A specific rail transport plan for North America

Great Debates
61

Because I’m operating on the assumption that the goal of mass transit is to move people as efficiently as possible at minimum cost. Commuter rail linking cities to their suburbs is known to do that and could be improved. A Boston-Atlanta high-speed corridor is of less-certain value.

But fine, do both. How many people does the OP think are going to ride this new system? Enough to justify the very considerable expense? We’re lacking in data, here. Meantime, there are individual sections of highway around the U.S. that are daily parking lots with intra-city commuter traffic. If the goal is to alleviate jams, reduce pollution, etc. why not start there?

62

A few years ago there were plans to build this kind of system between Miami and Orlando. I thought it was a brilliant plan; there’s quite a bit of local travel between the two and would link two major tourist centers with a half hour commute. It got a ballot initiative which passed and I figured it would take a decade to build but it would happen.

And then another group ran a campaign against the cost of the train, got a ballot initiative to repeal the first one listed and that passed. As far as I know (I’ve moved from Florida) the plan’s gone away.

Convincing voters to invest in infrastructure like this is hard even when the logic is obvious.

63

Advantages against cars and buses:
[ul]
[li]Speed. Average speed well over 100 mph.[/li][li]Safety. The Japanese Shinkansen system has had zero passenger fatalities since it went operational in 1964. [/li][li]Passenger comfort. No need to drive, no need to stay seated.[/li][li](cars only) Open to everyone, even those who cannot afford a car or cannot/shouldn’t drive (disabled, underage, intoxicated, sleep deprived, etc).[/li][li]Does not rely on fossil fuels. Can be run on “green” electricity.[/li][li]Reliability. No traffic jams.[/li][li]Can be easily scaled up to meet demand (i.e. run trains more frequently)[/li][/ul]

Against airlines:
[ul]
[li]Far more reliable (weather delays are extremely rare, equipment problems are also less common)[/li][li]More energy efficient[/li][li]Less strict security checks[/li][li]Affected less by fuel prices, not dependent on fossil fuels[/li][li]More frequent runs, mostly because trains are not point-to-point [/li][li]Safety[/li][li]Train station can be built downtown[/li][li]Less pressure to fill all seats (mostly because of lower energy use/cost), so ticket sales can be simplified - less need for tiered pricing, advance ticket purchases, etc. [/li][li]Comfort - no need for seatbelts, no inner-ear problems, can get up and walk around any time[/li][li]Better scenery[/li][li]Less restrictions on luggage size, weight, etc[/li][/ul]

Against current trains:
[ul]
[li]Speed.[/li][li]Reliability. (Passenger trains get priority over freight trains, or exclusive use of tracks.)[/li][li]Safety. (High-speed rail means no level crossings.)[/li][/ul]

64

FWIW, a friend on LJ linked me to this: http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/

65

Yet for some reason there’s still a Florida High-Speed Rail Authority.

IMO, this thing will get built when Florida has a state income tax, not before. Yet another reason we need one.

66

Well, that’s not exactly what the OP is talking about. The Northeast already has plenty of commuter rail of the type that the railrunner represents.

How is the railrunner progressing in terms of ridership? When I was there in December it seemed like it was slow going in terms of gaining ridership.

67

There is a ballot initiative this fall to provide $9.8 billion in bonds to start funding this thing. I would love it.

Edit: I dont’ mena start funding this thing, but to get this moving more toward reality and less in the planning stage.

68

:confused: The proposed route runs from San Diego to Sacramento – linking LA, but bypassing San Francisco!

69

I don’t agree with this one. Granted, you cannot always get a window seat on a plane, but when you do, there is nothing like watching the incredible detail of cities and landscapes from several miles in the air, even given that there will be cloud cover for on average half your flight. What’s more, trains would most likely run through mostly the least congested, flattest parts of the land, which is by my books the most boring stuff to look at. And when they pass through cities, you’d likely see that from a plane as well, as that is when they are likely to be low for takeoff and landing.

(Then again, I haven’t even ridden a travelling train so that’s just my guess.)

70

No the route would cross through the Altamont Pass or some other yet to be determined route, to San Francisco

71

That’s a big one. Say a train can go from Downtown LA to Downtown SF in 2 hours. Currently Downtown LA to Downtown SF is at least 4 hours but more likely 5 or 6. That’s a big improvement in lost time, which is a big deal to businesspeople.

72

That’s always kind of a pain in the ass. Transit has to choose between Oakland/SF/SJ, which is the region’s hub, and Sacramento, which has that whole pesky state government thing. Plus land is still available on the way to Sac, not so much in the Bay. I suppose you could terminate in Oakland*, therefore saving yourself a water crossing, but you kind of paint yourself into a corner if you want to expand toward Sac or Reno. As much as I would love to see SF/Oak as a hub, it’d probably be better off as a spur, much like I580 spurs from I5.

*-Oakland is essentially SF, as far as large-scale transit in concerned. Unless you live right next to one of them, most people barely remember if they’re flying out of SFO or OAK until the morning they leave. They’re equally (in)convenient to most people.

73

Current plans are to build SF-LA first, then run a Sacramento branch splitting off north of Fresno.

It’s shown best in the interactive map here; one can select starting and ending points and see estimated cost and travel time. So, for example, LA-SF (432 miles) would take 2 hours 38 minutes and cost $55 one-way (compared to estimated costs of $120 flying or $68 driving, using 2006 fuel prices).

There’s been a great deal of debate about the alignment for crossing from the Central Valley to the Bay Area, but Pacheco Pass now seems the most likely candidate. The HSR would then follow the Caltrain right-of-way from Gilroy, through San Jose, and up the Peninsula to SF. The Caltrain tracks would be upgraded and electrified as part of the HSR deal, which would greatly improve commuter service and give a bigger “bang for the buck”. The Sierra Club opposes the Pacheco alignment, but it’s shorter than the Altamont way, should be cheaper and faster, and puts San Jose on the main HSR line (which Altamont wouldn’t). There are pros and cons each way, but Pacheco is now the clear “Plan A” .

74

Although I agree with you that West Coast and East Coast lines should be built (West Coast first, as a test case), I think that you’re making the lines longer than they ought to be to start with.

High-speed rail (HSR) really comes into its own for trip lengths of about 100-400 miles (currently – as fuel costs rise, the upper limit grows):[ul]
[li]Below 100 miles, the time savings of HSR don’t easily compete with the lower cost and flexibility of other local transportation (regular commuter rail, subways, light rail, buses, and the omnipresent automobile). [Although some <100mi intermediate trips like San Francisco-San Jose would benefit from HSR, they aren’t a sufficient driving force for implementation of HSR].[/li][li]Above ~400 miles (between “viable revenue points”), air travel starts to win on time alone. This is why no serious plans are made for US transcontinental rail travel as a primary source of revenue. [The same is true in Europe: although Spain’s HSR network will soon connect to those of France – and hence Germany – it’s not because they want to capture that elusive Seville-Berlin market. Each “local” network stands on its own merits, and that’s how it should be in the USA.][/li][/ul]West Coast Line:
San Francisco and LA are just about the ideal “city pair” for HSR in the US. The current Bay Area - Greater LA air corridor is one of the busiest in the nation, and SFO is one of the most weather-delay-plagued airports. Current plans to expand SFO and LAX run of the order of ~$10 billion apiece. Experience in Europe has shown that up to 50% of the point-to-point air traffic on HSR-amenable corridors can be taken over by rail, which means that SFO/LAX airport expansion may not even be necessary if HSR is put in. Since the California HSR project is estimated to cost ~$40 billion in total, half of that money should be available just by not expanding those two airports.

An important factor in choosing the SF Bay Area <-> LA Basin route for the USA’s first true HSR is that, although local rail throughout California is experiencing great success (BART and Caltrain in the SF Bay Area, MTA and Metrolink in the LA basin, and the Trolley and the COASTER in San Diego are all doing very well, as are Amtrak’s Capitol Corridor and San Diegan services), there is currently no longer-distance HSR to link them together. The success of the local rail lines does show that even Californians will renounce their cars if a suitable rail alternative exists.

Although there are good cases to be made for “SF-LA” and “Sacramento-LA” HSR routes as shown here, it’s much harder to make the case for HSR north of Sacramento. The next “HSR-worthy” city would be Portland OR (637 track miles North of Sac), which would also involve a crossing of the Cascades – which would be very expensive. There may be a case for HSR in the Vancouver - Seattle - Portland - (Eugene/Springfield) axis, but the density on that route would be much less than in the case of California HSR. IMHO, put it on the back burner.

East Coast Line:
Although the Northeast Corridor (NEC) has the densest linear population in the US, and a proven track record ( :wink: ) of rail usage, there are a few reasons why, IMHO, it should not be the first true HSR in the US:[ul]
[li]It already has the Acela Express service, which covers the 225 miles between Washington DC and New York City in 2hours 45 minutes (i.e. ~82mph average). How much faster could one realistically make HSR over that distance, for a given number of billions of dollars?[/li][li]Because the NEC is so built-up over almost its entire length, acquisition of any further land for the railroad is very expensive. [Of course, land is also expensive in SF and LA, but the land between DC and NYC is much more expensive than in California’s Central Valley.][/li][li]The NEC runs through several states, so (as Zebra found), even the Acela Express stops several times between DC and NYC (the fewest number of intermediate stops that I see in the schedule is four). In California, it would be quite acceptable for some trains to be SF-LA nonstop (or at least San Jose-LA nonstop), since California has no intermediate stops equivalent to Baltimore or Philadelphia.[/ul][/li]
DC-Atlanta is 634 track miles, which is currently considerably beyond the range for which HSR competes well with air travel. There’s Charlotte enroute of course, but it’s hard to see that this portion of an HSR network would be justified under current conditions.

Conclusion: FUND and BUILD California HSR ASAP, PLAN for the others. (IMHO)

75

Seems sensible to me. A lot of my concerns about land price driving costs of building the system out of the economic range seem to be addressed with your suggestion. The problem I see then is that it would have to be a Federal program - no matter how wealthy California might be, it seems unlikely to be something that they could fund out of their own purse.

At which point the challenge is selling that to the rest of the nation. Not impossible, but a challenge all the same.

Compared to some expensive publicly funded projects, I think a California HSR line would be a much better investment. But the ticket price is high enough that there’s going to be a lot of resistance to the idea.

76

Against ANY trains:

Inflexibility.
Unpredictability of Demand
Unintended Consequences of Central Planning

This is perhaps the biggest problem at all with train engineering - knowing where the tracks should go, and how much money to spend on them. The highway system is flexible - it’s a mesh of roadways which can handle dramatic changes in demand patterns. Some rail lines make sense - long haul freight lines from one end of a continent to another, for example. These have been built. Freight needs tend to be be relatively stable over long distances - there will always be a need to move large tonnages of material from one side of a continent to another.

But when you start looking at ‘planning’ the movements of people from city to city, you’re going to find yourself spending billions of rail lines that are under-utilized and losing money.

Just for yucks, go look up the local airport in your city and see if you can find out how often the flight schedules change and destinations change. One year you’ll have direct flights to Miami. Another year you won’t. Commuter airlines come and go. Their destination cities change constantly. And why? Because demand changes constantly. All it takes is for a large corporation to open a big facility in a city, and suddenly you have a constant flow people to and from that city and head office. A tourist destination can become passe’ and lose half its visitors.

Airlines can reschedule and shift flights as demand shifts. The interstate highway system allows flexible changes in demand in endless combination.

But if you built a 20 billion dollar rail line between two cities, you’d better hope that people continue to have a reason to travel between those cities.

This isn’t a trivial issue. Did you know that architects have trouble designing where sidewalks should go on a university campus? They can put all the scientific analysis of traffic patterns of students into as many computers as they want, and in the end the students will decide where they want to walk. And all it takes is for a popular class to open in a certain building, and suddenly all those scientifically planned sidewalk systems are useless.

One architect did it the smart way - rather than try to predict where the students wanted to go, he first planted nothing but grass around the campus, then waited until the grass was worn down in paths. Then he put sidewalks in where the grass was worn. This would be the equivalent of letting the market drive the decision rather than attempting to impose it from the top down. But of course, there’s nothing to stop the traffic patterns from changing again as the nature of the student body changes. So some universities and colleges compromise by paving the entire quad areas, or putting in so many sidewalks in overlapping patterns that you’re always close to one. You can’t do that with train tracks.

77

I’ll just check that out on my five million vacuumtubed,city block sized,state of the art computer.
I should be able to get the tape punched out sometime today and the answer will be with you in a few days at the worst.

78

I think you raise an interesting point. That said, its kind of silly to suppose that all of a sudden people wont want to travel between Boston, NY or Philly, for example. They have been major cities for 300+ years. If something happens that makes the need to travel between major cities go away we probably have bigger problems on our hands than some underused train lines.

79

I’m not sure I get your point. The rail system and the highway system are both networks, allowing for travel between any two points on the network. A rail line between two cities is just as flexible (or just as inflexible) as a freeway between those two cities.

80

Ever drive 95 on a holiday weekend? You better believe I’d take rail. Hell, I live in Columbia, my parents live part time in Fernandina Beach, which is near Jacksonville, and I’d be happy to drive to Charlotte or Charleston, leave my car, and take the train to St. Mary’s or Jacksonville and pick up a rental car. 95 is a mess and a horror and you can’t tell me people wouldn’t take the train.