California High Speed Rail Setback

[kevin_standlee]

It's a dark day for supporters of high speed rail in California. As reported here and elsewhere, the California High Speed Rail Authority has, by default (allowing the staff recommendation to stand) selected the Pacheco Pass ("Highway 152") alignment from the Central Valley to the Bay Area over the Altamont Pass ("Highway 580") alignment. (If you need a map of the alternatives, have a look at this PDF.) Basically, the CHSRA buckled under to political pressure from South Bay politicians who couldn't bear the thought of such a system being built without all trains being required to stop in San Jose.

I am not complaining just because the proposed Altamont route probably would have come near where I live in Fremont and therefore there's a chance I could have been close to a station. By the time this thing gets built, it seems unlikely I'll be here anyway -- I'll be lucky if I'm still alive by the time trains are actually running! The Altamont route picked up important Central Valley cities that will now be skipped. Oh, the CHSRA talked of other solutions for that area, but those are just talk and will result in no action.

The Altamont might have been longer, but it was easier to build, traversed less sensitive areas, and would have served more people. It apparently is easy for people to forget that high speed rail is more than just moving people between the end-points in the LA and Bay Areas -- it serves intermediate points as well. Just look at the three types of Shinkansen services in Japan: Kodama stopping services that stop most places; Hikari limited services that stop at some stations; and Nozomi super-expresses that make very few stops. All use the same high-speed equipment. (Some people seem to think that the slower trains are using slower equipment, which is not so; they just make more stops.)

An Altamont route would have required either trains splitting/joining to serve both San Francisco and San Jose, or alternate-city service, neither of which would have been that big a deal, I think, except maybe in this country where we mostly have forgotten how to run a railroad.

I was annoyed to hear politicians (or possibly the reporters who reported those politicians) saying things like "we don't need another bridge across the Bay." Yes, the Altamont route requires a bridge across the south end of San Francisco Bay. But there is already a railroad bridge there -- it's just not been used and has been waiting for rebuilding these past twenty years.

Make no mistake: this decision is not about serving the most number of people on a value-for-money basis. It's about the clout of South Bay politicians relative to those in the Central Valley, and to a lesser extent short-sightedness from other politicians, such as my own city, which I understand opposed the routing because of the disruption building a high-speed rail line along the existing rail corridor (which runs just south of where I live) would cause.

If the CHSR rail bond actually makes it to the ballot, I'll still vote for it, but I'm very unhappy with the decision. It's the wrong route, for lots of reasons, and people will curse this decision for many years to come if the system ever does get built.

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Sigh. Sorry they're being dumb. My interest is largely academic and rail-readerish (I'm not a rail-fan, but I might be a rail-reader; except reader is even more obviously the wrong term there than for SF), so I'm not following the details myself, it's nice to get the summary now and then.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

except maybe in this country where we mostly have forgotten how to run a railroad.

Herein is the meat of the problem.

(Mind you, I like the idea of having one of the major stations nearby.)

I would rather see them run a simple route successfully and build on that than see them attempt to run a more complicated route and screw it up. If they succeed, split the route in SJ and run up the east bay or in Santa Nella and run up the central valley to Sacramento.

As for the politicians? Better that they're pushing to get transportation than working against it. I think there's still a bit of annoyance over San Mateo's withdrawal from BART which effectively cut off the south bay for 4 decades. We've got the population now to merit a transport hub...

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I understand your concerns, but here's what bothers me:

1. The Central Valley route ends up missing a huge traffic generator by avoiding Stockton-Modesto, and furthermore makes a line up to Sacramento that much less likely.

2. I really don't expect to see that second route up the east bay. If they don't get the route right the very first time, there will never be another chance.

The points above mean that the Stage 1 CHSR is likely to be a lot less successful than it would be via the other route. That means that expansions are much less likely to be built. Never build your first phase on the route least likely to be used.

And furthermore, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties' decision to stay out of BART was IMO the right one. What they didn't do was the other, necessary half of the decision: upgrade Caltrain to BART-like frequencies. If Caltrain ran every fifteen minutes and had a station in downtown San Francisco (rather than a mile away as it does now), it would be the equivalent of BART and would have cost significantly less to build.

[howeird]

I'd take the southern route. Here's why:
That unused rail bridge across the Bay used to traverse a salt mining operation, but it's now a wildlife/bird sanctuary. A high speed rail line through there would offset some of the gains made in getting Morton and Cargill to give up that wetlands area.

Building a rail line via 152 ought to bring with it improvement of the not-particularly-safe west end of 152.

I'd bet far more people would want a straight route from LA to SJ than from LA to Livermore.

Population density along the Altamont route is huge. Along Pacheco it's Casa de Fruita and a couple of garlic farms. Much less people impact, no political temptations to make the route into a milk run.

High speed rail access to the Garlic festival!

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

That unused rail bridge across the Bay used to traverse a salt mining operation, but it's now a wildlife/bird sanctuary. A high speed rail line through there would offset some of the gains made in getting Morton and Cargill to give up that wetlands area.

It's an existing right of way and has never been formally abandoned; indeed, there is an ongoing project to rebuild it for regional commuter rail from the East Bay to the Peninsula.

The "152" routing could easily find itself traversing the parks and wildlife refuges north of 152. There is no existing right of way through this area.

Building a rail line via 152 ought to bring with it improvement of the not-particularly-safe west end of 152.

How in the world does that follow?

I'd bet far more people would want a straight route from LA to SJ than from LA to Livermore.

1. If the only purpose is to transport people between Los Angeles and San Jose, then it should never be built and we should just go ahead and spend the estimated $10-$20Bn for new mega-airports.

2. The trains wouldn't terminate in Livermore (some idiots have proposed it, though), but would continue to the split point; some would run to San Jose, some to San Francisco. (Some might run to Oakland.) The actual mechanism is undetermined, but I know from my travels in Japan that it's not that difficult, because I've seen it happen.

Population density along the Altamont route is huge. Along Pacheco it's Casa de Fruita and a couple of garlic farms. Much less people impact, no political temptations to make the route into a milk run.

The think that you're calling a liability I think is an advantage. High-speed rail is about more than transport between the end points. It's about intermediate points as well.

But regarding the "milk run" issue, may I suggest you're falling into what Lisa calls the "BART fallacy," which is the assumption that if you build a station, of course all trains must stop at that station. There's an invention called "passing tracks" and "express trains" that don't stop at all stations. Caltrain re-discovered this with their "Baby Bullet" service. As I pointed out in the root message, Shinkansen services have three levels of service, and smaller cities get a few stops while not sacrificing higher-speed expresses.

You want a rail line to run through heavily populated areas and to build stations there so you catch sufficient intermediate ridership.

[howeird]

Wetlands - we're talking apples and oranges here. Total agreement on the right of way issue. But regardless of the right of way, I don't want a high speed train scaring away the birds - it has taken years for them to find their way back here. And without a right of way yet for the Pacheco route, they might be persuaded to avoid protected lands.

152 improvement - I'm possibly living in a fantasy world here, but I'm hoping that delivering the materials for the 152 section of rail will require better than a 1-lane winding country road. Most of 152 is freeway already, it's not so far-fetched a thing to hope for.

Mega-airports - I don't see how you get this. There are plenty of flights from SJ to LA already, but no rail (except the ever-delayed Coast Starlight).

The milk run issue is a matter of politics, not common sense. I'm all with you on the concept of an express not stopping at every station. I just have a hard time imagining the Japanese model (which I agree is brilliant) being adopted here. You can't pick up intermediate ridership if you don't stop at their station.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I don't want a high speed train scaring away the birds....

You really believe it will do that? I was riding lots of high-speed (300 kph/186 mph) trains, and I saw plenty of birds along the right of way. Oh, sure, not on the ROW, but certainly all around it. I also don't see BART trains frightening away the birds from Quarry Lakes (the BART line runs right along the lakes), and even at twice the speed, I don't think it would make a significant difference.

Mega-airports - I don't see how you get this. There are plenty of flights from SJ to LA already, but no rail (except the ever-delayed Coast Starlight).

There is an estimated need for at least four new major airports in California if nothing else is done to relieve demand, particularly for capacity-hogging short-haul flights. LAX expansion alone is estimated to cost as much as the entire stage 1 of CAHSR -- $10Bn.

You can't pick up intermediate ridership if you don't stop at their station.

So some trains would stop at those stations and some would not. You don't really believe that they'd adopt an operational model of "all trains must stop at all stations, all the time," do you? Even existing Amtrak trains along the Northeast Corridor don't stop at all stations at all times. Local-Limited-Express isn't even something that Americans have completely forgotten to do. But maybe Californians have a difficult time grasping it, because I've replied to letters to the editor in the Fremont Argus that assume that of course if you build a station, every train must stop at it.

And Japan has their share of unnecessary Shinkansen stations built because powerful politicians wanted the stations in their districts, too. Those stations get very few stops.

There is no point in building a rail line through areas that don't have the population to support it. That's why the general routing for CAHSR runs via the Central Valley rather than the short route along the coast. It's not just a SJ-LA express.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

Well, I think you know this is one we disagree on. It's a good thing for my people, I hope.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why you'd be happier with the suboptimal Pacheco routing. HSR is good for Caltrain no matter which route it takes, and probably better if it draws more money for rehab on the Dumbarton, since Caltrain said (in principle) that it would operate trans-Dumbarton service. (And I sure hope they do so; we do not really need yet another operator with yet another mutually-incompatible fare system.)

Given that CAHSR trains would run to both SJ and SF under any routing, what's the advantage of the Pacheco routing from your point of view?

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

I'm honestly exhausted by spending some portion of every day for the past 6 days having people yell at me about trains. (Today, for example, I got 17 minutes of yelling because BART is discontining service to SFO from Millbrae, and evidently that is my fault personally, even though I have absolutely nothing to do with BART, and I better the hell do something about it, because the taxpayers don't pay my salary so that I can give them a big "EFF-YOU". Or something.)

Because of that, I'm not interested in debating this particular issue with you. Maybe we can talk about it in the future sometime.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm sorry someone did that to you. I wish I could have talked to them as well -- since taxpayers don't pay my salary, I would have told him where to head in. I would have been happy to tell him, "You're complaining to the wrong people. You might as well complain at her about delayed flights at SFO or unpaved roads in Sutter County, because SamTrans has the same amount of responsibility for those as for how BART decides to behave." But of course most people haven't a clue about how anything works, and Lake Merritt is much too far away to go to complain about something, and besides, the Great BART Empire is never going to change its mind about anything based on mere public input.

[katster.livejournal.com]

When I was back East visiting friends in Maryland, I decided (since they weren't all that far away) to go visit DC. I figured I could take Amtrak in, as the East Coast has slightly better rail service than we do out west, until my friend goes "You want to take the MARC. It's like Caltrain."

Okay, now my experience with Caltrain was before they put the baby bullets in. In those days, a train coming into a Caltrain station was going to stop, and I make the same assumption here. I'm standing on the platform waiting for the train. I see a train coming down the tracks, so I ready myself to board.

Train roars into the station at high rates of speed on the passing track in the center. It's one of the Amtrak trains -- I think it's the Acela. And damn was that thing moving fast. I admit to being impressed.

The MARC comes along a few moments later, and yep, my friend was right, it was like Caltrain. Got off at Union Station in downtown DC and hopped on the Metro and went to the museums. It was a good day.

That said, I admit I'm disappointed in the Pacheco Pass routing, because if it had gone over Altamont, it's only about an hour to drive to Stockton from Sacramento (plus there's existing Amtrak bus linkage and at least one train a day), which would have made it all the much more useful if I were still in the area by the time they finish.

Ah well.

-kat

[dancingguy.livejournal.com]

How long "will" it take to go SJ - LA w/ the 152 routing? How long w/ Altamont?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I don't have the figures in front of me; they're buried in the CAHSR report. Obviously the route via Altamont would be a little longer for trips originating from San Jose. But it's unwise to make all of the decisions based solely on the end-points. If the only purpose were to connect downtown SJ to downtown LA, then the route shouldn't go through the Central Valley at all, but should instead drive straight down the coast, although that is the worst of all possible worlds -- not enough people and more expensive to build.