The Hybrid Alternative generally parallels the Union Pacific Railroad and State Route 99 between Merced and Fresno. To avoid impacts to downtown Madera, this route travels east to be adjacent to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) corridor. The station locations proposed along this route include downtown Merced between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and G Street and downtown Fresno at Mariposa Street.

“Not only does this route have the fewest overall impacts but the hybrid route is financially sensible, saving hundreds of millions compared to the other two routes,” said Leavitt.

It is estimated that the Union Pacific Railroad / State Route 99 would have cost $1 billion more than the Hybrid Alternative and the BNSF route would have cost $500 million more.

And Valley leaders are supportive of the choice:

“We are looking forward to being the birthplace of California’s high-speed train system,” said Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin. “We are ready to put people to work building a system and a station that will connect Fresno to all of the other major cities in California. This project has the potential to transform and improve California’s future.”

“We are thrilled that we’re one step closer to seeing a high-speed train station in downtown Merced,” remarked Dr. Lee Boese, Jr., Co-Chair of the Greater Merced High-Speed Rail Committee. “This project will enhance the lives of residents in Merced and surrounding areas, as well as provide long-term economic growth for our business community. I agree with the Hybrid route recommendation, it will avoid impacts to the small towns of Planada and Le Grand. While we know that the high-speed train will serve as a powerful economic stimulator for our State, we want to continue to work closely with the Authority to design a system that will minimize negative impacts to existing businesses and agriculture. This is truly an exciting step forward.”

While some issues, like the details of the wye, are still unresolved this is a good step forward for project planning. The hybrid alternative was an example of innovative and sensible design choices, showing a willingness to find creative solutions that reduce impacts and save money in the process.

It’s do-or-die time for President Obama’s high speed rail initiative, which badly needs a lift. Negotiations are stalled with three Class 1 railroads involving projects in North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, according to informed railroad and government sources. The Federal Railroad Administration needs to come to terms soon with at least one of the railroads or risk having them walk away (or having the grant rescinded by Congress). The sticking point: Fear by railroads that their freights will be muscled aside by passenger trains. In all three instances, so-called service-outcome agreements reached by the states and railroads have been rejected by the FRA, which administers the grants.

Together, the three projects involve almost $1.4 billion in High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program outlays, accounting for 13 percent of $10.5 billion in HSR grants announced last year. And they are but the latest of these grants to either be scuttled or endangered.

Frailey writes about the efforts by Washington State to work with BNSF to come to agreement on nearly $1 billion in upgrades to tracks between Tacoma and Vancouver WA, which would enable new and faster trips to be added to the Amtrak Cascades corridor. According to Frailey, these efforts are stalling:

Several times, BNSF and Washington’s Department of Transportation have agreed on service standards — for instance, how to measure delay to passenger trains and how much delay is acceptable — only to have FRA reject the agreements as not stringent enough on the railroad. The benefits of this project all accrue to passenger trains, rather than its own freight trains, the railroad contends. The parties are continuing to meet.

The problem is that the freight railroads, who own the track, want to maintain operational flexibility for their trains. That’s a sensible logic for them, and it suggests that the problem here might not be that the freight railroads won’t play ball (and in fact they are negotiating in what appears to be good faith) but that there’s simply not enough money to help make some of these problems go away.

President Barack Obama’s HSR plan is really two plans in one – and without the funding to really pull off either one. The first plan is to spend some money to upgrade existing tracks, owned by the freight railroads, to carry faster HSR service. The second plan is to spend some money to build true high speed service of over 150 mph on new tracks owned by the public.

Neither plan is adequately funded by Congress. Florida got just enough to get a starter HSR line, with some state and private funding rounding out the total. California will get a starter line too, but it’s really just one piece of the larger SF-LA route.

The first plan, intended to be more economical, isn’t producing the quick and efficient benefits that were anticipated. New rail infrastructure is badly needed, but needs more funding to be able to manage both the freight and passenger trains’ needs.

That’s not to suggest we give up now. High speed rail is essential to this country’s future. Instead it suggests that we need to keep pushing Congress to step up and fund the future, instead of finding ways to preserve the past.

Schwarzenneger-Lahood Demo Train

First, it’s important to emphasize what the letter does not suggest.  This would not be regular service but a demonstration run only. This is due to the fact that 50% of the Los Angeles to San Diego corridor is single-tracked and the signaling system is not capable of controlling trains past 90mph.  The current number of trains can barely be squeezed through the corridor on time, let alone a true bullet train.  The 79/90 mph speed limit will be dealt with when Positive Train Control (PTC) is implemented in the next few years.

However, a one day demonstration run from Los Angeles to San Diego and back would be a godsend.  It would involve the following quite doable steps:

• At least a half-day “take over” of the railroad on a Saturday or Sunday.  Regular passenger and freight train movement would be suspended or at least greatly curtailed.
• Importation of a true HSR consist and at least two or three diesel locomotives to quickly accelerate the demo train to about 120 mph (probably the maximum “waiver” speed of Amtrak’s diesel-electric locomotives).
• “One day” FRA demonstration waivers that would allow the demo train, which would “own” the railroad, to push the train to the maximum speeds allowable by the track geometry and the diesel locomotives push-pulling it.

Such a train could possibly make the non-stop 128 mile long trip in around an hour and 15 minutes. The current Amtrak Pacific Surfliner’s scheduled time is about two hours and 50 minutes.

(Take note that the Los Angeles to Fullerton right-of-way is owned by BNSF and would thus require their cooperation. It’s not to be taken for granted, of course. However, BNSF CEO Matt Rose has been a cheerleader of public HSR investment and their company has been cooperating with HSR on infrastructure planning thus far.)

The benefits of the “demo” train would be numerous. For too many people, despite it’s presence in countries as diverse as France, Spain, and China, HSR is still “vaporware” whose benefits they have a hard time imagining. This “demo” train would be “facts on the ground” near their own homes. The earned media generated by this event would have statewide and nationwide scope. If the event is properly promoted it has the potential to be a public relations game changer.

Which means that if the proposed LA to SD run is successful, the same train should do a demo run from San Jose to San Francisco.  Ditto for the Amtrak San Joaquin corridor from Bakersfield to Martinez.  It would be the first time that anything like true HSR, albeit in demonstration form, has pulled into any American train platform.

Let’s hope that the Governor’s office, the FRA, Amtrak, and the Authority can get this done.

Note from Robert: This is one in a series of posts from Rafael thinking about different ways that we could route California HSR. It should be noted that the Merced-Fresno Alternatives Analysis has some very clear options on how to deal with much of this segment, although north of Merced is less settled at this point in time.

One of the big planning headaches for California HSR is Union Pacific’s refusal to make any part of its extensive network available for dedicated HSR tracks. The crusty old railroad has even raised a red flag on plans to purchase adjacent land for this purpose, citing the risk of derailments (and cargo spills) that could foul the HSR tracks (where at grade or in a trench) or else, damage their supports (where elevated). In effect, a private railroad is trying to impose restrictions on how land it doesn’t even own may be used. Contributor Dennis Lytton has called that extortion and demanded FRA or even Congressional action in response.

Unfortunately for HSR proponents, UPRR is a major freight railroad with a lot of political clout in Washington. The FRA would likely pay close attention to any fresh complaint from it against the revised program EIS on California HSR, since rail freight is a key component of interstate commerce and needs to operate on a low-cost-per-ton business model to remain profitable. Rulings that impose high additional liability on or require excessive new investments (e.g. in signaling or maintenance) by the private railroads could quickly lead to service cuts or outright bankruptcy.

Therefore, it is useful to explore alternative routes/alignments that would avoid the active lines on UPRR’s network. The original plan called for about 50% of the fully built-out HSR network to run adjacent to that company’s legacy tracks. This post addresses the section between Calwa (south Fresno) and downtown Sacramento in the Central Valley.

The following map shows the salient details. Naturally, this alternate route would require re-doing the program-level EIS/EIR for this section of the network.

View Fresno-Sacramento: Alternative Route in a larger map

UPRR’s competitor BNSF has been much more receptive of CHSRA’s proposal to share ROW, specifically in the Calwa-Bakersfield section. The BNSF line runs north and west out to Richmond harbor via south Stockton. It already hosts Amtrak California’s San Joaquin service. Unfortunately, the alignment through Fresno is not straight enough for express HSR service in its present state. It also fails to reach the downtown areas of Merced and Modesto yet does run through a number of smaller towns and villages.

Nevertheless, it might make sense to use certain sections of BNSF’s ROW for the Calwa-south Stockton section, in combination with greenfield sections and the available I-5 median between Stockton and Sacramento.

a) To rectify the alignment for express HSR service, there would be a tunnel section in central Fresno plus an aerial over the SJVR rail yards in Calwa. The Fresno HSR station would be underground with two platform and two bypass tracks. Elsewhere, the tunnel would feature just two tracks, dedicated to HSR service. A station site near the E Tulare/E Divisadero/CA-41 intersection might work well for the HSR operator, but there is no large plot of undeveloped land is available at that location. Note that the Amtrak station is too far out of the way for this rectification concept.

b) Considering the speeds and frequencies at which express HSR trains will be running through Fresno, the most suitable type of grade separation through the residential neighborhoods between N Blackstone and W Herndon would be a deep trench. This would include grade separation of the BNSF track(s), but only in this section. Additional measures to mitigate noise may be necessary, though concrete lids would entail aggressive (and noisy) ventilation to cope with the diesel trains operatged by BNSF and Amtrak.

c) The alignment would switch to a greenfield ROW between Planada and Riverbank. Part of that would run along Oakdale Rd (Stanislaus County Rd J17). The idea behind this is to avoid residential areas of Merced as well as a number of smaller towns along the BNSF ROW, while providing an alignment suitable for running trains at 220mph at any time of day or night. There would, however, be significant land use impacts on farms in the region. The Merced county station would be at the UC campus, way out in the boonies. However, a modified alignment would permit a station at Castle Airport instead if the county presents a viable plan to upgrade it for commercial aviation or else, for transit-oriented redevelopment. Right now, it is used for general aviation and there’s a federal prison east of the runway.

d) The merger with Southern Pacific in the 1990s added many duplicate rights of way (e.g. one between Niles and French Camp) and secondary lines that UPRR might well be willing to sell. One such line runs from French Camp to Modesto, but doesn’t actually join up with UPRR’s main line there. It runs right next to the BNSF track in the town of Escalon but is not connected to that, either.

Therefore, I’m proposing something of a “beet field” station at Escalon, with a new light rail service south into downtown Modesto (Jr College). A new Amtrak San Joaquin station there would be possible if desired.

Note that there may be scope for transit-oriented development near the HSR station and along the LRT corridor, which could easily be extended west along CA-120 and north via French Camp Rd at a later date. Admittedly, there’s a fine line between using high-density TOD to encourage strategic population growth where there is plenty of readily available water and, the risk of traditional low-density sprawl. It’s not a given that Stanislaus county planners are already up to walking it.

e) The Stockton station would be at San Joaquin St, intermodal with connecting Amtrak San Joaquin service to Contra Costa county and Oakland.

An elevated section and a new bridge would be required to get HSR tracks from the BNSF yard across the UPRR line, CA-4 and the river, where they would leverage the available I-5 median. It would be up to the city of Stockton to provide connecting bus transit to the downtown area. There would be no intermodal station with ACE or Amtrak SJ trains from Sacramento.

f) A second ROW that UPRR might be willing to sell runs from Sacramento’s historic Richards rail yards along the Sacramento river south to the hamlet of Hood, the last remaining fragment of what was once a larger network serving farms in the Delta, with cross-connections to Fairfield and Lodi along what is today CA-12.

This ROW would permit a Sacramento HSR station at the planned Richards development, albeit via a completely different approach route. Speeds on the elevated alignment through the residential neighborhoods south of downtown would have to be reduced, cp. SF peninsula or LA basin.

Note that a substantial extra-tall aerial would be needed to cross the eastern approach of the bi-level I St rail/road combo swing bridge as well as I-5, to reach the lateral location already selected for the HSR platforms. Vertically, they would be a level higher than currently planned. The waterfront would remain accessible but there would be some visual and noise blight. A trench or tunnel would be a preferable option, though the proximity to the river presents a major hazard for construction as well as a potential flood risk. Putting the HSR platforms at the station underground would also be more expensive than the plan of record, which assumes trains will approach the site from the east.

Another solution would be to radically rethink the layout of the transit hub such that UPRR/Amtrak veers north immediately east of the rail bridge, leaving just enough room for the HSR tracks to squeeze past at grade without crossing. A station at grade would be cheaper, but the California railroad museum would need to be relocated and the waterfront south of it would be severely impaired.

 Significantly, their letter above asserts the following claims:

• No overpass or underpass structure can touch their right-of-way nor can any other HSR facilities.  Nor will they sell any of their land.  Even though their right-of-way often is hundreds of feet wide or more and has no prospect of development. 
• They will fight to keep HSR off land adjacent to their tracks that they or their customers do not even own, reasoning that many hundreds of miles of land adjacent to tracks needs to be kept “banked” for freight rail purposes.

Read the whole letter here:

04 23 2010 Union Pacific Letter

Those of us who have followed the issue of the freight railroads’ cooperation with conventional passenger rail and high speed rail in particular are disappointed but hardly surprised by UP’s maddening stance.

UP’s position on this issue is in stark contrast to that of some other freight railroads, particularly the BNSF Railway.  BNSF has had a cooperative relationship with the Authority thus far.  BNSF seems to get that where their ROW is adjacent to HSR, HSR development will be a “tide that lifts all boats” improving their tracks and getting them needed grade separation and other improvements.

Moreover, BNSF’s CEO Matt Rose has been one of the most prominent corporate cheerleaders of passenger rail and HSR in America.  Though he predictably asserts that his company must be made financially whole when passenger trains use its facilities, he has also advocated public investment in both conventional rail and HSR infrastructure. 

One can speculate on the culture of the management and board of directors at UP that leads them to bash passenger rail development at every turn, though it is now a public policy priority of the Obama Administration and Congress. Perhaps they are holding out for a 20^th century business-as-usual policy from Washington. That is, no passenger rail development and more Bush-era zero Amtrak budgets.

It is also fair to draw conclusions from UP’s ties to the Bush administration (Dick Cheney was on their board until 2000) and their strong donations to Republicans starting in the late nineties to the middle of the ’00s.

UP’s argument is in essence “This is my private property and you and your public purposes be damned.” And it is quite untenable. UP doesn’t own any conventional piece of private property like a building or farm or home. Their railroad occupies massive linear swaths of the state of California. Drive for an hour in California today and you’ll very likely get over or under or on their ROW. Unlike any conventional private property, railroads often own the only tenable transportation path for passenger rail development. This land was essentially given to their predecessor companies more than a hundred years ago through outright grants or bargain basement prices by a government that had just conquered this land and was intent on its successful settlement.

Fortunately, UP’s extortion letter to the taxpayers can be responded to by the Federal Railroad Administration and the Congress via appropriate regulatory guidance. The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act’s $8 billion of rail development money will not be effective if the regulatory environment permits freight rail tactics like UP’s to continue. The FRA should move towards mandating BNSF’s approach to HSR development. That is, mandate that freight railroads must cooperate on such basic items as under and overpass structures in such a way as the cost to the public is minimized and the freight railroads’ business is not adversely impacted. Clarify the right of HSR development agencies to acquire through eminent domain freight railroad properties adjacent to their tracks, particularly ones that they are holding for no purpose at all. Their property in Gilroy that they steadfastly refuse to negotiate for in their April 23^rd letter can be fairly called “blighted” in its current state.

UP’s letter mentions the derailment safety issue of having an HSR ROW next to a conventional railroad ROW. This issue should be taken up by the FRA. Mitigations that UP mentions such as crash walls in narrow areas, intrusion detection systems (Los Angeles Metro Rail’s Green Line, for instance, uses an intrusion detection system for its freeway ROW to detect cars that could jump the K-rail), may very well be good approaches after some study by an independent regulatory agency and not a freight railroad bent on stopping HSR at all costs.

An HSR right-of-way and an adjacent freight infrastructure can be a “tide that lifts all boats”.  That most seem to get this except the Union Pacific Railroad is unfortunate.

The two that were eliminated (follow along on page 4 of this document for a map of what I’m talking about):

• A3: Western Madera (through farmland, paralleling Highway 99 about 10 miles to the west of Chowchilla and Madera)

• A4: UPRR/BNSF hybrid (following the Union Pacific tracks south from Merced, then BNSF to go around Madera on the east, then paralleling UPRR along Highway 99 into Fresno)

The two that are being carried forward:

• A1: BNSF (from Merced along the BNSF route east of Madera, then joining Highway 99 just north of the Madera/Fresno county line)

• A2: UPRR (from Merced along the UPRR/Highway 99 corridor all the way into Fresno, through Chowchilla and Madera)

The draft AA also selected downtown Merced to carry forward, dropping the Castle Airport and Merced Amtrak station proposals (although Castle Airport remains an option for the maintenance hub). The Preliminary AA report shows on page 35 that a comparison of these three options has downtown Merced rated the best, particularly because it fits with TOD goals and local government plans (the city of Merced wants a downtown station).

As to the alignments, Merced and Madera counties are split, as the Fresno Bee reports:

Local governments were split on the two other alternatives. Merced and Merced County backed the UP route, but Chowchilla and Madera voiced a preference for the BNSF.

Since neither Chowchilla or Madera would be getting a station (those proposals were dropped several years ago) one can understand why they’d prefer the trains bypass their communities entirely by using the BNSF corridor.

On the other hand, the UPRR/Highway 99 route would seem to make sense, as it’s an existing transportation corridor, has backing from Merced County and the city of Merced, and since the trains will use UPRR/99 through Fresno. One big caveat, of course, is UPRR’s reluctance to share ROW with the HSR project. The Authority addresses this on page 46:

However, UPRR has expressed reluctance to collaborate with HST alternatives that either infringe on its right-of-way or on its access to current and future freight customers along its right-of- way throughout the Central Valley. Because areas in Merced, Madera, and Fresno are constrained portions in this corridor, UPRR’s resistance may delay property access and hinder timely design solutions that would enable the HST project to meet its design objectives. The Authority Executive staff continues to meet with UPRR on a regular basis in an effort to resolve concerns, and the project team is working to design around this limitation, which will require cooperation from UPRR.

This is where some Congressional pressure and action on getting UPRR to share their ROW would be rather useful. After all, their ROW was given to them by the federal government for the public benefit, so it would make sense for the feds to insist that UPRR not obstruct the HSR project. If that doesn’t happen, however, then it would seem clear that the BNSF option will indeed be selected.

View Larger Map

The viaduct above the roadway (viewed from the transition road from I-580 west to the Bay Bridge) is the transition road from I-880 north to I-80. Opened in 1998, it’s sometimes known in Caltrans publications as the “East Bay Viaduct.” At its highest point it soars at least 80 feet above the ground. The viaduct can be easily seen from many vantage points in the East Bay, especially the Berkeley/Oakland Hills. After 12 years, it has faded into the landscape, less noticeable by most travelers than the Golden Gate, Mt. Tam, or Yerba Buena Island.

I mention this as precedent for the discussion of Russell Clemings’ Fresno Bee article on the proposed 60-foot viaduct through downtown Fresno carrying high speed rail over streets and Union Pacific tracks, roughly adjacent to Highway 99:

A decade from now, one of Fresno’s loftier views might be from the platform of its high-speed train station….

Like the rest of the high-speed line downtown, it would be elevated 60 feet from ground level to the tracks….

It wouldn’t be limited to downtown. Plans call for it to begin rising from ground level at Malaga Avenue, where the high-speed line would lie just west of the existing Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks.

By the time it reached Central Avenue, the trackbed would be perched atop a row of pillars spaced about 120 feet apart.

Following the Union Pacific tracks north from Calwa, it would remain at 60 feet at least until Ashlan Avenue and possibly beyond, depending on which of two alternatives is chosen for the route in northwest Fresno.

An elevated structure has advantages. It costs about twice as much as a ground-level route but allows local streets to remain open. And it’s about half the cost of putting the line in a below-ground trench. But it is certainly big.

This is roughly the area we’re talking about here:

View Fresno HSR viaduct in a larger map

According to the article, the whole blue section would be a viaduct, at least 12 miles, though not all of it would be 60 feet. It would be quite a sight. Here’s what the CHSRA mockups look like (boards 21 and 22):

Here the viaduct is located next to the UPRR corridor, but encroaches on Roeding Park. CHSRA proposes another option, of essentially going directly over the UPRR tracks, in order to avoid the park:

However, this would place some houses in the path of the viaduct. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Clemings reports that this structure, although obviously not cheap, would be only about half the cost of trenching the line.

His article also explained that most Fresno residents were only now becoming aware of the proposal – partly because CHSRA and its consultants have only recently come up with it.

There are certainly operational questions, including how this would interact with Amtrak service (which presumably would remain on the other side of downtown on the BNSF tracks). But it’s an interesting design that would become a major Fresno landmark. It’s obviously much longer than the East Bay Viaduct I showed at the outset of this post. That one has faded into the landscape, whereas it might take just a wee bit longer for the Fresno HSR viaduct to do so. But if it is the design that’s chosen and built, eventually, it too would become part of the landscape.

And it should be noted that, love it or hate it, as far as I’m aware nothing like this is being proposed for the Peninsula.

One such example can be found in Buena Park, which finally got a Metrolink station in 2007. Transit-oriented development is still being built at the station – it wasn’t completed at the time of the Google Maps satellite shot of the station below.

View Larger Map

In recent weeks, Buena Park officials have learned that the CHSRA’s plans for building high speed rail along that corridor might require either the station or the transit-oriented development to be moved:

Mayor Art Brown spent years pushing for a commuter train station combined with nearby housing in his community. But as townhouses are being finished around the $14 million Metrolink station, he’s facing the prospect that California’s high-speed rail line may plow right through his beloved project.

“The only option they presented to us was either losing the condo units or losing our train station,” Brown said of an engineering presentation to city leaders last year….

“The idea that they would spend millions for a new station and remove it is a colossal waste of time and money,” said Mark Goldsmith, a resident of the “transit village” next to the Buena Park station.

Why yes, yes it is. It’s an unfortunate example of the lack of coherent, integrated transportation planning that happens in this state, where numerous local governments and agencies are conducting plans that don’t always match up. The CHSRA claims they had been in touch with city planning departments since 2005, so perhaps there was a point at which Buena Park learned of the HSR plans and said “screw it, let’s go ahead with these Metrolink Station/TOD plans anyway.” Or perhaps the CHSRA’s outreach was insufficient and Buena Park didn’t know the full details of what was being planned. In any case, it’s a rightly frustrating situation.

The LA-Anaheim Alternatives Analysis from June 2009 shows the issue (look on pages 60-61). The plan is to add HSR tracks just to the south of the current alignment, requiring 45 feet of ROW acquisition. That’s where the TOD in question is located.

The Buena Park Metrolink station can accommodate four tracks (there are currently two). But the Dedicated HST Alternative identified in the Alternatives Analysis involves six mainline tracks, two HSR-dedicated tracks and four for freight/Amtrak/Metrolink, between Redondo Junction and Fullerton Junction. Because of BNSF’s heavy usage of this corridor, the CHSRA and their consultants determined this was the necessary solution for HSR implementation. Hence the need for more tracks, and the conflict at Buena Park.

As the AP article makes clear, it’s not just Buena Park that is concerned:

Buena Park joined a coalition of gateway cities demanding a chance to evaluate all options and their potential impacts before moving into the environmental review process. The demand for better coordination was recently agreed upon in a memorandum of understanding with the authority.

“We’re not trying to be obstructionist NIMBY types, but it has to make sense to us,” said Ernie Garcia, city manager of Norwalk.

Which is sensible enough. Because of an apparent lack of coordinated planning for this portion of the LOSSAN corridor, these conflicts are there, and will have to be dealt with. It’s a good sign that these cities are avoiding the approach taken by their counterparts in the Bay Area – suing the Authority and giving fuel to anti-HSR, NIMBY sentiments. And if push came to shove, Buena Park’s mayor made clear he’d make way for HSR:

In Buena Park, Mayor Brown still could face his dilemma. But he said that if forced to choose, he would sacrifice the train station where his name is prominent on a plaque marking its opening.

“I would not take the homes away from those people,” he said. “They saved all their lives in some cases to buy a home with good transportation nearby.”

CHSRA deputy director Jeff Barker was quoted in the article pledging to work with Buena Park and the other “gateway cities” such as Norwalk and La Mirada (where my wife is from), and that pledge was reinforced in the memorandum of understanding recently signed between the cities and the CHSRA.

There’s every reason to believe that these conflicts, frustrating as they are, will be effectively resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. I’m not going to propose a solution myself, but it is good to see that the cities are adopting a constructive approach to these matters. Let’s hope that attitude is shared across the state so that high speed rail can get built on-time, on-budget, and in a way that meets the needs of Californians for generations to come.

For nearly 100 years – since at least 1918 – Fresno has sought to consolidate the two rail corridors so that freight doesn’t have to operate in the middle of neighborhoods. There was some hope in recent years that high speed rail would accomplish this, by bringing the funds needed to build a new corridor that could accommodate passenger trains and UP and BNSF operations. Perhaps that was an ambitious plan, but it was the best hope for achieving the long-sought consolidation.

But that doesn’t look likely to happen. For consolidation to work using HSR, it would have had to bypass Fresno entirely, either to the northeast or southwest. The California High Speed Rail Authority and the city of Fresno are wisely moving forward instead with a downtown alignment following the UPRR corridor – where there isn’t enough room for both HSR and BNSF trains. The other alternatives, according to a new study, indicate it will cost between $800 million and $1.4 billion to do the consolidation. As a result, supporters of consolidation are throwing in the towel:

“The Web site’s coming down, and I’ve disconnected the phone that we had. It’s over and done with,” said Tom Bailey of Fresno Area Residents for Rail Consolidation.

Three years ago, Bailey estimated that moving the tracks could cost $500 million in addition to the $100 million set aside by Fresno County voters in November 2006 when they approved a 20-year extension of the Measure C half-cent transportation sales tax.

Six years earlier, the last formal study on the project had placed the cost at $247 to $319 million. But the new study, funded by the Council of Fresno County Governments and the California High Speed Rail Authority, boosts those estimates sharply.

It identifies six alternatives ranging from $803 million to almost $1.4 billion. It used what the study’s draft report says were conservative assumptions about land costs and the two railroads’ willingness to adjust their operations.

As the article makes clear, the CHSRA let Fresno officials know their wallets were not bottomless, and that the Authority would only be able to fund either a bypass around Fresno, or a route through the city center:

Assistant City Manager Bruce Rudd said city officials were warned that the authority might not be able to pay for both a local route through the city and an express route west of town, at least not in the system’s early years. After that, city officials decided that the local route, with a station in downtown Fresno, was a more important goal than the bypass.

“What they were saying was, ‘What is your preference?’ ” Rudd said. “And we said our preference is for a downtown station.”

In other words, Fresno made it clear they prefer HSR to go through their downtown and serve the city center with a downtown station. This is also the preference of Californians For High Speed Rail, which also endorses moving the Amtrak station from the BNSF route to the HSR station site on the other side of Fresno’s downtown.

There was some discussion in the maintenance hub thread from Sunday about whether Fresno’s offer to use $100 million from voter-approved funds intended to help pay for consolidation was legitimate. The Fresno Bee article suggests it is indeed legitimate:

That means the $100 million set aside in Measure C for rail consolidation could revert to its alternate use — building bridges to separate streets from one or both of the rail lines — or be diverted to another use, such as the effort to lure the high-speed rail system’s heavy maintenance yard to a site south of Fresno.

In other words, that money was earmarked for several possible uses – rail consolidation OR grade separations OR something like luring the maintenance hub. If rail consolidation is too expensive to accomplish, voters won’t want that money to just sit around. They rightly expect it to be used. So using it for the maintenance hub makes a lot of sense.

Rail consolidation is still an excellent idea. But it’s just too insurmountable an obstacle for HSR to accomplish, which after all has to meet other needs, including keeping costs as low as necessary.

• There is a significant demand for intercity passenger rail. Both trains, going to and from Seattle, were packed, and the #11 train that I was on (departing Seattle yesterday and currently en route to LA) was totally sold out. Amtrak does very well at the holidays, as do the airlines. The Pacific Surfliner trains between San Luis Obispo, LA, and San Diego also see enormous ridership during the holiday season. The notion that there’s no demand for passenger rail in this state is therefore not only absurd, but disproven by the facts. HSR will tap into that demand with faster and more reliable service along those high-traffic corridors.
• Amtrak is hamstrung by the fact that it doesn’t own the rails it uses. Amtrak trains are at the mercy of the freight rail operators, primarily Union Pacific and BNSF here on the West Coast. During the height of the previous economic bubble UP freight was so frequent that the Coast Starlight experienced delays so bad the train became known as the “coast starlate”. That record has improved considerably since the economic crisis began. But even with dependence on freight, some Amtrak routes have been able to post impressive on-time performances. The Capitol Corridor has a 92% on-time performance rating even though it runs 32 trains per day, primarily on UP tracks. Capitol Corridor management, primarily under recently-retired Gene Skoropowski, innovated an incentive payment structure whereby UP makes more money when they deliver a better on-time rate.

  Delays still happen. On the day I left for Seattle (December 23) the southbound Coast Starlight, #11, was delayed between 8 and 9 hours after it hit a tree near Mount Shasta. That’s bad, but then I’ve experienced similar delays when snow near Mount Shasta or Siskiyou Summit forced a closure of I-5 and I either had to stay the night in Ashland, or take the long way around via Highways 199 and 101. On my own trips, the train going north (#14) left Salinas 15 minutes late, and arrived at Olympia 10 minutes late. Coming south, we left Seattle on-time, and arrived at Salinas about 40 minutes late. Not perfect, but not bad either, given how little control Amtrak has over the rails it uses.

  That all being said, HSR significantly outperforms Amtrak since it will be using its own purpose-built rails that the state will own. In Japan, delays of even a minute are infrequent, and as in Spain, delays of 5 to 15 minutes will produce a refund of some or all of a passenger’s fare. Given that Amtrak can still attract lots of riders even with a reputation for delays, that further suggests to me that HSR will have little trouble attracting many more riders with much faster and much more punctual service.

• It’s true that Amtrak’s lines, aside from the Acela, do not generate enough revenue to pay the operating expenses. Then again, neither does any single one of the freeways in California, and the Orange County tollroads are frequently being bailed out by the public. So Amtrak is being held to an unreasonable and hypocritical standard. That being said, if a service can produce 100% farebox recovery ratios while still offering a timely and affordable service, it’s always worth going for. The Capitol Corridor again offers a model of how this can be accomplished, where state funding of infrastructure (cars and rail projects) has produced significant gains. The charts below are from 2008, and while ridership has declined since then, ridership remains above the 2007 level, suggesting that the long-term trend remains in effect:

  

  These charts show a steady increase in both ridership and revenue on the Capitol Corridor, even before the 2008 spike.

  

  This chart is even more impressive and significant. It shows that state subsidy levels (Capitol Corridor is funded by the state of California) have remained pretty much static for the last eight years, yet the Capitol Corridor has had dramatic success at growing ridership and bringing its costs under control.

  The current battle over HSR funding isn’t really about the operating costs, since there won’t be a need for ongoing subsidies for that (not that there’s anything wrong with such subsidies). The battle is instead over who foots the bill for the cost of the construction of the dedicated HSR rail corridor. Seeing as nobody has yet proposed we pay back the entire $400 billion cost of just the Interstate Highway System alone (subsidized entirely by tax dollars), not to mention the billions California has spent on its own freeway system, it is again hypocritical to demand that the public NOT be asked to pay for the cost of HSR.

Anyhow, that’s a brief set of HSR-related Amtrak thoughts. Keep in mind that though this blog is focused on California HSR, we do support the reconstruction of the a broader national passenger rail network we had until about 40 years ago, when it was abandoned in a very short-sighted and foolish move. HSR is a necessary part of that renewed national network, but it’s not the only part, either here in California or nationwide.

Back to our usual topical posting tomorrow. My planned post on assessing the CHSRA will still happen, but not until later in the week. Happy new year, everyone!