California High Speed Rail Thread

[Busy Bee]

You are correct, absolutely no one travels between cities in the same state. That makes perfect sense.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

I'll tell you what, I can't wait to spend $200 on a train ticket to S.F. instead of paying $125 for a flight!

I'm kidding -- sort of. But the post is what will determine the success of the project.

Q] Why in the heck would anybody pay more for a longer trip?
A] I don't know, maybe they hate money?

Each train has 1,000 seats that are the equivalent of first class on an airline. Plus, unless you happen to live within walking distance of LAX, it is faster door-to-door.

[dubu]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

You are correct, absolutely no one travels between cities in the same state. That makes perfect sense.

no one builds hpr in the same state and doesnt plan to extend it later

[k1052]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

I'll tell you what, I can't wait to spend $200 on a train ticket to S.F. instead of paying $125 for a flight!

I'm kidding -- sort of. But the post is what will determine the success of the project.

Q] Why in the heck would anybody pay more for a longer trip?
A] I don't know, maybe they hate money?

I would knock grandmothers into the street to fork over my cash for that.

Never see the inside of/be delayed at LAX again? Sign me the fuck up right now.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by k1052

Never see the inside of/be delayed at LAX again? Sign me the fuck up right now.

Union Station isn't exactly a beautiful gem ya know? At least there aren't homeless in LAX.

[digitallagasse]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

I'll tell you what, I can't wait to spend $200 on a train ticket to S.F. instead of paying $125 for a flight!

I'm kidding -- sort of. But the post is what will determine the success of the project.

Q] Why in the heck would anybody pay more for a longer trip?
A] I don't know, maybe they hate money?

I would be all over that option. Depending on the start and end points the train could be the same time as the flight. Train seats are also larger compared to the similar class on airplanes. If I could get from Vegas to either LA or Anaheim via train I would never drive or fly that trip again. Even more so if it was a single seat ride.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by digitallagasse

I would be all over that option. Depending on the start and end points the train could be the same time as the flight. Train seats are also larger compared to the similar class on airplanes. If I could get from Vegas to either LA or Anaheim via train I would never drive or fly that trip again. Even more so if it was a single seat ride.

But there's also the sticker shock of buying a $200 ticket. Even if the gas. depreciation and amortized insurance and maintenance cost on a car are just as much for that many miles it still feels like a lot more when it's all in one ticket.

[dubu]

in a earthquake lots of people from sf and la will move to nevada probably, the two big cities are reno and vegas. thats where you would build, next to existing cities. people from portland will come to central oregon, so having hpr go to nevada would be smart. also planes arnt here forever unless we make electric ones.

[digitallagasse]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

But there's also the sticker shock of buying a $200 ticket. Even if the gas. depreciation and amortized insurance and maintenance cost on a car are just as much for that many miles it still feels like a lot more when it's all in one ticket.

It isn't fully a cost thing to me. Being able to avoid driving that trip is worth it to me. Another thing is tending to have to pay for parking on the other side as well. The more SoCal improves local transit the more it becomes possible to do the trip car free. I also absolutely hate driving in SoCal. HSR to local transit would be a dream and even worth the premium to me.

For an example taking a trip to Disneyland. For that trip now we would and do drive. We tend to stay across the street/next to the park in some fashion. That way we simply walk to and from the park each day. The car stays parked the whole time and we have to pay for parking. If the Virgin train from Vegas can use the CHSR tracks to get to Anaheim that would at least put it at the Anaheim transit center. It is reasonable to expect shuttle or bus service to the hotels adjacent to Disneyland. Even if needing to transfer from Virgin to CHSR would still be worth it. Being able to avoid the drive between Vegas and SoCal while also completely avoiding driving it SoCal would be priceless. I hate flying more than I do driving in those above situations. I pretty much only fly if it is the only reasonable choice (Hawaii), too far than I am willing to drive (Seattle), and if rail isn't a choice. Since Vegas isn't served by rail it isn't a possible choice yet.

If Amtrak long distance rail existed from Vegas to LA, SLC, Phoenix, Bay Area or Denver I would highly consider taking it. Even at the current snail speed the long distance trains are forced to run it. The train ride becomes an enjoyable part of the trip at that point.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by digitallagasse

It isn't fully a cost thing to me. Being able to avoid driving that trip is worth it to me. Another thing is tending to have to pay for parking on the other side as well. The more SoCal improves local transit the more it becomes possible to do the trip car free. I also absolutely hate driving in SoCal. HSR to local transit would be a dream and even worth the premium to me.

For an example taking a trip to Disneyland. For that trip now we would and do drive. We tend to stay across the street/next to the park in some fashion. That way we simply walk to and from the park each day. The car stays parked the whole time and we have to pay for parking. If the Virgin train from Vegas can use the CHSR tracks to get to Anaheim that would at least put it at the Anaheim transit center. It is reasonable to expect shuttle or bus service to the hotels adjacent to Disneyland. Even if needing to transfer from Virgin to CHSR would still be worth it. Being able to avoid the drive between Vegas and SoCal while also completely avoiding driving it SoCal would be priceless. I hate flying more than I do driving in those above situations. I pretty much only fly if it is the only reasonable choice (Hawaii), too far than I am willing to drive (Seattle), and if rail isn't a choice. Since Vegas isn't served by rail it isn't a possible choice yet.

If Amtrak long distance rail existed from Vegas to LA, SLC, Phoenix, Bay Area or Denver I would highly consider taking it. Even at the current snail speed the long distance trains are forced to run it. The train ride becomes an enjoyable part of the trip at that point.

It is the comfort of train travel versus the increasing hassle of car and plane travel. If trains can be reasonably competitive with speed and cost of other modes, it will succeed.

More and more, my trips are becoming car free. I now plan for it.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

It's a lot cheaper to keep stuff in Manhattan than to pay union laborers to drive truckloads of stuff back and forth to warehouses in Queens.

Also, U.S. property owners have many property rights. In China I imagine that the government can simply show up and start using your parking lot or yard to stage construction equipment without asking and without payment.

I'm not seeing the need for so much equipment that you'd have to block off lanes of traffic for 2 whole miles. They keep pretty much all the equipment they need on the station construction sites here in Shanghai - I rarely see them bringing new equipment in. The only stuff that tends to get brought in is the tunnel segments, and the only stuff that tends to get brought out is the spoil from the tunnel excavation.

Here in Shanghai property rights are becoming more important. The government can't just come in and take your property for their use without compensation.

[k1052]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Union Station isn't exactly a beautiful gem ya know? At least there aren't homeless in LAX.

I disagree but it's not like I'm going to spend two hours there before my train leaves. I'll show up 10 minutes before departure, stroll up to the platform, and board.

[Will O' Wisp]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

I'm not seeing the need for so much equipment that you'd have to block off lanes of traffic for 2 whole miles. They keep pretty much all the equipment they need on the station construction sites here in Shanghai - I rarely see them bringing new equipment in. The only stuff that tends to get brought in is the tunnel segments, and the only stuff that tends to get brought out is the spoil from the tunnel excavation.

Here in Shanghai property rights are becoming more important. The government can't just come in and take your property for their use without compensation.

This is really veering into a conversation better suited for the NYC transit thread, but the short answer is that the NYC Subway has a more stations per mile than the Shanghai Metro and Manhattan is the densest part of the network station wise. Outside of the center city Shanghai Metro stations seem to average 1.25-1.5 miles apart, the 2nd Avenue subway is building a station about every half mile. At that range the construction impact from the station boxes tends to overlap, not to mention that Manhattan is so built up there's zero space to store equipment other than out in the street. It's a very different project than the extensions of Lines 5, 10, and 13, which are pushing outward from the city center rather than tunneling straight through it.

Property rights in China started improving in the late 00's from what I hear, but they're still fractional compared to those in the US. In the US the government has to take into account the physical value of the land (including what could be built on it, and how much value it provides to your other properties) in addition to the value of whatever you've already built on it. In China, only the second part really counts.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp

This is really veering into a conversation better suited for the NYC transit thread, but the short answer is that the NYC Subway has a more stations per mile than the Shanghai Metro and Manhattan is the densest part of the network station wise. Outside of the center city Shanghai Metro stations seem to average 1.25-1.5 miles apart, the 2nd Avenue subway is building a station about every half mile. At that range the construction impact from the station boxes tends to overlap, not to mention that Manhattan is so built up there's zero space to store equipment other than out in the street. It's a very different project than the extensions of Lines 5, 10, and 13, which are pushing outward from the city center rather than tunneling straight through it.

Property rights in China started improving in the late 00's from what I hear, but they're still fractional compared to those in the US. In the US the government has to take into account the physical value of the land (including what could be built on it, and how much value it provides to your other properties) in addition to the value of whatever you've already built on it. In China, only the second part really counts.

I'm not talking about the extension of Lines 5, 10, or 13 though - I'm talking about Line 15 (and also what I've seen of construction on Lines 14 and 18, whose central sections also pass through the city centre), whose central stretch goes through the city centre and has a station about kilometre or so. Anything inside the Outer Ring Road in Shanghai can be considered the city centre and has basically the same space issues as Manhattan would.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

I'm not talking about the extension of Lines 5, 10, or 13 though - I'm talking about Line 15 (and also what I've seen of construction on Lines 14 and 18, whose central sections also pass through the city centre), whose central stretch goes through the city centre and has a station about kilometre or so. Anything inside the inner ring road in Shanghai can be considered the city centre and has basically the same space issues as Manhattan would.

Yeah, seriously. Just because NYC is much more dense than any other city in the US doesn't mean it's special by world standards. Plenty of other major cities are just as dense.

Obviously the real reason for the cost difference is that the same sort of project in NYC has 4x as many workers each making $250,000/yr. So unless your average worker in Shanghai makes a $1,000,000/yr it's going to cost more in NYC. The fact it costs 10x as much more in NYC can be almost entirely attributed to this lone difference. Things like equipment staging areas are a drop in the bucket.

[phoenixboi08]

1) NYC's (transit) construction costs are almost entirely driven by 1) shit design and 2) awful procurement policies. The work rules/labor contracts aren't driving much...

2) China has a unique property laws (as opposed to a place like the US which has effectively inherited -- and iterated within -- a Common Law-type framework): China separates land ownership (most of it is effectively government-held or else some other collective type of institution) from use of that land.

In a place like, say CA, the Authority must compensate not just for the actual present value of land but the reduced value based on its limitation of use. That is, the Authority could be forced to a) compensate a farmer for 500 acres or b) shift to using another property if the farmer can argue that the 10 out of that 500 acres the Authority needs would render the farm useless (ie. per se takings are a pain). Eminent domain doesn't work nearly as smoothly - nor nearly as much in the government's favor - as is commonly held.

99% of environmental studies are about mitigating these types of impacts.

The point is to solicit public input on a project to ensure the best project is being built, but the farmer asks, "What's the justification for using these 10 acres when those 10 acres in that brownfield site 1 mi down the road are just as good?" and this gets more weight than the fact that it would mean shifting the entire alignment and necessitating even more property takings and impacts to residents north and south of the farmer (see: Santa Clarita effectively forcing the Authority to build a tunnel under the San Gabriels and still complaining about it).

These planning processes - a legal requirement - are meant to produce least impacts for best benefit; the public wants no impacts benefits-be-damned.

The only way to have no impacts is to build nothing: That's why the first reaction is to immediately stop development, because that's what these people want.

It's why the frame is always on "rising costs," "costs overruns (on something that hasn't even occurred as a cost because its still an estimate) are increasing," and my favorite "$100 billion (based upon a-worst-case, conservative estimate with a rounding error of over 30%) train!" rather than the fact that the public has intervened every step of the way to force concessions that make it more expensive.

It didn't used to be this way, but it is now.

Facile comparisons to legal environments and economic development models that are oranges to our apples just confuse everything.

[Busy Bee]

^Bravo

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by phoenixboi08

1) NYC's (transit) construction costs are almost entirely driven by 1) shit design and 2) awful procurement policies. The work rules/labor contracts aren't driving much...

2) China has a unique property laws (as opposed to a place like the US which has effectively inherited -- and iterated within -- a Common Law-type framework): China separates land ownership (most of it is effectively government-held or else some other collective type of institution) from use of that land.

In a place like, say CA, the Authority must compensate not just for the actual present value of land but the reduced value based on its limitation of use. That is, the Authority could be forced to a) compensate a farmer for 500 acres or b) shift to using another property if the farmer can argue that the 10 out of that 500 acres the Authority needs would render the farm useless (ie. per se takings are a pain). Eminent domain doesn't work nearly as smoothly - nor nearly as much in the government's favor - as is commonly held.

99% of environmental studies are about mitigating these types of impacts.

The point is to solicit public input on a project to ensure the best project is being built, but the farmer asks, "What's the justification for using these 10 acres when those 10 acres in that brownfield site 1 mi down the road are just as good?" and this gets more weight than the fact that it would mean shifting the entire alignment and necessitating even more property takings and impacts to residents north and south of the farmer (see: Santa Clarita effectively forcing the Authority to build a tunnel under the San Gabriels and still complaining about it).

These planning processes - a legal requirement - are meant to produce least impacts for best benefit; the public wants no impacts benefits-be-damned.

The only way to have no impacts is to build nothing: That's why the first reaction is to immediately stop development, because that's what these people want.

It's why the frame is always on "rising costs," "costs overruns (on something that hasn't even occurred as a cost because its still an estimate) are increasing," and my favorite "$100 billion (based upon a-worst-case, conservative estimate with a rounding error of over 30%) train!" rather than the fact that the public has intervened every step of the way to force concessions that make it more expensive.

It didn't used to be this way, but it is now.

Facile comparisons to legal environments and economic development models that are oranges to our apples just confuse everything.

Wealthy people have been pretty successful in keeping airports from expanding or being built near wealthy areas, even though it often made a lot more sense for the region as a whole. Situations like Logan and Reagan and LaGuardia are unusual for this reason. We ended up with some airports situated preposterous distances from their respective cities as a result -- Dulles and KC come immediately to mind.

The most extreme example of rich people succeeding in getting an airport moved to the detriment of their metro area was the cancelation of construction of Cincinnati's airport on the Ohio side of the river in the late 1940s, at the dawn of the jet age, on the only significant spread of flat land near the city. That's how the "Cincinnati" airport infamously ended up across state lines in rural Kentucky.

[Will O' Wisp]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Wealthy people have been pretty successful in keeping airports from expanding or being built near wealthy areas, even though it often made a lot more sense for the region as a whole. Situations like Logan and Reagan and LaGuardia are unusual for this reason. We ended up with some airports situated preposterous distances from their respective cities as a result -- Dulles and KC come immediately to mind.

The most extreme example of rich people succeeding in getting an airport moved to the detriment of their metro area was the cancelation of construction of Cincinnati's airport on the Ohio side of the river in the late 1940s, at the dawn of the jet age, on the only significant spread of flat land near the city. That's how the "Cincinnati" airport infamously ended up across state lines in rural Kentucky.

American airports on the whole are older, smaller, closer to their respective city centers, and more numerous than their counterparts in most areas of the world. Logan, Regan, and LaGuardia and majority of US airport were were all built in the 1920-30s when their cities were a fraction of the size they are now, once on out outer edge of the urban area but now have been effectively surrounded by infill. They could never be built in those locations today. KC and Dulles were built later during the late 1940s and early 50s respectively, and while this forced a more more distant location are actually closer to their city centers than is typical for airports being currently being built in Asia and Europe.

This makes flying a lot more convenient for Americans, and has lead to some of the highest per capita airline traffic rates in the world when accounting for average income levels and the fact that America isn't an island nation. For HSR that means there's a great deal more competition along the same routes, and much more well developed competition. But being surrounded by what is now some of the oldest and most desirable suburban housing in the US has made large scale airport expansions effectively impossible, which more than anything is driving the movement towards HSR.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp

American airports on the whole are older, smaller, closer to their respective city centers, and more numerous than their counterparts in most areas of the world. Logan, Regan, and LaGuardia and majority of US airport were were all built in the 1920-30s when their cities were a fraction of the size they are now, once on out outer edge of the urban area but now have been effectively surrounded by infill. They could never be built in those locations today. KC and Dulles were built later during the late 1940s and early 50s respectively, and while this forced a more more distant location are actually closer to their city centers than is typical for airports being currently being built in Asia and Europe.

This makes flying a lot more convenient for Americans, and has lead to some of the highest per capita airline traffic rates in the world when accounting for average income levels and the fact that America isn't an island nation. For HSR that means there's a great deal more competition along the same routes, and much more well developed competition. But being surrounded by what is now some of the oldest and most desirable suburban housing in the US has made large scale airport expansions effectively impossible, which more than anything is driving the movement towards HSR.

Also, as is pretty obvious to those familiar with HSR systems around the world, they often directly serve major airports and so enable very easy access to international airports from the hinterlands. California's Central Valley residents will enjoy a 1-seat ride to and from SFO, and getting to LAX will require a few transfers but nevertheless will be doable via public transportation in a way that isn't possible now.

Somehow the fact that the Central Valley is home to 6 million people -- roughly the same as the Bay Area -- continues to be lost in HSR conversations.