California High Speed Rail Thread

[patriotizzy]

Originally Posted by northbay

I come to this thread to see/read updates on the CA HSR project. People are free to debate, and I welcome different opinions, but as I said, it’s the same debate over and over. After years, it has just gotten tiresome for me. I haven’t heard anything new.

Actual updates on the project get drowned in a sea of opinions. It’s like how the One World Trade Center Thread got full of everyone’s opinion. “They should rebuild the 2 towers” or “They should build the original Libeskind design.” How many times did we hear the same thing?

So that’s just MY OPINION (ah, the irony). I respect other opinions, I’m just tired of hearing them over and over in order to get updates, which is why I liked the 2 thread format.

I am sorry if I offended anyone. I have no intention of hijacking this thread further so please pm if anyone has any issue. And I’ll get my information elsewhere.

You didn't offend anyone. My reply comes off as a little heated, because life would be boring without the opposites. You can't have the good without the bad, and as above, so below. Take opposition as a challenge for yourself, not a challenge from them. It is far more exciting hearing what another perspective has in mind, instead of retreading the same ol' shtick day in and day out.

You're good man!

Edit: We're both bay area fellas, so nothing but love

[jmecklenborg]

Anonymous insinuating that PG&E set California's wildfires to clear land for HSR:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTbDJPqmRA0

You can't make this stuff up.

Plus, they go nuts with their insinuations about the grandiose evil of eminent domain in almond and strawberry fields.

[nito]

Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp

Crossrail (which will only have its central section open next year, the full project will take till 2026) has a length of 73 miles.

The opening of the central section of Crossrail has been delayed, but the full line will be operational in 2019. I think you’re thinking of Phase I of HS2 which is due to open in 2026.

Surely the issue with CHSR, as it is with the SAS, is that the US has fallen behind in delivering new sizable infrastructure for a prolonged period of time, and that it is now playing catch up, that comes with costs and prolonged construction periods.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by nito

Surely the issue with CHSR, as it is with the SAS, is that the US has fallen behind in delivering new sizable infrastructure for a prolonged period of time, and that it is now playing catch up, that comes with costs and prolonged construction periods.

The Second Avenue Subway isn't even a big project. It's like 2 miles long (unless you mean the ultimate plan that will never actually happen).

[dtc]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

The Second Avenue Subway isn't even a big project. It's like 2 miles long (unless you mean the ultimate plan that will never actually happen).

Don't say that, that makes me so sad

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by dtc

Don't say that, that makes me so sad

At least not in my lifetime. And the US will be a far poorer country in 20 years so if we can't afford it now we sure wobt be able to once the rest of the world passes us.

[jmecklenborg]

The Second Ave. line to 96th St. looked relatively simple but in actuality was an extraordinarily complex project. By comparison, the Wilshire extension in Los Angeles is relatively simple and the various light rail subway projects in LA are simpler still.

CAHSR is much, much more complex than what has been proposed for Texas.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

The Second Ave. line to 96th St. looked relatively simple but in actuality was an extraordinarily complex project. By comparison, the Wilshire extension in Los Angeles is relatively simple and the various light rail subway projects in LA are simpler still.

CAHSR is much, much more complex than what has been proposed for Texas.

1. Do you have a source for the SAS being a complex project? I've seen nothing to suggest that. It also doesn't really hold water since every single NYC project is equally terrible in terms of cost and schedule.

2. CAHSR is obviously extremely complex, but a lot of that complexity is due to NIMBYism, not engineering necessity. Theres Billions of dollars worth of unnecessary tunnels and viaducts that serve no real purpose outside of aesthetics.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

The Second Avenue Subway isn't even a big project. It's like 2 miles long (unless you mean the ultimate plan that will never actually happen).

Are you just trolling or clueless? The SAS second phase is u/c, right now. The first phase opened two years ago.

It's 8.5 miles, BTW, not including future extensions.

The SAS has nothing to do with CASHR, (or Crossrail, for that matter) so has no relevance to this thread anyways. Subway, commuter rail, and intercity rail are obviously different.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

1. Do you have a source for the SAS being a complex project? I've seen nothing to suggest that.

They had zero off-street staging space. By comparison, they were able to knock down low-rise buildings in Los Angeles to help build the station boxes under Wilshire:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wilshi...27880c97!8m2!3d34.0618154!4d-118.3086829

Here you can see that construction of the station box directly under Wilshire isn't obstructing even a single lane of traffic:
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0626949,...23D-USY7asVwt8TtXi-Vw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

I remember walking the length of Second Ave. above subway construction in 2011 or 2012 and they had 2-3 lanes blocked off for 2 miles straight. The fenced off space was filled with cherry pickers, scaffold, dump trucks -- you name it -- for two miles.

Also, NYC's subway runs very long trains and a ton of them. So the tail tracks for any line extension must be much longer than ordinary systems. I remember when the #7 simply ended at Grand Central, but the extension over to Hudson Yards also includes a tail track, which added substantially to the cost of the 1-station extension. Similarly, Phase 1 of the Second Ave. line included storage for four trains north of the 96th St. station. The future 125th at Lexington station will have 2,000~ feet of non-revenue storage tunnel west of Lexington.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Are you just trolling or clueless? The SAS second phase is u/c, right now. The first phase opened two years ago.

It's 8.5 miles, BTW, not including future extensions.

The SAS has nothing to do with CASHR, (or Crossrail, for that matter) so has no relevance to this thread anyways. Subway, commuter rail, and intercity rail are obviously different.

1. The current Second Avenue Subway is about 2.5 miles long. The 8.5 mile long length you refer to is the ultimate plan which will require not 1 but 3 additional phases. So far only the second phase has any real commitment, phases 3 and 4 are entirely speculative and will very possibly never be built. Indeed it is entirely possible that phase 2 isn't built either. The section in question was actually already under construction 40 years ago and never completed and that could easily happen again.

2. I did not bring up the Second Avenue Subway, however it is indeed very applicable to HSR. Not because it's exactly similar but because the same sort of incompetence and corruption that is plaguing it will invariably plague CAHSR as well (and indeed already is). This is a country wide issue and is especially bad in places like NYC and California which have absurdly onerous regulations and corrupt unions.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

They had zero off-street staging space. By comparison, they were able to knock down low-rise buildings in Los Angeles to help build the station boxes under Wilshire:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wi...4d-118.3086829

Here you can see that construction of the station box directly under Wilshire isn't obstructing even a single lane of traffic:
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0626...7i16384!8i8192

I remember walking the length of Second Ave. above subway construction in 2011 or 2012 and they had 2-3 lanes blocked off for 2 miles straight. The fenced off space was filled with cherry pickers, scaffold, dump trucks -- you name it -- for two miles.

Sounds like they have MORE room, not less. Also several buildings were indeed knocked down to build entrances to the Second Avenue Subway. Obviously I understand NYC is harder to work in than LA, but NYC is no more dense than all the other places in the world that are rapidly expanding subways for 1/10th the cost.

And back in the day they literally just dug the entire street up to build the subways. People somehow managed to survive with it then so it's hard to argue it's impossible to work around a few blocked off streets now.

[jmecklenborg]

They can't build cut-and-cover in Manhattan anymore because new lines have to pass under existing lines. The stations are gigantic. There is more non-revenue track. The physical links between lines are very expensive to build.

Cities like Boston and London run all sorts of incompatible equipment on different lines. So there is no interlining. Saves money during construction but costs much more over time.

Also, construction of a new HSR line through NYC would be much more complicated and expensive than the upcoming reconstruction of LA Union. Just getting a train from New Jersey to Manhattan and then up to The Bronx in a new pair of tunnels with a station somewhere in Midtown would cost $30+ billion.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

They can't build cut-and-cover in Manhattan anymore because new lines have to pass under existing lines. The stations are gigantic. There is more non-revenue track. The physical links between lines are very expensive to build.

They could cut and cover for most of the length from 60th st to 125th st. Indeed a lot of that tunnel was already built in the 1970s and they are just going to not use it and bore under it.

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Cities like Boston and London run all sorts of incompatible equipment on different lines. So there is no interlining. Saves money during construction but costs much more over time.

NYC has lots of incompatible systems too. For instance IND and BMT equipment can't run in IRT tunnels because they are too narrow. The dimensions of the different systems are different and obviously so is a lot of the signaling, cars and other hardware.

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Also, construction of a new HSR line through NYC would be much more complicated and expensive than the upcoming reconstruction of LA Union. Just getting a train from New Jersey to Manhattan and then up to The Bronx in a new pair of tunnels with a station somewhere in Midtown would cost $30+ billion.

It's going to cost $30 Billion to get into LA Union. It would cost $100 Billion to get through NYC. Just getting from NJ to Penn Station is already forecast to cost $30 Billion and we all know that will greatly increase when it's actually built and that's only half way.

[jmecklenborg]

The existing section of the Second Ave. line that will not be used is in Phase 3. Disassembling, moving, and reassembling a tunnel boring machine 1,000 feet takes a lot more time and money than continuing, so they are going to bypass that section.

The cost of the LA Union Station HSR approach was just in the November audit and was more like $1 billion, so 1/30th of your figure. If you are referring to the tunnel or tunnels north of Burbank, well then that is the approach to Burbank, not LA Union Station.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

I remember walking the length of Second Ave. above subway construction in 2011 or 2012 and they had 2-3 lanes blocked off for 2 miles straight. The fenced off space was filled with cherry pickers, scaffold, dump trucks -- you name it -- for two miles.

Why would they need to block off lanes for the entire length of the the subway line under construction? That seems incredibly inefficient use of space. They're building a new subway line (Line 15) right past my apartment complex here in Shanghai and there's only surface construction and blocked off lanes at the station sites - the tunnel construction between station sites is completely invisible from the surface.

[Busy Bee]

F***ing Morocco.

Tell me again why California "can't afford" and is unable to build HSR as the naysayers would have you believe?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78JwkYrg1Rg

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

Why would they need to block off lanes for the entire length of the the subway line under construction? That seems incredibly inefficient use of space.

It's a lot cheaper to keep stuff in Manhattan than to pay union laborers to drive truckloads of stuff back and forth to warehouses in Queens.

Also, U.S. property owners have many property rights. In China I imagine that the government can simply show up and start using your parking lot or yard to stage construction equipment without asking and without payment.

[Sun Belt]

I'll tell you what, I can't wait to spend $200 on a train ticket to S.F. instead of paying $125 for a flight!

I'm kidding -- sort of. But the post is what will determine the success of the project.

Q] Why in the heck would anybody pay more for a longer trip?
A] I don't know, maybe they hate money?

[dubu]

with a train you move more people but why would that many people want to go to the next city in the same state? most people travel at least a couple states i thought.