Alongside those flaws is another important detail: low-cost carriers aren’t very bullish on those routes. Consider JetBlue.

JetBlue is one of the nation’s leading low-cost airlines. I’ve flown them several times between San José and Long Beach, and enjoyed the service, the in-seat entertainment, and the low fares. Sure, I’d still prefer a high speed train – it’d still be easier for me than flying out of SJC, given that my destinations in SoCal tend to be closer to a future HSR station than to an airport.

JetBlue is also supportive of high speed rail. They don’t think that the shuttle routes, such as Bay Area-SoCal, are all that great. Here’s JetBlue CEO Dave Barger quoted in the SF Examiner yesterday (and by an actual Examiner reporter, not by one of their biased bloggers who gets to use the Examiner name):

Q: Do you see nationwide high-speed rail as a threat or complement to the airline industry?

A: It’s a complement. I don’t think we need hundreds of departures every day from the Bay Area to Los Angeles.

JetBlue has said this before with regard to other routes, such as NYC to Boston:

It was an event filled with charts and maps that drove home how overwhelmed and outdated current air traffic control technology is. One solution [JetBlue COO Rob] Maruster said was obvious is taking airline passengers off some routes, like New York to Boston. “It seems like there’s a mode that might work better for us in that regard. When we see things like high-speed rail going into South Florida, we say OK, that makes sense. But I think this region, with almost 25 million people in the Tri-State area, makes a lot more sense for those kind of things.” Maruster says he’d like to see New York City and federal transportation officials put out a 20 or 30-year vision that addresses how airplanes, trains and other modes of transportation can be put together. He hasn’t seen one yet.

None of this should be surprising if you’ve been paying attention, especially if you remember the summer of 2008. We spent a lot of time discussing the airline crisis here on the blog, as high gas prices drove the airlines to slash flights. Carriers cut flights on the SF-LA corridor in 2008 – airlines see better profit potential for medium and long haul flights, instead of on the shorter shuttle routes.

Southwest Airlines, which helped kill the Texas HSR project in the 1990s, has also come around on HSR, having not lifted a finger to block any of the HSR projects being proposed around the country. Perhaps Southwest, like JetBlue, understands that their future isn’t in the short-haul services that can be replaced by bullet trains – especially when the California system will bring travelers to airports such as SFO, SJC (Diridon is close enough), BUR, ONT, and perhaps SAN.

It’s further evidence of how HSR is an essential part of California’s future. HSR opponents and critics believe we don’t need it, but they aren’t looking closely at the reality of the present situation, including what the airlines themselves are saying. The status quo isn’t viable, and is going to change. HSR is how California will not only adapt, but thrive.

But this week we learned that Burbank is now proposing putting the station at Burbank Airport:

Officials in Burbank are pushing the developers of a high-speed rail line to add a stop at Bob Hope Airport.

City officials have proposed the stop be located near the intersection of Hollywood Way and San Fernando Road.

Representatives of the California High-Speed Rail Authority had planned to present two station alternatives to their board of directors as soon as May 6 in San Jose. But the Burbank City Council last week called on the representatives to consider as part of their environmental study a stop near Bob Hope Airport, arguing that a proposed $120-million regional transportation center there should not be isolated from high-speed trains.

As you can see on the map below, this would not be a downtown station (the airport station is in green, the other two proposed stations are in yellow):

View Burbank HSR in a larger map

It’s an interesting idea. But some questions come to mind:

1. Is it better to have a station near downtown Burbank or near Burbank Airport? Downtown Burbank has some density, and could have more in the future, but is it a more compelling source of riders than the nearby airport? Is it worth moving the station nearer the airport at the expense of downtown?

2. Is Burbank Airport equipped to handle the ridership that HSR might bring? Burbank is already a popular option for people flying to points in downtown LA and nearby areas, as it’s easier to get there from Burbank than LAX. HSR service would be a huge advantage for Burbank, as LAX can never hope to have service to downtown LA as fast as an HSR link from Burbank. But Burbank isn’t a large airport and may not be able to handle a big increase in passengers. Then again, if HSR succeeds in grabbing most of the market share of the LA-SF corridor, then that would free some space at Burbank.

3. What happens to connections to Metrolink and Amtrak? Since the Burbank station is so close to Union Station, this might not be as big an issue. It would mean that people wanting to get to HSR from points westward on Metrolink (currently as far as Moorpark) and Amtrak (as far as Santa Barbara, maybe even San Luis Obispo) would have to go all the way to Union Station to transfer to a northbound HSR train.

Burbank’s airport HSR station proposal is new, and so they may not be in a position to answer these questions. But those are the first ones that come to my mind about this.

• What happens to Heathrow Airport? The HSR network could obviate the need for a new runway at Heathrow, especially if a stop is built at Birmingham International Airport:

Birmingham International airport plans to nearly treble in size from 9.2 million passengers per year to 27 million by 2030 without adding a new runway. Instead, it is building a 400m runway extension that will allow the airport to host planes with heavier fuel loads, opening up destinations such as San Francisco and China.

The Labour government is exploring the Birmingham option, which interestingly enough is supported by their likely successors in government once the election is held:

However, connecting Birmingham International to a high-speed rail line would suit the Conservative party, which has pledged to block a third runway and build an ultra-fast rail network instead. The shadow transport secretary, Theresa Villiers, expects regional airports such as Birmingham to soak up the airport growth permitted by the government’s advisory body on climate change.

The difference is that the Conservatives don’t see this as an either/or proposition, and believe that HSR should serve Heathrow AND Birmingham airports:

Theresa Villiers, the Shadow Transport Secretary, said: “We recognise a very strong case for an integrated rail solution at Heathrow, to improve the connectivity of the airport with the rest of the country.

What might have prompted this? A few weeks earlier the Evening Standard reported that a think tank connected to financial outfits in the City of London and headed by a former Conservative Party Deputy Prime Minister objected to excluding Heathrow:

But in a report backed by Lord Heseltine, who approved the route for High Speed 1 from St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel, the Bow Group said: “If the new rail link does not build a direct link from London to Heathrow, it may as well not be done at all.”

• How will HSR be built through the city centers? The British plans include city center stations in Birmingham and Manchester, and presumably in Edinburgh as well. The study given to the Labour government indicates the first phase will see trains at 200 mph using new tracks to Birmingham and then using existing tracks at conventional speeds up to Scotland, until the HSR tracks are built in the northern sections of the route. Britain will likely face some similar debates as we’re seeing here in California, which is also looking to leverage existing rail corridors (if not the tracks themselves) to bring HSR into city centers, as well as building on new alignments in rural areas.

• Speaking of, how will Britain deal with environmental concerns in the countryside? Already there are questions being raised in the Chilterns:

The Chilterns Conservation Board, the public body responsible for protecting the area, has warned that parts of the countryside could be “trashed” by a high-speed route.

Of course, large parts of East Anglia would be “trashed” by a rise in sea level induced by global warming, and even the Thames Barrier might be in trouble, so you have to place such statements in context. Still, it’s an indication of the battles that lie ahead outside the cities.

Ultimately the plans call for connecting London to Edinburgh at the same 2 hours, 40 minutes time that California’s HSR is mandated to take to link SF to LA. The upcoming election will help determine some of these questions, but others lie ahead. As both California and Britain plan HSR networks, there will continue to be parallels and similar issues encountered between the two projects.

One of the objectives of the California HSR project is to provide effective connections to existing airports. This should allow airlines to offer connecting train journeys for their long-distance flights. It is also supposed to make secondary airports more attractive to air travelers, but success will depend heavily on getting the last mile transfer between platforms and terminal and other details right.

CHSRA claims the chosen route will achieve this for SFO, Palmdale and Ontario airports. Lindbergh Field (SAN) could now be added to that list, but the purpose of the multimodal transit terminal there is a different one: making it convenient for those arriving by car to take the train rather than fly to other California destinations. Freeing up slots for long-distance flights by displacing short-hop shuttles is another objective for California HSR, but other cities perceive downtown stations as more effective in that context. That is part of the reason why HSR trains will be not be tightly linked to Oakland, San Jose, Fresno, Bakersfield, Burbank, LAX or Sacramento airports.

So let’s focus on SFO, Palmdale and Ontario: how exactly will long-distance flights and short-to-medium-distance HSR trips be combined into an attractive value proposition for the traveler? To answer this, we need to look at the following aspects:

1. How many long-distance flights will be offered out of each airport?

   In the aviation business, there is no formal definition of “long haul”. In the US domestic market, it appears to refer to flights of at least 6 hours, e.g. coast-to-coast and transoceanic. California-Hawaii is borderline. Of course, some HSR customers will take a short train trip to connect to a much shorter flight, e.g. to the Pacific Northwest or the interior west. Unfortunately, airports don’t publish their statistics down to that level of granularity – at least not free of charge.

   SFO statistics reveal the airport handles 20,000-25,000 air carrier movements a month, 2.5-3.5 million passengers, of which 550,000-850,000 are international. The airport experienced robust growth in 2008 and now ranks among the nation’s top 10, though passenger numbers still have not recovered to pre-9/11 volume. Note that in 2006/7, SFO commanded much higher fare premiums for long-distance flights than e.g. LAX. About 25% of all passengers flying in or out of SFO hail from or are headed to other California destinations. Factoring in aircraft size, this probably translates to ~1/3 of all aircraft movements.

   Ontario is a much smaller airport, with just 7-8 million passengers a year. Most of the long-distance flights appear to be to domestic destinations, with just a few flights to Mexico and other Latin American countries out of the small international terminal.

   Palmdale is another of LA’s “world” airports, but it recently lost its one and only commercial service (United to SFO) when the subsidy ran out. There is now talk of converting part of the huge area to a solar thermal power plant, though it’s unclear if that would prevent the resumption of commercial operations once HSR puts this airport within ~30 minutes of downtown LA. Note that the combination of elevation and high summer temperatures mean that air density at PMD is lower than at LAX, so any fully laden 747s or A380s would need an extra-long runway and a gentle ascent slope to take off.

2. How many HSR trains will be offered to these airport stations?

   In general, this is still very much up in the air. A great deal depends on how easy it will be to find attractive fares, get to the nearest HSR station and, transfer between HSR and flights at the airports. The number and ease of transfers is especially critical for passengers with more than just carry-on baggage.

   In spite of the large volume of traffic at SFO, only a subset of HSR trains serving the Bay Area will stop at Millbrae. Expect fares between downtown SF and Millbrae to be artificially elevated to avoid low seat capacity utilization on long-distance trains and cannibalization of Caltrain and BART ridership. The purpose of the station is to provide connectivity for passengers hailing from or headed to destinations well south of SFO, e.g. Silicon Valley, the Central Coast and the Central Valley. Note that CHSRA expects just 3,000 boardings/alightings per day at Millbrae.

   Ontario airport is supposed to be on the phase II extension between LA and San Diego via Riverside. HSR trips to and from LA Union Station are expected to take 25 minutes and, CHSRA expects 10,000 boardings/alightings per day. For reference, the FlyAway bus between LAUS and LAX currently takes 30-50 minutes, depending on traffic. However, a new light or heavy rail link via the Harbor Subdivision Transit Corridor could easily cut the budgeted transfer time in half.

   It’s too early to say what fraction of HSR trains will stop at Ontario, except that CHSRA is planning to use LAUS as a through station, with most trains continuing on to San Diego because of track capacity constraints between Fullerton and Anaheim. San Diegans may well decide to use HSR – possibly including Amtrak Pacific Surfliner at 110mph top speed – rather than fly within California, just so more long-haul flights can be offered out of Lindbergh Field. Taking HSR to catch a plane at Ontario would be an inferior solution for them, though perhaps not for residents of the Murrieta-Escondido area.

   Palmdale will be included in phase I. In addition to passengers that would otherwise have used LAX or Burbank, there will be some from the Central Valley. Commercial services to Fresno Yosemite and Bakersfield do still exist, but they are expensive. Even so, it will take some aggressive lobbying of airlines and sweet flight/train bundle deals to build enough ridership, which CHSRA optimistically (?) estimates at 12,000 boardings/alightings per day.

   Note that IFF a spur out to Las Vegas ever does materialize, Palmdale would be roughly 75min from Sin City, possibly close enough to serve as a relief airport for McCarran during crunch periods such as major conventions. Ontario via Cajon Pass would be a little further. The bulk of the relief would come from the gradual elimination of flights to California cities on the same bullet train network, comprising almost 1/3 of aircraft movements at Las Vegas.

3. How will customers discover plane/train combo fares?

   If it has not yet done so, CHSRA will presumably request IATA codes for all of its stations so they show up as destinations in airline flight reservations systems. Systems like SABRE are also used as the back-ends to many internet travel portals. It is far more likely that a passenger would discover an HSR trip as a connecting service for a flight than vice versa.

   At many airports around the world (e.g. Atlanta, London Heathrow, Paris CDG, Frankfurt/Main, Amsterdam, Vienna, Oslo, Copenhagen, Geneva, Cologne, Leipzig, Kansai (Osaka)), the train platforms are within easy walking distance of the airport terminals. At others, there are frequent people mover connections (e.g. Birmingham UK) to those terminals that are beyond walking distance. However, IATA appears to permit code-sharing even if the train station is many miles away. This is disingenuous as it causes the reservation system to show the plane/train combo journey as having just two legs when it’s really three. Many IATA codes for train stations not co-located with airports begin with a Q, X or Z, but this is also not enforced. The use of just three letters also means the most obvious combination may already be in use for an airport somewhere else in the world.

   For a sense of how long-haul customers would book a connecting train journey, consider United’s GroundLink service to most of France via Paris CDG and SNCF TGV. An enterprising airline could just as easily offer transoceanic service to e.g. Palmdale plus connecting service to any destination on the California HSR network.

   In California, it would be desirable to use SFO for the Millbrae, PMD for the Palmdale and ONT for the Ontario HSR station. SAN could arguably be used for Lindbergh Field and BUR for Burbank IFF there’s a courtesy shuttle bus. MER for Castle Airport would only be appropriate if CHSRA acquires part of the BNSF row for that segment and a terminal for commercial passenger and/or cargo flights is constructed.

4. How will these be priced relative to connecting short-hop flights?

   The question may not be all that relevant as most passengers will use HSR to connect to final destinations that are too close to be served by connecting flights. The exception will be those in the Central Valley, e.g. SFO – FYI (Fresno Yosemite, previously called FAT). However, those are far more expensive than HSR will be, so expect them to disappear from airline schedules quite quickly to free up slots for long-haul flights that can achieve high seat capacity utilization (aka “load factor”). Passengers will also prefer the trains because they will run more frequently, more than offsetting the longer trip time by cutting the layover interval.

5. How will passengers get from the train platforms to their gates?

   In SFO’s case, BART really does run into the airport. However, anyone arriving at Millbrae by Caltrain currently needs to transfer to BART, execute a cross-platform timed transfer at San Bruno and then a third transfer to the Air Train to reach the check-in counters. See here and here for the gory details.

   One of the reasons the BART shuttle between SFO and Millbrae was discontinued is that the unions insisted that it constituted a line in its own right, so drivers should be permitted to take a 15-minute break at the end of each journey. Alternatively, each train would have to be operated by two drivers, each twiddling their thumbs more than 50% of the time.

   Running the AirTrain out to Millbrae would be very expensive, so either a BART shuttle or a SamTrans (?) bus would have to be paid out of airport taxes if that station is to share the IATA code with the airport.

   At Ontario, the last mile transfer depends entirely on the right of way CHSRA can obtain through the San Gabriel Valley. The plan of record is to leverage the UPRR Colton alignment that runs right past the gigantic car park in front of the three terminals on S Moore Way and E Terminal Way, respectively. Given how spread out the terminals are, the most likely solution would be a shuttle bus or people mover that also serves long-term parking. This approach is still viable if HSR ends up in the I-10 median. However, if HSR were forced even further from this secondary airport, e.g. to the CA-60 median, it could not act as an effective feeder. In that case, it would make more sense to extend the starter line from Fullerton to Riverside and San Bernardino, with a view to one day reaching Las Vegas. Any money saved should then be put toward upgrading the Pacific Surfliner route to higher speeds or else, on a spur down to San Diego at Corona.

   In Palmdale, the existing terminal is located almost 3.5 miles from the Metrolink station. The most likely connection would be a shuttle bus. Of course, now that commercial operation has anyhow ceased, it might make sense to build a brand-new terminal near Sierra Hwy/Ave N with detour tracks for HSR trains at grade and check-in/baggage retrieval on a concourse level. Note that Palmdale could also serve as a high speed cargo transshipment point, as the northern terminus for HSR trains serving only Southern California and as a maintenance facility.

   In essence, much the same logic would apply for Castle Airport in Merced county – right now, there’s a long runway and a nearby rail line but not much else.

   Remote secondary airports have little or no chance of commercial success without a high speed train station within walking distance of the airport concourse. Even then, some caution is in order: the spectacular Satolas station was built right next to the airport in Lyon, France, in the 1980s. The hope was that the TGV would attract additional passengers from south of Lyon to the airport such that airlines would offer more international flights.

   However, in one of France’s worst transportation planning failures, SNCF/RFF never constructed the turn-off that would have permitted regional TGV service between downtown Lyon (Part-Dieu), the airport, the Rhône Valley and beyond. As a result, Lyon was never able to emerge from Paris’ long shadow. In 2010, a new express light rail service will finally provide a 20-minute transit link between downtown and the airport but that’s no more than a consolation prize.

   The lesson from Satolas is that a secondary airport without a substantial local catchment area will struggle to attract the flights that would prompt passengers to ride a train to the airport in the first place. It’s a chicken-and-egg situation that can only be overcome with a plan for integrated service. This has to be driven by one or more innovative airlines collaborating closely with one or more rail operators to offer a combined service that is hassle-free, fast, punctual and competitively priced. The notion that a government agency like CHSRA or LAWA can “build it and they will come” is false.

6. Where will check-in and security screening happen?

   Some operators in Europe (e.g. Deutsche Bahn) do provide flight check-in facilities at selected train stations, but all security screening still happens at the airport. In 2010, the European rail networks will be opened to international competition. At that point, Air France and others intend to compete directly with Eurostar on the London-Paris route, where baggage and passenger screening is already performed at the train stations because the UK is not a signatory to the Schengen agreement. However, the rail and airport security zones are currently not equally strict nor integrated, so passengers will still probably have to submit to screening twice.

   Afaik, no rail operator anywhere allows passengers to take care of flight check-in formalities on board the train to save time. Reliable wireless internet connections are still a new phenomenon and there are also logistical issues, e.g. with weighing bags.

   However, consider this scenario: you go online and book a train/flight combo ticket with XYZ airline, which has decided to operate out of a secondary airport with an integrated HSR station. You print out your ticket/write down your confirmation code. At the appropriate time, you board the train with your baggage. Once you’re underway, you head to the cafe car, which features a courtesy desk where you can check in for your flight. In addition to your boarding pass(es), you receive self-adhesive baggage tags that you need to attach yourself. Upon arrival at the airport, you need only drop off your bags. The person there will check that your bags are in order (size, weight, condition) and scan the bar code before letting you proceed. The airline would not be responsible for lost bags prior to this point.

7. Will baggage be checked through to the final destination?

   Train stations that permit combined train/plane check-in on the outbound leg also provide the boarding passes and baggage labels for the flight. However, in most cases passengers still have to take their bags onto the train themselves. One exception is Vienna, Austria, where you can check your bags the night before or, up to 75 minutes before the shuttle train leaves for the nearby airport. Baggage is forwarded automatically to the airport’s handling facility. Returning passengers do have to pick up their bags at the baggage carousels as usual, though.

Although LA County voters seem to have narrowly rejected Measure B on March 3, it is still possible that the LA City Council may implement its conditions anyway and create a legal obligation to install 400MW of renewable electricity generation capacity in the county. LAWA is therefore proposing that a fraction of the 17,750 acres of land occupied by its Palmdale airport be used for a 100MW solar thermal power plant. For reference, LAX occupies around 3,500-4,500 acres (estimates vary by source).

On the face of it, this is excellent news for high speed rail, which is supposed to run entirely on renewable electricity. At full capacity – which won’t be reached until 2030 at the very earliest – the fully built-out HSR network would require around 480MW or, approx. 1% of total installed generating capacity in California today (the vast majority based on fossil fuels).

However, the primary reason for the long detour via Palmdale and the Tehachapis was excellent access to a fully operational Palmdale airport to relieve LAX. Palmdale is the only existing airport in all of Southern California that could easily accommodate an additional long runway. Metrolink and the FlyAway bus evidently aren’t fast enough to make it commercial viable, but HSR would take just 27 minutes to LA Union Station – a game changer. Ergo, HSR ought to be a huge shot in the arm for this struggling regional airport as well as maxed-out LAX.

The flip side is that HSR’s short travel time also implies the risk of further population growth in the High Desert, already home to hundreds of thousands. Ever more growth would be problematic even if it were of the transit-oriented variety rather than traditional car-centric low-rise sprawl. That’s because there is very little natural rainfall in the area, so any new residents would have to be supported at great expense to the state by pumping water up the San Joaquin Valley and uphill to the High Desert. The elevation data tells the story: Tracy ~400ft, downtown LA ~400ft, Palmdale ~2900ft. The High Desert is arguably the wrong place for California to grow in.

So, we now have three issues coming to a head – renewable power generation vs. high speed transportation vs. population growth – simply because LAWA happens to own a patch of temporarily unproductive land. It’s not as if solar power plants could not be built anywhere else in the state. Complicating the issue is that LA took the airport land by eminent domain decades ago for the express purpose of commercial aviation, so it’s not clear that the legal authority to re-purpose the land even exists at this time. Officials from the city of Palmdale complain they were not even consulted about plans to build a solar thermal power plant. From a practical point of view, the questions are if solar power generation would be temporary and/or have any impact on the resumption of commercial passenger flights a decade from now.

For that, we need to consider what a solar thermal power plant actually looks like. One indication is BrightSource’s 400MW Ivanpah plant, located deep in the Mojave desert near I-15 and the Nevada border.

Covering 5 square miles, its ~200,000 heliostat mirrors will be computer-controlled to accurately track the path of the sun during the day and year. The reflected sunlight is concentrated in a small area, heating water (or other working fluid) flowing through pipes there to 550 degC (~1000 degF). The resulting steam is converted to electricity using a regular steam turbine and generator. The water is condensed by forced air convection to achieve closed-loop operation. Another emerging technology uses water-cooled high-temperature photovoltaic semiconductor panels that convert the power of sunlight concentrated 500 times directly into electricity. Either way, concentrated solar power plants are not the the sort of installations you can easily move to an alternate location after just a decade of operations.

In terms of airport operations, the risk inherent in a permitting a nearby solar thermal power plant is blinding glare for the pilots. The mirrors are not perfect reflectors and the boiler tower not a perfect absorber of sunlight. A significant amount of light scatters and could prove a threat to aviation safety. So far, FAA has not taken a position because there has been no formal submission to review. Considering that unhindered airport operations are the very reason for running HSR past Palmdale, I would argue that CHSRA should be treated as a stakeholder in any environmental review of siting a solar thermal power plant so close to the airport.

It’s possible that glare turns out to be a non-issue and that a solar power plant and unfettered airport operations could coexist quite happily. My point is that no-one has actually verified that to date, so this potential problem should be nipped in the bud before too much effort is wasted on trying to secure ROW and viable tunneling solution for the planned HSR route. If a solar power plant is built and it permanently restricts commercial aviation at Palmdale airport, there’s a good case for switching the HSR route to the I-5 Grapevine, cutting 12 minutes off the SF-LA line haul time. Those time savings might be sorely needed if CHSRA’s preferred route through Pacheco Pass in Northern California proves impossible to implement for any reason.

The solar plant idea for Palmdale proves that once again, co-ordinated inter-agency planning appears to be in very short supply in the state of California.