Political Support for HSR Remains Strong in Bay Area
At Tuesday night’s high speed rail hearing in Mountain View, a wide range of elected officials and organizational leaders came out to show their support for the project. Steven Maviglio collected many of the statements over at the California Majority Report. Some examples:
San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed: “We appreciate efforts to continue studying alternatives that will allow early investment in projects in the Bay Area, such as electrification in the corridor. Improving the connections between our state’s economic and tourist centers will create jobs and benefit the entire high-speed rail system.”
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee: “To maintain our global economic competitiveness, we must re-commit our investment to infrastructure. California high-speed rail will cultivate greater traveland tourism in our State, cut greenhouse gas emissions and pollution, and reduce dramatically our dependence on oil. By reducing congestion on our freeways and highways, at our airports and on commuter transit, we will create jobs and grow a greener economy.”
John Martin, Airport Director, San Francisco International Airport: “San Francisco International Airport is a strong supporter of high speed rail in California. Passenger traffic at SFO is expected to grow to 50 million passengers by 2025. Currently, the Los Angeles Basin is the destination for 15% of the flights from SFO and 36% of flights from Oakland and San Jose. High speed rail will reduce the need for short-haul commuter flights and provide greater ability for SFO to accommodate international and long-haul domestic flights.”
Californians For High Speed Rail’s Daniel Krause also was in attendance on Tuesday night and had a great statement about risk:
Daniel Krause, co-founder and executive director, Californians for High Speed Rail: “The California High Speed Rail project is absolutely essential to California’s future, from providing desperately needed transportation capacity to clean our air, to reducing congestion and stimulating economic activity. While opponents have been running a relentless campaign of fear, doubt and uncertainty to give the impression the project is too risky, in fact, there is far more risk in not moving forward. It will cost much more to expand airports and freeways to create the same amount of transportation capacity. Additionally, borrowing costs will be offset by the requirement that any Prop 1A used must be matched by non-state source of funds, injecting billions of outside dollars into our state’s economy. It is time to set the record straight – high-speed rail is truly the low-risk alternative.”
Krause took that message to Bakersfield today where Kevin McCarthy, a far-right Republican Congressman, was holding a high speed rail town hall. Supporters have turned out for that hearing too, just as they did for the Mountain View hearing, showing that Californians do still want HSR and that critics and opponents aren’t going to be allowed to dominate these forums.
Amazing article Robert.
Make sure your readers take a glance at the YouTube link and text of Palo Alto’s position as shown here:
link: http://www.almanacnews.com/square/index.php?i=3&d=&t=7116
jimsf Reply:
March 15th, 2012 at 8:28 pm
the mayor of palo alto doesn’t have the power to do anything. And palo alto doesn’t own the railroad row either and can’t dictate anything.
So really who cares what the mayor said?
YesonHSR Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 8:38 pm
Maby the Occupy movement needs to set up in PA..what an arrogant little town it has become.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 15th, 2012 at 10:05 pm
Yes, having fast clean quiet grade separated electric trains is going to turn Palo Alto into the slums of Princeton.
swing hanger Reply:
March 15th, 2012 at 10:17 pm
In most parts of the sane world (i.e. ones that don’t want to retreat into a shell and deny reality), communities view having a clean, efficient electric railway as an asset and yes, a property-value raising one at that. I guess Gilroy is one of those communities, PAMPA isn’t.
Brian Reply:
March 15th, 2012 at 11:21 pm
This evening I was reading the Palo Alto Rail Corridor Study (3rd draft, dated 03.08.12) prepared by the city’s own task force and I was surprised to see that this group even acknowledges that a fully grade separated HSR / Caltrain system will both be an economic benefit to the city and potentially increase existing property values due to the increased transit and mobility options available to the residents. That’s assuming a 4-track trenched ROW for the full length of the city. They also acknowledge that an at-grade 2-track blended system will have less economic benefit and suffer from more traffic delays at crossings. You can view and download the report here:
http://www.paloaltorailcorridor.org/
See page 29 of the PDF. I thought it was an interesting report. It’s a pretty wide-spread report combined with planning proposals but the rail specific items are mostly towards the back of the report in the appendix. The city’s own rail task force sounds much more reasonable. It’s the city council and mayor that are making these ridiculous stipulations. I can’t believe Simitian is trying to get the CAHSRA to forever abandon any proposals for future upgrades beyond the 2-track blended option. Simitian may be serving his Palo Alto base but it sounds like he is doing a disservice to the rest of the state including most people in his own district which sprawls pretty far across to Santa Cruz and down to San Jose as well (1/3 of San Jose). Thanks to Simitian we may forever be guaranteed a shitty 2-track HSR / Caltrain bottleneck on the peninsula.
I just had a crazy and perhaps very stupid idea: If the CAHSRA is unable to fund Palo Alto’s 4 track trench option (and Palo Alto claims to be “too poor” of a community to fund the difference themselves) maybe they can get some funding help from San Jose (and maybe Gilroy too) in consideration the alternative alignment thru Altamont would serve neither city directly. The CAHSRA could use that as some form of leverage, perhaps bribery. I know it sounds kind of unseemly though. Like the spoiled brat getting their way.
I don’t think this would be completely unprecedented. I heard that in Reno, NV the trenching of the UP mainline thru their downtown was actually funded by the Port of Oakland. The port became so frustrated with the UP for it’s poor rail traffic management in Nevada causing delays and screwing up the port’s own operations in Oakland.
Luke Chastain Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 1:56 am
I read this thread initially while sitting at a bar called Riva in Berlin which sits on the street with four grade-separated tracks running over it. There are lots of shops built under the tracks and they all conform to this very appealing style because of the arches that support the platform overhead. My point is, the mayor and people of Palo Alto need to get out more.
flowmotion Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 9:03 pm
I’m sitting here drinking (peppermint schnapps) underneath a brutalist BART aerial. There’s a lot of trash and makeshift homeless structures. Maybe you need to get out more.
Michael Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 10:29 pm
And if one asked where you were drinking your DeKuypers, you’d say “Oakland”. Nice script. As for Berlin, I prefer Deponie or Lemkes. Brew Wharf in London is OK, too…
Alan Reply:
March 18th, 2012 at 7:40 am
Whatever. If Oakland didn’t have BART aerials, there would be trash and homeless people lurking underneath “brutalist” Caltrans freeway aerials. That’s Oakland. Other cities have BART aerial structures without trash and homeless people.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
March 18th, 2012 at 9:15 am
“Whatever”. “Well duh”. “Like”.
Clueless and ignorant.
Oakland was completely raped by the freeways and associated “urban renewal”.
But it’s faster to drive from Orinda to SF than it was in 1965, so that’s OK. A fine trade-off.
And these “other cities” full of elevated BART and highway structures of which you speak? Would those be places on the other side of the hills where the white people are warehoused, by any chance, perhaps ones that didn’t have huge housing stocks and entire communities demolish in the process? Just a wild guess!
joe Reply:
March 15th, 2012 at 10:11 pm
The Mayor of PA is telling HSRA they are not participating and have nothing constructive to add.
He’s boxed the city into a corner so when this project starts, he will be ineffective in rallying the city to constructively engage the HSRA.
Meanwhile in Gilroy:
Walter Reply:
March 15th, 2012 at 11:19 pm
Morris, I respect you. While others demand a blended system, you question its legality in an unapologetic move to kill the project in court. While others hide behind the “done right” facade despite sharing your goals exactly, you come out and denounce “done right” just as all of the rest of the brain-equipped folk in California do. I disagree with everything you say, but you have tons more credibility than CARRD.
thatbruce Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Although sometimes I wonder if he’d be happy if the corridor was trenched solely between Encinal Ave and Watkins Ave ;)
Any mid peninsual station should go to redwood city and not pa. thats for sure.
For all the time, energy and money these nimbys have wasted they could have gone out there with some shovels and dug a tunnel.
synonymouse Reply:
March 15th, 2012 at 8:41 pm
This mega-BART has nothing to do with green, anti-pollution or environment. It has everything to do with unlimited population growth and urbanization.
Screw that.
VBobier Reply:
March 15th, 2012 at 8:59 pm
HSR will be built, obviously support for HSR is still there, the Nimbys haven’t killed HSR support or diminished it either, Gasoline will never be $2.50 a gallon ever again, get used to it as no amount of drilling will do that, some would like to drill in Granite in hopes of getting oil, oh they’d get Granite dust, but No Oil. Census data shows population growth will happen, If HSR were not built, businesses in the Silicon Valley might move away to where there’s real room for growth and then Jobs will go bye-bye…
Tom McNamara Reply:
March 15th, 2012 at 9:01 pm
Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. Eventually the politics will change in Palo Alto and the station will make more sense than somewhere else.
joe Reply:
March 15th, 2012 at 9:50 pm
Maybe not in PA. The risk that the pampered residents will throw a hissy fit is one problem.
Stanford is the other.
The key is Stanford – it will be their land that is impact, not the trees but the retail property they own and lease.
Also, there is a finite amount of auto traffic PA allows and Stanford has to pay traffic mitigation $$ to grow the campus/hospital. HSR could cap Stanford’s growth if HSR does build 6000 parking spaces.
IMHO the solution is to refine the ridership model and consider alternative transportation that replaces car ridership. That’s realistic for a 2020 or 2030 world.
If the HSR parking can be reduced by Caltrain based and bus/shuttle transportation then HSR in PA is possible. If the impact to Stanford owned retail and traffic interferes with Stanford’s long term needs, they can leverage the PA NIMBYs and push HSR out of town to RWCity. Right now the transit center is a looping mess and University Dr is at capacity. El Camino north is a 4 lane choke point.
jimsf Reply:
March 15th, 2012 at 10:27 pm
No reason that PA is special. RWC is just as good. MtView might be better.
Actually PA is a bad place for a station because we want hsr to be more convenient to get to for pen. residents than driving to sfo or san jose airports so you need the station to have very easy access from 101. PA is a nightmare to drive through to get to that downtown location. MtView would be ideal as the station location is right on the 101/85 for the easiest access to the most people in the west valley south pen.
jimsf Reply:
March 15th, 2012 at 10:31 pm
oh and to add… mt view is also right off the central and the 237 so thats easy access from all points – milpitas through the westside and the south pen. just look here at the unlimited access
joe Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 7:02 am
Man, many reasons to love MtV including the end of the VTA light rail and VTA bus station. Great it’s location but it, IMHO, is too close to San Jose’s HSR stop. Also it is a bit cramped.
A 5:45 Caltrain gets to MtV at 5:57. Just 12 minutes.
The enxt stop, Millbare/SFO is 27 minutes farther from MtV.
The effect would be to draw most northern SV traffic away from San Jose. A RWC stop would increase SJ transfers at Caltrain.
RWC is a potentially a transit interchange / stop for the eventual bay crossing rail service via dumbarton.
Tom McNamara Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 6:48 pm
Jim,
The reason to put a station in Palo Alto is Sand Hill Road. It has the densest concentration of venture capital firms in the US, it’s the Wall Street of the West Coast. A great deal of HSR traffic will be entrepreneurs riding into Palo Alto to pitch their ideas on their way back to God knows where. Not even downtown San Francisco has that type of lure for high paying, repeat customers.
joe Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 7:40 pm
Facepalm.
jimsf Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 10:44 pm
i dont think so that much. maybe. but not that much.
wu ming Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 4:30 pm
if there’s a wall street of the west coast, it’s in SF, not palo alto.
William Reply:
March 15th, 2012 at 11:19 pm
Of course, the downside of a Mountain View station was that it might be too close to San Jose station, which is ~15 minutes away on 101
Drunk Engineer Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 10:21 am
Then get rid of the San Jose station. Problem solved.
joe Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 11:02 am
Not enough room at MtV for the traffic of two consolidated stations.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 11:39 am
Two insanely over-sized stations, if that is what you mean.
VBobier Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 11:47 am
The Stations will be built, So unless Yer a Qualified Architect, You don’t know half of what You are talking about, They will be built as the CHSRA and the City sees fit. Don’t like that? Too bad, So sad…
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 12:26 pm
MMmmm…. feels so good when CHSRA does it. Maybe you’d enjoy it more with even less lube?
joe Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 12:53 pm
No. Maybe you don’t know the area. I suppose that’s the confusion. Let me help.
The ROW is along Central Expressway and renovated downtown and they just squeezed the VTA light rail along the ROW.
There are new housing developments (262 apts for example in one project) along Evelyn and Google’s building low income housing at the Evelyn & Franklin corner.
If you consolidate the Peninsula and San Jose HSR ridership in MtV, the traffic isn’t going to fit in one station and 85 & 237 access isn’t going to work either. All this is crammed along Evelyn and Central expressway.
So it makes more sense to keep the HSR in San Jose and move the next stop further north – RW City or Palo Alto.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 1:11 pm
There’s a magical innovation known as a “bus.” Perhaps we can introduce San Jose to the concept?
Drunk Engineer Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 1:15 pm
Thanks for the offer of help, but I spent the better part of 10 years commuting to the MV Caltrain and know that neighborhood quite well thank you.
I do think it is cute, however, that you associate infill TOD housing development as a detriment to having a train station.
joe Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 7:56 pm
I’ve spent the better part of 20 there. Moved to that neighborhood in 91. Left for SF in 96 and rode Caltrain down to the MtV stop.
So trust me – there’s no room and it’s silly to suggest the infill housing is what’s needed next to a consolidated HSR station.
joe Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 7:59 pm
That’s an idea – bus SanJose riders and traffic / BART and SJC airport connections to Mountain View.
Jonathan Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 8:34 pm
@Paulus: no need to be a condescending twerp.
VTA has lots of buses, they even cross the light-rail lines in downtown San Jose.
(as miserable a “downtown” as it is.)
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
March 18th, 2012 at 9:17 am
Shouldn’t be hard. The roads are good, the passengers are few, the destinations are few and uncompelling.
After all, Caltrain is a total ghost train south of Mountain View: they could easily fit all the passengers in a single city bus on nearly every run.
Tony d. Reply:
March 18th, 2012 at 9:40 am
You San Jose haters are a bunch of geriatric clowns! Thankfully none of you are in charge, so go ahead and proceed with your echo chamber Silicon Valley hating.
joe Reply:
March 18th, 2012 at 10:23 am
Tony d.
Richard’s trolling.
There are some days in the week when one of us rides home on Caltrain from Silicon Valley to Gilroy, or to SV in the AM, from Gilroy.
The PM train leaving MtV to San Jose isn’t empty.
In the AM, the express train – we transfer from the local out of Gilroy at Tamien, packs at San Jose.
Sometimes we transfer at San Jose for a VTA express bus to Gilroy – too few trains make it south. That too has good ridership.
Brian Reply:
March 15th, 2012 at 11:43 pm
Redwood City still makes more sense for an HSR station than Palo Alto. When (or hopefully if) the Dumbarton rail crossing gets re-built Redwood City will became the HSR /Caltrain/ Dumbarton junction station. Palo Alto can never have the same functionality. Unless Menlo Park welcomes a brand new clear cut swath of ROW thru the middle of their city. One broad sweeping arc of ROW across Menlo Park (thru East Palo Alto too) and across the bay. That would be “done wrong” to say the least!
Alon Levy Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 12:36 am
RWC is the likely location, but PA offers access to Stanford.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 1:05 am
RWC offers access to Stanford just like Grand Central offers access to Columbia or NYU or South Station to Harvard or MIT. … though if I wanted to go to NYU from Philadelphia I’d be likely to get off in Newark and use PATH, it’s faster….
Alon Levy Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 3:09 am
Using what rapid transit exactly?
With current and likely future transit service levels, RWC offers service to Stanford like Route 128 offers service to Harvard and like New Rochelle offers service to Columbia.
joe Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 7:05 am
Access to Stanford is also the negative – the City’s long term goal to reduce traffic and Stanford’s interest in expansion are enough tension. I used to think it would be ideal and still think it is for the foot traffic and bu/ shuttle riders but IMHO HSR traffic would exceed the area’s capacity.
Alon Levy Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
The best strategy of reducing traffic is to destroy and depopulate. There are no traffic jams in Detroit, Buffalo, and Rochester.
joe Reply:
March 18th, 2012 at 10:24 am
Not if the survivors all have a car.
Alon Levy Reply:
March 18th, 2012 at 8:35 pm
Even then. Rochester has a freeway network built for a city twice its size. One of its freeways has so little traffic you can count the number of cars coming across from you while driving on it. It’s actually too fast – drivers go well over the speed limit because it’s so empty.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:22 am
Caltrain? The Princeton Dinky with more cars.
jimsf Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 8:33 am
No one cares about access to stanford though. The Mid peninsula station is so that people who live in the areas between san jose airport and sfo have a close place to drive to to make a southbound trip. they arent trying to get to stanford.
As for transit, we have to stop pretending that there will be some kind of transit revolution. The fact is the majority of people who use hsr are going to drive to stations and making them drive through downtown PA would be a nightmare.
The people north of 92 will access hsr at sfo. South of 92 in places like san carlos, belmont rwc, and menlo park, rwc is best. people in places like atherton don’t use public transit. pa is hostile to hsr. Mt view and east would use san jose – though I like the idea of skipping pa and having both a rwc and mtview hsr stop.
egk Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 11:52 am
Certainly the majority of people will drive SOMEWHERE, but it isn’t clear to me why it would be a HSR station rather than a BART station or a Caltrain station or something like that.
jimsf Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 11:58 am
the only people who will use transit are those who are already transit users and many of them, if taking a longer trip, will opt to drive directly to the hsr station or have someone take them to the hsr station. they aren’t going to drag luggage across multiple agencies, and using local transit will add too much to the trip time defeating the advantage of hsr.
The vast majority of hsr passengers probably 90 percent, are going to arrive at their closest available hsr station by car. You can bet on it.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 1:14 pm
Which is why there are humongous expressways and gargantuan parking garages at Penn Station New York, Penn Station Newark, 30th Street in Philadelphia, Penn Station Baltimore and Union Station DC…… Union Station Chicago too…
jimsf Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 1:34 pm
palo alto san jose gilroy merced fresno hanford and bakersfield are not nyc chicago or cd, the only location in the entire system that remotely resembles the east coast cities is downtown sf, where, there wont be a garage. Not even downtown la is pedestrian friendly.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 2:08 pm
People in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland own cars. They use them frequently. Some would say excessively. They don’t use them in great numbers to get to train stations or even airports. Mostly because the cab fare is cheaper than the parking fee…
blankslate Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 1:48 pm
Transit use will increase before HSR is built. Have you noticed the average price of gas in the Bay Area is about $4.50 right now? Most young people under 25 in the Bay Area that I talk to say they would prefer not to ever buy a car. By 2030 these people will be the mainstream political class, displacing the PAMPA NIMBYs.
GoGregorio Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 8:27 pm
Which confirms the concern that HSR really shouldn’t be a priority, and is planned with very little foresight in mind. If 90% of passengers are driving to the stations, then high speed rail probably won’t be doing a very good job of decreasing VMT (certainly, some kind of job, assuming all these passengers would otherwise be driving by themselves in a car to LA, but still, not a very good one).
So if this project that is currently slated to cost over $100 billion really won’t change travel patterns, I think there’s a very good argument to be made to put it on the back burner.
Actually, I’m not quite sure what your rah-rah HSR angle is, if you don’t expect travel patterns to change much. I thought that was a lot of the reason for building it.
GoGregorio Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 8:28 pm
I’m kind of being facetious here, because I think you’re incorrect. I think if there is a half-decent high speed rail system built, it should change travel patterns at least to the point that fewer than 90% of people are driving to the stations. Besides, what about people arriving at stations? They’re surely not all renting cars to arrive at their final destinations, right?
jimsf Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 9:12 am
Let me phrase it differently l- the point Im making is that most people will arrive and depart from stations by other than public bus (metro ac transit vta fax merced bus and so forth) They will instead drive, or be dropped off and picked up by friends, family, taxis, supershuttle. Ive ridden public transit is cities up and down californian, large and small and for the most part, the buses are full of people who will never be able to afford a ticket on hsr, and the people will be able to use hsr, don’t want to be anywhere near the people who ride the buses in fresno and bakersfield. like it or not.
I don’t expect hsr to change travel patterns to much extent locally. I expect hsr to be an alternative to driving 100-600 miles around the state and to be more simpler and more pleasant than making those trips by car or plane. thats all I expect. But people will get to hsr stations the same way to they get to the states airports. Fresno is a perfect example. Whatever the breakdown of “how they arrive and depart from” fresno airport, that will be the same for fresno hsr. and Ill bet the majority of folks using fresno airport are not getting there on fresno public transit.
joe Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 9:26 am
1) These options also reduce parking needs and should be accommodated in the design.
2) Travel will be different with HSR. Short travel times will increase day trips and overnight trips.
Long Beach to San Jose took my father in law 10 hours. You take that ride for a week’s stay and carry a weeks worth of stuff.
With HSR fresno is an hour from the Peninsula stop. You’ll see day trips and overnight trips where a roller or carry on will suffice. Stepping off the RWC train and walking to an express bus or Caltrain isn’t a burden. And “kids” are moving to public transit – the wage is too low.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 10:22 am
But the people using the kiss-n-ride don’t need parking, they need a stopping space where their stopping is measured in seconds not days. Same thing with the shuttle buses.
jimsf Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 10:33 am
true but to my original point about the PA station, it wasn’t about parking availability, it was about what a pain it is to come from the neighboring cities if you want to use that as your nearest hsr stop, if you are coming from san carlos, or mt view, or los altos, or rwc, getting into downtown pa – its choked with traffic and not that close to the 101. rwc is just and easier place to get to. that was my point.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 11:33 am
If you are coming from you can avoid the traffic by using, I know this may be a radical idea, Caltrain
GoGregorio Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 11:37 am
Completely agree. If this system is so poorly-connected that the mid-Peninsula station really matters that much, then I don’t want the thing. If 90% of the passengers drive to the station, it’s a failure.
jimsf Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 11:45 am
ugh. dont you guys get that the majority of people just dont like pubic transit. yes lots of people will use public transit. but it wont be a majority. people who are transit users, are. people who aren’t, aren’t.
all you have to do is find the stats for sfo, oak, san jose and fresno, airports. what is the break down of how passengers arrive
% drive and park
% supershuttle
% local public transit
% cab
% kiss and go
and that will be the breakdown for most of the stations (except downtown sf)
and… there’s nothing wrong with that.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 12:03 pm
And kiss-n-ride, cabs and even the supershuttle aren’t public transit in most people’s minds. Give ‘em cheap parking and they drive to the cheap parking. Give them expensive parking and they’ll find other ways to get there.
blankslate Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 3:11 pm
“I expect hsr to be an alternative to driving 100-600 miles around the state and to be more simpler and more pleasant than making those trips by car or plane. thats all I expect. But people will get to hsr stations the same way to they get to the states airports. ”
It won’t be the same, because airports are universally located in transit-unfriendly locations and HSR stations are mostly planned to be transit hubs.
“the buses are full of people who will never be able to afford a ticket on hsr, and the people will be able to use hsr, don’t want to be anywhere near the people who ride the buses in fresno and bakersfield.”
The same is not true of the passengers of say, VTA light rail or Caltrain.
“people who are transit users, are. people who aren’t, aren’t.”
I still don’t get why you think mode split never changes. If there is no hope for transit why are we investing 100 billion dollars in it?
GoGregorio Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
jimsf:
1. In existing conditions, in the present time, you are correct, most people do not use public transportation. But in existing conditions, at the present time, we also don’t have high speed rail.
2. People aren’t hard-wired to not want transit. Most Americans reject transit because of existing land use and service patterns, both of which make car travel convenient, and transit travel difficult.
3. I understand that you’re an archconservative, and don’t want anything to have changed since 1995, but you also understand that it’s not possible. Don’t you think that, by 2030, improved land use patterns (look at San Jose’s general plan. It’s not going to create a perfect city by 2030, but it’s definitely an improvement over 1995) and astronomical gas prices will have changed the way we travel? Even just looking at gas prices, as they increase, public transportation ridership increases. Transit ridership is up in the Bay Area across the board. It’s only a small mode shift for now, but looking ahead a few decades, it could turn out to be fairly substantial.
4. Your argument is self-defeating. If you’re saying that there cannot ever be a major mode shift away from the car and toward the bus, doesn’t it stand to reason that there also can’t be a major mode shift away from the car and toward the high speed train? Sure, HSR isn’t transit, but it is public transportation, and if people who have driven all of their lives are suddenly willing to take the train, I don’t see why they can’t change their minds for shorter trips.
5. Lastly, and this is probably most important, if you think “there’s nothing wrong with that”, you really should not be commenting on transportation topics with any sort of the certainty you claim. We can’t keep driving around like this. We can’t build our infrastructure to accommodate car storage by the thousands. And, more urgently, we can’t continue with anything near this level of emissions. 1995 wasn’t sustainable. We need to make some major changes, and this system we’re discussing here is only one very small part.
Alon Levy Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 3:57 pm
Jim, here is Frankfurt Airport’s mode split. Do you really think Frankfutr Hbf has the same mode split?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 4:24 pm
….but how many Real Americans(tm) use any sort of transportation in Frankfurt?
Alon Levy Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 6:16 pm
A lot, actually. People from Romney’s Boston Consulting Group shuttle to global financial cities all the time. They probably take taxis, though.
Jonathan Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 8:39 pm
@jimsf:
What sane person in their right mind would go to SFO to access HSR?
Just to carry their luggage to BART, from BART at Millbrae through the Very Splendid and Worthwhile Iconic Station (which cost $100m and last year’s CSHRA plain will spend ~$1,000m to preserve as-is).
And _then_ to drag the luggage, kids, whatever from BART to HSR.
Unless perhaps by “SFO” you really mean “Millbrae”. Talk about BART-brainwashed….
jimsf Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 10:48 pm
yes I did mean Milbrae. I keep calling it sfo for some reason. I think because it was referred to somewhere here as being sfo high speed rail station so when I say sfo I mean milbrae not sfo bart station.
flowmotion Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 11:06 am
It will probably be called the “SFO/Millbrae” station or something along those lines.
It’s surrounded by inexpensive long-term parking, rental car facilities, etc, so it will be a very popular station.
Alon Levy Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 2:29 pm
Stanford is an anchor of destinations, especially of people who take trains. It’s also a source of people who might want to travel to SoCal and are unlikely to own a car.
Jonathan Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Unlikely to own a car!? Rotfl!
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 3:10 pm
Give both of them taxi vouchers good for transportation to the station in Redwood City. Or since they don’t own cars and live close to the Caltrain Station, they can use their monthly Caltrain ticket.
Alon Levy Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 3:55 pm
You know, students, and even academics further up sometimes. Caltrain’s not terribly relevant to them – why have a monthly pass for occasional trips to San Francisco?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 4:01 pm
If Caltrain isn’t terribly relevant why would HSR be?
Alon Levy Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 6:15 pm
HSR doesn’t need people to be on monthly passes.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 7:10 pm
You can buy single ride tickets for Caltrain.
J. Wong Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 7:34 pm
There’s more than students and professors at Stanford. The Bullet is loaded with Stanford employees in the mornings and evenings.
Peter Baldo Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 5:22 am
If the “high speed” trains and commuter trains use the same tracks, and travel the same speeds, I would think they can stop at the same stations. If there is some demand for high-speed service to Palo Alto, some of the high speed trains can stop there. The same would apply to San Mateo and Santa Clara. If ridership can be vastly increased by having more convenient stops near the end points where the trains run slow, there should be more stops.
Peter Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 8:13 am
That’s assuming HSR and Caltrain have the same platform height and loading gauge.
Andy M. Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 8:47 am
Anything else would be crazy
Peter Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 8:53 am
Completely agreed.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:49 am
And yet the “HSR advocates’” plan is to write a check for $1,000,000,000 to the certifiably insane sub-cretins of Caltrain.
Because, well, because, umm, errr, I know: choo choo!
Jonathan Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 8:41 pm
“Anything else would be crazy”? And yet that’s the plan-of-record.
Incompatible platform heights (8in ATOR for Caltrain; whichever international standard CHSRA can botch into ADA-compatibility for HSR).
Clem Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 11:49 am
Even with the same platform interface, you’d still have to get around the prime directive of having a security perimeter maintained around the HSR system. While HSR would indeed make a juicy target, Caltrain is juicier still– see Madrid, 2004
I think this is a far thornier issue than the platform interface.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 12:24 pm
Thorny?
Only if your very very very special friends happen to be in the concrete-pouring, steel erection, and fare gate peddling businesses.
If not, the solutions (ie lack of cost-plus log-rolling) are blindingly simple, even if you’re too modest to provide the link to the lovely diagram:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_XbahXM_YRqg/TLp-xr1NljI/AAAAAAAAAc0/Y8BjveEZsRg/s1600/station_xsections.png
http://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2010/10/station-design-101.html
Clem Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 1:51 pm
It will be exceedingly difficult, politically, to get anybody associated with HSR to back away from the notion of an airline-style security perimeter. All the perverse interests (more concrete, juicy security “systems”, political CYA, assertive U.S. foreign policy, etc.) converge in the exact same direction. This is not a technical issue.
The notion of platform interface compatibility is irrelevant until the security perimeter goes away. Considering how much we’ve moved the needle over this or any other HSR issue over the past several years, I expect it will happen sometime never.
Peter Baldo Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 3:38 pm
I’d think the main security concern is what’s on the right-of-way, not who’s on the train. As you point out, on-train security vulnerabilities and threats are the same for BART, Caltrain, and hsr. And none can be flown into buildings, or hijacked to foreign lands.
If the concern is threats to assemblies of people, those threats are everywhere. Schools, sporting events, office buildings, mass transportation… These are general threats, and are dealt with with by normal policing, and by rapid, flexible, and intelligent responses to actual events, not by a lockdown of society.
Miles Bader Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 4:52 pm
Difficult or not, it will have to be done. There’s zero reason for having an “airline-style security perimeter,” and having one has an extremely negative effect on operations.
Brian Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 2:06 am
In the senate hearing meeting this past tuesday in Mtn. View someone made a comment that we shouldn’t be investing in high speed rail because terrorists (specifically Al Qaeda) will try to derail the trains. Sounds like he was promoting air travel as the safer “terrorist free” alternative to HSR.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 1:12 pm
Which is why the passengers of London’s and Tokyo’s subway pass through metal and chemical detectors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin_gas_attack_on_the_Tokyo_subway
New York has had all sorts of things, riots, civil disturbances, bombings, the occasional gun toting maniac going back to the Revolution., which the British have a somewhat different perspective on…
Jay Taylor Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 3:01 pm
I don’t know if you are being serous, as sarcasm doesn’t work well on the internet.
But just in case you are, I have ridden many of the subway/train/HSR lines in and around Tokyo
and there is no security to speak of beyond a officer hear and there.
If the TSA get a hold of HSR, that will be the downfall if anything.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Too late.
But you’re thinking backwards.
It’s not a downfall.
It’s an opportunity.
A huge, multi-billion dollar, lard-soaked opportunity.
You don’t want the terrorists to win, do you?
swing hanger Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 5:44 pm
I think adiron was being sarcastic. But yes, I have never seen a single police officer on a subway train in Japan- occasionally you will see a (unarmed) security guard during heightened security periods. They spend most of their time warning passengers not to gab on their cellphones, or pick up the occasional discarded candy wrapper. You will see a police officer standing near a subway gate entrance during a security alert in some bigger stations, however. That’s all.
jimsf Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 1:46 pm
every pic anc vid Ive seen so far of hsr shows fare gates.
stpancras
Clem Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 2:31 pm
You picked the one example in all of Europe that has fare gates. HSR in Europe typically has little or no access controls, and certainly no luggage screening.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 3:24 pm
Spain also.
Matthew B Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 5:10 pm
Germany and France don’t have security gates or anything (aside from Eurostar). Really, we’re talking about thousands of km of HSR network with a fantastic safety record and no security theater BS.
Matthew B Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 5:13 pm
I was in Barcelona a few months ago. They had some metal detectors, and I think I remember an xray like Eurostar has, but it was a far cry from what you have to deal with to get on a flight in the US. No taking off your shoes or “junk touching.”
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 5:25 pm
Once you go down the route of controlled platform access you’ve bought into hundreds of millions of dollars of utterly wasted concrete and real estate overhead: airside circulation, landside circulation, airside platform connections, landside platform overpasses, airside waiting areas, landside waiting areas, airside retail, landside retail, airside alarmed emergency egress, fare gates, fare gate supervision, fare gate queueing areas, …
Plus you’ve made nearly every trip to or from nearly every station take 10 minutes longer, by virtue of longer routes to platforms and slower passenger throughputs through few and controlled choke points.
Synergy!
Miles Bader Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 5:50 pm
Certainly any sort of platform access control implies some waste (because of duplicated facilities), but this:
… is only true for “significant” access control, like security checkpoints.
“Access control” includes simple fare gates, and there’s little reason for them to impose any delay at all, when designed properly (e.g. as they are in Japan). This is particularly true for HSR (as opposed to local transit), given that it will always have lower volumes of passengers (though the Japanese make it work well for local transit as well).
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:19 pm
The gates are immensely expensive (especially when monopoly-source procured from defense contractor Cubic, Inc, which is guaranteed in California’s “competitive” environment.)
The staff who sit around in shifts to “oversee” the banks gates are immensely expensive.
The maintenance of the the gates (monolpoly procurement, again), ditto.
The combination results in exactly what you see in PBQD=CSHRA’s lovely gorgeous station “plans”: a SINGLE access point to each platform, through a SINGLE “secure” concourse, with at most two (one, count ‘em, one from each side of the tracks) passenger routes into and out of the station.
The detour time and the the extra walking time to distribute passengers along the length of 400m trains is large and significant: significant enough, in fact, that it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars of civil engineering on the train tracks to make up the passenger time lost in the stations.
Compare the USA-USA-USA Transbay clusterfuck to, say, Stuttgart’s planned new easy-access underground station.
So, nice theory that you have there. The reality is that “controlled platform access” means “very very VERY limited platform access”, which means “significantly lengthened door-to-door trip times”.
Thank God the terrorists haven’t won by crippling the US economy.
Peter Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 6:19 am
Not much reason to take pictures of fare gates that don’t exist…
jimsf Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 9:26 am
well they either have to pay to install fare gates, or pay staff to collect tickets on trains. I guess the latter creates more jobs. I did notice in the eurostar video they have “flight attendants” on board so I guess they can collect tickets too.
jimsf Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 9:30 am
….which brings me to the question… why don’t we already know the answer? or are they building the railroad with no idea how of how they intend to run it. Id like to have the complete picture, just for fun if nothing else. Surely someone at the authority must have an answer as to whether there will be fare gates and electronic bart style tickets, or will there be tickets collected on board like acela, will there be any customer service/train attendants on board to get pillows or whatever, will it all be fully automated like bart, where you buy the ticket, and enter and exit through fare gates, but with zero staff, food, or bathrooms on board? why do we only have speculation on these things and not definate answers and wish lists?
J. Wong Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Italy has no platform controls at all. You can walk right on to the platform. Japan had some kind of control; we had to show our reservations to get onto the platform.
Egk Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 10:31 pm
Neither does new jersey!
thatbruce Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 4:32 pm
@jimsf:
Think of the Eurostar as a flight-level 0 international airline, with attendant secured areas for customs and immigration reasons. HSR operations within the European Schengen Area, and within other countries don’t bother with the secured areas.
synonymouse Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 4:03 pm
There is a simple solution to the platform height controversy as well as all the other issues in the power struggle between Caltrain and the CHSRA. It is “A plague on both their houses” aka solo BART Ring the Bay. Ugly but straightforward. MTC, Heminger, Kopp, Richard et al ready to hop on.
And here’s an unsolicited suggestion for Morris and his dreaded “NIMBY’S”. Take a page out of your enemy’s predecessor – that would be Bechtel and infamous broad gauge – and hard-structure an impregnable physical barrier to PB’s aerial obsession-compulsion. This approach has already been implemented successfully in downtown SF. Build a major structure(s) across the ROW in PAMPA. Something on the order of a major highrise, say over the PA station(either blended or Ring the Bay). You can use the ruse(TBT style)that the skyscraper will pay for everything.
synonymouse Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 4:07 pm
Add handbook after predecessor
Rick Rong Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 12:58 pm
Don’t forget that there is a limit to the number of stations allowed for the hsr system.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 1:17 pm
As Peter pointed out if Caltrain and HSR share a common platform height etc. any Caltrain station can be an HSR station.
There’s no technical reason why Acela doesn’t go to Morristown or stop at North Elizabeth, they just choose not to.
Miles Bader Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 4:45 pm
So assuming caltrain’s infrastructure could/would be upgraded to be sufficiently high-quality for HSR (はは）, is there enough of it to ensure neither system delays the other?
Maybe with caltrain’s current “really horrible” schedule, it wouldn’t be a problem, but what about if caltrain actually turned into a real urban railway with real non-joke headways, with the advent of more TOD in the area?
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 5:19 pm
You can answer those questions yourself!
http://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2011/05/where-four-tracks-will-be-needed.html
Add stops, subtract stops, add trains, see what happens.
Note that, very obviously, Caltrain isn’t going to turn into a “real urban railway” any time in the next 50 years, no more than BART’s Concord line (its heaviest used outlying branch) is. 6tph intelligently scheduled for Caltrain is plenty, 8tph (feasible, with minimal intelligent infrastructure investment) is way out there. Don’t posit strawmen capacity “requirements” scenarios. (eg PBQD=CHSRA’s utterly fraudulently ludicrous 9tph of HSR on the peninsula.)
And much longer than 50 years out there are going to be other things to worry about.
Miles Bader Reply:
March 18th, 2012 at 5:10 pm
Wait, if Caltrain so incompletely incompetent there’s no hope for them (a not unreasonable position, I’ll admit), surely sharing infrastructure with them is a recipe for disaster?
synonymouse Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
Politically irrelevant as the Vladimir Brown regime will be compelled to take extreme liberties with Prop 1A after imposing the Tehachapi DeTour, value engineering, “blends”, etc. No way the times proviso can be met so expect tweaking and torquing all over the place. Not to worry when you have a 2/3 lock on the doorstep and a running dog judiciary.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 2:05 pm
Carthago delenda est! Et ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Jonathan Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 8:59 pm
Timeo Bartistae et dona ferentes, hmmm?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:21 pm
Bartistae ne credite, Paenīnsula! Quidquid id est
…though I was hoping the Turing algorithm would get confused and go into a rant about Carthaginians
synonymouse Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 10:14 pm
Sorry, I am still stuck slogging thru 3 Victorian latin grammars. Currently working on pronouns, substantive and adjective, mostly starting with “q”. I think I’ll just study the entire “q” entry in the latin dictionary.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 10:22 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeo_Danaos_et_dona_ferentes
Jonathan Reply:
March 18th, 2012 at 5:56 pm
The accepted translation is: “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts”. A literal translation, suitable for Latin class, is : I fear the Greeks even [when] they bring gifts.
English doesn’t lend itself to pronoun-implicit-in-verb the way Latin does. And I can’t even remember if gerunds (verbs acting as nouns, present participle in this case) do that.
Synon: under Q, see: PBQD
Neil Shea Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 12:49 am
Their nose is long gone, it’s no longer a good look. Both Mtn View and RWC are better alternatives based on access, and eventually I could imagine both having stations. To start Mtn View gets the edge based on great road access (Hwys 85 and 237, Shoreline Blvd and Evelyn) plus light rail.
The loser is Stanford and also PA as the top spot for startups — that will move to Mtn View. (The PA old timers who used to sneer at MV will then say ‘Good riddance, we never liked those students and their startups, just leave us to our tranquility’. Later, just as Stanford is building a Medical campus in RWC off 101 they will start to put Engineering and Business buildings in MV.)
joe Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 7:28 am
FWIW, “Start-up” activity has already shifted from PA to MtV. More space, good business climate/critical mass and transportation access. The MercuryNews even did a story about the shift.
swing hanger Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 7:41 am
Palo Alto is in fact changing too, from its Nimby-dominant, old, “lets keep it like Mayberry” group to a more diverse, younger population that will likely be more rail transit friendly. The demographics favor it. In ten to twenty years, there’s a good possibility it will look more like Cupertino:
http://www.burbed.com/2011/03/12/palo-alto-is-the-new-cupertino/
synonymouse Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 2:05 pm
Demographic change explored and explained in todays SF Chron:
“5 Not so green: Millennials, thought to be greener than Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, are less interested in the environment and in conserving resources – and often less civic-minded overall – than their elders were when they were young, according to an academic analysis of surveys spanning more than 40 years. The study was published online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.”
Now we know why the cheerleaders are so much into hsr greenwashing and stealth growth-mongering. So in re Palo Alto it won’t be anymore “lets(sic)keep it like Mayberry” but “let’s make it like Manhattan”.
The mid-Peninsula is booming such that your loathed nimbys can cash out and relocate anytime.
But the Machine is facing a more immediate and statewide dilemma. By going over to the tax the rich only voter initiative they risk alienating the Wundermans, etc. If it passes the affluent will respond in one way or another. If they choose not to evade they just might get involved, since it is their money mostly paying for the State government. For instance they might insist on privatizing the CHSRA. That would really mess with Stilt-A-Rail as currently conceived it is a stone money pit.
Another peril is that many anti-Prop 1A voters will take the tax initiative as a proxy for the revote that Jerry “Vladimir” will not permit and vote against the increase. Outside chance that the machine may be forced to allow a revote on Prop 1A to separate it from the tax measure.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 5:06 pm
“Not so green: Millennials, thought to be greener than Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, are less interested in the environment and in conserving resources – and often less civic-minded overall – than their elders were when they were young, according to an academic analysis of surveys spanning more than 40 years. The study was published online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.”
Maybe that’s so, and maybe it’s not so. . .
http://getenergysmartnow.com/2012/03/16/shallow-deception-in-anti-millenial-study/
The published study in question:
http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-ofp-twenge.pdf
There are 50 states from which to choose with a wide variety of economic, geographic, political, recreational and lifestyle offerings, and vast array of price/cost of living ranges. I have always made the choice to find the one that suits my personal tastes and found it quite easy to do so.
for me, for instance, texas just wasn’t going to work so rather than waste time stressing out over how they did everything the “wrong way” ( the way I don’t like) I came back to california where things are as they should be. (the way I prefer)
I suggest each person is free to do the same.
In fact the great thing about california is that in some cases you don’t even have to leave the state for change, because we have so much variety, you can just move to Modoc County, or Tehama, or Mendocino and its a different world ( and youget to keep the CA ™ name cache!
GoGregorio Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:37 pm
This is just a new take on the old “either love it or leave it.”
Actually, I love California (born and raised in the Bay Area), and I’m interested in making it better. With a love it or leave it philosophy, the best it can ever be is as good as it is now. If you’re completely opposed to change, it’ll never get any better than it is.
jimsf Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 10:53 pm
I like it the way it is. I support high speed rail. but I don’t support increasing californias population. Nothing I can do about it so unlike some around here Im not going to keep insisting that ca not grow, I know it will, but personally, if it were up to me id banish the last 10 million who arrived. or, at least everyone who moved here since about 1995. It was way nicer before that.
Tom McNamara Reply:
March 18th, 2012 at 12:34 pm
John Muir was telling me the other day that if you think it was nice in 1995, you should seen the place in 18…95.
March 14, 2012 – Item 14 – Planning & Programming Committee
http://www.metro.net/board/Items/2012/03…/20120314P&PItem14.pdf
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – Quick View
3 days ago – Improvement Strategy (AVLIISP) project for infrastructure improvements that enhance corridor safety, increase passenger rail service, improve operating …. Santa Clarita to Palmdale — A semi-rural area with 32 grade …
Peter Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 6:50 am
Your link was broken. Here’s a fixed version.
Keith Saggers Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 3:50 pm
Thank you Peter
Donk Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 7:14 am
Note, they say this plan was already in the works as of April 2011. This is well be Jerry Brown was in the picture at CHSRA.
Also, they state they it will cost $241.9 M to build 12 bridges and 4 tunnels between Palmdale and Sylmar. We will see what happens to that number once PB gets involved in the study.
Tom McNamara Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 1:36 pm
Put down the tin foil hat– it’s an easier calculation than you think.
For Metrolink’s purposes, $240 million is probably all they need. But Metro can’t put that type of money into Supervisorial District 5 (home to the remaining Republican crazies in LA County) because of Antonovich’s desire to have the Gold Line extended to Cucamonga.
The other four Supervisors will have a cow, because even though Distirct 3 and 4 are getting some love through light rail projects of their own, these upgrades would be a major boon for Santa Clarita and Ventura County.
Hence, if CHSRA cuts a check to Metro for “upgrades” further south, that gives Metrolink/Metro cover to fix the AV line to handle additional capacity.
The catch of course, is that they need passengers to ride Metrolink in greater numbers to make that plan pencil out. Hence the thought that BART and Metro will actually turn around and sue the Authority to prevent “blended operations” and instead require connecting passengers to use ACE and Metrolink instead.
Peter Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 7:21 am
How much time might be saved if Metrolink ran tilting trains? I’m thinking like DB’s BR 612 DMUs.
Paul Dyson Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 7:47 am
The AV line through Soledad Canyon was built on the cheap in the 1870s, not much you can do with it to significantly reduce running times even with more modern rolling stock, for which there are no plans and of course with the usual compatibility problems. Only realistic solution is a new alignment from Sylmar to Vincent.
synonymouse Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
@ Paul Dyson
Do you favor the Tehachapi mountain crossing? If not why not let LA County deal with the Palmdale line on its own? It is big enough and rich enough.
Paul Dyson Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 8:21 pm
I honestly don’t know. It’s hard to sift out the facts of cost, benefit, running time etc. I believe in a slower speed system linking the intermediate cities, forget the race to beat airline schedules, that market isn’t growing anyway. There’s plenty of airport capacity and retired AFBs. So probably I’d come down in favor of Palmdale. Build the straight line route later if there is demand.
synonymouse Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 8:54 pm
If you make it freight compatible, FRA-AAR, I would support it, as it could be sold to a class one when the State privatizes.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:09 pm
Why would BNSF or UP, both of which have perfectly fine ROWs through the Central Valley, with their tax assessments frozen in amber by Prop 13, want to buy new ROW assessed at the price they pay for it whenever it’s sold?
synonymouse Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:15 pm
But both would be quite interested in a functional replacement for the Loop. Double-stack, baby.
Jonathan Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:22 pm
Drooling idiocy. Why should the State of California invest public money in building an HSR system, with the expectation that it will fail and be sold off on the cheap; and *therefore*, and *only* therefore, build that system to be FRA-freight-compatible? When doing so necessarily requires shallow
grades; which force routes incompatible with high speed; excessively heavy bridges, etc., etc.
Too much for someone in a Foamer daydream world to grasp?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:28 pm
No they wouldn’t. Freight doesn’t care if it goes slow, as long as it gets there cheap and on time-ish.
synonymouse Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:31 pm
@ Jonathan
I like your rhetorical question. Of course, the State should most certainly not retrace the Tehachapi freight detour for passenger service, which will amount to 10 half empty trains each way a day. If they persist in this folly with a an “FFF” credit rating and cost-benefit ratio they wil have zippo buyers at a forced privatization auction and it will go to scrap like the NdeM electrification..
If you want an hsr passenger route fast and direct enough to break haul your butt back
to Tejon.
synonymouse Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:31 pm
break even
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:34 pm
Tejon gives them 0.8 percent grades and tunnels high enough for double stacks?
synonymouse Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:37 pm
Of course they would. To get a brand new double track replacement for the Loop operational bottleneck at a little above scrap price, you better believe it.
synonymouse Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:43 pm
Tejon shows every indication of being $2bil cheaper, 50 miles shorter and a half hour faster. If you want to dispute those figures authorize the blinking study of the Bear Trap Canyon-Quantm alternative and we’ll see they’re spot on. Van Ark saw that.
Tom McNamara Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 1:41 pm
Of course the legacy railroads will take a new alternate to the Loop for free, but they aren’t going to replace it because they know the increase in rail traffic isn’t worth it.
Your big export ports are Oakland and Portland, imports flow to LA and Seattle. As it stands now, once the Colton Crossing is modernized, (and in theory, Alameda Corridor East is finished) you will have all the rail capacity you need to move things through Los Angeles quickly and onto markets in the rest of the US.
Plus, it’s not as if the volume of imports can grow, nor is that there that much to export from Oakland that isn’t from the Central Valley.
Jonathan Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:24 pm
@adirondacker;
California will remain dysfunctional until the trans-generational-transfer-tax known as Prop 13 is repealed. As you note, it’s a “transferred-forever” tax giveaway for corporations, which effectively live forever. Now what kook thought up freezing corporate property taxes forever? (The Prop 13 annual increment is insignificant.)
Peter Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 10:37 am
If we were planning on building a new freight line across the Tehachapis, that’s what we would do. But we’re not, we’re planning a high speed rail line. If an additional freight line makes sense, then the freight RRs can build it, the State should not and will not.
synonymouse Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 12:26 pm
An hsr line thru the Tehachapis is an instant white elephant, a financial albatross, which will suffer the same fate as the NdeM, except both track and cantenary will be scrapped, unlike the NdeM where the wire but the track remained, because it is used for freight.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 12:38 pm
An hsr line thru the Tehachapis is an instant white success , a financial goldmine, which will suffer the same fate as TGV, except both track and cantenary will be so well used there won’t be room for frdight. I I can string together hyperbole too.
synonymouse Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 12:55 pm
an instant success for PB and TWU-Amalgamated – a financial quagmire for California taxpayers.
jimsf Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 1:04 pm
are you high?
Tom McNamara Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 1:44 pm
I think Synon favors the peyote, myself. He doesn’t come off as being under the influence of Ecstasy….
synonymouse Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 2:09 pm
The $10bil that PB-CHSRA fully intends to waste on the Tehachapi Roundabout would be much better spent on Ring the Bay including tunnels for PAMPA, which could be cut-and-cover. They would materially increase property values in the surrounding neighborhood and be highly utilized. The Tehachapi tunnels would cost a fortune and have a very low utilization factor. FFF rating for the entire Tehachapi folly.
Not only would the exorbitant CHSRA capital expenditures on the Grand DeTour not only have real world zilch uptick on local property values, the Tejon Ranch Cartel has threatened to go to court against the CHSRA because it claims that hsr would lower the value of its property.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 2:55 pm
well… the Tejon Ranch can make unsubstantiated assertions just like you do.
synonymouse Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 6:19 pm
Unfortunately the CHSRA ratified the Tejon Ranch co.’s “unsubstantiated assertions” by capitulating to them.
Y’all yuck it up that I am high-flying but it is your Fearless and Maximum Leader, our own “Vladimir”, who is the truly stupefied. All he can come up with is raising taxes and funneling the monies to his house unions, the CTA and the prison guards’ union. Providing more money to the Legislature is like handing out cash to compulsive gamblers at the casino porte cochere. Where does it end: $20 bridge tolls and 20% sales tax?
Your hero is worse than Schwarzenegger. Or even Cuomo. He doesn’t have either the brains or the stones to propose the obvious means to raising significant amounts of revenue – fully legalizing casinos in California and directing the proceeds to our exploding social service-welfare budget. Instead he wants to play stupid with Tejon and blow at least $10bil on a Tehachapi fiasco. Just for that stupidity alone Prop 1A deserves to go back on the ballot.
Andy M. Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 8:55 am
The main reason European tilting trains suck is that the clearances had to be reduced to provide the dynamic envelope. That makes the interiors rather claustrophobic. With the more generous US clearances, tilting trains could be quite comfortable.
Tim Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 10:16 am
Yup the new Talgo Avril tilting trains have a “wide body” option. If Caltrain (and Metrolink for that matter) keep their low platforms, CAHSR will have to use either Talgos or bilevel HSR trains which are low platform
Paulus Magnus Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 10:57 am
Really? If we use low platforms, we need to use low platform trains. What a stunning revelation
thatbruce Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 11:34 am
If Caltrain keep their low platforms (then) CAHSR will have to use … low platform
In a sensible world (which we don’t appear to live in), the subset of the CHSR route known as ‘Caltrain’ would be planning its upgrades around sharing the same track, power and high-level platform constraints which the CHSRA is intending to use. We wouldn’t be having political mismanagement games centered around keeping the current erroneous status-quo of low-level mismatched platform heights and 19th century ideas of train crewing.
In this world, what is being proposed is that the CHSRA will have their own high-level platforms that are separate (but equal) from the low-level platforms used by Caltrain.
swing hanger Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 5:28 pm
Trains can be built to use both low level and high level platforms. The concept has been around for decades (and taking a leaf out of Adirondacker’s book)- look at the hand operated trap doors used on Amtrak trains that run in the Northeast. Of course modern trains would have automated mechanisms. Low floor designs like Talgo, would be exclusively low platform boarding however.
thatbruce Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 6:06 pm
Trains can be built to use both low level and high level platforms.
Yes, they can. And to ask a somewhat rhetorical question, why would you bother building such things?
The CHSRA has its sights set on dedicated, HSR-only platforms (and associated station complexes), meaning that they don’t care about the platform height used by non-CHSR operators within the same corridors. Read through TM 2.2.2 .
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 7:22 pm
And they do that all over the Northeast in stations that haven’t been significantly updated in decades. If you are building a new station it needs level boarding.
Jonathan Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:10 pm
@thatbruce: the regulations behind platform height aren’t 19th century. THey’re from 1948, and they spell out wonderful and worthwhile details like the clearances for elevated platforms around refrigerator cars.
Find a rail-history textbook, and you’ll realize they mean platforms for putting huge blocks of ice into non-mechanical, ice-refrigerated cars. Caltrain is legally required to stay with 8in ATOR plaforms (with the crazy horizontal clearance envelopes which “mini-high” disabled platforms are designed to comply).
Caltrain can’t propose something different whilst CPUC requires them to do 8in ATOR.
Now, if Caltrain had a “Director of Modernization’ who had domain-relevant technical expertise, we could have a meaningful conversation about “sensible worlds”.
thatbruce Reply:
March 19th, 2012 at 3:51 pm
@Jonathan:
the regulations behind platform height aren’t 19th century.
The 19th century reference is in regards to train crewing, not platform height.
Caltrain can’t propose something different whilst CPUC requires them to do 8in ATOR.
Caltrain can, in fact, propose something different, either by not permitting freight on the platform tracks, or by requesting a CPUC waiver. The whole thing with CPUC’s general order 26-D is that it is centered around freight movement. If you have tracks that carry freight cars, you get to have 8″ platforms within 4’8″ from the track centerline. If your tracks aren’t carrying freight cars, you can have ‘high’ level boarding platforms, like BART, Muni, Metro etc.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 19th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
Or someone could say “Brakemen don’t dangle from moving cars anymore and the regulations are outstated…..”
jimsf Reply:
March 19th, 2012 at 4:55 pm
the real problem for the brakemen is avoiding the overhead catenary when they are running along the tops of the box cars.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 19th, 2012 at 5:20 pm
The FRA made them take off the catwalks on the top of the boxcars so no one except Chuck Norris walks on the top of boxcars anymore.
J. Wong Reply:
March 19th, 2012 at 5:15 pm
Yes, ask for a waiver, which the LIRR must have since it runs freight and its platforms are all level-boarding for its main business of being a commuter railroad.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 19th, 2012 at 5:22 pm
The California Public Utilities Commission has little to say about the operations of a railroad in New York.
Jonathan Reply:
March 19th, 2012 at 6:29 pm
@thatbruce:
OK, understood about the crewing practices. 2-man crewing is typical for suburban trains where I came from, but I’ll take your word for it. (Used to be three or more, clipping tickets morning rush-hour, but the extras were part-timers.)
Regarding 26-D: no, it doesn’t say you can do whatever you want if you don’t have freight.
If memory serves, it says you can apply for waivers which will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
However that’s moot, as Caltrain does have freight: UPRR owns trackage rights, essentially an easement to run freight. And they defend it. I seem to recall there are words in the contract with SP which would allow for “forcing” UP to abandon the right-of-way if delivery of local passenger train services is incompatible with UP (think: running BART on the right-of-way).
More to the point: CPUC 26-D seems to rule out overhead 25kV electrification: if it’s not trolley-voltage DC strung on trolley-poles, it seems to be forbidden. At least Clem has read it that way, iirc.
The 70-year-old aspects of 26-D do stand out: regulations for platforms to put ice into wooden refrigerator cars; regulations designed for the safety of train-men hanging off the grab-handles and steps on the ends of boxcars; and clearance for out-of-gauge loads. (Military, perhaps?)
Now, if only Caltrain had sufficient clue to ask _CPUC_ for waivers from those regulations, for time-separated operations.
StevieB Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 1:11 am
The report says it takes about 2 hours to travel from Los Angeles Union Station to Palmdale and with an investment in track, stations. tunnels, and bridges the time can be reduced by about 14 minutes. Crossing enhancements are mentioned that would potentially enable higher speeds but no time reduction is estimated.
Here’s a nice local news feature on an HSR supporter in Bakersfield.
http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/news/business/High-speed-rail-advocates-make-voices-heard-142872685.html?tab=video&c=y
In other news, the Republicans keep coming up with new ways to demonstrate insanity and inanity:
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/03/16/446515/donald-trump-windmills-are-disgusting/
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/03/16/446352/tx-sen-candidate-ted-cruz-spouts-paranoid-fantasy-about-united-nationsgeorge-soros-conspiracy-to-eliminate-golf/
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/03/16/446351/akin-steelman-brunner-minimum-wage/
D. P. Lubic Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 5:19 pm
We need better politicians, perhaps a new party, the Demo-Cats:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-buzz/post/hank-for-senate-cat-campaigns-against-george-allen-tim-kaine-for-va-seat/2012/02/27/gIQAZgx1dR_blog.html
http://hankforsenate.com/Default.aspx
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=366906543319755&set=a.366181466725596.92322.346918001985276&type=3&theater
Well, it’s the weekend, and time to unwind a little bit.
I’d have to call these shorts a couple of guilty pleasures–they’re so politically incorrect we shouldn’t like ‘em, but I find them hilarious. To be honest, I’d had forgotten how funny those little rascalss could be, but yikes, the !!@#$%&*$#!!! chances they took with running a locomotive over a kid!!
I know this was done slowly with undercranked cameras, and the later version of the same stunt looks like it may have been done with a puppet, but still. . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CpStbku … re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5tAnll0WTQ
Then again, there was that crazy train on one set of wheels in “Unstoppable”. . .
Comments from a poster at Railway Preservation News:
“At least one account of the “Our Gang” shorts I’ve read said that director Robert McGowan was a former Denver firefighter that apparently had a hand in railroading at one point, and Hal Roach himself comes off as something of a closet railfan. Whatever the source, it’s painfully obvious from both these films (and another one or two subsequent talkies about both railroading and the kids forming a volunteer fire company) that there was some hard-core understanding of how railroading, steam engines, etc. worked in the Hal Roach Studios. It also stands to reason that there may have someone else, like another director, who had connections with the Santa Fe. Oddly, the Hal Roach Studios were located in Culver City, CA, which was on the Pacific Electric; I’m guessing the Santa Fe scenes were shot around one of the many Santa Fe L.A. terminals……”
Have fun.
FYI,
(from LA Times):
Backers of a proposed initiative to block the California bullet train project received approval Friday from the secretary of state to collect signatures needed to place the measure on the November ballot.The measure needs 504,760 signatures by Aug. 13 to qualify for the ballot, Secretary of State Debra Bowen said.
@ adirondack – I did mean to include cabs and shuttles when I said arrive by car. my point being few, except poor folks are going to arrive at fno hsr by fresno area transit bus for example. or in merced where “the bus” system stops running at 6pm and doesn’t run on sundays. Even in the bay area the only people who will arrive at hsr stations by vta or samtrans buses will be people who don’t have a ride or a car. ( poor folks)
As to someones earlier point about young people not wanting cars. that’s because real life hasn’t hit them yet, by the time 2030 rolls around they will have lost their youthful energy and their idealism and will be schlepping the kids pets and stoller around in an suv like everyone else.
Platform height brings up a problem- the blended approach won’t allow for level boarding if they are planning to share infrastructure with existing services.
I do wish the authourity would spell out EXACLTY what they plan is. I kind of seems like they don’t know yet.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 8:06 pm
You don’t have to park the cabs or the shuttle buses at the station. Cabs and shuttle buses are cheaper than parking fees, at least in places where the parking is unsubsidized.
People in places like Chicago and New York, to a certain extent Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC. Torionto, Vancouver have kids and strollers and pets and get along quite nicely without a car.
jimsf Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 8:10 pm
yeah but what Im tellin you is that around here the majority of people are still going to arrive by automobile and not public transit, with the sole exception of SF.
What is not obvious to people outside places like the bay area bubble, is that the real world oustide the dome, is completley different. shockingly different. ( as I am so painfully aware after giving up sf for the valley) these people don’t want anything to do with urban lifestyle and they sure aint’ gettin on no dang bus!
joe Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:02 pm
What’s the parking fee?
I can see auto drop off and pick up – make room for that up front.
If the parking is $15 a day and the folks are carrying luggage I assume they are doing a multi day trip. So parking ads up. A door to door shuttle bus or cab or transit service like Marin Airporter would be competitive. I see these types of services outside the bay area.
jimsf Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 10:41 pm
in the valley parking will be cheap or free. In the bay area, parking will probably match whatever long term airport parking costs.
The original point though was that a palo alto station is in a horrible location to access by car – be it single driver, shuttle, friend drop-er off-er, or taxi, because of the traffic choked schlepp thu town along u-ave. Whereas mt view or rwc have faster freeway access. Even la union station needs to make sure that people driving in on the 5 the hwd fwy the 10 etc can get to the station easily. Of course in socal, pouring lanes of concrete is a hobby, or an addiction, so there wont be any fuss over building exits and flyovers, and other exclusive lanes to take people from the freeway to the station.
In fresno, there isnt much congestion downtown, nor in bakersfield.
the SFO station is right off the 101 with upgraded traffic flow already in place.
San Jose is fairly easy from the Guadalupe(87) to santa clara st.
the peninsula people are going to avoid going to the PA station and opt for the SFO station because downtown pa is too congested.
JJJ Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 2:49 am
Um, parking isnt free in downtown fresno today, you think itll be free in 10 years…?
jimsf Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 9:02 am
but its cheap.
joe Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 9:11 am
Parking is never free, the question is will parking fees recover parking costs? I say yes and think that will be an incentive to drop/off/ pick up and door-to-door shuttles/limos.Cabs/buses.
HSR requires operating costs be recovered at the fare box so there is a very strong incentive to recover costs with parking fees, not ticket/station fees.
My City tells me here is only one planned “green field station” for HSR – Kings Co. You don’t create 4,000-6,000 spaces without spending money for a structure or dedicated shuttle buses – which mean people drive, park and schlep their luggage on a shuttle bus.
I see a Monterey MST Bus and shuttles like this onehttp://marinairporter.com/
servicing Gilroy HSR in place of park and ride.
RWC because MtV is a choke point for traffic on 85 and 101. I live it every day. You ought to see it. Caltrans finished the 85/101 exchange reengineering just a few years ago and traffic still backs up. They added a lane on 85 a while ago and that section is bumper to bumper.
HSR would have to go to RWC – it’s a better midpoint that MtV.
I appreciate the Bay Area vs CV but I’ve lived in small towns in N ID and W MT all through the 80′s.
Clem Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 11:01 am
Funny you should mention the big 85/101 interchange. I kept asking myself about it. Where was the business plan for it? What was the private investment contribution? Did it pencil out and all that? Would the project have survived a trip to Sand Hill Road? What was the return on investment?
William Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 2:31 pm
Because people haven’t seen themselves using the HSR, yet.
Nevertheless, I think the north 85/101 interchange reconstruction is needed to fix the previously dangerous short weave conditions from Old Middlefield to Moffet.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 2:57 pm
Roads. Always made “safer” by being made wider.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 3:04 pm
About the same return investment as BART to the San José Flea Market or HSR from Diridon Intergalactic to Los Banos or four extra lanes of 101 to Gilroy or VTA Light rail to anywhere or Interchange Safety Improvements or Merging Safety Improvements or …
The exact same people (VTA, MTC), the exact same contractors, the exact same disastrous outcomes.
It’s not evil roads versus saintly trains: it’s corrupt sleazebags making the environment infinitely worse versus human beings. And the human beings lose every time, regardless of whether the far-worse-than-useless concrete wank-fest happens to have a thing layer of greenwashing rails on top of it or not.
The business case for HSR to Los Banos is exactly the same as the business case for 101/85 “improvements”, in fact: more business for the mafiosi, a worse planet for everybody else.
Signature gathering approved for measure to stop bullet train
LA Tines:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/03/signature-gathering-approved-for-measure-to-stop-bullet-train-.html
This is the LaMalfa ballot initiative which would effectively kill off Prop 1A. (if they can get the ignatures and if the voters approve)
synonymouse Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:05 pm
I wonder if the Brown government might also place a re-authorization of Prop 1A mit many modifications, compromises and crap-outs on the ballot to bird-dog the revote if the latter qualified?
Jack Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:42 pm
Seems to be a low amount of signatures, still put your money where your mouth is Morris. I’m sure you have the 1.5-2 millions dollars required to pay the signature gatherers. Good Luck.
Jack Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:43 pm
Oh BTW, source: http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_ballot_initiative_petition_signature_costs
Ballot measure Subject Signature collection company Cost Signatures required CPRS
Proposition 16 Elections Arno Political Consultants $2,199,794 694,354 $3.17
Proposition 17 Regulation National Petition Management $2,273,745 433,971 $5.23
Proposition 19 Marijuana Masterson & Wright $987,833 433,971 $2.27
Proposition 20 Elections National Petition Management $1,937,380 694,354 $2.79
Proposition 21 Taxes Masterson & Wright $1,144,515 433,971 $2.64
Proposition 22 State spending Progressive Campaigns $1,646,596 694,354 $2.37
Proposition 23 Environment National Petition Management $2,222,312 433,971 $5.12
Proposition 24 Taxes Kimball Petition Management $1,587,363 433,971 $3.65
Proposition 25 State spending Kimball Petition Management $2,626,808 694,354 $3.78
Proposition 26 Taxes National Petition Management $2,341,023 694,354 $3.37
Proposition 27 Elections Kimball Petition Management $3,031,085 694,354 $4.37
synonymouse Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:53 pm
What percentage does $1.52 mil represent of the amount PB has already raked in to concoct this absolute piece of crap scheme?
J. Wong Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:55 pm
Will they be able to get it on the ballot for November 2012? Anything else is useless because the first funds will have been allocated already.
synonymouse Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 10:04 pm
It is known as an orderly shutdown.
But don’t worry if it makes the ballot and the polls look bad look for a precipitous attitude adjustment. Van Ark might just come back in favor. Remember the end of “Casino” – maybe Jerry will ask the Tejon Ranch wise guys to meet him at that Indiana cornfield.
joe Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 9:15 am
“Stop ! Wait until the ballot initiative is voted on!”
Responsible_Thought Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 12:50 am
At a minimum, I can’t understand how the slim population of the people owning property near the rail tracks can get the $$$ together, even when one combines the incomes of the many wealthy ones on the Peninsula with the out-of-state Tea Bag money. But there’s also the fact that no one can seriously doubt the Legislative Office claim about $708 million annual debt service can stand in the face of a revised business plan. And I don’t see Californians throwing away several billions of dollars of Federal money, as well as the investment of Federal and state funds that have been made.
Either way, supporters who actually care about the future of California and the planet will personally see to it that the heel-digging rail-haters will have to spend lots of money fighting what will ultimately be a losing battle.
synonymouse Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 2:23 am
Not rail-haters just opposed to LA’s notorious and endless corruption.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 5:56 am
That may be true, but explain why this and other rail projects are the subject of so much vitriol, so much controversy, so many false charges (i.e. “social engineering,” “Communism,” and “socialism”) and are being held to a higher standard (profitability) than roads, water projects, and airports.
Tom McNamara Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 1:16 pm
in the words of Chris Rock:
“black people”.
ignatures is short-hand for “ignorant signatures”.
synonymouse Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 9:10 pm
I was an ignature when I voted for that stealth merde avec du poil la-dedans.
O.T. but interesting video about the building of one of the longest viaducts in Spain, on the Antequera-Granada high speed line in Spain. A viaduct was required in order to protect the aquifer in this area. Notice how this line cuts through agricultural land, I wonder how negotiations with the landowners were conducted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-UyspAwDPs
jimsf Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 10:03 am
that is an amazing vid. they should use that method down the valley. also I couldn’t help but notice the limited access points to platforms at 3:31
I wonder why they used elevated instead of grade level.
In other news (or views), two prominent conservative columnists weigh in on the oil question–Charles Krauthammer and David Limbaugh (Rush’s brother):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-oil-flimflam/2012/03/15/gIQA7x77ES_story.html
http://www.davidlimbaugh.com/mt/archives/2012/03/new_column_big_2.html
I’ll let you form your own opinions on these two, but I have to ask, why do these people assume a product that is in a global marketplace, extracted and sold by global concerns, will be cheaper here than in the rest of the world?
I tell you, I’m going to have to get a steel headband to keep my head from exploding. . .
It’s about time; we have a new edition of “Highway Statistics,” for 2009. I wonder why it takes so long for these to come out these days? It used to be there was only a two-year delay, and at one time I think it may have only been a one-year delay; now we are up to about three. This increase in time started during the Bush administration, and has not improved since.
General link to the 2009 edition:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2009/
Status of the Federal Highway Trust Fund:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2009/fe210c.cfm
Status of the Federal Highway Trust Fund in more detail:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2009/fe210.cfm
D. P. Lubic Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 11:03 am
Highway funding and disbursements, PDF version (for some reason, the basic link has incorrect labeling, showing all state and local funding and disbursements combined as total Federal funding and disbursements). Of note is that the user fees–gas taxes and tolls–only cover 47% of highway expenditures in 2009. This is down from the more typical 51% that was covered in 2008:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2009/pdf/hf10.pdf
Disposition by state:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2009/pdf/hdf.pdf
Revenues by state:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2009/pdf/hf1.pdf
D. P. Lubic Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 11:15 am
Motor fuel use by state:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2009/mf21.cfm
Using total highway expenditures (rounded) of $195.6 billion, subtracting a (rounded) road revenue of $93.4 billion, gives a net cash subsidy of $101 billion. Divided by a rounded fuel consumption of 168 billion gallons, we have a subsidized cost per gallon of 60 cents. This is on top of the about $4 per gallon you are paying now, and of is cash flow only. It does not include deferred maintenance, outside emergency costs, and externalities such as a share of oil wars.
And just to make everyone face palm, Orly Taitz is leading the GOP’s CA Senate race
http://totalbuzz.ocregister.com/2012/03/16/o-c-birther-leads-gop-senate-field/83355/
D. P. Lubic Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 11:24 am
Whooee!! And did you see the comments that followed?
Samples:
“Oh God help us……I cant stand the whole democrat bunch here in California, ut, we have millions of people in this state and Taitz is the best we can do?”–Mark Hermanson
“I went to her once when she was a dentist. What a mistake. I would’nt let her work on my dogs teeth. Vote for her to be a US Senator, NO WAY, NO HOW. Anybody else use her as a dentist? This lady is bad news and I feel bad if this is the best the republicans can do. It should’nt be that hard to beat Feinstein after the crappy job she has done. Just becuase you get your name in the news and people can remember it shoul’nt qualify you to be a US Senator.”–Mark De Arman
“Unfortunately I also was assigned to her dental office by my insurance company. I lost a tooth and have several other crowns that have had to be redone. She was a hack as a dentist, apparently still a hack as an attorney and I can only imagine what would happen if she were elected to the Senate. And I beg to differ, she could do a whole lot worse than what we have seen to date.”–Nicol Reeves
“As an independent I don’t understand Republicans in this state. Can the party not find a realistic candidate for statewide or national elections?”–Dave Miller
“Orly Taitz, America’s worst attorney, is a further proof of our mania for celebrity.
“A well known crackpot, Orly Taitz Esq personifies the childish politics we practice. If one is “recognized”, one is electable, at least in California.
“She traffics in forged documents (the so-called ‘Kenyan’ birth certificate). She sues her fellow Birthers (Berg, Kreep, Liberi, Lincoln et al) when they challenge her. She was fined $20,000 in federal court for unprofessional conduct. And, she has an unblemished record of failure and defeat. More than 90 court cases later, she has lost EVERY Birther suit she has attempted, and has been chastised from the bench for “incoherent”, “incompetent”, and “stupid” filings.
“But there is a moral symmetry here. If the Republican Party actually chose this lunatic, they would reap as they have sown. Now there’s a lesson.”–Charles Fiddaboll
Tom McNamara Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 1:15 pm
How is this news after what happened with Chuck DeVore last time? There aren’t many Republicans left in CA.
this is pretty nice
looks like everyone on earth can get it done except americans.
“3. I understand that you’re an archconservative”
wow I’ve been called a lot of names in my day…. but this just made me giggle. hehehe
not just a conservative… but an “arch” one. yes the arch conservative, the big-lifelong-norcal raised-san franciscolivin-barbara boxer loving-liberal-lifelong dem-voting-gay guatemalan refugee dating-union govt job working-rachel maddow loving-msnbc watching-militant gay mariiage street marching-sign carrying-…….arch conservative. you so funny.
I dont say what i say cuz im a conservative, i just dont live in the tiny liberal bubble. And Im older than most here, and been in california since 1964. And spend the last 32 years in front line customer service jobs. So i know what people like and what they don’t like….. I was aslo an idealist once just like all of you.
you llget old. youll see. mark my words. there isnt going to be any revolution.
GoGregorio Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 4:39 pm
I called you an archconservative because you’ve professed a hatred for change. That’s what a conservative is. You want things to stay exactly the same. I wasn’t using it in the contemporary political sense.
Actually, since you’d prefer to go back to 1995, you’re really a reactionary, so if you prefer, I can use that term. The point was that things will change because they have to change. Everything else (land use, gas prices, etc.) is.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 5:45 pm
That’s…not really a definition of conservative.
GoGregorio Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 6:02 pm
For real? I’m inclined to be civil, but when someone calls me wrong when I’m quite apparently correct, it’s difficult. Please, find yourself a dictionary. Look, there’s even one right here on the Internet!
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conservative?s=t
Alon Levy Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 6:12 pm
I’m at a public place. Can you not post things like this? They bore me to sleep and I need to go home.
jimsf Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 4:46 pm
well if I get to go back in time then I choose 1978-1982 ish.
i don’t know how old you are but its just that I remember when california was a lot more pleasant and a lot less crowded. a paradise. there was sf if you wanted crowded, and lots of gorgeous open space. the freeways were still fairly new. still a lot more unspoiled nature.
now its just unfortunate that its being destroyed by over population. truly paradise lost.
I know I can’t stop it. Its just a disspointing loss for those of us who remember how much nicer it was before it was over run with too many millions.
joe Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 6:37 pm
Considering the CA population explosion was long before 78, I consider this more a reminice than CA golden age.
Even the Eagles thought so
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Resort_(song)
Alon Levy Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 3:57 pm
Jim, here is Frankfurt Airport’s mode split. Do you really think Frankfutr Hbf has the same mode split
frankfurt is meaningless. please compare something in california.
What are Fresno and san jose airports mode split and that will give you fresno and san jose hsr’s mode split.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 5:17 pm
Capitol Corridor mode split here:
http://www.capitolcorridor.org/included/docs/survey_summaries/1201_survey_summary.pdf
jimsf Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 5:53 pm
Six out of every 10 riders (66%) get to the Capitol Corridor station by automobile, 19% use public transit, another 10% bike, and 10%
walk. While 34% will depart the station by automobile, 30% will take public transportation, 30% will walk, and 13% will bike.
The “average” rider is 43 years old and makes 142 one-way trips every year on Capitol Corridor. (But we appreciate ALL riders!)
Alon Levy Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 6:14 pm
No, Frankfurt is not meaningless. Airports have a higher car mode share and lower transit mode share than train stations, and practically no walk/bike mode share. The Capitol Corridor actually has a higher non-car mode share than Frankfurt Airport as a result.
jimsf Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 6:58 pm
but frankfurterians are not californians, they are europeans.
Alon Levy Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 7:59 pm
Okay, then let’s do California. LAX’s transit access mode share is 1% for passengers, and 9% for employees. (Compare with 50% transit share for downtown employees). I don’t know how much it will mean to you, but in New York, JFK has the highest auto mode share and lowest transit mode share of all major in-city job centers.
In all cases, it boils down to the fact that airports are inherently auto-friendly and transit-unfriendly, coming from the fact that they need a lot of space, can’t possibly be downtown, and have widely separated buildings and concourses. Usually the terminals are also arranged in such a way that transit lines serving them can’t easily run through, but have to terminate or tunnel under; it’s definitely true of LAX, and also of SFO because of the SFO/Millbrae BART split.
I think in places like the bay area there will be a decent amount who arrrive by local transit. but not the majority. In places like fresno, merced, sac, and bakersfield, as well as suburan socal stations, much less. People in those places just dont have that snippity zippity hip urban approach to life. they move slowly, and schlepp along old school. “but Im at the train station can’t you just come pick me up”
and ” oh no I don’t want him/her taking the bus”
( yeah the 20 somethings are oustoundingly babied by their parents these days. ive never seen anything like it)
you may be right but not from what Ive seen. cars will rule for a long long time.