%2012-15-11.pdf
Plenty of information there.
Focus on High Speed rail has shifted to sending any available funds into the future to the NEC.
It seems like pure non-sense to go ahead with the Central Valley ICS, when it is quite obvious further extensions will not be Federally funded, and without federal support and funding this project is going nowhere.
Daniel Krause Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 11:09 pm
Yes, Mica has never supported the CA HSR project and has a fixation that all money should go to the NEC. He is orchestrating all this in D.C. Luckly, the Teabaggers are about to get thrown out of office due to their visionless “no” attitude to everything, and he will go back to being irrelevant.
joe Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 8:45 am
Correction, President Mica. Or I assume since his opposition trumps Obama’s support.
VBobier Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 9:48 am
Maybe President Mica has a Vice President Marble? ;)
Andre Peretti Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 11:13 am
For the foreigner I am, it seems like a no-brainer that the first HSL to be built should link the country’s most important city to its capital.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 8:22 pm
It’s not a no-brainer; the *entire area* is built-up from NY to DC.
It would be like Germany building its first HSL down the Rhine Valley — they didn’t, because it’s really really difficult.
ComradeFrana Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 4:11 am
More like Japan building it’s first HSL in the Tokaido corridor, which they did.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 8:12 pm
The difference is, the Rhine line was really curvy, whereas the NY-DC line is not.
JJJ Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 11:24 pm
Oh no, the GOP is wasting time and money again doing useless hearing and useless reports??
This is unprecedented!
Sound the alarm bells.
StevieB Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 12:42 am
It is curious that Jerry Amante, former mayor of Tustin and member of the Orange County transit board, is set to testify. Orange County is nowhere near ready for construction with the EIR/EIS a year away. My guess is he will make a case for starting construction from Los Angeles to Anaheim which if it were to include dedicated track would require a 29 mile viaduct or widening the right of way by 50 feet. Neither option is attractive.
datacruncher Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 11:47 am
It shows the politics at work.
*Democrats have invited a Republican mayor (Fresno’s Ashley Swearengin) to testify in support of California’s current HSR route and plan.
http://fresnobeehive.com/news/2011/12/california_high-speed_rail_sub.html#comments
*Republicans will try to tell her (a fellow Republican) they want to take money and jobs from her city to spend in the northeast states where residents are mainly registered as Democrats.
Its humorous to think about.
synonymouse Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 12:22 pm
If you haven’t figured it out yet, let me tell you there is only one party in the US: the Rich Peoples’s Party with 2 wings. It is like professional wrestling with the villains shifting back and forth to keep people from getting too bored. Privately they all belong to the same club.
There is no populist party, either of the right or left. Sooner or later, something will happen as a protest to this situation.
California is run by a patronage machine, on whom a lot of people depend for their livelihood. The Republicans can never get started because out of some sort of visceral sadism they always aim for the bottom of the totem pole. In their mystery the butler always did it. So they will go after my humble postal pension not that of the triple-dipping admirals and generals. If they do I will have to vote for the machine for survival whether I like it or not.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 8:27 pm
You said something which is pretty nearly exactly correct! :-)
You should know two more things:
(1) that there are actually a few god politicians who aren’t part of the same club — but they’re a tiny minority. I count a total of perhaps two in the US Senate: definitely Bernie Sanders, probably Tom Harkin. There are a few more in the House (maybe a dozen out of 435), and significantly more at lower levels.
(2) that a *lot* of the Republicans are really part of another party, which wants to establish a religious theocracy and torture the unbelievers; perhaps start WWIII so as to bring on the end of the world, too. These people are truly scary. Unfortunately, the Rich People’s Party is doing absolutely nothing to stop them, and tends to help them out.
Who is putting up anti-high speed rail signs around Bakersfield?
YesonHSR Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 11:55 pm
Its the nimbys from burlingame..some were on this board at one point..one was a burlingame city offical….shows what gall these people have
Gustine commentary: High-speed rail money better spent on road repair
StevieB Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 4:34 am
Rep. Devin Nunes ( R-CA ) bill H.R.761 to redirect California high-speed rail funding to S.R.99 has no chance of becoming law. The author is raising false hopes among valley residents about imaginary prospects.
VBobier Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 9:52 am
At this point It’s a dead bill anyway, so I’m not worried, It would have to get to the Senate and pass there, It’s not likely to be more than dead meat there.
synonymouse Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 11:09 am
Y’all have been pushing the 99 corridor as a kind of welfare infrastructure program for the San Joaquin Valley. But in reality Oakland and the East Bay are in bad shape too and need the welfare boost as much.
San Jose and Silicon Valley are in good shape, so forget them, chuck Pacheco, and move this thing back to Altamont and focus more on the East Bay.
StevieB Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
The House Transportation committee will now use the malodorous bill as evidence against the project at their hearing next Thursday. It does not matter that the committee heads would transfer the CA HSR funds to rail in the NEC and not to S.R.99. If the funding is lost the California Republicans are covered by saying they tried to get the money for highways with this sham bill.
synonymouse Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 12:42 pm
The orphaned trackage scheme is a palpable political error – the CHSRA is just asking to be ridiculed by obsessing on it. Re-allocate to Tejon and prevail upon the pols to do the enabling.
Peter Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Who cares what happens to the Authority if nothing more than the ICS is built? You really think the Authority would continue to exist?
synonymouse Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Of course, repealing Prop 1A is a dumb idea if the CHSRA is willing to and capable of rationalizing the scheme. I suspect there are some at PB who are well aware there exist better and cheaper ways to go at hsr in California.
jim Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Yes, the authority would continue to exist until the ICS is completed. Probably around 2017. Which means that no alternative HSR plan could get off the ground.
Mass transit in LA and Bay Area is way, way behind other places that have high speed rail. Decent mass transit only exists in a tiny portion of those respective areas (SF proper, maybe a few other places in the north bay like Oakland, LA proper) and even there is OK but not great. In San Jose, Orange County, Riverside etc. with a handful of exceptions you are lucky if there are buses going every hour or something. Where are the mass transit expansion plans for the suburbs?
High speed rail will not be a success unless heavy investment in mass transit happens simultaneously, and this needs to include the whole metropolitan area, not just LA and SF. Compare Tokyo (which has a huge commuter train system covering a metropolitan area comparable in area to the LA area, which runs frequently and which is very heavily used) to the LA area (which has a hilariously bad commuter train system called “Metrolink” which carries trivial numbers of people compared to the highway system, and where it takes 2 hours to get from one end of the city to the other due to horrible traffic). A few light rail lines and a small amount of subway expansion in the northwestern end of the LA area is NOT remotely adequate.
StevieB Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Suburbs were built for the automobile society to spread out so everyone has a separate house surrounded by a garden. During the 20th Century roads in subdivisions were laid out in patterns that progressively increased the difficulty of walking to transit. The suburbs do not all have the ridership numbers to justify the expense of mass transit.
Development does follow transportation corridors, cities naturally grew at the intersection of modes of transportation. The trend toward unsustainable sprawl of suburbs is reversing. Higher density development is following transit stations across the country at a slow pace. Within a few generations public transit can alter personal behavior. Some conservatives my be appalled that government would wish to change personal behavior but laws are made in the hope of changing behavior.
Peter Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
I’m actually currently writing a paper suggesting that the fastest way to kill suburban sprawl is to reduce the federal matching for new highway construction (or widening). The money should be redirected into infrastructure repair, replacement, and maintenance to reduce our massive infrastructure backlog, and also towards improved public transit. Thoughts?
Tom McNamara Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 9:40 am
Verry interesting, although, I wouldn’t be so sure that works. Usually assumptions about federal policies are “catch-alls” and not the most effective solution, just the “easiest” to implement.
StevieB Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 11:26 am
Infrastructure spending in new suburbs while allowing existing communities to decay is a factor in inducing movement and continuing sprawl. The lobbying efforts and the money is on the side of the developer and not on the side of the decaying cities which is why there is so much delayed maintenance. There needs to be a cultural change toward transportation oriented development which may take generations to accept as more take advantage of the TOD that is being built now. The automobile centered suburbs of the cul-de-sac will not entirely die out but their usage can be lessened somewhat by changes in federal funds but also by changes in local zoning and building permits.
Joseph E Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
That might help, but the real issue are the cheap costs for using roads, and the cheap cost of parking. Gas taxes and road tolls are too low (or non-existent, for the latter). If suburban drivers paid the full cost of building and maintaining roads, including property tax and depreciation, many people would choose smaller lots, closer to their jobs. Another big problem is that zoning laws require too much parking, so it is all free or underpriced. With the average new parking space costing $10k to $50k, parking should cost $5 to $50 a day in a free market.
Federal subsidies are part of the problem, but the States and cities could choose to keep subsidizing roads and mandating cheap. Raise the gas tax to the average cost in developed countries ($4 a gallon, for tax alone), add tolls to all of the freeways, and make parking market-rate, and you would see big changes.
bixnix Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 10:19 pm
I’d say the downtown connector and Wilshire Blvd subway and the various light rail lines are quite a bit more significant for L.A. than a “small amount of subway expansion…”. We’ll be looking at a doubling of rail ridership, maybe more, when these projects are finished. But it still isn’t adequate, of course.
Donk Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 8:14 am
You have no idea what you are talking about. LA is a HUGE area, that would take hours to drive across even if there wasn’t traffic. It is not possible to cover every part of the LA area with rail transit. The best thing you can do is build rail lines where you can for cheap on existing rail corridors in the more sparse parts of the area, then focus your dollars the most on the dense job regions on the area. The Westside, Downtown, and LAX areas are three of the primary employment destinations in the LA area. If you make it convenient to get to/from these places, at least you have an option for many of the commuters in the region.
Once the regional connector, Purple Line to Westwood, and a 405 line from LAX to the Valley are complete, there will be an enormous increase in transit use in the region.
Andrew Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:08 pm
These expansion plans still don’t benefit Orange County or Riverside County at all though. Millions of people live and work in these areas and they are getting virtually no transit expansion at all. These areas also have terrible traffic in places.
It is perfectly possible to build rail in the suburbs too, Tokyo does it. For example, Yokohama (satellite city south of Tokyo) has an extensive commuter train system of its own plus several express rail lines e.g. Tokaido Line which link Tokyo and Yokohama in about 30 minutes. Compare to Anaheim or Irvine, there is very little mass transit, Metrolink is very slow and infrequent, and it takes 2 hours to drive to LA in heavy traffic.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 8:28 pm
Wrong, Andrew. Check out the state of mass transit in Lyons, the terminus of an HSR line. :-P
ComradeFrana Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 4:31 am
Huh? For a city it’s size, Lyon has quite extensive mass transit system. Am I missing somehing here?
Alon Levy Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 6:57 pm
What you’re missing: Lyon has a small system measured by route-km, but a large one measured by ridership.
Nathanael Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:13 pm
“For a city its size”.
LA has sufficient mass transit to supply one end of an HSR line better than Lyon.
I think there is a “tipping point” as far as car ownership and driving are concerned. Families out by me have several cars – typically one for each family member. Once you’ve paid for the car, paid for insurance and taxes, and paid to keep it in good repair, you have to use it. It makes no sense to pay so much to have the car available, then pay the bus company for a ride. Gas or parking have to be awfully expensive, or traffic has to be truly terrible – which they’re usually not, in California.
But cars are getting more expensive to own, maintain, license and insure – it can cost $10,000 or even $20,000 per year to keep that fleet in the driveway. Families can reduce that cost by dropping a car or two from their fleet. And once people don’t have the extra cars in the driveway, they’ll see in public transportation what they once saw in the automobile and the freeway – freedom, mobility and opportunity.
joe Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 7:16 pm
Sounds good for the young adult or childless couple.
But…cars are essential if work and drop/pick up a kid. We had one lightly used car but when the kid came, we added a car and reduced our public transit use. And kids force you to add car seats and own bigger cars if you have 2+.
So reliable public transit service and reduced headway are important when you depend on the bus or train for work/parenting.
Oh and we’ll need more public restrooms, clean ones if you expect families to use public transportation.
Clem Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Seconded. Used to be a one-car household and ride bike/Caltrain every day, now stuck on the freeway because I need to drop off kids and off-peak Caltrain service sucks rocks when stuff inevitably comes up. I’m not happy about it but there is no better option.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 8:31 pm
Joe, you’re saying exactly what Peter is saying.
Couples with children — even with lots of children — will long for *good* public transportation, because cars are getting really expensive, and gas is getting really expensive, and traffic is getting really terrible in places like LA.
hsr doen’t have to connect to fully built out first class transit in order to be successful. Airports do just fine without it, and current rail is growing successfully in cali without it as well. People will do the same thing, whatever that is, with hsr, that they do now with amtrak california and the airlines. And the increased speed will likely get some of the road traffic as well because at some point its more attractive to make a 5 hour drive into a 90 minute train ride plus a car rental or other accomodation. Trips and circumstances are not set in stone. There are many ways to skin a cat ( please don’t report me to peta). People are creative and will find their own ways to make hsr work for them in order to take advantage of the faster travel times (than driving) and increased convenience (compated to flying)
Howard Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 8:27 pm
As long as you have enough park & ride spaces and rental car facilities. Both do not need to be all at CHST stations, some can be distributed at other Caltrain, BART, Capitol Corridor, VTA-LRT, Metrolink, Metro-Rail, Pacific Surfliner or San Joaquin’s stations. They can be built where there is room. Riders will transfer if it is easy and there is enough park & ride spaces close to home and rental car facilities close to their destination.
Then again, the HSR systems in Spain, Russia and such didn’t take 20 years of construction. That is excluding the past 40 years California has been fighting to make HSR reality.
My question is this. At a $98 billion price tag, how long will it take until the system begins to bring in government revenue?
Here are my two issues about the current business plan: 2033 and $98 billion. If you follow these issues back to their roots, you’ll find two all too familiar terms: Inefficiency and no spine.
StevieB Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 11:00 am
The Initial Operating Segment will produce a profit. This is the segment to be built after the Central Valley. When it is built will depend on federal funding which is not expected for several years hence the delay.
synonymouse Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 12:28 pm
If hsr were profitable you would already see one at least under construction in Mexico, which has a good market for public transit, dirt cheap labor, lax environmental laws and no nimbys.
The best iteration of hsr in California might get by with an acceptable level of subsidy, and that with a cheap union being herded by very strong management.
Stilt-A-Rail thru Tehachapi? Absolute money pit both in terms of construction and of operating and maintenance costs. The State will have another white elephant like BART on its broke hands.
StevieB Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 2:23 pm
Mexico is a lawless murder plagued corrupt country. Mexico is one of the last places I expect investment in HSR.
synonymouse Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Welcome to Oakland, Richmond, LaLa, Fresno, etc. Sanctuarycity, Dreamact citta operta
no investment in HSR here, boss.
StevieB Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 3:38 pm
I am certain you believe that Mexico is of higher investment quality than California. Your soapboxing and tilting at windmills is mildly amusing.
synonymouse Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
They are sometimes referred to as “emerging markets” Indeed often more profitable.
Gavin & Moonbeam aren’t “soapboxing”?
Reconquista, baby.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 7:40 pm
By European standards, the US is a murder plagued country.
synonymouse Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 8:38 pm
By US standards Oaksterdam is a murder plagued country. Maybe if we shift all those hsr funds to Altamont that will uplift the East Bay.
synonymouse Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
@ Emma
The only party who can can shake up this $98bil embarrassment is Moonbeam and he is taking a nap.
I dunno if Van Ark is motivated to go out on a limb and propose alternatives without backing from on high.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 8:33 pm
Emma, the Russian system pretty much did take 20 years from conception to completion. Or more; it isn’t done. And that’s a single line through open countryside with no geographic obstacles….
Spain has built HSR at a world-record speed, only exceeded by China.
ComradeFrana Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 5:05 am
To add, the current Russian system is comprised of high-speed trains running on upgraded conventional railroads. The planned dedicated high speed lines (actually just single line for the time being: Moscow – St.Petersburg) are yet to be built.
Off topic, but fun–a conversation with a traffic engineer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9BUyWVg1xI
At 8:18: “And you wonder, why are we broke?”
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 11:37 pm
Also a bit off topic, but perhaps of interest–a British theory about the decline of railroads:
http://equilibrium-economicum.net/backontherails.htm
This almost sounds like a variation of the generational pattern we’ve been noticing in regard to support and criticism of rail in general.
Nathanael Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 8:39 pm
Yep. He overinterprets the 60s, of course, which was more communitarian than he makes out, but his general point is about right.
And Hayek was a *complete moron*, who thought that buying an overcoat would increase unemployment (really, this is a documented incident). Yet indeed, his lunatic ideas have been quite successful when used as excuses for very bad people like Thatcher to do very bad things to countries.