Examining Costs and Prices For California's High-Speed Rail Project 515
The L.A. Times features a look at the contentious issue of a publicly funded high-speed rail system for travel within the state of California, which focuses especially on an obvious question: how much would it cost for passengers to ride? This isn't a straightforward answer, though, partly because the system isn't expected to be operational for another 13 years, and the estimates vary wildly for what would be a trip of more than 400 miles that touches on some of the U.S.'s most expensive real estate. From the Times' article:
"The current $86 fare [for an L.A. to San Francisco ticket] is calculated in 2013 dollars based on a formula that prices tickets at 83% of average airline fares to help attract riders. The rail fare is an average that includes economy and premium seats, nonstop and multi-stop trains, as well as last-minute and advance purchase tickets. A premium, same-day nonstop bullet train trip would cost more than $86.
But compared with current average prices on several high-speed rail systems in Asia and Europe, $86 would be a bargain, equating to about 20 cents a mile or less, the Times review found. The analysis was based on a 438-mile route in the mid-range of what state officials expect the final alignment to measure."
How much would you be willing to pay to take a fast train between L.A. and San Francisco?
$30 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:$30 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:$30 (Score:5, Informative)
Track priority will probably not be an issue since current tracks that Amtrak shares it the freight rail are not "high speed". But not driving, being able to nap or work, that's worth the price. High speed in Europe is comfortable, and reasonably priced.
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Yes, but the high speed rail being built in California is not high speed. In fact, it will be the slowest train ever built that is titled "high speed." The moniker is purely political, not an actual description of the train. The current Amtrak is highly comparable to what is being built.
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The current Amtrak is highly comparable to what is being built.
No it is not. Amtrak out here breaks down frequently, so is unpredictable on long trips. They put ypu on a bus when the train breaks down, which sucks. L.A. to San Diego on Amtrak is OK, but that's about it.
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What makes you think that the new system won't be prone to the same issues?
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New single use track. That's why it is so expensive.
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WTF are you talking about? The Coast starlight is late because B&N ows the line and bumps them for freight priority. Once they are late or any reason it is a failure cascade. We need at least 3 N/S lines with high speed switches.
Re: $30 (Score:3)
Public infrastructure is usually subsidized. News to Republicans but no one else.
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Most autobahns on Germany have speed limits, pretty low limits actually, around 120km/h.
Autobahns are build in a meander way to connect as many towns/cities to the Autobahn. So they don't give you a 'straight line' from Munich to Hamburg.
A fast car does ~200 km/h, but you won't do that constantly. A very fast car does 250 km/h. A high speed train in Germany does 325 km/h in France they do 375 km/h - that is 233 mph.
There is no car that beats on a serious distance a train, sorry, not even a slow train.
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High speed rail in Europe usually costs a premium or is heavily subsidized. And usually it isn't "high speed" unless you live in some of the most expensive zip codes on the continent, because everybody else needs to use slow feeder trains and leave a lot of time for connections.
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heavily subsidized
like roads
Re:$30 (Score:5, Interesting)
High speed rail in Europe usually costs a premium or is heavily subsidized.
As opposed to roads which are subsidized and air travel which is subsidized. Even walking is subsidized. That's the thing about infrastructure...
And usually it isn't "high speed" unless you live in some of the most expensive zip codes on the continent, because everybody else needs to use slow feeder trains and leave a lot of time for connections.
Huh? You use high speed rail to travel between cities. I know this because I actually did it the other day.
15 minute walk to station with a wheely case. 15 minutes on suburban rail to St Pancras. 1 minute walk to Kings-X (same station really), then up to Newcastle at 125MPH. Then I rented a car.
I could have driven all the way and rented from London and it would have been cheaper. Would have sucked though and taken much longer. In fact some friends of mine did drive from fairly near london an arrived 2 hours late due to heavy traffic.
That includes the half hour I left for a connection on the way out. Since the suburban trains are regular, I didn't leave any time for a connection on the return. I had to wait for about 7 minutes on the platform for the train.
Either way even without traffic it was much faster and much more pleasant to take the train. With traffic, the difference is greater still. If you live in a country with ACTUAL hugh speed trains (200mph, not 125) then the difference is greater still again.
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I would check the dictionary for the word called urbanization.
It is a rather new phenomena, springing up since roughly 1880. It means: the tendency of people living in cities instead in rural areas.
Usually for civilized countries wikipedia and other sources state a percentage of people living in cities. Lets say that is X for the UK.
Now you use simple math and calculate 100 - X, and you get the people NOT living close to a high speed railway. Now you take into account that surprisingly there in fact do RURA
Re:$30 (Score:4, Interesting)
Finance charges means interest on debt. Most people buy automobiles on credit. You either get artificially low interest from an auto company, which means you paid too much for the car and the interest is hidden, or you get it from a credit union, a bank, or one of those non-bank debtors. It's a significant amount.
The rate of depreciation is connected with the resale price of the automobile rather than its service life. That is the book value of the property - what you would get for it if you sold it. You might keep it for 24 years and drive it 250K miles, but most of its resale value is gone long before then, and thus the depreciation schedule should be relatively short.
This illustrates a problem. Most people don't fully apprehend what their real costs are concerning something like an automobile. Most people are bored by accounting, after all. They would not, without a long walk through numbers and principles, make a well informed decision about something like rail vs. car.
Re:$30 (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason that rail is subsidised is because the benefits of their operation, to the governments, are not restricted to their fare price. Every passenger is a passenger not taking an alternative mode of transport. Given the level of congestion on the highways this can be the difference between moving traffic and grid lock. If you can get 15% of the traffic on that corridor travelling by train you are potentially looking at saving vastly more money because you don't have to upgrade the highways. This is especially true where the highways are running through heavily developed areas.
Re:$30 (Score:4, Informative)
What you need to compare when justifying subsidizing HSR is not whether HSR reduces congestion on highways, but whether it is the best way of reducing congestion for that amount of money.
Most of the long haul stretches are not particularly congested; it's going through major cities that causes the congestion. A series of bypasses of major cities along the major highways would be much more effective in reducing congestion than spending the same amount of money on HSR.
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Of course. You always need to model the outcomes and model what will get the best return on investment. The other is to model any other externalities as well.
For example bypasses will not impact traffic travelling into and out of a city where the point of origin or destination is that city. Where as people travelling by train will. The flip side is that the trainstations themselves will generate traffic wherever they are located so that needs to be planned for and handled as well.
Other considerations ar
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Agreed. You want rail to go to your high density areas, have the smallest number of bends possible and keep your gradient as flat as possible. The problem with this is it tends to go straight over lots of expensive realestate.
People lobby the governments, government changes the design to a crappier option. Rinse and repeat, until the solution you have has so many design changes that it doesn't solve any problems.
If you have ever been to Moscow they have ring roads that are centred on the Kremlin. They m
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That may be true, but there is something to be said for not having to be behind the wheel for those 6 hours.
The train will not be operational for another 13 years. So the reasonable comparison is not to a car you own today, but a car you are likely to own 13 years from now. It is very likely that self-driving cars will be widespread by then, so there will be no reason to be behind the wheel. Instead, you can sleep in the backseat. It is also likely that there will be self-driving vans or buses, that will take a group of people for far less than $30 each.
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Re:$30 (Score:4, Interesting)
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Look up Stuttgart 21, just a new train station. It took 15 years from planning to start of work. Costs have mushroomed. And it has had a major effect on city and state governments.
But, yeah, totalitarian governments, from Bismarck to China, generally can build train networks faster. Is that what you want?
Re: $30 (Score:3)
How long did the transcontinental railroad take to complete? It took from 1863 to 1869, and was built with largely minority and immigrant workers using manual methods (and dynamite)...
We're at what 15 years for a 500 mile run up the coast using the latest technology...
We could do better.
Maybe California could offer completion bonuses like the state DOT did to fix the one highway after an earthquake?
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They owned the fucking country. No white people lived there. They used slavery.
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"But this is Slashdot. In 13 years, we'll all be in driverless Teslas, so you'll be able to watch pr0n or post kitty pictures to Facebook for the duration of the trip on Mars"
Fixed that for you
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No, there will be flying cars. They are coming. I saw a photo...
No, you saw a hologram. Which will show up about the same time as flying cars.
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You forgot the complimentary gluten free vegan pot brownies.
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They won't anywhere near break even. So you are saying it shouldn't be built then, right?
Re: $30 (Score:2)
So? For $5 I can do the same thing in Dallas today.
Re:$30 (Score:5, Informative)
DreadPirate, you are really not calculating correctly. I know it sounds cheap, but it isn't. If you can get there for $30 in gas, that's 40 miles per gallon -- not bad. Still, that's 7.5 cents/mile.
Say you bought a used car for $10,000, and can drive it for 100,000 miles. That's 10 cents a mile. More than gas.
Oil changes every 5,000 miles at $40? That's another penny a mile.
Tires at $300 every 30,000 miles? Another penny a mile.
Let's not talk about what your time is worth (you might really enjoy the drive), or insurance (not too dependent on miles driven) -- but still, that's about 20 cents a mile, or $80.
Most people don't really like to think how expensive driving is, but it isn't cheap. We have been taught that it's all about the gas, but it just isn't.
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Don't forget the parking when you get to where you're going. And in the business sections of LA or SF, that can be significantly more than the cost of the rail ticket all by itself.
Right now, today, if you want to park for half a day in downtown SF, it's like $45.
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It gets worse... those numbers only make sense if you're driving alone...
Imagine driving with a family of 4... then the train makes even LESS sense...
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$30 or so? I can easily drive to SF from LA on ¾ of a tank
In what car? Even in a Prius you just barely make it on a full tank.
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"Easily"? You must drive a highly fuel-efficient car or else leave in the middle of the night when there's no traffic. Depending on your starting point, just getting through LA traffic can eat up close to a quarter-tank.
Granted, yes, it could very well take that same almost-quarter-tank to get from your home to the train station, but regardless, "easily" strikes me as a stretch. My husband and I just recently made the drive from SF to LA and back and spent probably closer to 100, 120 bucks in gas AND got to
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Parking when you get to LA or SF. That's the difference. Plus, if it's a business trip, you get there in condition to do some business instead of road-weary.
You can sit on the train and work. What's that extra 6 hours of work that you would otherwise spend driving worth to you or your employer?
Re: $30 (Score:2)
Travel time is one concern, but the other is wait time... How often will the trains run? How early will you need to be at the train station before departure? I could easily see those considerations alone extending travel time by 2 or 3 hours, negating any time savings.
And what are you going to do when you get to the other end? Rely on mass transit or rent a c
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Currently, there's no TSA checkpoints at Amtrak stations. TSA actually tried pulling that a while back somewhere and the Amtrak Police forcibly escorted them off the premises. With Amtrak trains, you can just walk right on, ticket or not (they check the tickets later, after the train is in motion).
Now, how long this will remain this way is anyone's guess.
But for traveling along the northeast corridor, Amtrak is actually pretty convenient and reasonably fast compared to airlines, since there's no security
Re: $30 (Score:2)
You know what, I have to pay for auto insurance if I leave my car at home for a week, take a week and drive back and forth between SF and LA, if I drive to the airport and leave my car parked at the airport OR the train station.
You still have to pay for car insurance even if you don't drive your car.
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No, it's mileage-based.
Try telling your auto insurance company your car is for "pleasure use only" and you only put 5k miles per year on it, then use it for commuting 50 miles each way daily. See what happens when you get in a wreck and they figure out your car has far more mileage than you claimed.
Your rates change with the number of miles you put on the car yearly. Cars used for lots of commuting get higher rates than cars which spend most of their time sitting in your garage and only being driven on we
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> But for traveling along the northeast corridor
NYC to Philly is 97 miles according to Google maps.
LA to SF is 381 miles according to Google maps.
CA is not the northeast.
I now have TSA precheck. I can fly SWA last minute to SJC and be there in 2 hours for $250(last minute fare). Why the hell would I want to ride a train?
The high speed rail in CA is going through some expensive real estate. There's no way it'll be going full speed for the full journey.
Take a look at the new Oakland Bay Bridge for a clu
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CA is not the northeast.
No, it's not, but you're also leaving out all the other destinations along the NE Corridor: Baltimore, DC, and Boston namely (and a bunch of smaller stops in between). What's the distance between DC and Boston? That's probably comparable to LA to SF. On the other hand, there really isn't much between SF and LA, whereas there's a lot of traffic between all those destinations on the NE corridor.
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What is traffic going to be like in 13 years. And a another poster pointed out, that time on the train could be productive and/or relaxing for a business traveler.
Re: $30 (Score:2)
Wow, in 13 short years riding the train between SF and LA will be just like flying between SF and LA is right now, for the same cost.
And we are calling this train 'the future' of transportation? Seems like it's really just state of the art, circa 1975.
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That one's irrelevant to a driver. The road is going to be there whether you use it or not, and there's no additional cost to use it (unless it's a toll road of course; this could actually add up to a lot: crossing bridges in the NY area is very expensive). It's another "prisoner's dilemma" deal: if everyone stopped driving so much and took trains more, then road costs would decrease and less of our tax dollars would be needed for that. But that just isn't going to happen. Basically, if the government r
Re: $30 (Score:2)
You have to price this against airline travel, it's here, it's about the same time and cost, and they are equally inconvenient on either end.
This is a solution to a problem that was solved decades ago by regional airlines...
"How much would you be willing to pay?" (Score:2)
That's a silly question, since it depends on what airfare for the equivalent trip is. In truth, what I'll probably do is go to ${AirfareSearchSite} and ${RailSearchSite} and compare on a trip-by-trip basis. That would probably include factors uncorrelated to the modality -- like which particular departure times are convenient for me.
It's beyond me why you would want to answer this question in the way it was asked -- as if there was some magical price for the trip as opposed to a comparison with other substi
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Darts (Score:2)
What will happen to gas and airline prices between now and then? Will elec cars be more prevalent? What cost multiplier will be applied to actually building the thing?
More importantly...will it actually get built? What rare riparian environment will be discovered in the propo
Not sure inter-city mass-transit works in the US (Score:2, Informative)
In Europe and Asia, the average population density in cities is typically much higher than the US, where the cities typically have as large a population, but are more spread out. (Fun fact, the only US city that ranks in the top 50 for population density world-wide is.... Union City, New Jersey!)
As such, in the US, car ownership is almost a necessity unless you live in a city like New York with a large area mass transit system. Living in, for example, London or Tokyo, you have to be either borderline suicid
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I very much doubt you will avoid the TSA groping.
You seriously think the TSA is going to miss an opportunity for more security theater just because its a train??
Right now you might not need a TSA groping to get on a train but theres still time.
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So what do all those people flying from one place to another in the US do? If you need to drive in your destination then you'll just rent a car like you would have if you flew.
Re:Not sure inter-city mass-transit works in the U (Score:4, Informative)
American rail is made more expensive by urban sprawl, but not quite in the way most people think. If you compare somewhere like South Florida to Germany or Italy and look at how many people are likely to be within 5 miles of a given station, we really DON'T look all that different. Well, except Miami has a lot more skyscrapers sprawled across the entire metro area (even Broward has gotten into the act... witness "Tao" -- two 30-story towers built next to Sawgrass Mills mall whose balconies literally overlook the Everglades).
Anyway, the BIG difference between Florida or California and Europe is that in Europe, once you get out of the city... it tends to become rural & stay that way for a while. In contrast, if you were to build brand new tracks from Miami to West Palm Beach within 5 miles of I-95, you'd LITERALLY be plowing through a hundred miles of solid low & medium-density suburbia almost every inch of the way. In contrast, a comparable route in Europe would pass through at most a half-dozen cities, and run mostly through areas that were farmland or forest.
For anything less than 600 miles... (Score:2)
driving is *much* cheaper. And you have your own vehicle instead of having to rent or pay taxi fare.
After 9/11, the time spent travelling is almost the same, too.
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It really depends on how you count. But I respectfully disagree with how you count.
Driving cost gas; it depends on gas price and energy efficiency on your car, but 35miles/gallon with a $3/gallon gas cost seems reasonnable. That's about 8cents a mile.
But driving also wears your car which cost repairs. Here again, it is not clear what the cost is, but assuming a $20k car and $10k or repair maintenance on its lifetime and a 200k miles of lifetime, that's about 15cents a mile in average.
There is also typically
More than $100 (Score:4, Insightful)
I just drove the I-5 all of the way from LA to San Francisco yesterday as I'd brought a carful of test equipment to an engineer there. I didn't fly because of the freight I had, but in general train transport is better for carrying a lot of baggage. Less handling, less fees for freight.
Also, planes can't compete when there's a good high-speed rail, because of their logistical complications. Airports are usually far from town and require their own train to get to. Nobody takes a plane instead of Eurostar. While Southwest will survive on its many other routes, their SFO to LAX route is doomed.
Having traveled extensively in Europe, and having enjoyed never having to use a car and rarely needing a plane because their trains are so fast, cheap, and efficient, I marvel at the idiocy of our citizens, it's not the government's fault, in not having insisted on keeping and improving rail since the 40's. Americans are total retards about this, they can't ever have any excuse.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
in not having insisted on keeping and improving rail since the 40's. Americans are total retards about this, they can't ever have any excuse.
But why did these alleged retards not insist on improving rail?
Because the US is much, much bigger than Europe, and the land wasn't already owned by someone who could successfully defend their claim.
Thus, while Europe built *up*, we built *out*. Not only in cities, but suburbs. Because we want lawns. That requires space, and that means roads, not trains.
So, if you really want to blame a group for the US having sprawling metro regions, blame the Indians for not defending their territory (from us and the S
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I just drove the I-5 all of the way from LA to San Francisco yesterday as I'd brought a carful of test equipment to an engineer there. I didn't fly because of the freight I had, but in general train transport is better for carrying a lot of baggage. Less handling, less fees for freight.
Also, planes can't compete when there's a good high-speed rail, because of their logistical complications. Airports are usually far from town and require their own train to get to. Nobody takes a plane instead of Eurostar. While Southwest will survive on its many other routes, their SFO to LAX route is doomed.
Having traveled extensively in Europe, and having enjoyed never having to use a car and rarely needing a plane because their trains are so fast, cheap, and efficient, I marvel at the idiocy of our citizens, it's not the government's fault, in not having insisted on keeping and improving rail since the 40's. Americans are total retards about this, they can't ever have any excuse.
I once moved from one NZ city to another by train. I showed up at the station with suitcases, several large cardboard boxes, even some furniture. I loaded it all on the overnight train. No one batted an eyelid!
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Nobody takes a plane instead of Eurostar. While Southwest will survive on its many other routes, their SFO to LAX route is doomed.
Correct, but I don't think "doomed" is the right word. Airlines nowadays are happy to offload their short-range traffic to high speed rail, because they make their money on the long-distance flights, not on the 45 minute flights that spend more time getting up and then down again than actually flying somewhere.
Re:More than $100 (Score:5, Interesting)
Distance and time in Europe are much shorter. It's 3000 miles across one way and nearly 2000 the other. I just did a cross country with some zigs and zags and traveled 6,788 miles: Savannah to Seattle via Delaware and San Antonio. And you want me to take a train? Going from London to Paris is one thing. Going from LA to New York is quite another. That doesn't make me an idiot; it makes you one for not factoring that in.
Re:More than $100 (Score:5, Interesting)
I marvel at the idiocy of our citizens, it's not the government's fault, in not having insisted on keeping and improving rail since the 40's.
Actually the US has the world's best rail system. [economist.com] But that system is for freight, not for passengers. You can't have HSR and freight on the same tracks, so the US railways chose freight.
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Well, our freight railroad is the best in a way. Japanese freight lines use electric traction cars. Each car has its own motor, not just brakes, no diesel locomotives. 100% containers onboard. And they have high-speed freight trains for their equivalent of FedEx, etc. OK, it's a small country, but our system looks very backward next to that. But it is bigger.
Re:More than $100 (Score:5, Informative)
So do HSR stations.
u wot m8.
HSR stations are usually in the middle of cities, they (unlike most airports) are NEVER far from towns. Unless you consider, for example, Bruxelles Midi to not be right in the sodding middle of Brussles, or St Pancras to be in the middle of London.
No doubt you greatly enjoyed being ferried around in comfort and style between some of the most expensive zip codes in Europe at a subsidized low price, thanks to money taken from Europeans who will never get to use those trains.
You believe I live next to St Pancras, or next to Gard do Nord?
You don't have the faintest idea how these things work.
We have excellent rail service in the US, far better than Europe, for what it is actually good for: freight.
We have excellent rail services in Europe, far better than the US for what it is actually good for: mass transit.
Unless you enjoy sitting in massive traffic jams. If that float your boad then I guess that's cool too and I shouldn't judge.
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Not true at all.
It's easiest to show you on any maps program: 37.788672, -122.393561 and 34.054912, -118.234603.
Re:More than $100 (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know about the LA end of things, but the San Francisco end of the HSR station is intended to be smack in the middle of downtown San Francisco. This would it in the same station as Greyhound (national bus transit), AC Transit (local bus service in the East Bay), SamTrans (local bus service in the Peninsula), and Muni (local bus service in SF, including the arterial N/S and E/W lines). This station is also short walking distance to BART (regional light rail), Muni Metro (local surface and subway streetcar service). Of course, CalTrain (regional heavy rail) doesn't stop there, although there is an effort at getting the HSR authority to follow through on extending the CalTrain tracks to the new station.
Compare this to SFO or OAK which are only served by BART. BART itself offers very poor connections to other lines (except for Muni in downtown SF). BART from OAK now levies a $12 round-trip surcharge for their half billion dollar cable car to the airport (while screaming that they need $5b to fix their existing tracks). BART from SFO levies an $8+ round-trip surcharge and their ballyhooed intermodal station at Millbrae is a joke (no direct service from SFO most of the time).
HSR to downtown SF would be a pretty large improvement in convenience to anyone living in SF or Alameda counties.
So. What. In terms of population served, LA or SF on their own dwarf Monterey and Boise. I think you'll find that air service to either of those towns pales in comparison to that of SF and LA.
13 years too early to be asking (Score:2)
"How much would you be willing to pay to take a fast train between L.A. and San Francisco?"
Guess that depends...how much faith do you have in guessing what our economy is going to do in the next decade?
A global economic meltdown and subsequent bank bailouts were the highlights of the last decade, so feel free to sit around and pull theories clean out of your ass as to the value of the [insert new global monetary standard here] in 2028.
Compared to Amtrak here on the east coast? (Score:3)
History repeating itself (Score:2)
Sadly based on past statements regarding high speed rail I would imagine that their ticket prices and revenue projections are highly optimistic. The initial numbers said that the project would cost around $36B, cost estimates have since increased to at least $68B. At the same time the projects ridership numbers have been practically disproved, a peer reviewed study suggested a ridership of between 23.4 to 31.1 million where the "official" numbers were 65.5 to 96.5 million. I love the idea of some level o
Call me crazy but... (Score:2)
...shouldn't the price of the ride be based on the cost of delivering the service? What if it turns out to cost $300/person to transport someone from LA to SF on the new rail system?
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...shouldn't the price of the ride be based on the cost of delivering the service? What if it turns out to cost $300/person to transport someone from LA to SF on the new rail system?
That's only one factor. Another factor to consider is that more passengers riding a train (or bus, or whatever) means fewer drivers, which means less road maintenance, relatively lower congestion, and fewer parking spaces that need to be provided. Dealing with those items also costs the government money, which is part of the reason transit options are generally subsidized by cities, counties, and states.
screw the slow expensive trains; go hyperloop (Score:4, Interesting)
Hyperloop is where America should focus and push. It is obvious that we can go not only 500 MPH in the tubes, but even higher speeds should be possible.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
So replace one joke/scam with a yet bigger joke/scam?
Why not hydrofoils boats? (Score:3)
Why not just high speed boats? A hydrofoil can go very fast, around 100mph, without infringing on anyone's precious real estate.
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Why not just high speed boats?
Because the Pacific is one of the most dangerous oceans in the world, and highly influenced by weather, and there are no suitable waterways which could be used instead.
Call me skeptical... (Score:4, Insightful)
Voters were told in 2008 that the project would cost $39 billion. Now Gov. Brown says it will cost $69 billion. And it's still over a decade away. Under the bond measure the state isn't allowed to subsidize the operation of the project. It must be covered by the fares. Since there is so much uncertainty about the cost of the project it makes no sense to try to guess the cost of a ticket.
What is the cost of NOT doing it? (Score:3, Insightful)
What will it cost to build out the needed road and airline infrastructure? What is the cost in terms of pollution and lost productivity by continuing to rely on cars and airplanes?
To talk about the cost of a project without comparing alternatives is meaningless.
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CAHSR projects [ca.gov] running about 8 trains per hour during peak hours, carrying about 6000 people per hour in each direction. That is about the capacity of a 3 lane freeway. So basically the alternative to HSR in California is building another freeway along the whole length of the state.
How big are these trains? (Score:3)
On the low end, they estimate 18 million riders a year. Ok, dividing 18 million by 365 days leaves you with almost 50,000 passengers a day. Divided by two, that's about 24,000 passengers SF->LA, and 24,000 passengers LA->SF each day. If they run 24 trains s day, leaving each hour, that means 1,000 passengers per hour, every hour, every day.
Seems unlikely.
Maybe they'll run trains every two hours, but then they gotta stuff 2,000 people on each train 12 times/day, every day.
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In Japan they run the trains as little as 5 minutes apart. The turn around time is about 10 minutes, 7 of which are allocated to cleaning.
Ignores the maginal price of airline tickets (Score:2)
If airlines of 2026 lose 20% of their passengers to a competing service that charges 87% of airline ticket prices, then airlines will not continue to charge those prices.
Why not freight (Score:2)
Wondering why nobody puts some freight onto the high speed lines. I would think that the courier companies would like an hourly train leaving between major cities instead of flying all of their parcels. The costs wouldn't be that much since you would have to build the track for the passenger service so it would just be the incremental costs for the service. Of course passenger traffic would have the right of way which would be the opposite of traditional rail service in North America. I'm not suggesting
Re:$70 max (Score:5, Informative)
No, this isn't good math.
Eurostar train tickets between London and Paris are usually more expensive than flying low-cost airline. People splurge on train in preference over air, not the other way round.
True, train take s 2.5 hours of moving and fligth 45 minutes of flying. But I can get to Kings X in 10 minutes on tube and be there 20 minutes before departure and on the other end I am at Gare du Nord, smack in the centre.
When flying, it takes me 1 hour min to each airport, then I need to pay the terrorist task by queing for another hour. Then we fly and then it is again 1hour min from Orly or CDG to get where I want.
Re: (Score:2)
Either you're one of those super-privileged people who live close to the center of London and Paris, or you need to add 1-2h at either end to get from your suburb to the high speed rail station.
And that's going to happen with HSR as well, at least in
Re:$70 max (Score:4, Informative)
Either you're one of those super-privileged people who live close to the center of London and Paris, or you need to add 1-2h at either end to get from your suburb to the high speed rail station.
Kings-X St Pancras has truly huge suburban, urban, intercity and tube connections. I don't think Stevenage counts as super-privileged, but you know, tastes vary. From Stevenage, which isn't event he same city the difference isn't much more. Leave a train in hand ( + 30 minutes), 40 minutes to Kings-X, then hop on the eurostar and off you go.
Or from anywhere in south London served on the thameslink route.
Or you know, you can keep on denying reality and insist that flying from somewhere near London to Paris on a low cost airline doesn't suck compared to the train. Or you can take the word of people who have done both multiple times.
Re:$70 max (Score:4, Informative)
You're (apparently) a computer scientist living within commute distance of central London; of course you are privileged relative to most Brits.
You seem to revel in your ignorance. Go live in Elephant. It's a total shithole and pretty cheap. It's closer than I live. Among the many busses, trains and tube you can even walk into central London from there pretty quickly. Contrary to what you believe, London is a complete city and contains people working in all sorts of jobs. Fun fact: pretty much everyone in London commutes to their jobs including all the low paid cleaners, office temps, and even golf sign holders. Are you really going to claim they're among the privilidged few?
You're absolutely right that trains are the most pleasant way to travel around Europe (and I have likely been doing it a lot longer than you). What you have failed to explain is why large numbers of taxpayers who do not benefit from HSR should subsidize it.
Because they do benefit from it. Infrastructure leads to a functional country which improves the GDP. It's the same reason I benefit from living in a functional country which means I'm happy to have my tax fund motorways around Liverpool even though I've never been and I'm not likely to go there in forseeable future. Hell, I'm happy to have my tax money fund roads on Orkney. And guess what? I've never used the Millwall tunnel. Should I bitch and moan about how my tax is funding drivers in some place I never drive?
And before you climb of your awfully high horse, you may wish to consider how the net flow of money is out of London to the rest of the country which means I do (and am in fact happy to) effectively subsidise the rest of the country.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:No (Score:5, Informative)
Flying is a pain in the ass. You need to go to an airport, get groped, wait an hour until you can board, sit in an uncomfortable seat, get fed a tiny drink if you're lucky when they want to feed it to you, use a bathroom that's tiny and uncomfortable, and wait for another 40 minutes for your luggage afterwards.
A train is just a much better experience. You can show up 2 minutes before departure, get on without a strip search, get a nice big seat, have a dining car, can get up and walk around at will, and just grab your luggage on the way out.
For a short (say 200 mile distance) its actually just as fast as flying when you figure in airport waits. For 400 its slower than an a plane, but a much less stressful experience. And with 180 mph bullet trains you can actually get to same coast cities in a reasonable time. I'd take one any day of the week over a plane for anything under 600 miles.
Re: (Score:2)
Flying is a pain in the ass.
How do you know this won't end up being an equivalent pain in the ass?
For me, the answer to the posited question is "it depends". If I can just walk on, the way I currently just walk onto my commuter train, then I'd easily pay at least as much as air fare. If I'm going to have to take off my shoes, get groped, and walk through a backscatter scanner... I won't pay anything - I'll drive instead.
I used to think flying was a bit of a treat, but now I only choose it if it's the only possible way of getting to my
Re: (Score:3)
Because I've done it in Europe for years. This isn't a new mode of travel.
Re: No (Score:2)
A fair assessment.
Re: No (Score:4, Informative)
If that is what they build then you have a whole set of other problems.
Go and clone the Japanese Shinkansen though and none of what you say if true. FFS all the shinkansens I have been on in recent years even have standard powerpoints for you to plug your laptop / other charger in.
Re: No (Score:4, Informative)
Depending on country, high speed trains run every hour, or every second, splitting direction after certain distance to either A or B. .A is on even hours and everything that goes to
So everything before the split is every hour, and every thing that goes to
b on odd hours. To still reach A on odd hours you change train at the split point.
Even not so popular routes like mine from Karlsruhe to Paris go every second hour, with a short change to 3 hour gaps around 12:00, and back to 2:00 later.
There are no checkpoints.
Re: (Score:2)
If the DHS/TSA have anything to do with it I'm sure that the lack of groping and 'security' delays on the train will be an obstacle that suitable laws will overcome.
Re: (Score:2)
A train is just a much better experience. You can show up 2 minutes before departure, get on without a strip search, get a nice big seat, have a dining car, can get up and walk around at will, and just grab your luggage on the way out.
Sounds like what this guy said about living in London and commuting to his job in Paris at 25:10 in this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
The thing about Europe vs. the US. is really freight vs people. People feel good about riding in trains but we move so much more mass so much more efficiently with freight then they do that it boggles the mind. The Economist basically laid it out a few years ago and showed that sacrificing freight for people is just an epic waste. Not that I am not for personal rail but Hyperloop fucking owns. Condemnation in an era when the railroads don't literally own the government is not going to happen. Plus the cost
Re: a message from Europe: trains are cool! (Score:2)
This solves a problem that has already been solved.
Planes travel between SFO and LAX for around $100-150 each way. It takes several hours (all in TSA, waiting, flying, etc), you can work while you wait/fly, and when you arrive at the airport there are dozens of transportation services to get you on to your final destination (buses, light rail, rental cars, et
Re: (Score:2)
You actually wind up in the part of the city you actually want to be in, rather than way out in the outskirts of town
You obviously know jack fucking shit about the United States.