California High Speed Rail Thread

[Busy Bee]

^Economic benefit?

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

^Economic benefit?

Sure. But when dealing with taxpayers money you have to consider a lot of things. With this project my questions would be:

1. Could we spend this money elsewhere in a more wise way?
2. Who will be the primary users of this system?

My answer to question one would be that we could pump this money into the major metros in California to get a lot more bang for our buck. (LA/Bay/Sac/SD). Each city would receive billions, with obviously more going to the larger two.
To the second question, I believe the main users will be rich people. Poor people drive or take a bus. Local metro improvements and expansions help the poor and middle class in a real way.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

This was posted by someone named aquaticko over on SSC. I thought I would post it here because I couldn't have said it any better:

That post doesn't make much sense, though. GDP is irrelevent. This isn't being paid through GDP, but through public monies, which are a tiny fraction of GDP.

I know this a pro-transit forum, but let's get real. This project, so far, is a huge boondoggle. The costs are insane, there's a good chance it will never be finished, passenger and revenue projections sound absurd, and it looks like Southern CA is gonna be bypassed whatever happens. The state could end up with a $60 billion elevated rail line in the middle of nowhere, connecting nothing.

That doesn't mean the project isn't salvageable, but I don't think anyone can look at the project at this juncture and not conclude it hasn't been an enormous mess. And this is not an anti-transit position. Just think what $100 billion could do for LA and SF transit. Instead it's going to tunnels and bridges in interior wastelands.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

To the second question, I believe the main users will be rich people. Poor people drive or take a bus. Local metro improvements and expansions help the poor and middle class in a real way.

How many people, rich or otherwise, would even use this service?

Let's assume it's built exactly as the biggest optimists have dreamed, with superfast service between downtown LA and downtown SF. Won't happen, but let's pretend.

How many rich people need to get from downtown LA to downtown SF? Both the Bay Area and especially LA are massively decentralized metros. LA's wealthy are overwhelmingly on the Westside, nowhere near downtown. The majority of office space, fancy hotels, upscale retail, attractions, are all on the Westside. Even in the Bay Area, while SF is the most important node, the region's wealth and business centers are hugely decentralized.

Why would a rich person in, say, Santa Monica, head downtown to take a fast train to SF, when airports are closer and the freeway drive is a straight shot? This train would still take 3 hours. We aren't talking hyperloop here. Plane would still be faster, door to door. Car would be far more convenient. We'll have self-driving cars long before the first phase opens. And it only works if your destination is downtown SF.

[Eightball]

Who would possibly take a HSR train between a 19 million person metro and a 8 million person metro that are approx 380 miles apart? Is that a serious question? Come on

[electricron]

Originally Posted by Crawford

That post doesn't make much sense, though. GDP is irrelevent. This isn't being paid through GDP, but through public monies, which are a tiny fraction of GDP.

I know this a pro-transit forum, but let's get real. This project, so far, is a huge boondoggle. The costs are insane, there's a good chance it will never be finished, passenger and revenue projections sound absurd, and it looks like Southern CA is gonna be bypassed whatever happens. The state could end up with a $60 billion elevated rail line in the middle of nowhere, connecting nothing.

That doesn't mean the project isn't salvageable, but I don't think anyone can look at the project at this juncture and not conclude it hasn't been an enormous mess. And this is not an anti-transit position. Just think what $100 billion could do for LA and SF transit. Instead it's going to tunnels and bridges in interior wastelands.

California's FY2015 GDP was $2.46 trillion.
California's total tax revenues was $124 billion.
California's tax revenues was just 5% of its GDP.

Sources of data:
http://www.businessinsider.com/calif...veryone-2016-6
https://www.statista.com/statistics/...nd-expenditure
And per the latest pie charts posted at:
https://www.usgovernmentspending.com...ding_pie_chart
Health Care 43%
Pensions 17%
Education 15%
Welfare 7%
Protection 6%
Transportation 3%
General Government 3%
Other Spending 3%
Interest 3%
So the total amount of transportation funds available from California's budget every year is $3.72 billion.
Take the projected 70 billion costs for CHSR, and divide it by the entire CDOT yearly budget, it will take 18.8 years to fund it and only it. All other transit and highway projects will just have to wait. Since asphalt turns to gravel in 15 to 20 years, most of the highways in California will turn into gravel roads.

Good luck!

[numble]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

How are you going to compare a huge road network to one HSR line?

I didn't make any comparison, I was directly responding to this assertion:

Originally Posted by BrownTown

So far as I know the Federal Government isn't paying a huge chunk of any of the new roads Texas is building for instance..

Originally Posted by electricron

California's FY2015 GDP was $2.46 trillion.
California's total tax revenues was $124 billion.
California's tax revenues was just 5% of its GDP.

Sources of data:
http://www.businessinsider.com/calif...veryone-2016-6
https://www.statista.com/statistics/...nd-expenditure
And per the latest pie charts posted at:
https://www.usgovernmentspending.com...ding_pie_chart
Health Care 43%
Pensions 17%
Education 15%
Welfare 7%
Protection 6%
Transportation 3%
General Government 3%
Other Spending 3%
Interest 3%
So the total amount of transportation funds available from California's budget every year is $3.72 billion.
Take the projected 70 billion costs for CHSR, and divide it by the entire CDOT yearly budget, it will take 18.8 years to fund it and only it. All other transit and highway projects will just have to wait. Since asphalt turns to gravel in 15 to 20 years, most of the highways in California will turn into gravel roads.

Good luck!

SB1 raises $5.2 billion per year in new revenues for transportation:
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-p...406-story.html

Its also disingenuous to say that CDOT budget is all that will fund transit and highway projects. Local funding, like Los Angeles sales taxes, raises more funding. Los Angeles sales taxes have something like over $3 billion per year dedicated to transportation.

Your usgovernmentspending.com source says that California spends $35.4 billion per year in transportation between state and local spending, by the way.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Eightball

Who would possibly take a HSR train between a 19 million person metro and a 8 million person metro that are approx 380 miles apart? Is that a serious question? Come on

Population is irrelevent. LA could have 200 million people and it wouldn't make a difference, if the service doesn't make sense.

LA and San Diego already have heavy train service, and there are barely any riders. Southern CA has like 24 million people. European or Japanese cities of 200k will have higher ridership than LA-SD.

LA has 19 million in its CSA, and the current commuter rail service (which is pretty extensive) has like 35k daily riders. That's absurdly low. I mean, if they cancelled all service tomorrow, it would barely register.

It's likely tied to the fact that the region is so decentralized, so rail between fixed points is an inconvenient proposition for the vast majority of people. I mean, traffic is already horrible, so you would think people would be open to transit.

[Eightball]

LA to SD is the second busiest Amtrak corridor in the country with about 3 million riders per year. Hardly no one.

Also tons of people fly from SF to LA ... the airports are located in worse locations than the train stations. Why wouldn't people take HSR? You are wrong.

Also @jtown not sure you are familiar but LA is currently in the midst of the biggest transit expansion happening in the country. Plus California is large and wealthy and can afford to fund long distance rail and local transit. We do need to get a handle on our pensions tho, those are a mess.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by Eightball

LA to SD is the second busiest Amtrak corridor in the country with about 3 million riders per year. Hardly no one.

Also tons of people fly from SF to LA ... the airports are located in worse locations than the train stations. Why wouldn't people take HSR? You are wrong.

When I fly in to SF-OAK I take BART into the city. It's pretty easy. Now LAX and a rail connection is currently a nightmare and spending $100 billion to not have a HSR connection with LAX is a major lapse in the alignment. Could you imagine one stop at LAX and the next stop in Downtown 10-15 minutes later?

[Eightball]

Yeah a LAX stop seems like it would be highly utilized. Not sure if that is in the cards, tho. They do have a rail extension to LAX u/c at the moment but that will require a transfer to get to Union Station I believe

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Eightball

Also tons of people fly from SF to LA ... the airports are located in worse locations than the train stations. Why wouldn't people take HSR? You are wrong.

In the late 1990s, during the "dot-com" boom in the Bay Area, when they wanted to expand SFO by filling a bit of the Bay for a new runway, it was said that 50% of SFO flights were to or from Southern California (I assume that was all airports, LA, San Diego, Inland Empire etc).

It seemed to me a massive argument for HSR because SFO is never going to have a new runway: Filling the Bay will always be a non-starter. If anything like 50% of the SFO passenger traffic--call it 25%--could be shifted to rail, there would be no need for expansion (meanwhile, for a time at least, recession accomplished the same goal).

Due to the fact that runways close to the urban centers of both SF and LA are at close to capacity and can't practically be expanded, I am confident HSR (or Hyperloop or some alternative to flying in fixed wing airplanes) will happen and if we do it later rather than sooner it will cost more. Crawford simply doesn't understand California--there are mountains unlike anything in the East that have to be tunnelled through (3 ranges between SF and LA)--which runs up the cost but it will ultimately have to be paid.

[M II A II R II K]

Makes you wonder if it'll be cheaper to build a tube that runs in the sea in some sections.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Eightball

LA to SD is the second busiest Amtrak corridor in the country with about 3 million riders per year. Hardly no one.

Also tons of people fly from SF to LA ... the airports are located in worse locations than the train stations. Why wouldn't people take HSR? You are wrong.

Also @jtown not sure you are familiar but LA is currently in the midst of the biggest transit expansion happening in the country. Plus California is large and wealthy and can afford to fund long distance rail and local transit. We do need to get a handle on our pensions tho, those are a mess.

Absolutely, but is LA spending around....20 billion over 10 years? Imagine what that could do.

[jd3189]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Due to the fact that runways close to the urban centers of both SF and LA are at close to capacity and can't practically be expanded, I am confident HSR (or Hyperloop or some alternative to flying in fixed wing airplanes) will happen and if we do it later rather than sooner it will cost more. Crawford simply doesn't understand California--there are mountains unlike anything in the East that have to be tunnelled through (3 ranges between SF and LA)--which runs up the cost but it will ultimately have to be paid.

The rail connection will have to happen. No matter how car-centric most of California (and other parts of the nation) may be, people are eventually going to have to consider their options. Driving is fun and gives you independence, but the traffic and long distances can be a pain. Airplanes require more money on average. Plus, it can be a pain to go through security and maneuver in some of the larger airports. And like you said, many airports in dense built-up metro areas can't expand anymore.


HSR is the best way in the long run. Self-driving cars are alright, but like the existing sharing programs like Uber and Lyft, they will only do so much while sometimes adding to the traffic. As American cities get bigger, more urban, and more interconnected, we more options to get people around. Ridership may not be high at first, but as things get more congested, everything will follow.

[Eightball]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Absolutely, but is LA spending around....20 billion over 10 years? Imagine what that could do.

120 billion over 40 years

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/livab...317-story.html

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Makes you wonder if it'll be cheaper to build a tube that runs in the sea in some sections.

But a tube in the sea couldn't provide service to inland cities up and down the Central Valley. As a matter of political necessity, CA HSR has to be about more than connecting SF, LA and SD. Certainly Sacto and SJ have to be in the mix and so do CV towns like Fresno and Bakersfield because another justification for HSR is to connect these places without much air service to the major airports in the Bay Area and the LA basin. Many people don't realize--Fresno, with half a million people, is California's 5th largest city (bigger than Oakland or Sacramento).

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Eightball

120 billion over 40 years

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/livab...317-story.html

Impressive. Now, of course, wouldn't the area love another 20 billion over the next decade? For 140 billion, or 3.5 billion a year, the city could build an insane transit system that includes zero BRT or other cost-saving options?

[pizzaguy]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Impressive. Now, of course, wouldn't the area love another 20 billion over the next decade? For 140 billion, or 3.5 billion a year, the city could build an insane transit system that includes zero BRT or other cost-saving options?

Why not both?

[Busy Bee]

^