Thank you for supporting my position. Look at the distances involved: Boston to NYC - a little over 200 miles (about 3:30 on the Acela), NYC to DC - about 225 miles (about 3 hours on the Acela). The train costs about the same as air. That scenario is just about where I would expect to see people trade-in the airlines for the train.
In CA we are talking about 400 miles - roughly the same distance from Boston to Washington, but without all the intermediate large cities where many paying customers will get on and off: Baltimore, Philadelphia, Providence, New Haven, etc. and no mountain ranges. We’ve got San Jose (a large city), Merced, Fresno, Bakersfield, Palmdale as intermediate stops. All these stops and the two mountain ranges add time to the journey.
If the CA HSR train is able to connect SF and LA in about 3 hours - I can see people may opt for it over airlines. I am having trouble with this point in particular - I don’t see people trading air travel from SF to LA for the train if it will take much longer than 3 hours, and I have not seen any evidence that the CA HSR can do that. I don’t think the train will be that “something better” than the airlines.
Wait, you are losing me. There still are thriving air shuttle services between Boston, New York City and Washington D.C. and vice versa. I take them all the time and they run constantly (about every hour and sometimes more often than that) on many different airlines. There are also surprisingly economical semi-luxury buses to serve the budget crowd. The Accela trains found a semi-successful niche between those two choices but it is hardly dominant for travel choices between Boston and anywhere else. That is as close to a best-case scenario as you will find in the U.S. and the planes and buses still have a large if not dominant market share on those routes (especially the Boston to Washington route).
The Acela isn’t really comparable to a full high speed rail system. It has an average speed of only 70mph, shares tracks with freight and standard trains, and much of the infrastructure it runs on is very old. It’s surprising it does well at all, given those compromises.
A real HSR service would be an entirely different beast.
I may have missed it, as I have not read the whole thread, but aren’t the consequences of burning all that fossil fuel more costly than anything else could ever be?
The Acela is the closest the U.S. has to high-speed rail at the moment, but it’s far from state-of-the-art. It’s still constrained by track capacity and geometry. Looking at Amtrak’s long-term vision for the northeast, Boston to New York City is 214 minutes, but could be 94 minutes by 2040. That’s with next-generation trains and a new, dedicated right-of-way. Less ambitious would be the plan by 2025, NYC to Washington in 132 minutes (currently 160) with improvements to the current track.
In terms of distance, San Fran to L.A. looks to be roughly comparable to Paris to Frankfurt. The TGV makes that journey in 3:48.
The northeast air shuttles still exist, but are not thriving like they once did. Delta and US Airways still offer hourly service, but with smaller planes than they used to have on those routes.
High-speed rail may be a worthwhile project, or it may not. The Acela is an interesting case study in showing that Americans will ride passenger trains if they provide a service that’s competitive with other modes of transport, but it doesn’t define the technology and travel times that a new system in California might achieve.
Someone upthread said that highway construction happened at a time when cars were in ascendance in terms of popularity. That may be true, but I think it’s also true that the conditions under which high-speed rail is feasible (densely populated urban corridors) are becoming more prevalent. If we don’t build it now, we’d be smart to at least lay the groundwork for an era in which we do.
I think you’re missing the point. If there are a lot of stops in short distances then the savings in time will be minimal yet the cost of the trip goes up. The United States differs greatly from countries that have high speed rail in that cities are spread out over a larger area and have changed radically over the last half of the 20th century.
We use to have high speed interurbans 100 years ago that moved from town to town at very high speeds and it made sense. That’s where the jobs were. Now those jobs have followed the highway system away from town. They’re scattered all over the place. So there isn’t a train clientele looking for a solution. The California bay area might benefit from some kind of additional train routes and the LA basin might benefit. But not necessarily LAX to SFO.
My state looked at it and determined it would be a money bit. A bridge to nowhere if you will. So we passed on the money.
Fair enough. I was objecting to WillFarnaby basically saying that on principle it was a bad idea not to let the free market decide over transit routes. That’s asinine.
You keep using that word… I do not think it means what you think it means. (“Waste”)
Nobody is promoting HSR in Wyoming or Alaska. It doesn’t make sense there. But the areas of California that were once distant highway outposts are increasingly urbanizing. Fresno is a metro area of a million people. Bakersfield has 800,000. Merced has a university. I don’t think the Central Valley is going to become a megalopolis or anything. But it’s changed since we were kids.
It was me, but depending on what you mean by “densely populated urban corridors,” I don’t think think that’s quite accurate. The country is urbanizing, but everything I’ve read indicates that the growth is mostly in 1) medium-sized cities (e.g. Charlotte NC) which are not big enough to support HSR, 2) Western cities like Houston and Dallas, that are very auto-centric, and above all, 3) in suburbs and exurbs instead of in downtown areas. And it’s not just residential growth – companies are foregoing the downtown skyscrapers in favor of suburban and exurban campuses and office parks.
A train that goes from downtown LA to downtown SF in 3 hours is great if you are an urbanite that lives downtown and you’re travelling to a downtown destination. But that isn’t who most people are, nor where they need to go.
They could always do it similar to Boston. The Acela starts at South Station downtown. (Boston does have a lot of residents downtown, and one subway line goes through the station so it’s an easy transfer.) There’s also a stop at Route 128 (the ring road around Boston) with a big parking garage so it’s a good option for folks from the suburbs.
It’s worth pointing out that Logan airport is very close to downtown and is almost as easy to get to as South Station. So even on an equal footing (in terms of ease of access to the home station) lots of people will choose to ride the train.
I think the destination end of the journey might make more of a difference. If I go to New York City, I’d rather not have my car with me. I’ve been to L.A. and San Fran, but don’t know either very well. If I were to fly in and rent a car at the airport, or take the train and rent a car at the station, it wouldn’t make much difference to me.
A lot depends on the details; where I’m coming from, where I’m going, ease of access and facilities at the train station vs. the airport, etc. I just don’t think that suburban living is an open-and-shut case against high-speed rail.
It’s not open and shut, but it complicates it considerably. The stop at Rt. 128 is helpful if you live in the Southwest suburbs, but if you live or work on the North or West sides, it’s still gonna take you 15-60 minutes to get there, and you probably have to pay to park; and as you note, that’s the easy part, and where it gets complicated is what you do when your destination is not downtown Manhattan, but Yonkers or Paterson or Staten Island. The people that get excited about “LA to SF in 3 hours!” aren’t dealing with those kinds of real-world calculations.
Airports have the same challenges – worse – but passenger planes travel 500-600 mph, and that makes up for all the downsides: the time wasted getting to and from the airport, standing in line, and all the inflexibility about scheduling, the baggage limits, the sitting next to a stranger, the claustrophobia, etc.
HSR has most all the same disadvantages as air, the cost is pretty comparable … but it only goes 200 mph.
Here’s some recent news on the CA HSR project - they are tapping funding from Cap and Trade proceeds:
Hanford Sentinal Seth Nidiver:
*The state budget deal Sunday to shift $250 million in cap-and-trade funds to high-speed rail cheered supporters and brought a fresh round of criticism from detractors of the controversial plan.
On the California High Speed Rail Blog, www.cahsrblog.com, supporters of the $68 billion project to connect the Bay Area and Los Angeles suggested the dedicated funding source could be used to leverage loans or private funding necessary to get the $31 billion initial Merced-to-Burbank section built.*
It’s not like flying at all. When I’m flying, I stand in three separate long lines just to get on the plane. I show my documents five times. I have many long stretches where I am away from email access, often including the flight itself. And when I am able to finally crack open my laptop, it’s probably balanced on my knees in a loud, crowded, uncomfortable airport lounge. Basically, if I am taking a two hour flight, I am out of touch and not working for three hours. Flying is a slog.
When I catch the Acela, I show my ticket, get on the train, settle in to my seat, open my tray table, fire up my laptop and work until I get to my destination. No need to hang around in the station an hour beforehand. No waiting for 10,000 feet for my laptop. Rarely any lines, and definitely not long ones. And very little disruption to work. It’s like working from a coffee shop that’s moving.
Nor are train seats anywhere near as cramped as airlines. It’s not at all comparable. They are much wider and have much more legroom, and the tray tables are large and can be used the entire trip. Usually there are 4-seaters around tables for groups and families. And you can get up at any time- any time- to go to the lounge car, which is outfitted with comfy seats and big windows.
I agree that it will be corridors like you describe in California but realistically it has to stop at all manner of stations for it to be useful. Thus killeth the ability to run at high speeds. Think elevators. In really tall buildings they have express elevators that go to the top third and those that go to the first 1/3 and middle third of the building. But not all three. It takes too long to do it all.
So that leaves long routes that would benefit from HSR. It can’t be built on current tracks because the local routes are needed. So a whole new track system is required costing boat loads of money. Who is going to ride on this train? It needs to provide a financial value not served by planes, buses or cars. In most cases these requirements are not met which means the clientele is is not there.
I’ll take the occasional ride on it because I like trains but it would be few and far between.
Yes or no, depending on your definition of high-speed. I’ve been on the Acela.
In other words, as I said, it has most all of the same disadvantages that flying does vis-a-vis, though some of them aren’t quite so bad. It’s the same structural model.
I must arrange your travel significantly ahead of time. Acela is better at this, but you can’t just assume you can leave on a whim.
I must be at the designated departure point at the designated time. No last-minute “I need five more minutes,” no allowing for traffic, etc. Of course, it could be delayed for reasons I have no knowledge of or control over.
How I get to said departure point is my problem, and may or may not be an expensive and/or time-consuming one.
I will sit in a chair next to a stranger for several hours. Aisle or window, pick one. I’ve never yet seen the limited number of booths in the dining car unoccupied anytime other than late at night.
I can get up and walk around the cabin a bit, but I can’t change my plans and take a sudden diversion.
I can’t go get some fresh air.
I can use a closet-sized toilet.
I can only eat the mediocre food they offer, or on Acela, sell at wildly inflated prices, or what I packed onboard.
I have limited amount of baggage I can bring.
They will deposit me at their terminal, and after that I am on my own to figure out how to get to my actual destination. This may involve learning the transit system of a new city, hiring a cab of questionable trustworthiness, and/or walking some distance carrying heavy luggage.
On the other hand, unlike a car, I am free to use my time and energy as I see fit.
Both are faster than driving if the distance is over about 200 miles.
Both likely cost more than driving would.
Neither has any resemblance whatsoever to any coffeeshop I would patronize. For one, they both have shitty coffee.
IOW, they are largely similar experiences, and they will in fact compete for the same customers; the differences between them pale in comparison to the differences between either and the experience of driving one’s own car.
I agree that the unproductive fifteen minutes between departing the gate and reaching 10,000 feet can be aggravating … but considering the plane will get you there an hour or two earlier, ISTM you’re still ahead on the deal.
That’s not completely true thinking your statement through again. Under the stimulus act the Federal government threw the money up for grabs without any specific project in mind. It was up to the states to create a project. My state looked at it and rejected it. Sadly, the money offered just went back into the pot as if it was mandatory to spend it. This goes on in government spending all the time. There’s a use-it-or-lose-it policy which goes further by taking it out of budgets the following year. So if a department does something that saves money on a one-time basis they’re penalized if the money is actually saved.
The wisest choice for the future of passenger rail is high-speed freight. New tracks out of cities and small towns will have a huge benefit for all shipping and commerce. Existing tracks can be upgraded and dedicated to passenger service where it’s needed most. The slowdown at crossings will be a difficult problem to solve, but is doable. As for frequent stops at smaller stations, Europeans seem to cope just fine.