New Scathing Report Slamming Cal HSR

[AlanB]

The main thing driving the cost through the sky is every two-bit politician anywhere near the line trying to shove thing around and add his pet ideas to the project.

That and adding years to the project due to lack of a steady flow of money to get the project done in a more timely manner.

 

[Anderson]

The main thing driving the cost through the sky is every two-bit politician anywhere near the line trying to shove thing around and add his pet ideas to the project.

That and adding years to the project due to lack of a steady flow of money to get the project done in a more timely manner.

All of the above are true to varying extents, I will readily grant. With that said, there's enough concrete pouring being added to the plan in places like San Jose that I'm wondering if the Cartels aren't trying to take up a more Italian way of disposing of all their victims.* I agree that timeframe issues are part of the problem...but I keep getting the feeling that the HSR people are letting this turn into a Big Dig-type program with some of those add-ons.

*Sorry, couldn't resist a Jimmy Hoffa joke.

 

[leemell]

Lawmakers in Sacramento are moving forward with legislation that would kiss the HSR in California for good.

Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, R-Dana Point, has introduced a bill titled "The Lemon Law" which would suspend all construction and planning for the route, force the state to forfeit the Federal money already awarded while placing a moratorium on spending any of the Measure 1A money set aside for the project. AB-1455, as the bill is officially called, is under deliberation as of this writing on the Assembly floor.

Hopefully it does not pass, or if it does, Gov. Brown vetoes it. Otherwise, HSR in California looks to be Dead on Arrival.

Brown has put his stamp in CAHSR and appears to be positioning himself to make this his legacy like his father did with the state water project. It is very unlikely he would not veto it if it gets to him. He will try to get it killed behind the scenes so that he doesn't have to do that.

Brown urges Legislature to OK initial high-speed rail spending

SACRAMENTO

January 18, 2012 11:02am

• Says only alternative is enlarging airports

 

• 'The critics were wrong then and they're wrong now'

 

This report on the CA State of the State address seems to support what I was saying.

 

[DET63]

They quote 4 runways and 100+ gates just to handle intra-state travel that would have been on the train? Seriously? Of course, that is is in addition to the umteen thousand lane-miles of highways, also just for those who would have been train riders. Those numbers are, quite frankly, a joke. Maybe NARP believes it, or maybe they just made it up. Sorry, I'm not buying.

While I don't think that I've ever seen, or perhaps just didn't pay attention to just what that $171B brought, I have seen that $171B from several other sources. The number doesn't come from NARP; they're just reporting it.

And keep in mind that this would be spread out over 22 years, building for the future. I can't speak as well to the airline numbers as you can, but I could see it for the roads. They mention 2,300 lane miles. With a distance of 380 miles between LA & San Fran, just adding two more lanes in each direction to the existing highways would account for more than half those miles or about 1,520 lane miles.

Now of course the odds are that more lane miles would be added closer to the big cities and less out in the central valley, but still I could see that 2,300 number being probable.

Living in Southern California but having my grandparents in the Bay Area, we drive the 5 up the Central Valley each Christmas. You would not believe how crazy congested that freeway is. If there were an award for "most-congested highway in least populated area," the 5 would take that. it is not unreasonable at all to want or need a doubling of capacity between LA-San Fran. You wouldn't believe how quickly I would switch if they had any service from SoCal-San Jose in under 7 hours

Critics of HSR would argue that a better solution would be to add lanes in each direction to I-5 and CA 99. Actually, once you get over the mountains, I-5 is a straight, level shot for a couple of hundred miles through the central valley. The only thing congesting the road is truck traffic, where a truck going 60 mph passing one or more others going 55 mph can slow down motorists wishing to travel 70-75 mph (the speed limit is 70, despite only two lanes in each direction).

 

[johnny.menhennet]

They quote 4 runways and 100+ gates just to handle intra-state travel that would have been on the train? Seriously? Of course, that is is in addition to the umteen thousand lane-miles of highways, also just for those who would have been train riders. Those numbers are, quite frankly, a joke. Maybe NARP believes it, or maybe they just made it up. Sorry, I'm not buying.

While I don't think that I've ever seen, or perhaps just didn't pay attention to just what that $171B brought, I have seen that $171B from several other sources. The number doesn't come from NARP; they're just reporting it.

And keep in mind that this would be spread out over 22 years, building for the future. I can't speak as well to the airline numbers as you can, but I could see it for the roads. They mention 2,300 lane miles. With a distance of 380 miles between LA & San Fran, just adding two more lanes in each direction to the existing highways would account for more than half those miles or about 1,520 lane miles.

Now of course the odds are that more lane miles would be added closer to the big cities and less out in the central valley, but still I could see that 2,300 number being probable.

Living in Southern California but having my grandparents in the Bay Area, we drive the 5 up the Central Valley each Christmas. You would not believe how crazy congested that freeway is. If there were an award for "most-congested highway in least populated area," the 5 would take that. it is not unreasonable at all to want or need a doubling of capacity between LA-San Fran. You wouldn't believe how quickly I would switch if they had any service from SoCal-San Jose in under 7 hours

Critics of HSR would argue that a better solution would be to add lanes in each direction to I-5 and CA 99. Actually, once you get over the mountains, I-5 is a straight, level shot for a couple of hundred miles through the central valley. The only thing congesting the road is truck traffic, where a truck going 60 mph passing one or more others going 55 mph can slow down motorists wishing to travel 70-75 mph (the speed limit is 70, despite only two lanes in each direction).

You're correct that they need to add lanes and that it is primarily trucks that slow it down, but I'd like to point out that there are a huge amount of motorists who travel at a lot more than 70-75 though.

 

[Anderson]

They quote 4 runways and 100+ gates just to handle intra-state travel that would have been on the train? Seriously? Of course, that is is in addition to the umteen thousand lane-miles of highways, also just for those who would have been train riders. Those numbers are, quite frankly, a joke. Maybe NARP believes it, or maybe they just made it up. Sorry, I'm not buying.

While I don't think that I've ever seen, or perhaps just didn't pay attention to just what that $171B brought, I have seen that $171B from several other sources. The number doesn't come from NARP; they're just reporting it.

And keep in mind that this would be spread out over 22 years, building for the future. I can't speak as well to the airline numbers as you can, but I could see it for the roads. They mention 2,300 lane miles. With a distance of 380 miles between LA & San Fran, just adding two more lanes in each direction to the existing highways would account for more than half those miles or about 1,520 lane miles.

Now of course the odds are that more lane miles would be added closer to the big cities and less out in the central valley, but still I could see that 2,300 number being probable.

Living in Southern California but having my grandparents in the Bay Area, we drive the 5 up the Central Valley each Christmas. You would not believe how crazy congested that freeway is. If there were an award for "most-congested highway in least populated area," the 5 would take that. it is not unreasonable at all to want or need a doubling of capacity between LA-San Fran. You wouldn't believe how quickly I would switch if they had any service from SoCal-San Jose in under 7 hours

Critics of HSR would argue that a better solution would be to add lanes in each direction to I-5 and CA 99. Actually, once you get over the mountains, I-5 is a straight, level shot for a couple of hundred miles through the central valley. The only thing congesting the road is truck traffic, where a truck going 60 mph passing one or more others going 55 mph can slow down motorists wishing to travel 70-75 mph (the speed limit is 70, despite only two lanes in each direction).

Just wondering, but for comparison, how much would those lanes cost? And of course, I feel compelled to ask yet another variation on this...any idea what a highway-hugging not-technically-HSR line would cost? I ask because if you're looking to ultimately add 4-6 lanes of highway in each direction total (i.e. add at least two lanes to one side of a highway), dropping a rail alignment in there (even one that runs slower over the mountains but which can "open up" once it hits the valley) still seems to make more sense to me.

 

[johnny.menhennet]

Anderson, we really do need more lanes. If you go to calrailnews.com, click on the California Rail News feature halfway down the links on the left. It is a quarterly issued newspaper, free of course, that is passed along to all staffed stations. It is an eight page newspaper, and focuses solely on California's rail system and projects. If you look back to this issue specifically, it is very interesting. A pro suggested a different route, that sure makes a lot of sense to me. I suggest that you all take a look.

 

[Anderson]

...cue yet another facepalm from me.

 

[leemell]

They quote 4 runways and 100+ gates just to handle intra-state travel that would have been on the train? Seriously? Of course, that is is in addition to the umteen thousand lane-miles of highways, also just for those who would have been train riders. Those numbers are, quite frankly, a joke. Maybe NARP believes it, or maybe they just made it up. Sorry, I'm not buying.

While I don't think that I've ever seen, or perhaps just didn't pay attention to just what that $171B brought, I have seen that $171B from several other sources. The number doesn't come from NARP; they're just reporting it.

And keep in mind that this would be spread out over 22 years, building for the future. I can't speak as well to the airline numbers as you can, but I could see it for the roads. They mention 2,300 lane miles. With a distance of 380 miles between LA & San Fran, just adding two more lanes in each direction to the existing highways would account for more than half those miles or about 1,520 lane miles.

Now of course the odds are that more lane miles would be added closer to the big cities and less out in the central valley, but still I could see that 2,300 number being probable.

Living in Southern California but having my grandparents in the Bay Area, we drive the 5 up the Central Valley each Christmas. You would not believe how crazy congested that freeway is. If there were an award for "most-congested highway in least populated area," the 5 would take that. it is not unreasonable at all to want or need a doubling of capacity between LA-San Fran. You wouldn't believe how quickly I would switch if they had any service from SoCal-San Jose in under 7 hours

Critics of HSR would argue that a better solution would be to add lanes in each direction to I-5 and CA 99. Actually, once you get over the mountains, I-5 is a straight, level shot for a couple of hundred miles through the central valley. The only thing congesting the road is truck traffic, where a truck going 60 mph passing one or more others going 55 mph can slow down motorists wishing to travel 70-75 mph (the speed limit is 70, despite only two lanes in each direction).

One problem is that the trucks are limited to 55 mph. You frequently get them passing each other with one doing 55 mph and the other doing 55.01 mph. Ahhhhgh!

 

[johnny.menhennet]

...cue yet another facepalm from me.

Anderson, unlike what I said earlier, you can't fire all 50,000,000,000 (yes, that high) number of people that drive through the Central Valley, and I never indicated that we did.

 

[Hotblack Desiato]

If you add more lanes of highway, the traffic just comes to fill it up, and you're back where you started. That's been the case since the beginning of the highway system. There are probably lots of people who don't make that drive simply because it's so congested. If you add lanes, those people will start driving because it's less congested, and the result is that you have the same level of congestion, but with more lane-miles that are congested. The only places where this doesn't happen are where they tear down so much to make room for the highways that they wind up tearing down the reason people go there in the first place.

We've also learned over the years that closing highways doesn't result in traffic Armageddon. So, therefore, I'd say let's not spend money on more highway capacity.

 

[Alice]

Two reasons to have a good travel alternative to cars: smog and fog.

The San Joaquin Valley is considered highly polluted and is the first area in the nation to face federal fines for lousy air quality. I'm against further curtailing of agriculture and manufacturing (and other smog-causing activities) in order to add freeway capacity.

Tule fog occurs often fall through early spring, and reduces visibility to a few hundred feet at best, and under 10 feet at worst. I think the average is around 36 days per year. Every year there are fatalities because people do not slow down enough when they drive from clear visibility into an opaque wall. Just what is a safe speed when the fog is too dense to see any road in front of your car so you are steering by the stripe illuminated in your fog lights ... but you'll surely be rear-ended if you stop on the freeway?

 

[Long Train Runnin']

I know I'm coming in a little late to this thread, but I read all the posts and a couple of the documents that were linked in the thread. My question would be who would operate the new intra state air service if they built all of these runways and gates. The only first hand experience I have with intra state California flights was watching a Jet Blue Oakland to Long Beach flight leave the gate with a about 12 folks on stand by who didn't make the flight. Are those routes making money for the airlines? It seems that air lines are cutting routes all over the place, so what would the cost of a ticket be on all these new intrastate flights? Is the air travel demand high enough that if they built all those gates airlines would start filling them? I just wonder if that air market is that lucrative over there.

 

[Hotblack Desiato]

Given that United, Southwest, JetBlue, American (I think), Alaska/Horizon, Virgin America and maybe one or two other carriers are all competing in the intra-California market, there must be some reason airlines want to fly those routes.

 

[johnny.menhennet]

Yes, there is plenty of demand. From San Diego alone, Southwest has almost 15 daily departures to Oakland and 10-12ish each for San Francisco, San Jose, and Sacramento. I always fly Southwest out of SAN, so I cannot vouch for other airlines.

 

[TCRT]

what would the cost of a ticket be on all these new intrastate flights?

I am not an expert, but I believe airport improvement costs are often passed on to airlines in the form of landing fees. This means, for example, that a new and improved CA airport would cost airlines a new and larger amount to operate flights from, meaning that fares would go up. A very good example of this phenomenon is to compare service at Burbank and Ontario airports in the LA area - Burbank has very low costs, and as a result enjoys far more service than Ontario, which built a larger-than-needed terminal, staffed it with an unnecessarily high number of employees, and as a result has costs which are far higher than are appropriate for a smaller regional airport. The punchline here is that while a new, larger terminal may make more flights possible, it will also make them more expensive and therefore influence demand for said flights.

 

[Alice]

Not disagreeing with TCRT's statement about costs, but Ontario is kind of a special case. It is operated by Los Angeles Airport Commission, poorly according to Ontario area officials, who were in the news last year trying to convince Los Angeles to give it back to local control.

 

[PRR 60]

Just to add a little fun to this discussion, the estimate being publicized by the CHSRA for the cost of highways and airports if the rail line is not built is being called called "exaggerated", "misleading", "erroneous", and "divorced from reality." This does not come from "rail haters", it comes from independent sources including the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies.

From the Los Angeles Times, 1/17/2012:

As the price tag for California's bullet train has soared to nearly $100 billion, a central argument for forging ahead with the controversial project is an even loftier figure: the $171 billion that promoters recently estimated will be needed for new roads and airports if no high-speed rail is built. Without a fast-rail network, they warn, the state would have to add 2,300 miles of highway and roughly the equivalent of another Los Angeles International Airport to handle a projected surge in future travel.
Now, that alternative is coming under attack by a state-appointed panel of experts, who will soon release an assessment of the rail project's business plan and cast doubt on the accuracy and validity of the $171-billion figure, The Times has learned.

..."There is some dishonesty in the methodology," said Samer Madanat, director of UC Berkeley's Institute of Transportation Studies, the top research center of its type in the nation. "I don't trust an estimate like this."

The full article is HERE.

Often, the last gasps of a project heading down the drain is resorting to dishonesty. Could that be happening with this project?

 

[TCRT]

Not disagreeing with TCRT's statement about costs, but Ontario is kind of a special case. It is operated by Los Angeles Airport Commission, poorly according to Ontario area officials, who were in the news last year trying to convince Los Angeles to give it back to local control.

Right, I forgot about that. I guess I should have been more specific in that it isn't Ontario's fault that they are in their current predicament.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

While :help: :help: flying home :help: :help: (I probably now have a file with TSA becuase they are using the new 'backsplatter' machines and, well.... let's just say I did not deal with it well, and they ended up patting me down anyway) yesterday from LAX I came across this article in the LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap-train-20120206,0,3152471.column

Here is Mr. Skelton's conclusion:

Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), who sits on the Senate transportation and high-speed rail panels, long has advocated much of the redesign that's in the works.
"If the authority and administration are nimble enough to put a carefully crafted proposal before the Legislature, we're open to hearing it," Simitian says. "But it'll be tough. This is a pretty big ship to turn in a matter of months."

Richard says there's "a pretty big attitude change" at the agency.

Maybe he can turn a boondoggle into a boon.

It's worth watching.

I've not been following CA HSR lately and I found it to be an interesting read about how things are evolving. What do you 'Lower Left Coasters' think? :hi:

 

[Anderson]

I'll be interested to see what comes out of this. If nothing else, I think the backlash to the price tag jump might be good in the long run (even if the project went forward with the higher tag, I'm getting a feeling that it might run even higher later on and that even a successful operation might not be enough to attract any other projects). Glad to see that Brown appears to have zapped them into getting a better plan together.

 

[George Harris]

Likewise, what do the existing connections between San Jose and Merced (or thereabouts) look like? That's another key section IMHO, since if you run a train "direct" to San Jose (that is, not looping around through Stockton), you'd both likely cut some time off the trip and allow either a run up the Caltrain line (preferable) or be able to run a transfer from the main line to Caltrain (may be necessary for some trips).

There isn't one. Thanks to mountains, if you want to go from San Jose to Merced by rail, you go through Stockton. The High Speed Route will go south to Gilroy and then turn east and go through/under Pacheco Pass and hit the existing line a few miles south of Merced.

I personally don't like the routing the San Joaquins take. I feel that the old SP line is better, it passes through more town centers rather than outskirts and it is more arrow straight than the BNSF line. Either way. With the now-UP line, it could connect in Lathrop to the Altamont route. With a news crossover west of Tracy, it would connect with the ACE route, and take that into San Jose, or over Dumbarton to get to the Peninsula.

BNSF line Calwa Crossing to Kern Jct: 109.7 miles

UPRR line Calwa Crossing to Kern Jct: 104.5 miles

Assuming that the UPRR could achieve the same average speed as the BNSF line, the time saving would be no more than 5 minutes. When the UPRR route had passenger service, the speed limit was 70 mph. That and the general non-cooperative attitude of Southern Pacific versus that of ATSF were factors, if not the main factors in the San Loaquin trains now being on BNSF.

Via Lathrop and Milpitas would certainly be fastere to San Jose whether up the valley on UPRR or BNSF. It would probably not be faster to Emeryville. The Dumbarton Bridge is out of service and a lot of people in the area want it to stay that way. If open, it would be nice to be able to go directly from the valley into San Francisco. However, there are currently a lot of people getting on the trains in Emeryville that did not come across the bay from the San Francisco side.