The Case For Portland-To-Vancouver High-Speed Rail (citylab.com) 153
At the Cascadia Rail Summit outside Seattle, a fledgling scheme to bring high-speed rail from Portland to Vancouver found an enthusiastic reception. Gregory Scruggs writes via CityLab: Only 175 miles separate Portland from Seattle. Then it's another 140 miles north to Vancouver, British Columbia. The three Pacific Northwest cities, which together form the Cascadia megaregion, are currently served by Amtrak service that tops out at 79 mph, shares track with BNSF freight trains, and runs infrequently -- just twice daily round-trip between Seattle and Vancouver. If you want to make the full 315-mile run from Portland to Vancouver on rails, it's going to take you at least 8-and-a-half hours. By bus or car, expect the journey to eat up 5 or 6 hours, with metro-area traffic an unpredictable wild card that regularly balloons travel times.
But Roger Millar, Washington State's secretary of transportation, sees a better way: a trans-national, ultra-high-speed rail line that can hit 250 mph and put the three booming cities within super-commuting range. Such a system -- common in Europe and Asia but still alien to North America -- might cost $50 billion or so. That sounds like a lot, but it could be a bargain compared to adding a lane to I-5, the current north-south corridor linking the megaregion. "[For] $108 billion we've got another lane of pavement in each direction, and it still takes you all day to get from Portland to Vancouver," Millar said earlier this month of a hypothetical lane-widening project. "Half of that invested in ultra-high speed rail and it's two hours. That's game-changing stuff."
But Roger Millar, Washington State's secretary of transportation, sees a better way: a trans-national, ultra-high-speed rail line that can hit 250 mph and put the three booming cities within super-commuting range. Such a system -- common in Europe and Asia but still alien to North America -- might cost $50 billion or so. That sounds like a lot, but it could be a bargain compared to adding a lane to I-5, the current north-south corridor linking the megaregion. "[For] $108 billion we've got another lane of pavement in each direction, and it still takes you all day to get from Portland to Vancouver," Millar said earlier this month of a hypothetical lane-widening project. "Half of that invested in ultra-high speed rail and it's two hours. That's game-changing stuff."
Hyperloop (Score:4, Funny)
Just get Musk involved and the cost will drop a lot. I'll bet he can do it for $5 billion (payment up front).
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They're pretty tired of the west-siders.
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78% of the population is West Washington, [wikipedia.org] so I don't think it's that big of a deal. Also, East Washington (aka "Liberty") gets more from tax money than West Washington, so, it shouldn't be much of a problem. [spokesman.com]
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Well, those are the big questions. How much will it cost? What is the economic benefit?
I remember when the California HSR was proposed. For $30B, it would be up and running by 2020, and the economic payback would make it worth it.
Except the cost is now $100B, with some cost-overrun projections going as high as $300B, and it won't be running until 2033 at the earliest. As cost overruns rise, projected fares rise, and projected ridership falls ... so even higher fares + subsidies will be needed.
There is n
Re: Hyperloop (Score:5, Insightful)
It's interesting how high speed rail manages to work everywhere in the world **EXCEPT** the Untied States. Even China and Russia have high speed rail lines that are heavily utilized. Like government-managed health care, it just seems to be one of those things that we're utterly incompetent to do.
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It's interesting how high speed rail manages to work everywhere in the world **EXCEPT** the Untied States.
The reasons for this are interesting. America's system of public works is extremely dysfunctional. The initial cost/benefit analysis is done with wildly low-ball numbers, and then once the project is approved, the costs are jacked up. On average, final costs are triple the initial proposal. This makes the analysis worthless, so projects that make no economic sense are pushed forward. People become cynical and jaded to the corrupt process, so there is little resistance to the cost inflation. People exp
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mostly on litigation and administration
The folly of letting lawyers dominate the political system.
Was thinking while walking the dogs this morning, and of all the lawyers that I've ever met I know of only one who actually has some clue of how to do anything useful, and that's mostly because he grew up a farmer. I'm reminded of a Tom Paxton song from the '80s;
https://genius.com/Tom-paxton-... [genius.com]
In ten years we're gonna have one million lawyers
One million lawyers, one million lawyers
In ten years we're gonna have one million lawyers
How much can a poor
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The environmental impact reports and similar things are not a huge driver of costs. These reports cost vastly less than a properly done engineering plan. Litigation should not be that expensive, except that the legal system is a lot like government contractors in that they've optimized processes for extracting money.
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"China built the Shanghai-to-Beijing line in 3 years for $32B.
Maybe the US should get the Chinese to build railroads. I seem to recall there might be some historical precedent.
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It's interesting how high speed rail manages to work everywhere in the world **EXCEPT** the Untied States. Even China and Russia have high speed rail lines that are heavily utilized. Like government-managed health care, it just seems to be one of those things that we're utterly incompetent to do.
In general, and specifically in this case, it is because freight lines own the tracks. Not only are the tracks of a lower quality than would be needed for high speed rail, but freight gets priority and passenger trains have to wait till they are cleared to have the right of way. I work in Seattle and plenty of coworkers take the train from Tacoma to Seattle and at least once a month, they are all late because their train was delated waiting on some freight train. Add in that these rail lines go through very
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Unfortunately they've recently abandoned the spur that ran up the east side of Lake Washington, which could have had a station at the Bel-Red Road light rail station.
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I would feel better about HSR if they could build NSR?(Normal Speed Rail) that ran on time with a reasonable average speed. People might be inclined to take the train from over a long car ride if the trains were reliably on time.
Sadly, I suspect even building NSR tracks right next to existing freight tracks would take forever and get tied up in courts for ages (and come in way over budget).
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Only commenting because I got a chuckle of your typo of Untied States. It's a simple summary of where we stand today and likely remain for some time. But maybe we'll get lucky and it will mean that some states will work to solve problems that the Feds are too inept to solve on their own.
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The first time was a typo, but now I use it routinely because it does seem so descriptive of our current state.
It's because trucks are subsidized in the U.S. (Score:2)
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The current model for robo-trucks in the US is automated transport of the trailers to a location outside of urban areas, where it will be picked up by a conventional tractor with a driver. Possibly we could double the taxes on robo-trucks over manually driven ones, which would look like a sop to the drivers while still leaving them competitive with the manually driven ones for the first few years. Eventually the automated systems will out-compete the manual ones.
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Even in the business world EVERY single project I have seen has run over time and budget. However the diagnosis when a business fails to meet cost/schedule vs when government is totally different.
In reality if you could use a crystal ball to look into the future 100% accurately and use the ACTUAL cost/schedule in the planning documents most projects inside of business would never get approved. There is baked in optimism by the engineers, and baked in pessimism by management that mostly comes out in the wa
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However, someday there will be high speed rail covering most of the route from Vancouver to San Diego, assuming that mankind survives that is. Just because it is economically infeasible today does not mean we must stay the way we are forever. And the economic problems are mostly because we're so utterly terrible at predicting costs when there are so many private companies incredibly eager to latch onto the teat and suck up the money.
So why did the interstate system succeed so well, but since that time we'v
Re: Hyperloop (Score:2)
But yours smells like a shit.
A particular one, huh.
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Except nobody in the Eastern half of the state wants to help pay for it.
But now that Vancouver is mostly Chinese, getting the Canadian segment built might be easier than you think. This would create political momentum for hooking up Seattle and Portland.
Monorail! (Score:2)
Well, sir, there's nothing on earth
Like a genuine, bona fide
Electrified, six-car monorail
What'd I say?
Monorail
What's it called?
Monorail
That's right!
Monorail...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: Sodomites (Score:4)
Customs Pre-Clearance? (Score:2)
Customs Pre-Clearance?
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Yep, this is the big one. Taking the train from London to Germany or south of France is fairly easy and faster than flying in many cases, but coming back adds 90 minutes to the journey because you have to get off the train and go through immigration in Brussels or Paris. Pre-clearance is easy if you only have a few stops either side of the border, but it doesn't really scale if you want customs and immigration at every boarding point. And you have to keep this system separate for the people who want to us
Why? (Score:5, Funny)
Vancouver is just across the river; why would you need high-speed rail to go a few hundred feet? /s
Re:Why? (Score:4, Funny)
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Why is this mod'ed funny instead of insightful?
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Yeah, and the story seems to imply that a trip from Vancouver to Portland would go through Seattle! That's wack!
Someone needs to do a bit more planning for this rail line!
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Re: Why? (Score:2)
I believe even the initial segment will continue (as non-HSR) into San Francisco along Caltrain's route. What CalHSR *urgently* needs to do is figure out a way to get Bakersfield connected to existing tracks into LA, so the trains can run ~79-110mpb from SF to somewhere around Modesto, run 180-225 mph to Bakersfield & continue to the existing LA tracks, then limp into LA at 60-79mph. That would be slower than HSR all the way, but still a HUGE improvement over present-day Amtrak (and Amtrak *itself* coul
Re: Why? (Score:2)
This is exactly what they did in Europe too. They designed the trains so they could run on commuter rail lines as well. Then they started laying new segments of track, shaving 20-30 minutes off a particular route at a time until it's entirely high speed.
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Re: Why? (Score:2)
As I understand it, the main problem with Bakersfield-LA is that all the cheap/easy routes (via Palmdale & Victorville) involve using the Tehachapi Pass, which UP *vehemently* opposes because it's a busy freight segment with a chokepoint that can't be easily expanded.
Right now, UP runs one-way convoys of mile-long freight trains (coordinated along the tracks leading up to it with computer modeling so they're already up to speed & arrive at the mainline at *precisely* the right instant to merge in be
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It's part of the Hudson's Bay Company's plan to take back Fort Vancouver in the continuing war with the Northwest Trading Company. The good old days when corporations competed by shooting at each other and were the government.
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Vancouver's just across the river from Portland (Score:3)
Being from the Portland area, when you hear Portland to Vancouver you think Vancouver, WA which is adjacent to Portland, though at times can still take 2 hours to get to depending on traffic.
The curse for Vancouver, WA when traveling is if you just say Vancouver people will think Vancouver, BC, and if you say Washington then most people think Washington, DC. Oh, well.
In Taiwan the High Speed Rail (HSR) takes you from Kaohsiung to Taipei, roughly the same distance as Seattle to Portland, in about an hour and a half. This would be most welcomed. Especially if it makes a stop at Sea-Tac and the Portland Trimet Max hooks up to the station this would open up much easier air travel, much like the Taiwan HSR connects up to TPE.
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AFAIK it's not so much about easier air travel, unless replacing major air transfer route, which only seems case if extended to Eugene in Oregon.
Sea-Tac colocation could make sense parallel with 2nd station for Northern Seattle/Everett for convenient access from both ends of urbal sprawl.
It mostly seems about convenience of mass transit "feeders" which doesn't per se prioritize airport colocation, other locations possibly better there.
Re:Vancouver's just across the river from Portland (Score:4, Funny)
So, you just say "Vancouver, Washington, DC." No more confusions, then.
Re:Vancouver's just across the river from Portland (Score:5, Interesting)
You need to look at not just the high speed trains in other countries, you need to look at the other infrastructure and how they fund them.
Take the Shinkansen (bullet train) network in Japan. It's extensive, the trains run every 15 minutes and the punctuality is incredible. It's an expensive service to run too, they do nightly inspections of the track, and the trains are stripped down and inspected every 3 days.
So how is it affordable? Well the train companies also own the stations, and the stations are huge shopping malls that are destinations in of themselves. They also tie up with many attractions and local businesses to offer combined tickets, so for example if you want a skiing holiday you buy a package that includes the train rather than a flight.
When you arrive at your destination, usually right in the middle of town, there are other trains and busses to get you to where you need to go. It's a fully integrated system.
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TIL There's a Vancouver in WA, proving once again that people are too stupid to make things easy for themselves.
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Yes it was interesting during the winter olympics in BC as a number of travelers ended up in WA.
Not gonna happen (Score:4)
This is America. There will never be a good public transportation option here. Public transportation requires public investment, and there is above a critical mass of "taxes are bad" voters who will not let this happen. Unless the money goes to support the military spending, of course. May be that's the solution - have the military build it out of their budget :)
It's not that "taxes are bad" (Score:3)
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I'd say corrupt politicians are a bigger problem than inept ones. Once upon a time it was more "how do I profit from making the country better" and now it's more "how do I shit on anyone I don't agree with, and fuck the country".
Re: It's not that "taxes are bad" (Score:5, Insightful)
One big difference between the US & countries like France is that in other countries, they'll build HSR *simultaneously* with a freeway reconstruction (or new-construction). In the US, we'd do stupid things like tear up a road for 5 years, rebuild it completely, then partially tear it up *again* to build HSR next to it.
If you're *already* widening a retained-earth foundation to 150 feet, making it 180-200 feet wide instead (assuming you have 200 feet of ROW anyway) costs very little extra... but would cost basically double the amount to rebuild the old one to 150 feet if you built it to 150 for the road, then went back 5 years later and had to add another 30-50 feet for HSR.
Ditto for bridges across the ROW... if you rebuild a freeway & all the bridges over it, it costs ${n}. If you add an extra 30-50 foot span over HSR at the same time, it might cost 10-20% more... but if you have to go back in 5 years and add that extra span LATER, that 30-50' span will cost as much as the whole original multi-span bridge did.
For the most part, roughly half of TGV's construction was timed & planned years in advance to coincide with freeway reconstructions France knew it was going to have to do *anyway*, which kept the costs down because most of TGV ended up being a marginal cost on top of an expensive road project that had to happen regardless.
California HSR is an example of what happens when you build first-rate HSR as a totally standalone project instead of combining it with a road project you were going to do anyway... it ends up costing a fortune.
Florida illustrates the opposite extreme. When FDOT rebuilt I-4 between Tampa and Orlando 20 years ago, it made a point of keeping the median mostly clear for future HSR. It increased the cost, but only by about 10%. Now, Virgin Trains is going to lease the corridor and build HSR in it. It still has to lay track & build stations, but the potentially deal-killingly-expensive part (a corridor suitable for HSR with minimal reconstruction) is done & ready for them.
The smart thing for Oregon, Washington, and BC to do would be to lay out the route *now* along a highway that will be mostly rebuilt within 25 years, do the reconstructions in a way that leaves the future HSR corridor "rail-ready", and launch HSR (as regional commuter rail) along fragments of it as they become available, even if it'll be another 15-25 years before end to end service can begin. If possible, try to make use of existing nearby railroads for a few trains per day to 'connect the dots' around the as-yet-unbuilt future HSR segments in the meantime (losing much of the time advantage, but mitigating it through one-seat transfer-free convenience).
Using France/TGV as an example again, long before TGV ran all the way to the Mediterranean, they extended it during peak seasons by hitching up diesel engines & towing them the first and/or last 50-200km as a premium first-class service so they could run a few mostly-HSR trains per week between Paris & some vacation hotspot whose future TGV track was still under construction (or hadn't yet started construction), increasing sales & profits by offering single-seat transfer-free convenience at super-premium prices.
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Re: It's not that "taxes are bad" (Score:2)
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The smart thing for Oregon, Washington, and BC to do would be to lay out the route *now* along a highway that will be mostly rebuilt within 25 years, do the reconstructions in a way that leaves the future HSR corridor "rail-ready"
Does this mean it will almost certainly not be done this way? Seems logical to me.
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One big difference between the US & countries like France is that in other countries, they'll build HSR *simultaneously* with a freeway reconstruction (or new-construction). In the US, we'd do stupid things like tear up a road for 5 years, rebuild it completely, then partially tear it up *again* to build HSR next to it.
Caltrans, the highway construction agency, routinely buys land for new roads fifteen years ahead of need. Even if a road never gets built, the agency can still resell the acquired land at a profit. If the road does get built, the preplanning has saved a bundle on acquisition costs.
Because the HSR line was not a part of this planning system, it faced having to buy land at 'walkup' high prices wherever it ran.
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**sigh**
You're talking about logic and planning more than one election cycle in the future, which unfortunately is no longer done in the US. When they rebuilt the SR520 floating bridge across Lake Washington between Bellevue and Seattle the original plan was to include an extra lane on each side for future light rail. Just as the project was getting under way conservative politicians in Olympia declared that 10% needed to be shaved off the projected cost of the bridge, and the only way to do that was to g
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Re: Not gonna happen (Score:3)
Re: Not gonna happen (Score:2)
Trains don't have to be cheaper or faster if they make it up by being nicer & more convenient.
The nice thing about trains is that the marginal cost of running a train with 10 cars that are 50% full isn't much higher than the cost of running it with 5 cars that are oversold, require advance reservations, have draconian change policies, and might even bump passengers. So you can AFFORD to accommodate casual walk-on passengers & relax the urgency of being at the station at a specific time Or Else. You
Re: Not gonna happen (Score:2)
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Mindset might well have a lot to do with this. When I heard you're looking at 5-6 hours of driving, versus 8.5 on the train, I thought "oh cool - you could have a day in the "office" on the train versus driving 6 hours and doing nothing of any use, and arriving tired". Of course, it depends if they have half-decent wifi on the train and if it's comfortable enough that you can sit with your laptop out, use a power socket or whatever else. You're going to need food and a toilet that isn't from the Trainspotti
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You have to steal the land to give the private businesses to build their privately funded railway, then the government has to maintain an army to keep the stolen land stolen, then the government has to pay the private businesses to build the private railway, or at least guarantee some contracts. Then there is the importing of cheap disposable labour.
One exception, DC bureaucrats (Score:3)
The DC bureaucrats did launch the Acela Express train in the NE corridor, but they built it primarily for themselves so they could reach their families and homes in weekends with less trouble.
Re:Not gonna happen (Score:5, Insightful)
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It was never intended to result in a functioning way to travel - it was intended as a way to create make-work jobs with federal subsidies. That's why it's still in work between two nowhere destinations that can easily be reached in similar time in a car, once you consider that you have to wait for a departure (which will be infrequent even if the system ever actually gets finished). That it is impractical and makes no sense to continue (or to have started at all) is entirely beside the point.
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Prohibiting lawyers from becoming politicians would go a long way towards fixing that.
Re:Not gonna happen -- Thanx! (Score:2)
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I'm far from a "Taxes are Bad" but HSR taxes are bad.
Ticket prices for this trip would probably be around $150 or more each way if they are similar to ticket prices in Japan.
So we're going to spend $50 Billion to replace air travel with something that's slightly faster than air travel.... why? I5 isn't busy for 99% of the route. It's congested at Marysville, Downtown Seattle, Tacoma and JBLM. Tacoma is almost done adding lanes, JBLM is getting its own traffic mitigation and Marysville is 2 lanes.
We do
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I'm far from a "Taxes are Bad" but HSR taxes are bad.
Ticket prices for this trip would probably be around $150 or more each way if they are similar to ticket prices in Japan.
So we're going to spend $50 Billion to replace air travel with something that's slightly faster than air travel.... why?
It's only "slightly faster", if you exclude the time to travel to the airport go through security and pick up your luggage on the other end. If you can literally walk to the station from your downtown office/apartment and walk off to your destination on the other end, that saves you at least 90 minutes. A commercial flight from Portland to Vancouver takes 75 minutes. It'll take you 30 minutes to drive to the airport from downtown in traffic. If you're feeling lucky, you can get there only 30 minutes before
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HSR doesn't make sense in the US. We aren't nearly dense enough...
That is true in general and nationwide. But in selected high-density corridors, the places where you can't physically add enough freeway lanes to unsludge the traffic, HSR can make sense. Just don't let the project get all Californicated up.
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It's not going to happen because trains don't work in much of the US. Trains work in Europe because the cities there are walkable. I've personally walked across multiple medium sized cities over there. Most cities here aren't walkable; they're far too spread out. Once you get off a train, you need a car to get around. This is also why buses work so poorly here. People in Europe don't have large, sprawling lawns. In fact, frequently, the sidewalk is directly at their front door and there is no yard at all. T
Great another west coast (Score:2)
Just my 2 cents
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I'm in California and have been paying attention to the boondoggle known as HSR. Here's the big difference between Oregon/Washington and California. Both those states have less to work with, yet seem to get more done. Their homeless are housed, the roads are well paved, there's a symbiotic relationship between logging and forestry, housing prices are decent.
Not sure how the exact politics of these states compare, but having done a drive to Astoria Oregon from San Jose California, it seems like Oregon has
Another line that won't get built. (Score:2)
But will suck up tax dollars for decades. Pork for everyone! I wonder how much prime right-of-way Roger Millar owns.
Must be solar powered (Score:2)
Zero Desire (Score:2)
To ride a damn train. I like my car.
Get me 24/7 Skytrain (Score:2)
first in Vancouver then worry about cross country trains.
$150 billion? (Score:2)
What is this? A price for the military?
I would love to see the total man-hours involved in this, including creation of the materials, and how much is done in cheaper countries.
They we could calculate the average salary, and compare it to what we get for doing that kind of work, so we can see how much is legitimate, and how much is profit.
Why not high-er speed rail? (Score:2)
I never really understood the push for high-speed (200 kph / 120 mph) rail in North America. Sure, those speeds would be amazing, but they significantly increase the challenge and pretty much guarantee these systems will never get built. Such systems require 100% grade separated, dedicated lines with huge turning radii. Perfect becomes the enemy of good.
I really think we should be shooting for high-er speed / fast rail. With average speeds in the 150 kph / 95 mph range. You could still have grade crossings
"Cascadia megaregion" (Score:2)
Please.
Tax Fatigue=DOA (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
That's a tad under a billion per mile for "LIGHT" rail, low speed.. Paid for by doubling car tabs and staggering property tax increases. The proponents lied about the true cost increases to push the measure through, then when it became obv
130bn (Score:2)
Those madmen! (Score:2)
They're trying to bring about the hipster singularity!
Fifty Billion dollars? (Score:2)
Imagining a new rail line is easy, convincing people at a "rail summit" that if should be built is also easy, but you know what's hard? Coming up with the money LOCALLY (since it provides no value to anyone outside the Portland-Seattle-Vancouver corridor, good luck getting federal money), securing the needed right-of way to lay the track, then convincing people to take the train AND pay a fare that helps recoup investment.
How much will people really pay to turn a six hour trip into a 3 hour trip? And don't
Begs the question (Score:2)
Who wants to travel between Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, BC? If you are going to stop at every waypoint: Centralia, Olympia, Tacoma, Sea-tac, Seattle, Everett, Mt Vernon, Bellingham, there goes your high speed. By the time you get up to speed, if you ever do, it's time to slow down.
People in the NW should look at CA first (Score:2)
We have a huge HSR boondoggle. NIMBYs prevent any construction within the SF Bay Area and LA so the planners decided to build the line first around Fresno where the population density is less and the land cheaper, hoping I suppose, to gain enough traction in the project to eventually finish the line from SF to LA. And they can't even do that. There are a at least 3 very large half built HSR bridges around Fresno. I drive by there 2-3 times a year and I have yet to actually see anyone working on the brid
Illogical within present corrupt framework (Score:2)
Re:only $50 billion, and gone in an instant (Score:5, Informative)
Then by all means do take some ideas from Japan.
Shinkansen high-speed rail has been operational since the 1960's: over five billion passenger trips with a perfect safety record.
This despite the country being regularly hit with earthquakes, volcano eruptions, typhoons and tsunamis.
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To nitpick, the Shinkansen has had no fatalities due to derailments or collisions during commercial passenger operations that were the responsibility of the operators.
There have been derailments and collisions - such as the train that fell off an elevated track during an earthquake - and there have been non-fatal accidents - such as the unapproved carriage parts problem that resulted in at least one train going into an emergency stop after leaking too much oil.
They do have one of the best safety records of
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"such as the train that fell off an elevated track during an earthquake"
Actually, it didn't 'fall off' the elevated track, it just derailed at slow speed (as the earthquake warning system they have did work, and the train was almost already at a complete controlled stop when the quake hit). The cars all stayed upright, in a line on the track (though slightly derailed), and the lights, services and A/C kept running until they could escort the passengers off the train.
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Totally — just do it the old-fashioned way: convince enough people to finance your project voluntarely so as to be rewarded, when paying customers start using your trains.
Re: Do this across the U.S. (Score:3)
Guys with guns will get it done (Score:2)
> There are two problems with that. First, it's not easy to raise hundreds of billions that would be required for the project.
You say people don't want to put their money into that, because rather than their investment doubling every 8 years, they'd hope to maybe get their investment back in 30-50 years.
So you propose to FORCE everyone to do it. If somebody doesn't pay, the IRS will simply seize their bank account. Their money isn't in the bank? Send guys with guns to come take their stuff.
There are cer
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You must be new to the US. In the US, people are required to pay taxes. It's been that way for a few hundred years. You might be happier somewhere like India, where they don
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So you propose to FORCE everyone to do it. If somebody doesn't pay, the IRS will simply seize their bank account. Their money isn't in the bank? Send guys with guns to come take their stuff.
Yep, exactly that. The government (through elected officials) decides where to use the collected money to make sure that projects like highways and railroads are built. They have too big of a payback time, but nevertheless they are necessary. You can invest however much money you want into "reaching out to high school students" but they still need roads to be able to actually commute from home to work.
Well, have it be state-owned! (Score:2)
It is and should be something we truly all need and can use.
So to translate it to "free market" libertarian speak, in order to keep the market balanced and free from strong-arming, we form a corporation that builds it for internal use, and become shareholders. We call that corporation "government".
Which, of course is strange, since it is so completely unrelated to what is currently called "government" in the US. ;)
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According to the GP, Cyberax, nobody would do it willingly because they'd prefer to put their resources into projects that have enough benefits that the cost is outweighed by the benefits within just a year or two, rather than this idea, which would take "many decades" to possibly recover benefits equal to the investment. That's according to it's proponents.
People would prefer to use their money for something like reaching high school students at risk of dropping out, where $1,000 invested today will be wor
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> First, it's not easy to raise hundreds of billions that would be required for the project. With many decades of payback time.
Indeed. It's especially hard to force people to do that when they compare it to other use of their money, which pay back the investment every two or three years. For example, if you spend your money reaching out to high school students, every $1,000 invested today pays back $1,000 EVERY YEAR from now on. People would rather put their money into Solar City, where they expect to
* students at risk of dropping out (Score:2)
That should be "at-risk high school students".
I really should use the preview function.
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The old fashioned way was to steal the land and give it to the private businesses. Need to import cheap disposable labour too. How do you think the transcontinental railways were built?
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We should build high-speed rail that can travel at 250 mph across the United States. It would provide an alternative to air travel and might even cause to the airlines to provide better customer service. The investment in infrastructure would create jobs, some of which would be in struggling industries such as steel.
I'm not sure there are many people that would take a 12+ hour cross-country train ride when they could take a 5 hour flight. Trains make sense over shorter distances because you lose a lot of time driving to the airport, getting through security, etc, but Even if that adds an hour on each end, it's still 12 hours versus 7 hours.
North-south routes on both coasts would likely work out better than a cross-country route due to higher population density -- the USA is pretty sparsely populated west of the Mississ
And it's expensive as fuck. (Score:2)
Any flying transportation will always cost vastly more than the low-friction large-vehicle transportation that is rail.
Wjy do you think the US freight network is such a big thing? "By air" is always more expensive
It is a problem that people have (Score:2)