New Business Plan May Include $1 Billion for Caltrain
It’s becoming increasingly clear that part of the upcoming revision to the 2012 Business Plan will include more money from Prop 1A for urban rail upgrades. Earlier we learned that the California High Speed Rail Authority and the Southern California Association of Governments had agreed on a proposal to fund rail upgrades in Southern California out of Prop 1A dollars.
This week we learn that the CHSRA is in similar negotiations, this time in the Bay Area and primarily with Caltrain:
The San Francisco Chronicle has learned that officials with Bay Area transportation agencies are in negotiations with each other, and with the rail authority, to craft an agreement that would fund installation of an advanced train-control system, electrify the rails on the Peninsula and eliminate some of the rail crossings – perhaps as soon as 2016, five to 10 years earlier than earlier estimates….
Proposition 1A, the $9.95 billion bond measure approved in 2008 that funded the high-speed rail project, would pay for the Caltrain improvements. But the Bay Area would have to match that money with a significant amount of local funds, perhaps as much as $1 billion. According to the plan, $600 million would come from bond money for high-speed rail service with another $400 million from bond funds dedicated to transit agencies providing connections to high-speed trains.
This would be in addition to, and not in place of, starting on the Initial Construction Segment in the Central Valley. In other words, the CHSRA is strongly considering building in both the Valley AND in the coastal metro areas.
This is a very smart political approach. The Central Valley starting point made sense from a phasing and technical perspective, but created political problems in that most California legislators hail from the coastal metropolises, and they would have had to wait quite some time to see any funding (and therefore, job) come their way. That made it a bit harder for some of the weaker legislators to withstand the anti-HSR attacks.
But with the prospect of significant funding coming to upgrade rail in Southern California and the Bay Area, it seems clear that HSR’s political fortunes will be given a significant boost. State Senator Mark DeSaulnier, who represents a Contra Costa County district, had been critical of the choice to begin construction in the Valley. Bringing some funds to the Bay would probably swing him back into the came of HSR supporters.
Would State Senator Joe Simitian turn down $1 billion – leveraged potentially to $2 billion – to eliminate dangerous at-grade crossings and create jobs in his Peninsula district? Simitian has tried to position himself as a reasonable critic of the project, but this would force him to declare himself openly as either someone who wants to make HSR work or as an ally of Tea Party Republicans looking to kill HSR and deal President Obama a significant political blow.
The CHSRA’s new approach will even put pressure on State Senator Alan Lowenthal, ringleader of the opponents of high speed rail. Lowenthal wants to go to Congress, where all of his future Democratic colleagues from California strongly support the high speed rail project, where he will be expected to support President Obama’s HSR agenda against Republican attacks. Lowenthal is already way out on a limb by siding with Tea Party Republicans against Obama on HSR. If the CHSRA can deliver immediate and substantial funding to build HSR infrastructure in Southern California, Lowenthal will be isolated among Sacramento Democrats as well.
This is the white-knuckle time for HSR supporters. Both President Obama and Congressional Democrats have been making it clear that they intend to deliver significant federal funding for HSR in 2013 if Republicans lose this year’s elections. California would reap a windfall and the HSR project’s finances would be given a much-needed boost.
We just have to get through 2012, and that means making sure Democrats in the state legislature do not cut and run, siding with Tea Party Republicans over their own governor and their own president. The CHSRA’s approach to delivering benefits to urban areas now may be just what is needed to help ensure HSR can survive 2012.
2 Jerry 12:2
And there was much rejoicing on the Peninsula, for the Project Done Right crowd understood their neighborhood was getting a ten-figure gift ten years early.
Jerry Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 7:12 pm
And wailing and knashing of teeth by the NIMBYs.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 7:22 pm
The done right crowd will be wailing and gnashing their teeth too. It’s never going to be right enough for them.
VBobier Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 8:55 pm
Agreed.
Roderick Llewellyn Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 4:01 pm
The NIMBYs opposing HSR for the most part don’t want Caltrain either. They are somewhat quiet on that because they know Caltrain is popular with the generic public. They also know that without HSR, Caltrain is likely to fail as it may never get a dedicated funding source to carry it thru rough times. So their best strategy to eliminate Caltrain is in fact to oppose HSR, and use HSR’s problems as the whipping boy.
Derek Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 10:42 pm
Actually, I think NIMBYs will want to replace the noisy diesel trains and loud horns with EMUs and grade-separated intersections that reduce the need for horns.
Peter Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 4:09 am
No, they want NO trains. That’s more idyllic.
joe Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 7:15 pm
Nope.
NIMBYs use traffic impacts to stop development. They’ll hate anything that would improve throughput (traffic) and allow infill development.
Also, the very smart rail experts hate CBOSS. They know caltrain management is incompetent and this bonanza is them being awarded for incompetence. Plus the money will go to PB.
Jonathan Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 7:52 pm
Parsons Transportation Group, actually. And PTG proposed to subcontract to various players:
To GE Transportatoin for the ITCS used by Amtrak in Michigan (which 18 years after the contract was signed, is only _just_ in trials of 110mph operation; *ten* years after ITCS speeds were raised to 90mph and 5 years after the then-already-delayed projected date of 2007). Which doesn’t exactly build confidence in the contractor’s abillity to tailor the system for Caltrain’s “unique local needs”.
PTG also proposed to subcontract to Wabtec for the so-called back-office server, which is what downloads the track database, speed restrictions, etc. to locomotives before a train departs.
Oh, and from what I’ve read elsewhere, GPS/D-GPS by itself isn’t actually _quite_ accurate enough to figure out whereabouts on a platform a train is stopping. Which suggests it won’t be _quite_ accurate enough to tell if a train is stopped just before a grade-crossing, or on top of the grade-crossing.
If so, so much for the one-and-only thing CBOSS will offer, which other systems don’t.
Jonathan Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 7:33 pm
2 Jerry 12:3
And lo, also there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and tearing of hair, yea, and even Fear and Loathing, amongst others of the “HSR Done Right” crowd. For they perceived that Jerry had removed the fig-leaf of “Done Right” from their protestations; and thus they must find some different shield behind which to hide their naked NIMBYism.
Beta Magellan Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 7:54 pm
The author of the Book of Jerry should take another look at the Blog of Clem and the Scrolls of CBOSS.
Jonathan Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 7:57 pm
Gee, you really think so? Which part, precisely?
joe Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 7:58 pm
Those were ghost written by the Sisters of Perpetual Objection.
Jonathan Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 8:18 pm
I think Beta Magellan has overlooked the fact that there are people who use “done right” as a cover for NIMBYism. And if you want to find someone who knows more about CBOSS and ETCS than Clem …
synonymouse Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 9:27 pm
What then, pray tell, is the Tejon Cartel’s “cover for NIMBYism”? A 50 mile detour thru thru the favela of the future is “done right”?
Roderick Llewellyn Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 4:02 pm
That’s funny, Jonathan, thanks!
No way in hell does Simitian come out against this plan. There are many in SF, the Peninsula, and in Silicon Valley who want Caltrain to be modernized/upgraded. If Simitian somehow objects to this plan than he’s proving he’s nothing more than a PAMPA pontiff; the hell with the vast majority of folks he represents! Make this happen!
joe Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 8:07 pm
Yes, Genentech is one ardent Caltrain supporter, Stanford too.
Eventually, Facebook and Google will have to rethink their free bus ride policy. When they do, it would help to have a modernized Caltrain service.
In this recession, traffic along the 101 corridor is bad. They run between google and facebook new campus and beyond is getting an auxiliary lane due to congestion. 102M.
http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist4/scl101auxlanes/
“This project will add auxiliary lanes in both directions along US 101 from State Route 85 to Embarcadero Road in Santa Clara County. It complements a project in San Mateo County which will add auxiliary lanes on US 101 between Embarcadero Road and Marsh Road.”
Brian Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 10:09 pm
I hope the auxiliary lane project fixes the too short southbound onramp approach from Charleston Rd. to 101 south. Currently that is pure terror. It may of been appropriate when the 101 was more like El Camino Real with stop lights and cross traffic every several miles or so as I’ve been told; but not for a modern freeway.
Almost as ridiculous as still having grade crossings on a commuter line like Caltrain. It’s not like this is the wild west anymore. It’s about time the line is upgraded to the more “contemporary” commuter line standards of about 80 to 90 years ago.
joe Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:16 am
That on-ramp sure needs fixing – and it slows traffic by dumping too many cars on 101 without any merge space. The project is 3.2 miles and 102M so it is not cheap.
The Caltrain at grade crossing at Charleston was where a 12-ish year old girl on bike was killed and even with safety improvements, in 2011 an out-of-state couple were confused and got stuck on the tracks — the wife died. Whining about property impacts for any grade improvements doesn’t cut it. It’s deadly there.
I live in that area in the 90′s and the tracks cut off pedestrian and bike traffic in MtV and PA. It would be nice if they added bike friendly underpasses or overpasses to the ROW when the fix Caltrain. Ideally add a bike lane along the improved ROW – ALMA the road that parallels the tracks, is so narrow a 4 lane road that bikes are allowed on the crappy/small sidewalks.
The 101 project includes a bike/pedestrian overpass for 101 which needs bike friendly crossings to the google/bay side of Mountain view.
Shawn Wilsher Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
Do you realize that Facebook (and I think Google) give their employees Go passes on Caltrain too?
Roderick Llewellyn Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 4:05 pm
The “auxiliary lane” business is a way for Caltrans to make an end-run around “no new capacity” requirements. It’s not about extra capacity, you see: it’s about SAFETY. Caltrans has been pulling this for years. Once you have two “auxiliary” lanes separated by a mile without them, you can then “complement” them by connecting them. Pretty soon what you have is not “auxiliary” any longer. It’s just a lane. By that point, of course, you have the same problem entering the freeway as before (merging), so there will be another round of constructing such “safety” projects.
So it seems then that the plan is to have upgraded ends and a high speed middle happening sort of at the the same time, then what’s left to decide is which mountain crossings to do first. Maybe by then there will be money to construct both mountain crossings (teh and pac) at teh same time.
That would be followed by upgrading the ends to full hsr. ( although isn’t the plan to run at 125 on the ends anyway…. can we get them 125-ready now then?)
Tom Mcnamara Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 7:59 pm
Guess again. The MOU Richard leaked implied the urban rail upgrades will have a tangential impact to high speed rail.
It appears the goal is to dangle Prop 1a moneys in front of MTC and METRO now that both know via redistrcting how much political influence both LA and the Bay Area stand to lose in Congress.
Tony d. Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 2:22 am
LA and Bay Area lose political influence in Congress? Keep dreaming! (Yeah, places like Redding and Barstow will now dictate California’s future through the magic of redistricting…LOL!)
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:47 am
Don’t play dumb–
Metro is LA County and the percentage of congressmen hailing from LA County is going down. MTC is in the same boat, as population increases in other parts of the state are shrinking their delegation.
Nathanael Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 4:03 pm
Population increases where, exactly? SF suburbs? LA suburbs? Central Valley? San Diego? I know it’s not far northern California or the eastern deserts.
VBobier Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 5:02 pm
Barstow? LOL They’d love that, if it were real…
What’s this $400m which would match HSR’s Prop 1A money? Sounds like its the $950m of Prop 1A bond money for regional services connecting to HSR. But if BART isn’t going to get its ~$275m of that money (per Clem’s post here of Feb 6), how are BART and MTC going to be placated?
Clem Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 8:47 pm
This isn’t the $950 million of transit connectivity funding. It is from the pot of $9 billion for actual HSR construction. It can easily be argued that it is an indirect subsidy of BART, since the projects now proposed to be funded with HSR money were supposed to have been funded with local money. For example, Santa Clara County proposition A (2000) funded SCC’s entire share of the electrification project, but in reality all that money went to BART instead. It’s hard not to be paranoid about this plan imploding too. Channeling synonymouse, we haven’t yet heard the last gasp of the plan to ring the bay with BART. With money on the table, who knows what will happen next? The stakes are high.
Clem Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 8:47 pm
Measure A, sorry.
Jonathan Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 9:04 pm
Understood. and as I almost wrote above: in the Bay Area, “the BART-monster always wins!”
synonymouse Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 9:16 pm
The stakes are indeed very high. There is a possibility(but I strongly doubt it) this could amount to an end run around the BART-MTC boys of the class of 1991. If so you can be sure that the BART lobbyists are hard at work to kill Caltrain electrification. Maybe Simitian has or will go with the dark lord and Ring the Bay.
A modern Caltrain would be a true stye in the eye of the BART-Bechtel-Brutalist true faith. I mean the Caltrain and/or hsr cars might actually be painted and have reasonably straight sides as all good railcars should. Blasphemy.
Jonathan Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 9:32 pm
And we learn what foamers really care about: color schemes.
The real risk I see for BART and its transport-industrial complex is this: if Caltrain is electrified, its ridership grows, and farebox recovery rate increases. I mean, far lower capital cost that BART, cheaper ticket prices, significantly faster, and better service. (Express services, for one.)
That’d really be one in the eye for the BART estabishment!
VBobier Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 10:14 pm
And BART might not like a competitor that’s in their backyard…
But then BART is a brat…
synonymouse Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 10:17 pm
Sounds good but that’s not how patronage machine world works. Any superfluous funds go to payroll.
Sorry if my lack of class shows – I just want to ride in an ocs, standard gauge, Caltrain car with straight sides, painted and pantographed and roll victorious and thumbs down right on by a what oughta be a scrapline of BART raw aluminum beer cans at Iconic Galactic SJ Hauptbahnhof.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 11:57 pm
“And we learn what foamers really care about: color schemes.”
Man, I wonder how I fit in–I like not only straight sides, but rivets, Pullman green paint, and black steam engines!!
Maybe a weekend heritage service?
Possible future of BART cars:
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=31288&hilit=bart
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32835
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32163&hilit=bart
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 12:04 am
Some comments on BART from the above forums:
“. . . After the PCC, all evolution in public transit stopped dead. Then there was 40 years of nothin’. And then BOOM, there was a rail renaissance. BART was on the lead, and BART was full of daring innovations (and mistakes), and no doubt of it — BART is the most historically important of ALL OF THEM.”
“It seems fairly obvious to me that a 3 car set should be staticly preserved and if, in time, someone has the ability to restore and run such equipment, it still exists. I agree that in 20 or so years we will be on the same forum lamenting the loss of these unique cars and wishing that someone had the foresight to save just one……”
“BART should save a few old cars in operating condition as other transit systems have.
“BART started the national return to rapid transit. Atlanta and Washington, D.C. are two examples of cities that followed. Thus the added historical significance of the cars. Therefore the California State RR Museum should grab a few and back date them to original condition. And the building of the transbay tubes needs to be highlighted as a significant engineering accomplishment. What in modern mass transit is more California than BART?”
“But this is a major, constitutional crisis for railway museums, and especially transit museums. Most are all about preserving pre-1950 transit, and being about the nostalgia, and about early 20th century engineering which was so stout and godly. Unspoken was the shared expectation that they were preserving an era that was gone for good. Most have spent their entire existence (many since WWII) being just that, and that’s how everyone thinks.
So now there’s this NEWKRAP.
“It’s a much sharper distinction than steam vs. diesel… And you know all the hand-wringing museums had over THAT.
“See the pickle? As a museum full of pre-1940 cars… do we preserve TRANSIT? Or do we preserve early 20th century transit specifically? Will other museums preserve this newkrap? (not likely.)
“Does our museum stick with early 20th century railroading, and slowly watch our relevance as a museum diminish, as no one still lives who remembers anything in our collection? Or do we slowly come around to the notion of saving newkrap, too late to preserve the first generation, then spend the next 200 years explaining why these key developments are missing from our collection?
“For instance WRM is a museum that is basically complete. It’s all indoors. We’re in the phase of replacing carbarns now. Our mission is to preserve electric railroading in the west, but our master planning is completely unprepared for the onslaught of BART, Sacramento, San Jose, Sandy Eggo, L.A.’s variety of lines, Portland, Seattle, Salt Lake, Phoenix… to say nothing of San Francisco, and we can’t refuse them!!! This is all LARGE equipment which ran M.U. so we can’t do it justice without two each. We don’t have the barn space, and the approved master-plan has nowhere to put the barns if we wanted to. So you’re talking about, essentially, a whole ‘nother Lone Mountain retreat intensive to reestablish who the heck WRM is; new site approval, practically reboot the museum.”
Nathanael Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 3:59 pm
I think WRM should build a second museum site at the far end of their line and put the late-20th-century equipment at that end. :-)
BART equipment is going to be practically impossible for any museum to preserve in operation — non-standard gauge! On the other hand, all the other systems in North America are standard gauge or close enough to convert (Philly/Toronto) — you’ve got the tracks, you’ve got the overhead, only a couple of systems use third rail,… carbarn, platform, and you’re ready.
Nathanael Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 4:02 pm
Heh. My “historic” taste, personally, is for wood and brass interiors. :-)
Perhaps surprisingly this is a *really common* taste, especially among non-”foamers”. I’ve speculated that you could put a wood and brass interior in a completely modern vehicle and most people would ooh and aah over how luxurious it was.
Though many people want seat cushions. Sigh. ;-)
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 5:04 pm
There’s a good reason so many would “ooh” and “aah” at such an interior:
Venice-Simplon Orient Express:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyde1NExIH0
We can still do this in America: video on the restoration of the Pullman car “Sunbeam” (good still photos of the interior not available):
http://vimeo.com/20479597
For a while, we even had something like this, new construction mind you, operating as a “park train” in Seattle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg4yWq7ryTk
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 6:45 pm
Darn it, one thing I wish I could find (but couldn’t) would have been a set of interior photographs of some of the early (prewar) Union Pacific “City” trains. These car interior often used a good deal of wood in them, but the general style was very Art-Deco.
I understand a signature car of one of these early trains is preserved in Travel Town; ironically, its interior style is High Victorian, as reinterpreted in the late 1930s:
http://www.laparks.org/grifmet/tt/htmgallery/gallery_pass/nugget.htm
Jonathan Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 8:59 pm
Yes, I got that the quoted article is from the $9bn HSR pot of Prop 1A money.
I’m asking where the local “matching” $400m is coming from.
That can’t be coming from the $9bn pot, too. The quoted article suggests the $400m would come
from bond funds dedicated to transit agencies providing connections to high-speed trains.
which sounds awfully like the $950m of Prop 1A money which you described as “already divvied up”, with BART getting about one-third of the available money.
Jon Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 9:48 pm
The $950 has already been “divided up”, but that was under Arnie. Jerry Brown vetoed the specific line in the budget which would have released the cash, and suggested at the time that it largely amounted to local transit agencies grabbing funds for protects tangentially related to HSR. The reallocation of that cash to upgrade projects more directly related to HSR would therefore be a logical next step.
VBobier Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 10:18 pm
Good for Brown, He doesn’t like waste, He likes it when money helps both Transit & HSR, Not Transit at HSR’s expense. Arnie was an Actor trying to do the job of a Politician, Jerry is the real deal, a True public servant.
synonymouse Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 10:27 pm
Jerry makes the Governator look good. I did not think it possible.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 11:36 pm
Syn, there may be hope yet. . .at least Cap’n Transit thinks so in the east:
http://capntransit.blogspot.com/2012/02/political-realities.html
I am cautiously optimistic, perhaps not so much as Jim SF, but more so than a few years ago. Who would have thought a President and a Secretary of Transportation would really, seriously plug for rail service of any kind? This is after years of Disappointing Cats neglecting the subject, while the Repugnant Ones generally have been trying to kill what we do have and chain us to cars and oil. As Robert noted a few days ago, we have a generational change coming, and we aren’t quite in the right place yet. We have to wait for some more “dinosaurs” to die. . .of course, I still worry that we may not have as much time as we need. . .
For comparison–info on a bridge at Tappan Zee, New York; apparently there is some demand for a new bridge, but this one span is reported to be coming in at something like $5 billion! One bridge! HSR looks like a bargain by comparison!
http://capntransit.blogspot.com/2011/12/why-we-cant-afford-to-replace-tappan.html
Hope this makes Syn and even Richard feel a little better. . .though I’m afraid it will do nothing for Morris at all. . .
Alon Levy Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:20 pm
You’re making the Tappan Zee
wideningreplacement look more useful than it actually is. Traffic on the bridge has been flat for ten years. Westchester and Rockland Counties have both grown glacially – the population growth in the region is either in the city or in exurbs that are too far out to be well-served by the bridge (e.g. Orange County). And there isn’t even all that much east-west traffic demand – the commute ties across the river are weak that far north, and are far weaker than the north-south traffic demand and the east-west demand between North Jersey and Manhattan.Nathanael Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 3:54 pm
The Tappan Zee is a particularly stupid bridge. As has been pointed out, it’s at the widest point in the entire river (well, south of Lake Champlain), which was done for stupid political reasons originally.
It shouldn’t be widened, it shouldn’t be replaced, it shouldn’t have been built in the first place. Bild a bridge to the north and a bridge to the south, and leave the Tappan Zee until it falls apart, which will take a long time (it’s structurally sound).
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 5:10 pm
which will take a long time (it’s structurally sound).
Lake Champlain isn’t in the Hudson watershed. It eventually drains into the St. Lawrence.
Silly New York City stopped dumping raw sewage from most of Manhattan and half of Brooklyn into the river. Lets the shipworms thrive. Much of the “bridge” is causeway held up by wooden pilings. Once the shipworms get into the pilings it’s not going to up for very long.
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:15 am
You are still putting lipstick on the pig, though. Shifting 1 billion to Cal Train makes zero sense if BART already has the votes to Ring the Bay….
Daniel Krause Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:25 am
BART will only ring the bay if they incorporate the Caltrain system (and their existing track gauge) into the BART system. There has been talk about this in the past and may make sense at some point to better coordinate transfers at Millbrae and eventually in the South Bay, as well as to streamline operations and brand identity. But a 31-mile Peninsula extension of duplicative rail infrastructure is highly implausible at this point. Just getting BART to San Jose and Livermore, as well as their retrofitting and car orders programs, will keep them busy for the next couple of decades.
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 2:06 pm
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 2:06 pm
coding fail:
We really don’t have that much time. We’ll be answering to the Canadians if it takes us that long to transform ourselves as a nation. You wouldn’t happen to like Francis Fukayama or Dinesh d’Souza do you?
blankslate Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:36 am
Ring the Bay is insane! It is going to take another 8 years just to get to Berryessa (10 miles) and then the next five miles doen’t even have a schedule yet, but is probably coming in the 2030s. Further extensions up/down the peninsula have not even been preliminarily planned or spoken of outside of blog comment sections…. Those 31 miles are NOT going to be connected within this century!
Furthermore, why would it be done when there is an existing rail service already running between those points?
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
Because CalTrain is a joke. It’s an extremely slow rail service that does not even have a downtown station in San Francisco. The amount of density and jobs that await the Peninsula in the years ahead make it a necessity.
blankslate Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 3:01 pm
Bart costs about a quarter to third of billion per mile to extend (based on recently published figures for san jose/livermore extensions). That makes about $8-11billion for the remaining 31 miles, leaving out additional costs brought on by PAMPA NIMBY-ism.
Couldn’t Caltrain be sped up, increased frequency, and extended to Downtown SF for less than 8-11 billion?
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 3:52 pm
I wonder why nobody ever thought of that?
VBobier Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 5:11 pm
Sure, just do eminent domain on properties and offer the owners pennies on the Dollar, then use all robots to demolish buildings and to build the ROW and lay the tracks… NOT.
Roderick Llewellyn Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 3:56 pm
Tom- the problem with your logic is this: it would cost way less to speed up Caltrain than it would cost to replace it with BART. End of line!
But, let’s also mention this: the average speed of Caltrain is actually higher than the average speed of BART. Even with “primitive” diesel gear and heavy FRA compliant cars.
And forget about the opposite idea – regauging BART. It won’t happen either. Fact is, those who dream of a completely compatible BART and standard gauge system are doing just that – dreaming, , and not really helping the effort. We will have two systems for decades to come. Let’s instead work to make both of them as good as they can be. Billions wasted on regauging either system to match the other could be better spent on improvements that matter.
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 6:33 pm
You know what I am going to say though:
CalTrain’s average speed is augmented by the “baby bullet” service which is wholly incompatible with HSR, potentially even if the Peninsula is quad-tracked. Plus BART could, god forbid, invest in capacity up grades that would allow it to run locals and expresses.
Therefore your premise is accurate: you could upgrade CalTrain as is and it would be cheaper by the order of we’ll say $1 billion or so to serve TBT to Diridon. But unless you want HSR to end at San Jose, that savings is offset by all the modifications that will be needed for track-sharing, including electrification. Plus if you run HSR on existing CalTrain right of way, you can run BART above it between Milbrae and Palo Alto.
Clem Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 7:04 pm
That’s some good stuff you’re smoking, there. Can we have some?
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 11:12 pm
Clem, although I’m touched that you would give currency to my regular references to peyote and its hallucinogenic effects…you know damn well I’m not smoking anything.
NIMBYs fight loudest and hardest when there needs to be some form of government taking for a public works project. One way to neatly avoid this in the Peninsula is to eliminate CalTrain and run HSR on it’s current tracks and give BART the right to build viaducts above the tracks for Ring Th’ Bay. It would save a lot of money because suddenly there are no acquisition costs for the right of way.
Let’s face it, you won’t admit that the NIMBYs are singlehandly digging not only their own graves, but CalTrain’s as well. If even people like CARRD were smart enough to have taken half a loaf previously there would be some hope. But by trying to shoot the moon, PB, BART, the Rothschilds, Bildabergs, Illumnati, Skull and Bones, ____ are going to get their wish and the NIMBYs have no one to blame but themselves.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 11:45 pm
NIMBYs fight loudest and hardest when there needs to be some form of government taking for a public works project.
Yes, tell just what is the cultural and historical significance of the parking lots behind the strip malls that will be most of the takings?
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 7:51 am
Prop 13. Or if you need me to say it again, Prop 13.
Clem Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 12:17 pm
Acquisition costs are a drop in the bucket even in tony Palo Alto. This is an easy order-of-magnitude error to make, since we consider Palo Alto real estate to be “expensive” compared presumably to the value of our own dwelling. That benchmark is irrelevant in this situation. The proper comparison is the cost of the peninsula HSR project. The latest business plan figures right of way acquisition costs in the neighborhood of six percent.
The most likely outcome if there is a huge stink in PAMPA is a BART subway and HSR via Altamont.
synonymouse Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 1:08 pm
“a BART subway[thru PAMPA] and HSR via Altamont may indeed be the compromise that BART will have to accept. It is workable and does indeed give BART most of the SP ROW it has always coveted. But I suggest BART will go for broke and try tobottle up the CHSRA at San Jose.
It is clear that 3 entities have practical veto power over issues affecting their areas at the CHSRA. That would be LA, Fresno, and San Jose. LA has already crudely levied its veto at Tejon. IMHJO BART will snooker San Jose into doing likewise over Altamont. Superficially a shift to Altamont would appear to downplay San Jose’s position on the hsr route and be slower. It does not matter if that is not true because it will be easy to convince SJ to lobby for Pacheco at all costs.
BART gains from stopping hsr at San Jose. It benefits from retaining the SP ROW north of SFO for its own possible future use and it undermines any CHSRA argument that it deserves some portion of inner Bay Area transit funding.
But much more ephemeral and intangible is the very damaging comparison between BART and hsr that would inevitably occur if their operations overlapped. It is in that gray area of corporate culture. BART has enormous institutional hubris. Its attitude is unrepentant and triumphalist, as shone by its new car design, as retrograde Brutalist as ever. Part of its core mission is to protect its Bechtelian duorail legacy. HSR tech will put BART to shame right there in the bright light of day. Better to nip that embarrassment in the bud.
Jonathan Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 6:51 pm
Tom, you don’;t know what you’re talking about. The price-tagfor upgrading CalTrain *includes* electrification which is compatible with HSR. (The plan has the masts spaced are a lot further apart than necessary, for no apparent reason, but let’s leave that.) The price-tag for upgrading CalTrain *includes* new EMU trainsets, which will leave BART in the dust on any metric you care to choose.
You can bring your own opnion, but you don’t get to bring your own facts. BART is a technological
failure: BART cannot meet its promised speeds. BART has never been emulated or coped *anywhere*, *ever. It’s also extremely customer-hostile. Caltrain is better even _now_, with diesels, and if (when) lectrified, will pull even further ahead of BART.
Jonathan Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 6:44 pm
What person in their right mind calls CalTrain “slow” compared to BART?
joe Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 7:21 pm
Ever sit and wait, and yield to a Union Pacific VIP train?
Tony d. Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:22 am
I mentioned this in a previous post: the SJ Mercurynews mentioned a few weeks back in their “Roadshow” column that SCCO voters may be asked to make the 2000 Measure A half-cent sales tax permanent. As it stands now, the half-cent sales tax hike for the BART extension is slated to sunset in 2036. Funds from a permanent tax would go towards completing the entire extension from Berryessa to Diridon/SJ and SC. I would also throw in financing of Caltrain upgrades, operations into any permanent Measure A tax. $400 million should become within reach under this scenario.
Jonathan Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:45 am
why do you say $400m is within reach? BART will just steal the money again, like they already did with the Measure A (2000) funding for Caltrain electrification, and for reopening the Dumbarton bridge.
Tony d. Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:54 am
Its called thinking outside the box my friend; no harm, no foul. Feel free to come up with your own scenarios on how to raise $400 million for Caltrain.
synonymouse Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 11:16 am
@ Jonathan
BART will indeed pocket any money left carelessly lying in sight.
We do have here the possible makings of a genuine power struggle between the State in the form of Jerry B. the CHSRA, Caltrain and Caltrans versus the Bay region in the form of BART, MTC, the Pelosi patronage machine, Amalgamated, etc. and Bechtel dba’s. Richard is an odd man out as he has connections to both.
I see absolutely no sign of any change of attitude or remorse at BART. It will never cop to being a mutant aberration. Nonetheless do not underestimate its imperial pretensions. I finally realized where BART found its design inspiration. Fifties sci-fi flicks. None of the robots were ever painted. BART is sort of a corroded, tarnished early model of a Cylon Centurion outshone and outdone by newer tech. Trustworthy as a Cylon.
Smart money remains on Ring the Bay.
Too bad Van Ark did not have his Tejon epiphany when Schwarzie was in power. They probably both speak a form of German – the Governator might have grasped the efficiencies. Jerry is a hopeless disappointment – cravenly capitulating to the Tejon Gang.
Jonathan Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:33 pm
well. As a non-citizen in California, I have been plainitively asking, on Clems’ blog and here, how one might get a small ray of sanity-sunshine into Caltrain, regarding CAHSR. One answer (yours?) was that it would take Jerry Brown to bang some heads together, to make the various turf-holding, empire-building agencies see beyond their own turf and act for the greater good. (The prospect of spenidng, what, 5x the cost of the Millbrae station, to quad-track and quad-platform standard-gauge at Millbrae _without_ touchin BART, is so egregious it doesn’t bear examination).
One might hope that Jerry Brown has instlaled Dan Richard as the hatchet-man to do the head-banging. We’ll see. If he comes out with a proposal to take HSR to Livermore and connect to BART, then HSR in CA is (imnsho) dead for the next 30 years. Again.
Peter Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 4:34 am
BART can only “steal” money when it is permitted to do so by statute. Neither MTC’s Regional Measure 2 nor VTA’s 2000 Measure A specifically allocated monies to particular projects. Both permitted the respective agency to reallocate funds between a number of projects as it deemed necessary.
If the Caltrain member agencies’ measure is written in a way that specifically allocates money to certain project, then BART can’t “steal” anything.
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 7:56 am
Synonymouse’s concept of “stealin’” has more to do with the creation of MTC as a sort of kanagroo court to enforce BART’s will when spreading around discretionary dollars. Secondly, statute really isn’t a barrier either because the Legislature can always notwithstand it.
Purists like to think there some sort of Constitutional ether that puts the brakes on these things…when in fact, the US Supreme Court (and most state supreme courts) can only close the barn door after the horses have left.
If Caltrain gets the upgrades, does that make it easier to extend the line as planned to Salinas and Monterey? Doing so would get more buy-in from residents in portions of the state that may feel that HSR is not serving them well because its too far away. Brining Caltrain to their door, providing direct transfers to HSR, would make it better for them.
*The extension doesnt necessarily have to be run by Caltrain. Could be a new Amtrak line, or extension of the Capitols.
Brian Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 1:59 am
I think it was in the late 90′s Amtrak was talking about proposals to extend the Pacific Surfliner from San Luis Obispo to San Francisco; basically replicating the old SP Daylight service from LA to SF. From what I heard this was to be a “fast train”, nowhere near to HSR speeds but as “fast” as could be accommodated on existing track with upgrades where required. I have always been curious if anything came out of those plans. I assume it would be considered more redundant than complimentary to the statewide HSR system. To a certain extent there would probably be quicker travel times from an organized system of Amtrak Thruway busses connecting the coastal areas to stations along the CV HSR line or to Gilroy if the Pacheco route is still selected.
Andy M. Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 5:07 am
HSR will most definitely canniablize the present Amtrak California system, although in the interim between first sections being completed and the complete system being built out I guess that there will be some form of transitional/mixed operation. Once the full HSR buildout is complete I guess other rail services will only be continued if they serve clearly separate markets. Duplication of services doesn’t make sense.
Peter Baldo Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 5:40 am
It all depends on how high the high speed train fares are. If the goal is to maximize profits, fares will be set at a level where some people will decide the price is too high, but below the level where too few people will pay the fares. In this case, there will always be potential riders for other services.
My understanding is that after the taxpayers spend tens of $Billions to build a partial system, the whole project will be bid out to a private company to operate, and hopefully expand. The private operator will charge what the traffic will bear, leaving plenty of opportunities for lower-cost planes, trains, buses, and cars.
Andy M. Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:08 am
True, but as far as I understand, Amtrak California currently requires operating subsidies. Would those subsidies still be available once the HSR system is complete?
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:59 am
You got it backward. Even if the subsidies exist, they are reliant on consumption of diesel gasoline. As consumption declines, it will be necessary to replace those services that need a large subsidy (insert “Cal Train”, “San Joaquins”, etc. ) with ones that can (better) cover their costs (BART & HSR).
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 11:00 am
In this case, there will always be potential riders for other services.
Both of them? How many trains a day should they run?
Peter Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 5:46 am
I agree. I have a feeling that Capitol Corridor will continue to operate even after full build-out, as the I-80 corridor is not planned to be served by HSR. I wouldn’t be surprised if Pacific Surfliner becomes the de facto HSR link between LA and SD, likely electrified at some point in the future.
As for Amtrak San Joaquin, I’m starting to agree that that service will no longer exist south of Merced. once the IOS is running, at which point it will merely serve as a feeder service between Oakland/Sacramento and Merced. South of Merced will likely be bustituted, or dropped altogether. Transfer in Merced could easily be done with construction of 0.4 mile new track and a new Amtrak San Joaquin station next to the planned HSR station.
joe Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 7:21 am
The VTA express bus on El Camino Real is the 522, and it does not replace the local 22 service. IMHO, it helps ridership on the 22.
HSR between San Jose and Sacramento isn’t going to reduce CC service. I propose the HSR service will increase use of local rail service including CC.
People will be more aware of rail as an alternative.
The anchor stations will have better connections b/c of more traffic and $ spent on feeding riders into the end points.
Increased attention to rail in future Transportation Bills.
CC is not about connecting SJ to Sac, no more than the VTA 22 is about taking eastridge riders to Palo Alto.
jimsf Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:14 am
joe has it right.
Peter Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:19 am
Read what I wrote.
I said San Joaquins were going to stop running south of Merced. San Joaquin’s stops south of Merced are best served with buses. Assuming Hanford gets an HSR station (unlikely, but still possible), the only three San Joaquins stations between Merced and Bakersfield that would not have service would be Madera, Corcoran and Wasco. Madera has 55 boardings AND alightings a day, Corcoran 75, and Wasco has 50. I don’t see how those stations are going to need rail service/how rail service would be worthwhile.
jimsf Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:34 am
Although the point of pricing is valid. Its very likely that local (sjq) fares will be lower than hsr fares. This is true to my knowledge in europe ( where many travelers opt for slower trains at a lower price) as well as the nec where acela is prices at an all business and first, fare structure.
With a private operator, needing to maximize profit, there will be pressure to charge premium fares. I think we are going to get stuck with airline pricing. ugh.
I do welcome though, the option of a first class and business class. I like the eurpstar first class meal at your seat with champagne service.
JJJ Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 12:22 pm
Two things wrong with this logic.
SJs ridership would grow in those small cities because people would ride and transfer. IE: Wasco-Bakersfield-Anaheim.
And two, the SJ is very easy to add more stops, unlike HSR where it will be very expensive. You could provide hyper-local stops, for example, one in central Fresno (shaw) and one in north Fresno (Herndon). That would act as both a commuter train and a HSR feeder.
Even better would be placing the SJ on the UP line, where it could actually serve cities like Madera (instead of Madera farms), and placed like Selma, Kingsburg etc.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 1:55 pm
Sounds peachy-keen. How many passengers a day can they expect with 40 MPH average speeds. How many trains a day does that work out to? Or how many rebuilt RDCs do they have to buy to service the thundering herds of passengers that won’t be showing up?
jimsf Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:23 am
If the san joaquins were truncated at Merced, the equipment etc, would be moved north as there area plans for extending the san joaquins to redding already. So it could become a redding to merced service that would give northern california access to hsr.
Its really hard to say since full hsr operation is so far off.
amtrak also has the ttpion of bidding on the operating contract.
In theory this would be great because you wind up with a statewide built in network from day were surfliners, capitols, san joqquins, thruway buses, and hsr would be fully integrated – scheduling transfers, single ticket, one stop reservations etc. all under one system.
But amtrak is so hell bent on focusing on the NEC to the detriment of the rest of the country. I just don’t know. tis a complaint of all of us that the company continues to be east coast centric, ignoring the west, even after they said they were going to turn over a new leaf.
Peter Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:31 am
That sounds completely reasonable. Not sure if Redding service is going to be successful (bus ridership is pretty low there at 28 boardings and alightings a day), but that could partly be because, well, it’s just a bus.
jimsf Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:39 am
Chico is the real market with chico state. I don’t know if you’ve been there but they have a pretty nice, bustling (relatively) downtown and the U is located downtown adjacent which is nice.
YOu also have ridership on other operators, greyhound and yuba-sutter transit, which serve the sac-north market. A train would steal that ridership.
being from up north, I must say I do not like the idea of running trains up there under the san joaquin name. Its not the san joaquin valley… doesn’t even resemble it, at all, I want a different name. Shastas or such.
Peter Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:02 am
I’ve only landed at the airport there, and that was a dump. But most airports are…
jimsf Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:07 am
Here
jimsf Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:07 am
here
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:10 am
The way the deal appear to have been cut is that Amtrak San Joaquins gets flat out replaced by HSR. For the IOS (Merced to Palmdale), Metro and BART will provide connecting service via ACE and Metrolink.
Meanwhile, Amtrak California will continue to run Santa Barbara to LAUS traffic and the Capitol Corridor until Phase 3… But Jim’s right that you could just as easily take the rolling stock personnel etc… and run them to the north to the foot of the Cascades. (That is if you assume UP will be as cooperative about it as BNSF). BART would certainly be supportive because this would funnel more traffic through Richmond…..
jimsf Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:31 am
The state rail plan has continued sjq service.
Daniel Krause Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:39 am
South of Merced, it is possible the San Joaquin line gets split up into a number of commuter rail lines that that double as HSR feeders to the Fresno and Bakersfield HSR stations. Ideally a system of commuter lines would eventually cover towns along the UP/99 corridor in addition to the stations the San Joaquins currently services.
Another possibility is the CV populaton gets large enough to justify continuing the San Joaquins for slower and more inexpensive inter-city, intra-valley travel and to serve as one of the feeder for HSR (with additional commuter rail lines also acting as feeders). The market will determine which scenario comes to pass.
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Um, no.
You are forgetting that the water needed to sustain such a population would come from reduced agricultural usage. For the state, that is bad deal because we can grow very profitable crops (that are also legal) in arid regions. If anything, expect two major developments in the CV over the next few years: a lot of population shifting between the “fall line” where most of the Sierra’s rivers are dammed and the HSR row. The second is greater density within Fresno and other cities than currently. Neither of these factors in any way indicate the need to keep around the flea-bitten dog of the San Joaquins.
I could see a grade separated rail system linking Tulare County with HSR, but that’s it. Anything else is wishful thinking.
blankslate Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:42 am
“HSR between San Jose and Sacramento isn’t going to reduce CC service. I propose the HSR service will increase use of local rail service including CC.”
There is no plan for HSR service from San Jose to Sacramento, even at full build-out of Phase 1.
blankslate Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 3:03 pm
I meant Phase 1, 2, and 3. No one is going to ride a train from SJ to Sac via Gilroy and Madera, that would be absurd.
Clem Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 6:52 pm
Not if it’s quicker.
Brian Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 11:34 pm
(@ blankslate)
If Altamont is selected (and includes a San Jose branch) San Jose to Sacramento HSR service seems like it could work quite well. That’s assuming it’s branded and priced more as a longer range commute service taking the role of the Super ACE, The ACE Express or whatever they were going to call the proposed Altamont overlay service.
Peter Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 4:49 am
I think the most recent name was “Altamont Corridor Express”.
William Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:33 pm
A lot of Capitol Corridor traffic are between Oakland and Sacramento, Oakland and Davis, and, once frequency between San Jose and Oakland increases, San Jose and Oakland.
What the currently planned Phase 1 and Phase2 would do to Capitol Corridor is taking away higher-income San Jose to Sacramento, and maybe some San Jose to Davis trips, so I think the farebox ratio would suffer as a result. Still, I believe there would be enough demand on trips to/from Oakland to support Capitol Corridor.
joe Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 7:29 am
JJJ
Yes, the improvements to Caltrain will help increase interest in extending service or connecting to rail service to Monterey Co.
There are MST buses that run right now to San Jose and stop at Gilroy.
I am aware “Very Smart Rail Experts” here have done “serious” cost benefit analysis on the merits of providing rail service to the serfs of Monterey Co. and found it wanting.
More realistically, the highway to and from is Monterey (101 and 1) crowded and even NIMBY PAMPA sued to stop HSR in Santa Clara Co. on the basis HSR service would increase car traffic along the San Jose to Monterey Co HW 101 corridor.
P.S. Caltrain’s best defense againt BART is to maintain and extend the service to areas BART isn’t going. i.e. stopping at San Jose is exactly what BART would do and makes Caltrain 100% redundant. Plans to extend to Monterey Co. would anchor Caltrain.
Peter Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:36 am
I don’t recall increased 101 traffic being an issue in either Atherton suit. The impact on Monterey Highway was an issue, though. Do you mean that?
joe Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 7:31 pm
I think the EIR challenge referenced traffic both N and S of Gilroy.
Monterey HW N of Gilroy, the impact was the loss of a lane (potentially) on Monterey HW which is lightly traveled and over-sized for the traffic it carries – Monterey HW is the legacy 101 route and the parallel HW 101 was recently widened to 4 lanes so it takes the bulk of traffic.
S of Gilroy, Monterey road merges on 101 which also has street traffic. Locals call that section of 101 between Gilroy and Salinas “Blood Alley”.
That section to 156 / Montery/Pacific grove exit gets very busy and can be bumper to bumper for miles. MST runs a bus along it and there are plans to straighten 101. BTW people understand the traffic problem. The PAMPA lawsuit that we’re uninformed rubes is bullshit.
Off topic: it is interesting that the Republican House has presented a “toxic waste” transportation bill, which is loaded with things to alienate practically anyone. I don’t believe it has a chance in hell of surviving the Senate, but if it does, it just shows the worthlessness of (and need to get rid of) the Senate.
It’s obvious that sort of “toxic waste” bill won’t last through 2013; the question is whether the House will simply do what the Senate tells it (i.e. what they should have done all along) this year, or whether our total governmental dysfunction will be exposed as even worse than we thought.
StevieB Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:47 am
The White House would veto the House transportation bill.
joe Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 7:32 pm
Veto threat means Mica has that leverage he wants – NOT. The idiot overplayed his hand.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:58 am
It’s a bad idea to put people in charge of government who think government is a bad idea.
So once the full hsr is built and the initial operator has been running trains, do we foresee a shift to the european model of allowing multiple operators access to the state infrastructure? ( especially once desert express is connected)
Andy M. Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:59 am
I guess Caltrain will remain a separate entity, seeing commuter rail is so different to HSR, so yes, that will be one case of two operators sharing infrastructure.
jimsf Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:35 am
No but what I mean is that, for instance, the euro high speed network is now open to multiple operator in that you can choose between ice, tgv, thalys and eurostar in certain markets.
So once the state has the infrastructure in place. Desert express could be allowed to run a direct train from sf to vegas. Or multiple operators say
Virgin America, Herzog, Amtrak, Southwest, or whatever, could all run trains on the hsr tracks and consumers can choose which company they want to do business with based on offerings.
Jonathan Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:56 am
Yes, Europe is trying that, due to political pressure to follow the UK (Thatcher/Major-era) model.
That model hasn’t worked out especially well in the UK: private enterprise makes profits on profitable routes, and the Government is left picking up the pieces after private operators go bankrupt, yet the local population stlill demands service. The model isn’t working so well in France, either: SNCF gets marching-orders from the Government to provide public service, yet the track-use fees charged by RFF keep going up (from 1bn Euro in 2005 to 2.2 Bn Euro in 2013.
Of course, if CAHSR signs a 30-year concession, we won’t have the option of any other operator for that 30-year period.
Peter Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:07 am
It’s not working that great in Germany, either. DB fought tooth and nail to keep private competitors off its tracks, even refusing (until forced to by a court) to post competitors’ schedules on the platforms. I believe there’s only one long-distance private competitor in Germany at this point.
In Italy, NTV has had its share of fights with state rail, as well, delaying service start to Europe’s first private HSR service.
Andy M. Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:21 am
True, NTV is the only genuine competition I can think of. In the other cases its often only pretend competition because, for example, SNCF has a stake in both Thalys and Eurostar and so wouldn’t let them genuinely go at one another’s throats. The German InterConnex Express is a very special case. It is running a long-distance service from which DB effecively withdrew when the regions failed to subsidize it. The level of service by Interconnex is much lower than what DB provided and it is not clear to what degree there is an indirect cross-subsidy from subsidized local services, from whose pool the trains are taken and with which the service partly overlaps.
Peter Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:46 am
From what I was just reading about the Berlin-Leipzig InterConnex service, it only runs up to three times a day and actually overlaps with DB’s already existing Berlin-Leipzig service.
Peter Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:47 am
Well, ok, it also connects to Rostock.
ComradeFrana Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 9:23 am
Czech Republic, RegioJet and maybe soon LeoExpress on Prague-Ostrava route. For better or worse this country is a pioneer in this whole open-access privatization experiment. Hopefully the positives will outweigh the negatives.
egk Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 2:05 pm
I’m not sure what “working” is supposed to mean, but certainly there is a large degree of competition in the German rail market – there are something like 200 different rail operators large and small. This is not necessarily a large degree of market share, but for competition to do with it needs to do: keep quality up and prices down and discourage featherbedding, Germany is a great success. For about what we spend on rail subsidies, the Germans have something like 10 times the ridership.
One of the sad things about the Republican Party’s disintegration is that there is no longer a rational voice for market practices in contexts such as public transportation. It is easy to believe that EU directives forcing competition on the rail market in Europe are designed to improve rail service; it is hard to believe that a Republican plan to privatize Amtrak has the same goal.
Jonathan Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:42 pm
it’s factually incorrect to say that there’s “a large degree of competition in the German rail market”.
For purchasers of tickets, there is effectively no competition. At any station, there’s usually only one train operator to choose from.
On the other hand, if you’re an owner of an isolated rail segment — an S-Bahn, or a municipality who owns a right-of-way which was abandoned in the various cutbacks, and you’ve relaid rails and are instituting a “bus-replacement” train service — then yes, there are a lot of operators to whom you, as a track-owner, can contract with to operate services. Or you can go buy as few as 3 Talents, and opeate a service yourself. Cynics would argue that this last option is why Germany has so many “operators”.
But there’s little free-market competition, in the sense that the US air-travel market has competition between different airlines serving the same routes between major cities.
This is changing, but _very_ slowly, and (as far as I know) only for international routes.
Freight, now… Goods service is a whole different kettle of fish.
egk Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:58 pm
What does ticket competition have to do with anything? That isn’t where market principles work best in the service of efficient transportation in the rail market. [I won't make the tedious comparisons with such obvious things as public utilities]
But as to competition: As you well know all commuter rail service has to be put out to bid every few years, so there are market forces and heavy competition in this very large market (something like 8 billion euros annually). So, yes, I’d say there is a large degree of competition.
Market principles can govern the allocation of resources even where the consumer does not make individual unit choices based on cost [Okay, I can't resist: I don't decide each time I want to read a book before bed, which electric utility I'm going to use to read by this hour].
Jonathan Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 11:10 pm
I can see why you describe the direct comparison — not an analogy at all — with electric utility prices.
That would expose your claims for the “tedious” crackpottery that they are. Are going to claim that if PG&E supplies essentially all power in Northern California, and SCE supplies essentially all in Southern California, that that consitutes “competition”??
But as to competition: As you well know all commuter rail service has to be put out to bid every few years
What planet do you live on? One run by the Reason Foundation?
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 10:59 am
Hi Jonathan,
You’re a nut. That is all.
Pretty much everything “egk” said about German rail operating business is accurate. And not remotely “Reason Foundation”.
Jonathan Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 8:39 pm
No, Richard. It’s merely that we disagree about what constitutes “competition”.
egk thinks a multi-year monopoly, with auctions every few years, is “competitive”. I don’t.
egk Reply:
February 17th, 2012 at 6:38 am
Jonathan – I take the Reason Foundation to be a great force for evil in our country and so your comment is deeply insulting. And it does make you sound like a nut.
There is a significant degree of misinformation about European rail systems (and much of European society) promulgated by both the left (“they have wonderful stuff and everybody is happy that the Government pays for all of it”) and the right (“they are socialists!”). The truth is, of course, complicated and nuanced- as our interchange about market forces in the German rail market reveals.
Since – apparently – what we disagree about the meaning of the word ‘competition’ I’ll leave it at that – debates over semantics are truly tedious.
The point for THIS blog, perhaps, is that there are many models for market involvement in rail transportation, which have very different character. And it would be a great relief to many of us if the CAHSRA demonstrated some familiarity with what have emerged as best practices.
ComradeFrana Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 8:01 am
@Jonathan:
Government agency puts a route to bid, specifies the conditions (amount of subsidy etc.) and then potential operators *compete* for the bid. The theory is that the operators will improve their efficiency and services to stay *competitive*. That’s pretty much in the spirit of *competition* I think.
Jonathan Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 8:31 am
But for the period of the bid, the operator has a _monopoly_.
“Look, suppose CSHRA offers a 30-year franchise. That’s a 30-year monopoly.
Would you say that that’s “competitive” because in 30 years, another companiy could make a better bid? 15 years? 10? 5?
ComradeFrana Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 9:04 am
“only for international routes”
Actually, most of the new private open access operators (so not counting for example TGV, Thalys, Eurostar and DB, which sometimes operate on same routes) are or will be serving domestic markets. NTV in Italy the Turin-Milan-Bologna-Rome-Naples-Salerno and Rome-Bologna-Venice routes, WestBahn in Austria the Vienna-Linz-Salzburg route and RegioJet and LeoExpress in Czech Republic the Prague-Ostrava route. Admittedly RegioJet has
one daily train continue to Žilina in Slovakia. These are just those I can think of top of my head so don’t quote me on any of this.
Jonathan Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 8:55 pm
TGV, Thalys, Eurostar, and DB ICE *are* international. Rule those out, and you’re no longer speaking to my point. And I don’t see a lot of *German* routes in your list. Then again, maybe I’m badly out of date here. I’ll go check.
In contrast, on the UK WCML, if I’m travellng between Euston and Birmingham, I have a choice between Virgin, and London Midland. Different speeds, different prices, different advance discounts. And by 2015, ICE will be running between London and European destinations: competition for Eurostar.
egk Reply:
February 17th, 2012 at 6:48 am
How does ICE running to Amsterdam (not served by Eurostar) and Cologne/Frankfurt (also not) served ‘compete’ with Eurostar?
Jonathan Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 8:32 am
Please answer the point about London Euston to Birmingham.
Jonathan Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 8:52 am
@egk: how does ICE running to Amsterdam, Koeln/Frankfurt compete with Eurostar?
there’s this ancient technology called a _connection_. How do you think people travel from London to Amsterdam now? Eurostar to Brussels, connection to Amsterdam. Or you can fly, and deal wlith long lines and security, especially at London. Or London to Frankfurt? Eurostart to Brussels, then Thalys or ICE to Cologne, and from there ICE to anywhere on the German network.
ComradeFrana Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 8:55 am
@Jonathan:
Sorry, I thought we were talking specifically about “open-access” competition, where private (or semi-private)
operators set up services on their own on train paths allocated by the infrastructure manager. Because that’s the new invention with regards to railway competition that’s being put into practice in Europe right now.
TGV, Thalys, Eurostar and ICE international routes are actually results of agreements between SNCF, DB, Thalys and Eurostar, which are legacy operators, either state monopolies, joint ventures of state monopolies (Thalys), or joint ventures of state monopolies and a franchisee (Eurostar). The main point is, that these services are more result of collusion, than competition.
But, to be fair to you, the planned ICE services to London actually will be on the open-access principle, so saying “most” operators was inaccurate on my part I think.
Re. Germany: Open access operators there are mostly on niche markets so I didn’t list (or, frankly, remember) them. I listed only those, which I know of, that compete on the main routes in respective countries.
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 6:44 pm
Probably not, even though that’s not the case in other modes of transit these days. I would hazard though, that given the fact that transportation is loss leader in the “age of austerity”, there will be a desire to limit competition so that the subsidy can be as small as possible and farebox recovery can increase.
Any speculation on what kind of upgrades on the Sylmar Metro/Metrolink end?
Measure R provides for a west LA – Valley connection that could be connected to a possible future north/south Valley LRT to Sylmar. This could mean a future LRT connection serving Sylmar, Van Nuys Amtrak, Orange BRT, Purple Line, Expo, LAX, Green Line.
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
The “Downtown Connector”, duh!
The City wants it, especially to help along “Farmers Field”… but no one else will sacrifice their extension to get it.
Roger Christensen Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 4:31 pm
The Connector is a solidly ensconced Measure R, FTA priority that is a transit advocate’s dream and is in the President’s budget. Can’t wait for the new downtown stations (especially Bunker Hill) and the ability to ride through town without transferring twice. But this has nothing to do about Sylmar.
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 6:40 pm
It’s true. One of my lifelong fantasies is to be able to travel between two of the best examples of 1980′s urban renewal without taking a car: Third Street Promenade and Old Town Pasadena.
Other than that, I’m not sure how the Downtown Connector help extend the Red Line, speed up Crenshaw or link the Green Line to anything else.
Sylmar is a pipe dream advanced by Antonio to justify ending the Red Line there as opposed to Burbank which I think makes more sense.
Roger Christensen Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Agree that Burbank makes more sense.
On the wish list of future projects to be considered for Measure R was a Red Line extension from NoHo to Burbank Airport Metrolink Station. Be great if HSR was in the neighborhood.
Nathanael Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Speculation: LA Metro/Metrolink will use their portion of the money to build the LA Union Run-Through Tracks (probably build both the HSR tracks and the Metrolink ones at once), justified by the faster running times on almost all Metrolink lines, and cheaper operations, given by the run-throughs.
jim Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 3:28 pm
The memo that Richard posted has approximately $2B worth of work from Sylmar to San Diego.
And, yes, the LAUS run-through tracks are part of it.
RubberToe Reply:
February 17th, 2012 at 4:12 pm
Can someone point me to this. I haven’t been following the blog the last several weeks.
Thanks,
RubberToe
One thing that has become crystal clear in this discussion: PAMPA NIMBYS don’t want nothing in their backyard! Not even an improved Caltrain under this latest scenario. We know they don’t want HSR, and now I’m sensing they abhor the idea of Caltrain being electrified and grade-separated. The NIMBYS, like syno, are putting all their eggs in the BART ring the Bay basket, with the hopes that the line will be put in a subway through PAMPA. No HSR, no Caltrain, BART out of site out of mind…the NIMBYS dream (LMFAO!)
synonymouse Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 11:48 am
PAMPA could certainly benefit from a BART subway, which would gentrify the ROW area and it has the money to underwrite the project. Conversely Caltrain is technically superior. A clash of the titans?
PAMPA’s so-called NIMBY’s have never called for the removal of the tracks or the passenger service. In the past the locals have saved the ROW from BART and supported electrification and the TBT tunnel. They will accept a reasonable form of the “blend” ultimately.
On the other hand the uber-NIMBY’S of Tejon have placed an embargo on any rail line parallel to l-5 in their feudal domain. It is not permitted to even study the option. Blatant hypocrisy on the part of the CHSRA foamers.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 12:11 pm
gentrify? Billionaires instead of multi-millionaires?
synonymouse Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 1:18 pm
The SP ROW is a sizeable chunk of property sitting adjacent to a very trendy enclave. Money spent by PAMPA would be a solid investment in that the uptick in property values would pay for the subway over a reasonable number of years. But Caltrain is demonstrably a better and higher option if it can prevail. Still if it be Ring the Bay PAMPA would surely want a subway and no hsr.
You already have billionaires in PAMPA to match the crones at the top of the patronage machine. Some like Zuckerberg are quite young and might be taken in for a time by the Moonbeam infrastructure spin and/or the Buffet Tax Me More bs but in time they, as business types, will gravitate to the Mega-Meg mindset. Once they grasp the incredible profligacy and inefficiency of the likes of BART, Muni, Stilt-A-Rail lost off in the boonies, yada-yada.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 2:12 pm
If there’s already billionaires in PAMPA how many trillionaires is building a subway going to attract? How many trillionaires are there in the world.
Clem over at the CaltrainHSR Compatibility blog has calculated that the whole ROW between San Jose and San Francisco is 700-ish acres. How much an acre do they have to get to pay for the tunnel? The ROW averages somewhat less than 100 feet across. Lets keep the math simple, every 435 feet of ROW is an acre. Just a hair over 12 acres in a mile of ROW. At 120 million dollar a mile to build tunnel, which in California would be extraordinarily low, you need to get 10 million an acre for the land.
synonymouse Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 2:25 pm
It is not the ROW alone that would be affected but all the adjacent property.
There is no question but that BART would dangle the subway carrot to sell Ring the Bay.
Clem Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 4:07 pm
Right, and building a BART subway is a trivial affair compared to a full-gauge 4-track 125 mph railroad. The BART tunnel box is 1/4 to 1/5th of the cross section of the latter’s tunnel box. I do think that if BART is going to bust a move, the time is now or never.
There is one hitch, however: even if you remove the railroad tracks, you still have the Alma / Central traffic sewer. That won’t ever go away. How else will moms drive their kids to soccer, and old people get to the pharmacy?
Matthew Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:09 pm
That’s okay. Once they install new street lights, Alma will magically become a wonderful safe pedestrian street.
Peter Baldo Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 4:07 pm
Aren’t there still freight trains? I thought one of the big barriers to any change on the peninsula was the need to acommodate double-stack container trains at night. They won’t fit in a BART tunnel. They could be rerouted over the Dumbarton Bridge, though.
Peter Reply:
February 17th, 2012 at 5:36 am
Uhhh, no double-stack on the Peninsula. Relatively small loading gauge there.
Tony d. Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 2:05 pm
Did you say that they would accept a reasonable form of the “blend” ultimately? WOW! Can I get an amen for that one!
synonymouse Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 2:11 pm
It was not the Peninsula that killed the TBT Tunnel ca. 1991 – that was the work of BART-MTC with Heminger, Kopp and Willie Brown spearheading. These worthies are still around and about and presumably can still be counted on to trash Caltrain if they can.
The berm offensive was promulgated by PB to alienate the Peninsula from Caltrain and enable Ring the Bay.
Eric M Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 2:50 pm
“The berm offensive was promulgated by PB to alienate the Peninsula from Caltrain and enable Ring the Bay.”
WRONG.
Using raised berms actually lowers the cost of grade separation. Do you even think about what you write? In order for your “ring the bay” conspiracy, they would propose the exact same thing, because if you were paying attention, BART needs to be completely grade separate with no road crossings, something Caltrain/HSR does not need.
synonymouse Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
The cost of berms was not a factor, but their capacity to infuriate the residents of PAMPA. Solo BART has a smaller footprint thus cheaper tunnels. The poorer parts of the Peninsula will be stuck with the customarily atrocious BART aerials, ugly, noisy, ghetto as sin.
Derek Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 5:54 pm
HSR needs grade separation.
Clem Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 6:50 pm
No it does not. It’s a common misconception. When a high-speed train slows to normal speeds, it mysteriously transforms into a “regular train”. I know it’s hard to wrap one’s brain around this. HSR will be treated the same way as a Caltrain EMU, and grade separations can be built as needed over time.
synonymouse Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 7:53 pm
Clem’s description of a functional “blend” of Caltrain is perfectly sound and doable and was the obviously assumed tack of Prop 1A. However, I do not believe it will go down like that.
The humililting and obsequious surrender of Tejon tells all there is to know about how the
CHSRA will proceed and why. There is a cerebral vacuum at the seat of power. Clearly Jerry’s handlers were carrying water for Villaraigosa and Palmdale but they had no grasp of the matter anyway and neither did the Big Kahuna. A waste of time to even brief “management” on the controversy as there is no initiative there to understand nor any energy left to formulate a new policy.
And ditto for Pacheco, where you can substitute Reid & Co. for Villaraigosa as the naysayers against any modification, no matter how felicitous. So San Francisco is going to take a screwing on hsr – just like its weaker sister Oakland before – and hsr will terminate at San Jose. The 49′ers farce showed who is running things.
Richard’s transparent plan “revision” amounts to pulling payola out of hsr funds to bankroll alliances of convenience with the dominant regional warlords. In the South that would be Metrolink and in the North, BART, not the feeble, malnourished Caltrain. The same fix is in for Ring the Bay as for the Grand DeTour.
Van Ark did stand a chance against senescence. Jerry always was stubborn and now he is oblivious. I am 67 and I already detect a dimming. Perhaps there should be instituted a mandatory retirement age for politicians.
joe Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:44 pm
IMHO traffic needs and local cities along the Caltrain tracks will dictate grade separation improvements sooner rather than later.
Adding train service and HSR will congest the at grade roads unless the crossings are over passes or underpasses.
My daily commute involves crossing the ROW at grade and it sucks. The crossings in PA south of Oregon Expressway must be fixed. Homes will be taken. MtV Castro must be fixed.
Jonathan Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:47 pm
Clem,
be warned: there are people who will read your comment, and conclude that when HSR slows down to normal FRA-approved speeds (79mph n the current Caltrain corridor), that it suddenly becomes an FRA-coimpliant dino-train. The phrase “regular train” just invites misunderstanding.
And while I have your attentin: just how fast will the FRA let Caltrain (or HSR) run trains, in a non-grade-separated, no-four-quadrant-barriers line?
Tony d. Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:21 pm
Maybe its just me, but I think its a good idea to separate autos and pedestrians COMPLETELY from fast moving trains.
Again, grade separate MAJOR THOROUGHFARE’s and “cul de sac” less travelled roadways along the Caltrain ROW, while at the same time constructing pedestrian bridges to not cut off neighborhoods entirely.
Jon Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:32 pm
79mph. The waiver doesn’t allow them to increase the speed limit. Quad gates would get you up to 110mph, anything faster needs full grade separation.
Jonathan Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:28 pm
79mph is what I _thought_, but people here seem to be talking about 125mph on the Peninsula _before_ it’s fully grade-separated (or four-quadrant-gated)
Clem Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:31 pm
The waiver decision letter does not mention a speed limit. 79 mph is a constraint of the signaling system. One way or another (cough, cough) that will be dealt with. Some test cases in Caltrain’s recent analyses of blended operations assume a speed limit of 110 mph.
thatbruce Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 2:11 pm
The 125mph proposed speed on the peninsula assumes full grade separation. If you don’t have full grade separation, you have lower speeds.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Nobody’s going to operate 125mph on the peninsula. (Or 220mph through Fresno, for that matter.)
Guaranteed.
Nathanael Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 3:51 pm
The FRA currently requires an “impenetrable barrier” for grade crossings with speeds above 110 mph. It requires full grade separation for speeds above 125 mph.
http://www.fra.dot.gov/Pages/217.shtml
Nobody’s successfully implemented the “impenetrable barrier” (though they’re trying in Michicagn with a “bounce cars and trucks trucks backward” crossing arm). The result is that 110 is currently the practical limit for systems with grade crossings.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 4:57 pm
Nobody’s going to operate 125mph on the peninsula.
Why not, the track should be capable of it. Or lots of it anyway, otherwise they ain’t gonna do San Francisco to San Jose in 30 minutes like they’ve promised.
Question:
If the blended approach is going to be used on both ends:
A: has chsra decided on their preferred train control system ( will it be that ert whatever from europe?)
and if so
B: wouldn’t it make sense to go ahead and force caltrain to implement that instead of their CBOSS or whatever.
I don’t know what the difference is but doesn’t it seem like caltrain at the north end and metro at the south end, should all implement the same system.
A four track separated system – I could see how caltrain could use their own, but if we blend, then one must be chosen, and building one, then tossing it, doens’t make sense.
or am I just crazy.
William Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 8:57 pm
This is the reason why CAHSRA should just go ahead and decide on the train control system HSR would use. Furthermore, any Federal or state grant on HSR train-control system should be directed through CAHSRA, so CAHSRA can use the money to leverage Metrolink and Caltrain to switch to the same train-control system.
Jon Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 9:30 pm
They have already decided on ERTMS. Clem dug up that nugget from a CAHSR technical document.
joe Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:03 pm
CAHSRA Recommended:
“8.0 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The CHSRA has the mandate to deliver a safety-critical high-speed train system to the
citizens of California and has developed project and technical requirements to deliver the
CHSTP with the lowest risk, lowest cost and the highest level of safety. The attributes of
ETCS Level 2 with GSM-R position the technology as the ideal to deploy for CHSTP train
control and radio.”
i.e. ERTMS.
Jonathan Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:19 pm
yeah, and look at the FCC finding about the 700MHz spectrum. No longer limited to “law [enforcement], medical [ambulance] and firefighters”. Why they didn’t just say “first responders’, I don’t know.
The shocking thing would be to find out just _how_ much CSHRA paid a bunch of consultant-form PEs to come up with that conclusoin. Given that, — almost by definition, since they’re American “Professional Engineers”) — have zero domain expertise in modern high-speed passenger rail.
Oh yes, and they spent a _lot_ of the report talking about RF frequency issues, and seemed uninformed about the aforementioned FCC ruling.
Bluntly, though, if they had half a brain, they’d be specifying ETCS, and waiting until the Europeans standardize GRPS instead of GSM-R. I mean, really. Frequency-based circuit-switching, what century are we in?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:59 pm
Seeing that they began to spec out a pan European railway communications in the late 20th Century it’s not surprising that they settled on late 20th Century technology.
Clem Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:34 pm
You’re not crazy, but I’ve not heard any rumors of CBOSS going away. It’s hard to stand in the way of a nine-figure amount.
jimsf Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:49 pm
caltrain is broke and corrupt. They have no business pissing away money on something that is going to be replaced. I don’t mind cost overruns here and there, and compromises, I mean I support barts sfo thing and bart around the bay… but this, is just too much. What jonathan said above is greek to me. so I still don’t know what all the differences are but I do know common sense your mama taught you — pick something and stick with it and quit changin your mind!
Isn’t there anyone who can step in and slap caltrain upside the head?
Jonathan Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 10:59 pm
oops. I see a few edit-mistakes — Firefox ends up hiding the last 10 characers on a line, for me.
but I’m more than willing to explain more clearly. As both a former academic and now a professional, I’ve found it’s always worth listening to one’s audience and finding how better to communicate.
(deliberately non-Star Trekky, not-split infinitive.)
jimsf Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 11:12 pm
they’d be specifying ETCS, and waiting until the Europeans standardize GRPS instead of GSM-R. I mean, really. Frequency-based circuit-switching, what century are we in?
That went right over my head. But I gather that europe is about to upgrade so we should wait and implement whatever their new thing is.
can I assume we are byond the old block system. Having ridden bart since it opened I had to live through all the many incarnations of their every faulty “space age” computer system upgrades. They finally got it right after like, 30 years.
Jonathan Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 11:39 pm
Circuit-switching is what 19th-century and 20th-century telephony-based communciations systems do.
Compare and contrast to packet-switcing technology, which is what the Internet does.
I’;d need a blackboard to replicate a suitable diagram, but I can fax you a copy from a textbook.
The crucial difference is that circuit-switching ties up a fixed (think: telephone voice-call) amount of communications resources for the duration of the “call”, whether they’re being used or not (whether you’re talking or not).
It’s no secret tnat even telephony giants like BT have changed their backbone from AT&T-like circuit-switching, to packet-switching. At the scale of phone companies, it’s a huge savings. At the scale of train operators, it means many more trains for a given amount of RF spectrum.
Or, from a cruder perspective, it’s like deciding to buy buggy-whips in 2012, when valve-radios-in-cars are within sight, and better yet is in evaluation-deployment.
I’ll stop there. If you want citations or references, just ask, I’ll find them.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 12:22 am
Oh go ahead. Then tell us why messages, of a few hundred bytes at most, slinging around a train control network, need all sorts of LTE high bandwidth oogly goodness. Or why the train control system cares what sort of physical layer the message is crossing.
Jonathan Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 9:15 pm
Huh? Who said anything about LTE? I’m talking about GPRS, which is 2G technology, sometimes called “2.5G” . Think 20Kbit/sec. And by the time CSHRA is ready to buy, GPRS _will_ be the standard. If you’re going to get a custom version of a wheel, you might as well get a customized up-to-date wheel.
And the point isn’t the size of the packets, it’s that GSM-R *IS NOT* packet-switched. GSM-R circuit-switched: each “conversation” ties up a 14.4Kbit/sec voice-channel. GPRS *is* packet-switched, so your point about “a few hundred bytes at most” *does* become relevant.
Using GPRS instead of GSM-R means you can support the same abount of traffic with less RF frequency, whcih is a very scarce resource. Yes, it’s an optimization, yes, GSM-R could be made to work. Finding the spectrum space could be significantly harder, though. Specially if you’re trying to squeeze it into the 700Mhz band.
Jonathan Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 9:18 pm
… and the train-control system cares about the physical layer, because a train-control system uses a dedicated channel. The physical layer *is physically part of* the train-control system. it’s inside the balises, or “Object Controller” (the ERTMS-Regional term for what Wabtec &c call a WIU).
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 10:47 pm
… and the train-control system cares about the physical layer, because a train-control system uses a dedicated channel.
I have an ancient laptop laying around that I use when I need to SSH to a machine connected to the local network. I can also get to some of those local machines via a web interface and browser. If I want to I can swap out the Ethernet PCMCIA thingy for a modem and dial into Net Zero to use up some of free ten hours. My browser doesn’t care that I’m using a modem instead of an Ethernet connection. The modem doesn’t care that ATM is carrying my call to the next town over where the CO is. Nor does my browser. And none of them care that gawd knows what gets it from my CO to the backbone. OR what happens to it on the backbone. Or how it gets to the cahsrblog.com server. And all of that workls the same whether I get to my core switch over cat 3 homemade four wire cable or over boughten cat5 or cat6 patch cable or if I’ve plugged it into a wireless access point and it’s flitting over radio waves to my cellar.
They aren’t going to be trying to send radio frequency energy down the fiber optic lines connecting the towers and they aren’t going to be sending pulses of light to the locomotives from the towers. The balises don’t use cell phone technology to communicate with the locomotive, it’s more akin to Near Field Commucation/Bluetooth/RFID.
The CPUs in the redundant servers at the control center decide to send a message to a locomotive:
What sort of physical layer does it use between the CPU the NIC? Is the NIC using copper or fiber? Is it an Ethernet network? The Ethernet switch it’s plugged into at the other end what sort of physical layer is used inside the switch? How is the switch connected to the router and gateway at the control center and what’s on the other side of the demarc at the control center? Does anybody except the telecom provider’s techs and the disaster recovery specialists at the train control center care? What happens at the CO? Does it go to a CO or is it a private network? Once it gets to the tower the locomotive is currently using what physical layer is used between the demarc and the NIC on the tower’s equipment? What kind of physical layer is used between there and the antenna. There’s more than one way to drive an antenna. Does the radio signal go to a electrical cabinet someplace in the locomotive or does the radio signal get converted to whatever network scheme is used in the locomotive at the pod on the roof of the locomotive? Is that link copper or fiber if it’s getting converted at the roof? Out at the tower is there a analog telephone line so that in some disaster scenario they can break out the V92 modem and insert it into the serial port that will be on the equipment? Though if they are going to have an analog modem there’s no reason why they couldn’t plug it in when they install everything else. Or do they have an industrial version of one those doohickeys the dial up providers are using that have a telephone port on one side and Ethernet port on the other?…
jimsf Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 8:03 am
Oh that makes sense. Well, I think they should please just implement whatever is most advanced yet proven. ( dont get too fancy).
I mean the world has been running railroads for a century and a half, so how hard can it be with todays tech.
I mean I can video chat on an i phone.
It all sound like a job for apple to me. ( don’t let microsoft do it, Ill never find my luggage)
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 2:40 pm
GSM-R has capacity problems at high traffic nodes. Places with ~5x the train movement density any station in California will ever see.
But hey, there’s this theoretical problem which obviously justifies reinventing the wheel, From scratch. In a square shape. As specified by America’s Finest Transportation Planning Professionals. Because nobody has a track record like them. Now fork over A QUARTER OF A BILLION DOLLARS. NOW!
Nathanael Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 2:51 pm
There’s no problem with GSM-R, which uses minimal enough bandwidth.
There is, however, a major problem with GPS-based systems; they don’t work on double track. That means you need track circuits. That means you might as well build a proven system based on track circuits.
SELTRAC or its variants appear to be the most advanced which are in production use; they may be overkill.
By the way, EVERY train safety system is based on block occupancy, period. There is nothing newer than block occupancy; there are only smaller blocks. (Even with SELTRAC.)
Jonathan Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 9:23 pm
Only if you define “moving block” as “based on block occupancy”, which is tautological but close to meaningless…..
And the issue with GSM-R is that it’ll be obsolete by the time CSHRA goes and buys its ERTMS system, and it makes less efficient use of RF spectrum. Which, as the consultants identified, is a non-trivial problem.
And to hell with double-track systems: Caltrain is spending that “Quarter of a Billion Dollars”, in dribs and drabs, JUST to get a custom ATP system which will let them raise grade-crossing gates positioned right next to platforms, when a train is stopped at the platform (and no train is approaching on the other track(s).
especially when cost overruns could turn it into a ten-figure amount!
So, I’m guessing that no one other than morris brown and Mike Brady are concerned about the “usable segment” language in AB3034?
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 7:58 am
for the 9 billion in Prop 1A for CAHSRA or for the 995 million for urban rail?
Peter Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 12:29 pm
$9 billion. That’s where the $1 billion for Caltrain and $1 billion for Metrolink appear to be coming from.
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 1:43 pm
Richard M. linked a memo prepared by one of the committees inside Metro and my impression is the opposite is true. There’s only 1 billion in play and all the agencies are in a Race to the Bottom to get it.
Admittedly, this seems nonsensical unless the Democratic establishment realizes the House Highway bill is going to pass and wants to shift expenditures from projects that are already being built and could be jeopardized….
jim Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
My reading of the was it SacBee? article was that Sacramento was going to supply $1B to each end, half from the $995K “connecting money”, half from the $9B HSR money and it was up to the locals to come up with the necessary matching funds. The work for each end comes out to about $2B each, so they’d both have to come up with $1B local funds or descope.
joe Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 8:31 pm
It is a Transportation Bill, not Highway Bill.
Jonathan Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 8:58 pm
It’s a Transportation Bill that only funds Highways. And allows drilling in the ANWR
I guess Republicans don’t know anyone who takes a train, or rides a bicycle. Heaven forfend that they *walk*!
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 9:18 pm
They all ride the train on their trips to New York City. That cesspit of libbbruuuulz… with the big fat checkbooks.