You may already know that there is a move to build a high-speed rail throughout the state of California. I personally don't think this is a bad idea. Rail can be useful if put to the proper uses. Unfortanately, it appears the Executive Director of the California High-Speed Rail Authority appears to desire to put this rail to unknown purposes. He is quoted as saying "The objective is to serve the intercity-transportation needs of California in 2020 and beyond. It's not to serve commute trips. It won't serve commute trips. It's for trips that are too far to drive and too near to fly."
If the rail is not meant to serve commuters, Who in their right mind is going to be riding this thing? That probably also means the rail won't be cheap. Ah, government waste at its best.
If the goal isn't to serve commuters (mostly at least), I have the strange feeling you're going to get alot of the same people who now ride Amtrak, and we all know how good they are at making a profit. I guess at least their ride will be quicker.
Of course it's going to serve commuters. If it's as fast as they're claiming, it suddenly becomes possible to live in Fresno and work in San Jose; given the property price differential, people are going to do it.
It isn't going to happen anyway; the bond measure will fail. It's too big, and right on the heels of the budget crisis; it hasn't a hope.
Posted by: aphrael at January 26, 2004 07:15 AM (Permalink)The compromise: Add stations every time you need the local legislator's vote. As a result the train will go 200MPH, but stop every 15 miles.
Posted by: Kevin Murphy at January 26, 2004 09:12 AM (Permalink)When he says it's not for commuters, I believe he's referring to people travelling between, say, Livermore and S.F.
Most of the growth in the Bay Area is in the far East Bay, so not running it through the Altamont Pass seems like a mistake. If it ends in San Jose, people could take another train to S.F. (1 hour) or get on BART (that goes from S.J. to the East Bay, right?)
Posted by: Lonewacko at January 26, 2004 12:42 PM (Permalink)BART doesn't go to San Jose, but there is talk about making an extension from Fremont..my grandkids might ride it one day.
High speed rail also competes with airlines. Especially when the trains run downtown to downtown it usually comes out faster all things considered to hop on a high speed rail line then to get to a far away airport an hour early and then land in an airport which is far from the core of the city.
Posted by: Manish at January 26, 2004 07:33 PM (Permalink)Joel,
The reason Amtrak loses money is because they want to. Every time Congress threatens to cut them off, instead of doing the smart thing and cancelling the Cardinal train, which goes from DC to Chicago and on which they lose $200/seat, they threaten to shut down their tunnel out of Penn Station in New York, off of which they make enormous profits. Amtrak apparently makes money between Boston and DC, between New York and Albany, and between Chicago and Milwaukee. And it breaks even on the West coast. It's really the cross-country trips that are disasters.
In order for high-speed rail to work, you need lots of people living and working near rail stations, and good mass transit helps a lot. San Francisco has that, probably. But I don't think any of the other cities in California have that the way New York, Philly, DC, or even Boston or Baltimore does. You can have one or two suburban stops, as DC has New Carrollton on the Beltway and New York has Metropark on the Garden State Parkway, but where do you put LA's suburban stop? Will people really drive from Irvine to Anaheim to hop on a train to San Francisco instead of just driving to LAX or Orange County Airport. You either build too many stops, which
reduces speed, or you make it inconvenient. From what I can tell, Californian cities just tend to be too decentralized for high speed rail to make any sense.
The commuter rail thing doesn't mean much. You can always build four tracks and have commuter lines running along the same right of way.
Posted by: John A. Kalb at January 27, 2004 11:22 AM (Permalink)