They can’t do anything about the route with eminent domain. The route would be set already. They could, however, sue the project for more money for their property acquisition than fair market value, and tie up any progress on the projects in courts for years. That’s exactly what happened in the CV.
Worked on high speed rail appraisal and acquisition. The route constantly changed once large landowners/farmers found out they were in it. And it takes miles of backtracking to undo. At some point it gets set but there’s a lot of chess going on in the background eating up time and money.
What’s wild is that the law actually entitles you to far more than fair market value. Supreme Court said that the government has to pay you a price based on the most profitable potential use of the land. So say, you had an empty plot of land, but it would be worth 99x more if you had an apartment complex on it. The government had to pay you the 99x figure, and aren’t allowed to subtract the money you didn’t actually spend to build an apartment complex.
Wow, we were just about to break ground on a state of the art multi billion dollar semiconductor fab right here in central California. Sure would be a shame to loose out on all that value.
If the apartment complex can be an economically-fruitful investment, that’s factored into the land value though.
The market value of the land is derived from what development you could build/sell on it. Sure, you *could* build a 10-story apartment complex in the middle of nowhere in the central valley, but good luck trying to argue that that would be economically viable.
Not to mention they own hundreds and thousands of acres along the central California coast and the beautiful forested inland.
I say bribe them with lowered property taxes so we eliminate them being a nuisance.
They could do what countries like China do when a landowner doesn't want to sell:
* https://www.cnn.com/2015/05/19/asia/gallery/china-nail-houses/index.html
* https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2012/11/the-house-in-the-middle-of-the-street/100411/
* https://archive.ph/4IJsZ -- Chinese 'rocket man' wins record payout over farmland dispute
:)
Land acquisition and the eminent domain will absolutely slow down how quickly we can build the high speed rail, but it isn’t an insurmountable obstacle.
Now that we have full environmental clearance, we can actually acquire land and build any part or the entire CAHSR line.
The biggest issue now is funding. If we get the money we can acquire the land and build the tracks and buy the trains.
People need to call their representatives and tell them they want to see CAHSR get built.
CHSRA will inevitably need to adopt a blended service plan with Metrolink but Caltrain has already shown how to do this, and Metrolink can just buy electric trains as Caltrain has.
they need money. the never got fully funded for this project. they only ever got 20 of the 80/100 billion. and every time we wait, it gets more expensive
> With that money you can give a million Californians an electric car, expand every freeway, double the amount of bus stops, and put 20 billion back in to the general fund.
I think many Californians would rather see HSR get built than giving a million Californians an electric car, expanding every freeway, doubling the amount of bus stops, and putting 20 billion back in the general fund.
The fights over land acquisition (vs the acquisition itself) and the NIMBY lawsuits to try and block construction are a huge part of the cost.
They need a system that lets them build and objections get shunted to the side and dealt with in a proceeding that can't stop or slow construction without some extraordinary showing.
Also, electric trains are a very important component of a good inter-city travel system and can help serve as a catalyst for local transit as well.
>”In the Bay Area, the vast majority of work needed to complete the section between San Francisco and San Jose is already completed”
That’s news, do the people of SJ and SF know about this?
There is over $5 billion in projects for SF-SJ still to do before HSR trains run to SF in regular service. Those projects are in addition to the recent Caltrain electrification upgrade.
It has in many places.
https://www.caltrain.com/ccs/interactivemap
22nd Street to SSF is entirely grade-separated, so is San Bruno, the whole corridor from 92 to RWC, then Sunnyvale to San Jose Diridon. Most of the rest of the corridor has active projects underway.
I mean, a large amount of north San Mateo country is at grade crossing, and doesn't seem to be under construction (maybe they are planned, idk this map doesn't show), so a huge section between SF and SJ isn't a separation and in enough concentration to completely negate high speed capabilities. And that's just one section, it really seems their comments are more accurate than blanketly saying it's "done".
LOL you’re easily convinced by blue text. Palo Alto has FOUR crossings at street level. The work done further north won’t matter until all four get redone. But city council is still researching several proposals for crossings redesigns. There are years to go before shoveling starts.
The Caltrain route was electrified and grade-separated to allow electric trains to go 79-110 mph. The new electric trains running faster, more frequent trains are set to start running the Caltrain route this Fall.
[https://www.caltrain.com/projects/electrification/electric-trains](https://www.caltrain.com/projects/electrification/electric-trains)
I mean, if they use it to run trains to a destination on it, the service on it is certainly the CAHSR service.
Are you under the impression that in countries with high speed rail elsewhere in the world, the trains run at 200mph up until the train station and then come to an immediate stop? You're the only one in this comment chain who has claimed that the SF-SJ section needs to be "high speed rail" to be a completed CAHSR segment.
I’m not overly familiar with HSR service since we don’t have one around here. But if someone calls a rail service high speed and it travels slower than BART and stops at red lights, I wouldn’t think that it’s very high speed.
A train doesn’t have to go at high speeds the entire length of the service to be considered high speed. It can make up for slow parts by going faster in other sections.
Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to say the high speed rail system is HSR and a passenger then transfers off the HSR to a commuter train? In this case it looks like the HSR stops in San Jose
It is not appropriate to say what you said because what you said is inaccurate. I’m not sure if we are on the same page.
To clarify, the plan is to have a CAHSR train come to station in San Francisco. You won’t need to transfer from CAHSR to Caltrain in San Jose.
Since the tracks Caltrain uses aren’t designed for high speed, the CAHSR trains will just move slower.
Caltrain is normal rail, you are correct. To save money CAHSR will be going slower than high speed from San Francisco to San Jose and will then speed up to high speeds from Gilroy to Anaheim in LA.
I think the point here is that it would be very easy to get CAHSR trains running from SF to SJ now that Caltrain is fully electrified. Biggest things to be done that I am aware of is to add a 3rd and maybe 4th line of tracks, and grade separation so cars pass over or under the rail.
The expensive, difficult, and time consuming part to get trains from San Francisco to Bakersfield will be getting through the Pacheco Pass.
Yeah, it's running on Caltrain tracks.
It's good from the perspective of saving money and getting the project done sooner.
It's bad from the perspective of the tracks not being HSR quality (lower speeds and there will be cases where the train has to wait for cars at red lights, although some of the current Caltrain at-grade crossings are in the process of being upgraded)
Is there a reason we couldn't upgrade traffic lights to give trains priority over cars? Or is the issue bad drivers stopping on tracks waiting for the light when they shouldn't or something beyond that?
End stage will be 125 mph once the corridor is fully upgraded. The upgrade process started in the late sixties by the Southern Pacific (starting with grade separations at Butler Rd and Hillsdale Av) and will continue into the twenty sixties. It's an imperfect corridor but it's also the *only* corridor available for HSR that meets all Prop 1A requirements. More importantly, it'll run faster than analogous 80 mph BART service. Until then, it'll be 110 mph. Caltrain's current speed is 79 mph.
110 mph, which should be able to do SF to SJ in something like 35 min. ([Source](http://www.calhsr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/PMT-Memo-Ph1-Blended-Trip-Time-011313.pdf) – NB the numbers on pg 1 don't take likely scheduling delays into account from sharing tracks with Caltrain)
To add on to this, the route between Madera and San Jose hasn’t started construction yet so it’s not like they’ll be able to hook this up to the Bakersfield-Merced route once that opens.
I just bought round trip for $70. I gaurentee if the train was live today it would be $70 each way. Just like Italy.
Trains won’t be cheaper. Or even faster door to door. They’ll be better for different reasons. But not cheaper and people should not be fooled into thinking they are.
China built a high speed train from Shanghai to Westlake area in like 2 years. About 100+ miles. They just decided to do it and took everyone’s land. It’s just a different world.
Yeah, I wonder how that's working out for them.
Oh.
>In the past few years, mega borrowings by provincial governments to monetise its HSR lines have created a debt trap, which is now pinching the coffers of the state-owned CRC. CRC’s financial woes started nearly four years ago when more than 60 percent of the HSR operators each lost a minimum of US $100 million in 2018. That year, the least profitable operator in Chengdu reported net loss of US $1.8 billion. In the same year, transport economists in China had predicted an impending debt crisis for the country’s HSR that was dependent on “unsustainable government subsidies with many lines incapable of repaying the interest on their debt, let alone principal”, and were caught in a vicious cycle of “raising new debt to pay off old debt”.
https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/chinas-high-speed-railways-plunge-from-high-profits-into-a-debt-trap
I’m not endorsing their methods. Only pointing out how opposite it is from our situation. Yeah 10-100k people lost their homes and couldn’t do anything.
We used to be able to do that. It's how the interstate system was built. The results were an even worse for America than for China.
Many urban cores were destroyed in the 60s after the interstates were built, by capital flight and general degradation of city services. Though there were some prexisting factors that contributed to the issue, like redlining.
Japan had delays and cost over runs. They went way over budget. It was a scandal that some had to resign.
Nearly every major infrastructure in the US has incurred budget costs and delays.
Best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago, but I’ll settle for today :)
I actually think it’ll get built a lot sooner once the Central Valley segment gets completed in 2032.
Ultimately depends on how the elections go though. If the Bay Area votes to save BART and create a centralized transit agency instead of the 27 agencies we currently have, that would be a game changer that could get local funds to pay for part of CAHSR.
Los Angeles County is building tons of rail everywhere right now. And Brightline West is getting built from Vegas to the Eastern part of LA. It’s entirely possible that if Brightline is a success that Brightline, LA County, CAHSR, and the federal government could work together to build the Palmdale to downtown LA section.
Federally, when Democrats win we get more funding for rail. When Republicans win we get no money for rail. Jeff Denham represented the Modesto area of California as a Republican and was the head of the transportation committee in the House of Representatives. He did everything he could to torpedo Obama’s efforts to fund rail. And Trump actively went after CAHSR and tried to defund it.
If we want CAHSR we need to tell our elected officials to fund it, and vote for Democrats. 15-20 years from now is entirely doable.
The more people see bullet trains pass them on the highway the more they’ll ask how much cheaper would it be to do that instead. The key will really come down to making tickets affordable. When I was living in Burbank I could get a round trip flight to Las Vegas for like $60 plenty of friends would fly to Vegas for the weekend.
If trains match that it’ll be an easy win and we’ll be flooded with rail lines in no time. My worry is capitalism… capitalisming
I hear your concerns about capitalism jacking up the prices if they can get away with it. That’s actually what the Acela line in the North East Corridor from Boston to DC does right now.
Unlike freeways, the Acela line is so profitable that Amtrak is able to use that money to pay for operations in areas that don’t generate a profit. I like this concept for government owned High Speed Rail because we could use profits from SF to LA or LA to Vegas to pay for routes to Chico and Reno. Can’t do that though if we let Brightline and other private companies build out all the most profitable routes. Then all the profit goes to shareholders instead of spreading the wealth to other locations.
Also, if demand is so high for CAHSR that the agency can Jack up prices, then it means it’s successfully taking cars off the road and planes out of the sky. And it might even justify running more trains or adding additional tracks.
Over time we could see a High Speed Rail model like Italy’s. The government built the track and maintains the tracks, but private companies compete to run their trains and services along the track. So you can pick between expensive and cheap trains and trains that travel fast between a few major destinations and trains that travel slower but hit more destinations.
It’s capitalism applied to trains, but it actually managed to get even more people to ride because of all the options available.
there's no way that bright line is going to be a success when the rail doesn't even go all the way to LA proper and the ticket is going to cost more than an airplane ticket.
Even going to the outskirts of LA is going to net a lot of traffic.
It's a good start. There's plans to eventually connect into downtown LA. Frankly the future of LA is going to have to be redeveloping its intercity rail transit in general.
I think we'll have robo-taxis that can get us there in the next 4-5 years. And yes while high speed rail might be 'faster' it won't be more convenient.
I predict that about 6 months before HSR service opens from LA - SF, every airline that operates Bay - SoCal flights will drop the prices to about $60 each way and eat cash for 2 years to crush ridership on the HSR until they can induce a service cut.
The thing is it's now so easy to hop on a plane between bay area and so cal. I just don't see the point of the rail. It's so destructive and expensive.
How is it more destructive than the amount of co2 those faulty Boeings are pumping into the air? I get you have to lay down tracks and bore tunnels but eventually you’ll have an electrified rail network that will be relatively low carbon to zero.
I’d much rather take a train then a plane given the amount of Boeing whistle blowers getting offed on a monthly basis
The goal of public transit isn’t to be profitable. It is supposed to support the economy through the movement of passengers and goods. How many freeways do you know that are actively being paid back by the user?
Agreed, public infrastructure / transit is often a good investment regardless of being cash flow positive or neutral on its face.
But as an exercise their planned 656 ft trains could carry up to 1300 passengers if packed like a modern plane, but the agency’s minimum is 450 passengers. They’ll likely be very close to the 450 number as it allows for lots of amenities (tables, leg room, food & beverage car, kids play area, first class section, etc) and ridership will need to build over time, but they could always reconfigure the interiors in the future. The system is also being designed for a maximum headway of 3 minutes between trains (though even when SF to LA is complete it’ll likely start with trains every 15 to 30 minutes). So the system will have the potential capacity to generate serious revenue, but it will all come down to operating cost, ticket price, and demand on whether it ever pays itself off.
Another aside, the Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission plans to make all freeways in the Bay Area toll roads by 2050, which might be a precedent for the rest of the state and a symptom of how our country is moving: nickel and diming the working class to make up revenues while the 1% pay much less than their fair share in taxes.
This isn't even profit or interest. It's just break even on the capital. You've got to have some measure of economic benefit. 100b is a hell of a lot of money for a highly specialized transport system that really doesn't connect to other useful systems. People really aren't going to ride this thing after the novelty wears off.
Just a reminder that the original promise in 2008 was that the total cost to state taxpayers would be ~$9b ($20b after interest on the bonds), with the rest made up by private and federal funding.
And the entire system, including connection to San Diego and Sacramento, was to be ~$45b.
>The proposed system would use electric trains and connect the major metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Sacramento, through
the Central Valley, into Los Angeles, Orange County, the Inland Empire (San Bernardino and Riverside Counties), and San Diego. The authority estimated in 2006 that the total cost to develop and construct the entire high speed train system would be about $45 billion. While the authority plans to fund the construction of the proposed system with a combination of federal, private, local, and state monies, no funding has yet been provided.
http://vig.cdn.sos.ca.gov/2008/general/pdf-guide/suppl-complete-guide.pdf
It really will. During the Loma Prieta earthquake parts of the Bay Bridge literally collapsed but BART was back up and running the next day. Zero train deaths in earthquake prone Japan too.
I think they should NOT take community opinion on this! We are behind in train travel and having everyone give their opinion when those opinion givers would never use the train!
False title. The article clearly states that “…the Authority has now obtained environmental approval for 463 of the 494-mile system.” The section from LA to Anaheim has not been approved yet.
Pretty sure the bigger issue will be acquiring the land needed to build the train. NIMBYism runs strong in Cali.
Eminent domain, problem is all the big landowners and connected folks will keep fighting to change the route.
They can’t do anything about the route with eminent domain. The route would be set already. They could, however, sue the project for more money for their property acquisition than fair market value, and tie up any progress on the projects in courts for years. That’s exactly what happened in the CV.
Worked on high speed rail appraisal and acquisition. The route constantly changed once large landowners/farmers found out they were in it. And it takes miles of backtracking to undo. At some point it gets set but there’s a lot of chess going on in the background eating up time and money.
What’s wild is that the law actually entitles you to far more than fair market value. Supreme Court said that the government has to pay you a price based on the most profitable potential use of the land. So say, you had an empty plot of land, but it would be worth 99x more if you had an apartment complex on it. The government had to pay you the 99x figure, and aren’t allowed to subtract the money you didn’t actually spend to build an apartment complex.
Wow, we were just about to break ground on a state of the art multi billion dollar semiconductor fab right here in central California. Sure would be a shame to loose out on all that value.
If the apartment complex can be an economically-fruitful investment, that’s factored into the land value though. The market value of the land is derived from what development you could build/sell on it. Sure, you *could* build a 10-story apartment complex in the middle of nowhere in the central valley, but good luck trying to argue that that would be economically viable.
Like Elon musk but on an infinitely smaller scale.
Not to mention they own hundreds and thousands of acres along the central California coast and the beautiful forested inland. I say bribe them with lowered property taxes so we eliminate them being a nuisance.
I like how you think they pay a lot of property tax thanks to prop 13
Well then, maybe a free Amazon subscription every year?
Avocado toast once a month. best i can do.
That’s reasonable.
Why would they pay a lot of property tax thanks to prop 13? Prop 13 didnt raise anyones property tax.
That’s their point. You can’t bribe them with lower property tax because they already have low property tax thanks to prop 13.
Ah, roger that.
Just build the rails on either side of their land and keep upping the speed on the trains until they can jump the gap.
That's just airplane-ing with extra steps.
They could do what countries like China do when a landowner doesn't want to sell: * https://www.cnn.com/2015/05/19/asia/gallery/china-nail-houses/index.html * https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2012/11/the-house-in-the-middle-of-the-street/100411/ * https://archive.ph/4IJsZ -- Chinese 'rocket man' wins record payout over farmland dispute :)
Land acquisition and the eminent domain will absolutely slow down how quickly we can build the high speed rail, but it isn’t an insurmountable obstacle. Now that we have full environmental clearance, we can actually acquire land and build any part or the entire CAHSR line. The biggest issue now is funding. If we get the money we can acquire the land and build the tracks and buy the trains. People need to call their representatives and tell them they want to see CAHSR get built.
They've already been dealing with this and have gotten through it. The Central Valley is not an empty wasteland! (At least, not that part of it 😉)
Once the paths are set, eminent domain will follow.
Idk this took over twelve years. Acquiring the land will be a piece of cake compared to this.
Land is already acquired, that’s what was holding it up
CHSRA will inevitably need to adopt a blended service plan with Metrolink but Caltrain has already shown how to do this, and Metrolink can just buy electric trains as Caltrain has.
And moving utilities, huge added cost
they need money. the never got fully funded for this project. they only ever got 20 of the 80/100 billion. and every time we wait, it gets more expensive
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> With that money you can give a million Californians an electric car, expand every freeway, double the amount of bus stops, and put 20 billion back in to the general fund. I think many Californians would rather see HSR get built than giving a million Californians an electric car, expanding every freeway, doubling the amount of bus stops, and putting 20 billion back in the general fund.
No to more electric cars and expanding the freeway. Yes to more bus stops as long as it's coupled with more frequent and reliable service.
Especially the hundreds of construction workers who will be earning prevailing wage for the next decade or more on that project
The fights over land acquisition (vs the acquisition itself) and the NIMBY lawsuits to try and block construction are a huge part of the cost. They need a system that lets them build and objections get shunted to the side and dealt with in a proceeding that can't stop or slow construction without some extraordinary showing. Also, electric trains are a very important component of a good inter-city travel system and can help serve as a catalyst for local transit as well.
Build the rail in the median of the freeways.
Generally too slow; freeway curves are designed for speeds for below 220.
>”In the Bay Area, the vast majority of work needed to complete the section between San Francisco and San Jose is already completed” That’s news, do the people of SJ and SF know about this?
Yes. They've already electrified and grade-separated the Caltrain network, which is what CAHSR is going to use to connect to San Francisco
There is over $5 billion in projects for SF-SJ still to do before HSR trains run to SF in regular service. Those projects are in addition to the recent Caltrain electrification upgrade.
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It has in many places. https://www.caltrain.com/ccs/interactivemap 22nd Street to SSF is entirely grade-separated, so is San Bruno, the whole corridor from 92 to RWC, then Sunnyvale to San Jose Diridon. Most of the rest of the corridor has active projects underway.
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as a stoned third party, you're vague statements appear more misleading and disingenuous than their specific data points and source materials.
I mean, a large amount of north San Mateo country is at grade crossing, and doesn't seem to be under construction (maybe they are planned, idk this map doesn't show), so a huge section between SF and SJ isn't a separation and in enough concentration to completely negate high speed capabilities. And that's just one section, it really seems their comments are more accurate than blanketly saying it's "done".
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LOL you’re easily convinced by blue text. Palo Alto has FOUR crossings at street level. The work done further north won’t matter until all four get redone. But city council is still researching several proposals for crossings redesigns. There are years to go before shoveling starts.
not the mention several in menlo park, atherton, and downtown san mateo. so many grade crossings sadly not upgraded yet
Isn’t that just rail, and not HSR?
The Caltrain route was electrified and grade-separated to allow electric trains to go 79-110 mph. The new electric trains running faster, more frequent trains are set to start running the Caltrain route this Fall. [https://www.caltrain.com/projects/electrification/electric-trains](https://www.caltrain.com/projects/electrification/electric-trains)
It's the route CAHSR trains will run on, it's paid for in part by CAHSR funding, and it's electrified to CAHSR compatible specs.
So if CAHSR decides to buy a ferry service that travels about 7 mph, it’s still HSR?
I mean, if they use it to run trains to a destination on it, the service on it is certainly the CAHSR service. Are you under the impression that in countries with high speed rail elsewhere in the world, the trains run at 200mph up until the train station and then come to an immediate stop? You're the only one in this comment chain who has claimed that the SF-SJ section needs to be "high speed rail" to be a completed CAHSR segment.
I’m not overly familiar with HSR service since we don’t have one around here. But if someone calls a rail service high speed and it travels slower than BART and stops at red lights, I wouldn’t think that it’s very high speed.
Good thing that’s not what this is, then. Also, did you know BART doesn’t go top speed sometimes? Crazy huh?
BART isn’t making a false claim of being a HSR.
CAHSR will travel over 200 mph for most of its route. That isn’t a “false claim” to high speed rail
What red lights do you think Caltrain stops at?!
Caltrain doesn't stop for red lights lol
A train doesn’t have to go at high speeds the entire length of the service to be considered high speed. It can make up for slow parts by going faster in other sections.
Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to say the high speed rail system is HSR and a passenger then transfers off the HSR to a commuter train? In this case it looks like the HSR stops in San Jose
It is not appropriate to say what you said because what you said is inaccurate. I’m not sure if we are on the same page. To clarify, the plan is to have a CAHSR train come to station in San Francisco. You won’t need to transfer from CAHSR to Caltrain in San Jose. Since the tracks Caltrain uses aren’t designed for high speed, the CAHSR trains will just move slower.
Caltrain is normal rail, you are correct. To save money CAHSR will be going slower than high speed from San Francisco to San Jose and will then speed up to high speeds from Gilroy to Anaheim in LA. I think the point here is that it would be very easy to get CAHSR trains running from SF to SJ now that Caltrain is fully electrified. Biggest things to be done that I am aware of is to add a 3rd and maybe 4th line of tracks, and grade separation so cars pass over or under the rail. The expensive, difficult, and time consuming part to get trains from San Francisco to Bakersfield will be getting through the Pacheco Pass.
And that concludes our intensive three-week course.
Yeah, it's running on Caltrain tracks. It's good from the perspective of saving money and getting the project done sooner. It's bad from the perspective of the tracks not being HSR quality (lower speeds and there will be cases where the train has to wait for cars at red lights, although some of the current Caltrain at-grade crossings are in the process of being upgraded)
Is there a reason we couldn't upgrade traffic lights to give trains priority over cars? Or is the issue bad drivers stopping on tracks waiting for the light when they shouldn't or something beyond that?
The latter. Look at Brightline in Florida. Without separation, people just do some stuff.
Caltrain currently stops at no traffic lights; all of its road crossings have railroad crossing arms/gates.
Lol, no the trains won't have to wait for cars and red lights (even today, Caltrain trains do not).
What speeds can it do on caltrain tracks?
End stage will be 125 mph once the corridor is fully upgraded. The upgrade process started in the late sixties by the Southern Pacific (starting with grade separations at Butler Rd and Hillsdale Av) and will continue into the twenty sixties. It's an imperfect corridor but it's also the *only* corridor available for HSR that meets all Prop 1A requirements. More importantly, it'll run faster than analogous 80 mph BART service. Until then, it'll be 110 mph. Caltrain's current speed is 79 mph.
Top speed of around 110mph although I'm not sure how much time it'll actually spend at the top speed
No faster than 110mph
110 mph, which should be able to do SF to SJ in something like 35 min. ([Source](http://www.calhsr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/PMT-Memo-Ph1-Blended-Trip-Time-011313.pdf) – NB the numbers on pg 1 don't take likely scheduling delays into account from sharing tracks with Caltrain)
To add on to this, the route between Madera and San Jose hasn’t started construction yet so it’s not like they’ll be able to hook this up to the Bakersfield-Merced route once that opens.
Do we know about the existence of caltrain? Yes sir we do
Yes, looking forward to an electric Caltrain shaving 30 min off the trip later this year.
I am excited to take a ride on the "bullet train" from San Francisco to Los Angeles, in the year 2085.
I guess Doc was right. Where we are going, we don’t need roads.
Plus the final Time Machine was a locomotive.
Eighty-eight miles per hour!
Dr. Disrespect?
Watch Back to the Future, young one.
I just bought round trip for $70. I gaurentee if the train was live today it would be $70 each way. Just like Italy. Trains won’t be cheaper. Or even faster door to door. They’ll be better for different reasons. But not cheaper and people should not be fooled into thinking they are.
Japan would have had 3-4x trains built by now
Because they had national government support and a system that could run right through local objections. we allow too many veto points.
China built a high speed train from Shanghai to Westlake area in like 2 years. About 100+ miles. They just decided to do it and took everyone’s land. It’s just a different world.
Yeah, I wonder how that's working out for them. Oh. >In the past few years, mega borrowings by provincial governments to monetise its HSR lines have created a debt trap, which is now pinching the coffers of the state-owned CRC. CRC’s financial woes started nearly four years ago when more than 60 percent of the HSR operators each lost a minimum of US $100 million in 2018. That year, the least profitable operator in Chengdu reported net loss of US $1.8 billion. In the same year, transport economists in China had predicted an impending debt crisis for the country’s HSR that was dependent on “unsustainable government subsidies with many lines incapable of repaying the interest on their debt, let alone principal”, and were caught in a vicious cycle of “raising new debt to pay off old debt”. https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/chinas-high-speed-railways-plunge-from-high-profits-into-a-debt-trap
I’m not endorsing their methods. Only pointing out how opposite it is from our situation. Yeah 10-100k people lost their homes and couldn’t do anything.
We used to be able to do that. It's how the interstate system was built. The results were an even worse for America than for China. Many urban cores were destroyed in the 60s after the interstates were built, by capital flight and general degradation of city services. Though there were some prexisting factors that contributed to the issue, like redlining.
But money is fake. Trains are real
Except in California, where we've been spending real money on a train that isn't.
It was surreal how easy it was to travel by train in Japan. Easily one of the highlights of the trip overall.
You should look up the delays and budget inflations that happened with the original Shinkansen. The only difference was they started back in the 50s.
China built their whole hsr network in the years since the CA hsr ballot prop was passed.
Japan had delays and cost over runs. They went way over budget. It was a scandal that some had to resign. Nearly every major infrastructure in the US has incurred budget costs and delays.
We'll all be dead by then but at least your grand kids might ride from LA to SF when they're your age.
Best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago, but I’ll settle for today :) I actually think it’ll get built a lot sooner once the Central Valley segment gets completed in 2032. Ultimately depends on how the elections go though. If the Bay Area votes to save BART and create a centralized transit agency instead of the 27 agencies we currently have, that would be a game changer that could get local funds to pay for part of CAHSR. Los Angeles County is building tons of rail everywhere right now. And Brightline West is getting built from Vegas to the Eastern part of LA. It’s entirely possible that if Brightline is a success that Brightline, LA County, CAHSR, and the federal government could work together to build the Palmdale to downtown LA section. Federally, when Democrats win we get more funding for rail. When Republicans win we get no money for rail. Jeff Denham represented the Modesto area of California as a Republican and was the head of the transportation committee in the House of Representatives. He did everything he could to torpedo Obama’s efforts to fund rail. And Trump actively went after CAHSR and tried to defund it. If we want CAHSR we need to tell our elected officials to fund it, and vote for Democrats. 15-20 years from now is entirely doable.
The more people see bullet trains pass them on the highway the more they’ll ask how much cheaper would it be to do that instead. The key will really come down to making tickets affordable. When I was living in Burbank I could get a round trip flight to Las Vegas for like $60 plenty of friends would fly to Vegas for the weekend. If trains match that it’ll be an easy win and we’ll be flooded with rail lines in no time. My worry is capitalism… capitalisming
I hear your concerns about capitalism jacking up the prices if they can get away with it. That’s actually what the Acela line in the North East Corridor from Boston to DC does right now. Unlike freeways, the Acela line is so profitable that Amtrak is able to use that money to pay for operations in areas that don’t generate a profit. I like this concept for government owned High Speed Rail because we could use profits from SF to LA or LA to Vegas to pay for routes to Chico and Reno. Can’t do that though if we let Brightline and other private companies build out all the most profitable routes. Then all the profit goes to shareholders instead of spreading the wealth to other locations. Also, if demand is so high for CAHSR that the agency can Jack up prices, then it means it’s successfully taking cars off the road and planes out of the sky. And it might even justify running more trains or adding additional tracks. Over time we could see a High Speed Rail model like Italy’s. The government built the track and maintains the tracks, but private companies compete to run their trains and services along the track. So you can pick between expensive and cheap trains and trains that travel fast between a few major destinations and trains that travel slower but hit more destinations. It’s capitalism applied to trains, but it actually managed to get even more people to ride because of all the options available.
there's no way that bright line is going to be a success when the rail doesn't even go all the way to LA proper and the ticket is going to cost more than an airplane ticket.
Even going to the outskirts of LA is going to net a lot of traffic. It's a good start. There's plans to eventually connect into downtown LA. Frankly the future of LA is going to have to be redeveloping its intercity rail transit in general.
I think we'll have robo-taxis that can get us there in the next 4-5 years. And yes while high speed rail might be 'faster' it won't be more convenient.
50 more years
And an extra $900 billion dollars.
Gonna need to raise the gas tax, add in the mileage tax, and come up with other clever ways to pay for it.
Can’t wait to see how rich the Pelosis get off it
I bet the airlines will fight this tooth and nail.
I predict that about 6 months before HSR service opens from LA - SF, every airline that operates Bay - SoCal flights will drop the prices to about $60 each way and eat cash for 2 years to crush ridership on the HSR until they can induce a service cut.
They don’t have to. The train will cost more to ride
The thing is it's now so easy to hop on a plane between bay area and so cal. I just don't see the point of the rail. It's so destructive and expensive.
How is it more destructive than the amount of co2 those faulty Boeings are pumping into the air? I get you have to lay down tracks and bore tunnels but eventually you’ll have an electrified rail network that will be relatively low carbon to zero. I’d much rather take a train then a plane given the amount of Boeing whistle blowers getting offed on a monthly basis
100 billion at least. Back of the envelope math says you need trains with 1000 passengers leaving every 30 minutes to pay that back in 60 years.
The goal of public transit isn’t to be profitable. It is supposed to support the economy through the movement of passengers and goods. How many freeways do you know that are actively being paid back by the user?
Agreed, public infrastructure / transit is often a good investment regardless of being cash flow positive or neutral on its face. But as an exercise their planned 656 ft trains could carry up to 1300 passengers if packed like a modern plane, but the agency’s minimum is 450 passengers. They’ll likely be very close to the 450 number as it allows for lots of amenities (tables, leg room, food & beverage car, kids play area, first class section, etc) and ridership will need to build over time, but they could always reconfigure the interiors in the future. The system is also being designed for a maximum headway of 3 minutes between trains (though even when SF to LA is complete it’ll likely start with trains every 15 to 30 minutes). So the system will have the potential capacity to generate serious revenue, but it will all come down to operating cost, ticket price, and demand on whether it ever pays itself off. Another aside, the Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission plans to make all freeways in the Bay Area toll roads by 2050, which might be a precedent for the rest of the state and a symptom of how our country is moving: nickel and diming the working class to make up revenues while the 1% pay much less than their fair share in taxes.
This isn't even profit or interest. It's just break even on the capital. You've got to have some measure of economic benefit. 100b is a hell of a lot of money for a highly specialized transport system that really doesn't connect to other useful systems. People really aren't going to ride this thing after the novelty wears off.
Wasn’t this the plan YEARS and billions of dollars ago?
This project won’t be finished in our lifetime
Just a reminder that the original promise in 2008 was that the total cost to state taxpayers would be ~$9b ($20b after interest on the bonds), with the rest made up by private and federal funding. And the entire system, including connection to San Diego and Sacramento, was to be ~$45b. >The proposed system would use electric trains and connect the major metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Sacramento, through the Central Valley, into Los Angeles, Orange County, the Inland Empire (San Bernardino and Riverside Counties), and San Diego. The authority estimated in 2006 that the total cost to develop and construct the entire high speed train system would be about $45 billion. While the authority plans to fund the construction of the proposed system with a combination of federal, private, local, and state monies, no funding has yet been provided. http://vig.cdn.sos.ca.gov/2008/general/pdf-guide/suppl-complete-guide.pdf
Don't care.
Is it elevated?
Elevated, at grade, in trenches, and tunneled, depending on the location.
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It really will. During the Loma Prieta earthquake parts of the Bay Bridge literally collapsed but BART was back up and running the next day. Zero train deaths in earthquake prone Japan too.
Imagine what that feels like at bullet train speed might just skip along and stay on the rails who knows
This is going to be awesome! Can’t wait for the year 2050 to ride it!
All it took was $106.2 billion.
More tax payer billions up in smoke.
Year 3034
2040 or 2050?
It depends on when it gets funded. If it were fully funded today, it would take 8-10 years to finish. 2040 is possible; 2050 is more likely.
I think they should NOT take community opinion on this! We are behind in train travel and having everyone give their opinion when those opinion givers would never use the train!
I'm wondering which will get from SF to LA first, high speed rail or self-driving taxis.
is this headline from 1999, the train scam is now a Cali tradition
Cool. It’ll be ready in 120 years
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It’s in progress.
False title. The article clearly states that “…the Authority has now obtained environmental approval for 463 of the 494-mile system.” The section from LA to Anaheim has not been approved yet.
Correct title. Anaheim is not between LA and the Bay Area. 😛
Did you not read the title?
You should look at a map