As currently envisioned CA HSR is likely to be more expensive and slower than current air travel. This is before the virtually certain cost overruns. To be competitively priced it would require large subsidies but still would be no faster than alternatives.
That said like you I would love to see a superior alternative to the current situation but CA HSR is probably not it.
Well, no. You just made that up. HSR is intended to meet a future need for transportation. The equivalent air transportation infrastructure to meet the same need is believed to cost at least $500bn, according to the environmental impact report. That's making the generous assumptions that this level of air travel is even possible without serious air traffic congestion problems, and the aviation fuel costs do not rise faster than general inflation.
The main cost of CAHSR will be the opportunity cost of not having built it.
The main cost of CAHSR will be the opportunity cost of not having built it.
I wonder: this is from an LA Weekly article from 2011 -- I remember it being an eye-opener when I read it back then [1]:
The authority had projected that 41 million people annually would ride the train between Anaheim and San Francisco, for example. But currently only 12 million customers fly nonstop on the extremely busy air route between Los Angeles and San Francisco each year.
The article goes on to say that Acela gets 3 million riders in the very dense east coast NY/Washington corridor but in less-dense California they were projecting a ridership around 10x of Acela's (!).
The LA Weekly has had a bunch of articles about the project over the years criticizing everything from its cost to its leadership to its utility. If the picture they paint is mostly correct, perhaps the only way to win is not to play.
And it's not just the LA Weekly -- a third party independent review came to similar conclusions apparently, as described in this LA Weekly article from Jan. 2012 [2]:
On top of skepticism from the state auditor, inspector general and legislative analyst -- as well as university researchers, federal transportation experts and this very news blog -- a "peer review group" for the California High-Speed Rail Authority, formed for the sole purpose of independent review, has declared the project neither physically nor financially feasible at this time.
The train's roster of supporters tells us everything we need to know:
"The project has won major support from organized labor, some big-city mayors and many state lawmakers," reports the Los Angeles Times today.
The article quotes the following from the report:
"We cannot overemphasize the fact that moving ahead on the HSR project without credible sources of adequate funding, without a definitive business model, without a strategy to maximize the independent utility and value to the State, and without the appropriate management resources, represents an immense financial risk on the part of the state of California."
> The article goes on to say that Acela gets 3 million riders in the very dense east coast NY/Washington corridor but in less-dense California they were projecting a ridership around 10x of Acela's (!).
And...so? California has dense areas in the north and south and a big (relatively) empty gap between them. California HSR is designed to connect those dense areas. The overall density of the state (or the corridor) is pretty much a side issue.
I'm not so sure it's a side-issue, in that the northeast corridor train routes don't just allow people in, say, NY to go to Washington, but also people in Philadelphia and Baltimore to go there as well, since those cities are on the Acela route.
And, if your city is not on the Acela route, you may well be able, due to the area's density, to take a commuter rail or another train to get to a city that is on the Acela route.
Similarly for Acela's Boston-NY route -- New Haven is on the route, so people from Connecticut can likely get to it.
And, of course, people in NJ can easily pop into NYC and grab Acela as well.
By contrast, the lack of density in CA would mean that aside from LA - SF (and a bit of traffic to and from Sacramento), you wouldn't likely have that sort of potential passenger-base.
> By contrast, the lack of density in CA would mean that aside from LA - SF (and a bit of traffic to and from Sacramento), you wouldn't likely have that sort of potential passenger-base.
Actually, since California has a large total population, and its mostly concentrated in a few major urban areas, what that means is you have a natural constituency for high speed rail with few stops, spending more time at speed.
LA (and San Diego) to SF (and Sacramento) is a lot.
But why would lots more people start going from LA to SF or on any of the other routes? As a comment to your previous comment below asks[1], what would the economic gain be?
There might be a bit more interaction between LA's entertainment industry and the Bay Area's tech industry, but how many additional people would be travelling for this purpose?
I expect that, given that the northeast corridor comprises the nation's capitol, its financial capitol and its academic capitol (the latter two also being high-tech centers), one would expect movement between these places and would want high-speed transport.
I just don't see a similar dynamic operating in CA. Sacramento cannot compare to Washington, D.C. and LA and SF are pretty self-sufficient, as I expect San Diego is as well.
The question is how many people really need to travel between the Bay Area and SoCal? Right now it is about 12 million trips a year. That would increase if the link is cheaper, but to what economic gain? These two areas are strongly connected economically, not like NYC and DC are.
Ya, those areas are strongly connected. There was a typo in my above reply, I meant to say that SF/LA are not as strongly connected economically as NYC/Boston/Philly/DC.
> Can you please clarify why the high speed rail is likely to be a debacle ?
I don't believe that high speed rail will necessarily be a debacle.
But the route was largely chosen for political considerations. It was decided downtown San Jose, Fresno, and Bakersfield must have stations. (This requires an additional long tunnel, and urban construction is much more expensive.) The route takes a detour through Palmdale[1], an underdeveloped part of Los Angeles County.
The 'straight shot' route down I-5 that Musk proposes was also considered for HSR, and rejected even though it would have been much cheaper and simpler to construct.
Counterpoint: rail that doesn't run through urban areas is far less useful. There is a reason Amtrak is taking over the northeast corridor: it's tough to beat to convenience of being able to walk from your office in manhattan to your office in DC without ever leaving public transit.
However, CA-HSR chose the nearly the most complex and expensive route possible (even though they don't have a funding source), so we shouldn't make a direct cost comparison with Musk's route down I-5. HSR would also be much cheaper on the mostly unpopulated I-5 corridor. Also, the right-of-ways that Musk proposes to get into SF and LA are sketchy.
(Silicon Valley business interests wanted the HSR stations in San Jose & Mountain View, and apparently quite interested in using lower-cost areas such as Fresno for back-office activities. So while they will be impressed by Hyperloop's techno-wizardry, they may actually prefer the HSR project.)
The same reason san francisco has built like 100 or 200 new housing units in the past year, and the same reason the california coastal commission was being sued (and found unconstitutional, etc):
California has a very large amount of regulatory burden compared to almost anywhere else in the US. High speed rail there is likely to cost overrun by a massive factor, and under deliver by a massive factor, and both, for no actually good reason, instead, only theoretically good ones.
The reason San Francisco built 269 units in 2011 was not bureaucracy, but that we were at the tail end of a real estate crash. More than 4000 units were started in 2012, and a further 30,000 have been approved. Source: http://www.spur.org/publications/library/article/san-francis...
Wake me when they actually happen (IE are built and available).
SPUR's data comes from the SF planning department, which is now under tremendous pressure to at least claim they are doing something. Data on the actual ground (IE real estate listings, etc) do not support their claims, as anyone who tries to get a residential unit in SF can tell you. I'd love to know what they consider a "start". It shouldn't take multiple years for a simple residential unit to be completed.
You are also talking about places where it takes months to get a tree removed from your property and requires approval from the "county arborist". It often takes years for people to acquire permits to do remodeling.
California also has significantly different and more stringent energy/building codes from all other places, in areas completely unrelated to things like 'earthquake protection' (or anything reasonably related to California issues)
It absolutely has a high regulatory cost compared to most other places, and past HN, i don't think i've seen anyone dispute this (IE AFAIK, California doesn't dispute it, they simply claim it's worth it)
Just because you're too ignorant and lazy to walk around looking at all the construction doesn't mean it's not there. There are over 4000 units actively under construction right now. That is a fact beyond argument.
I've been in plenty of places like SF, which, when under pressure, simply make up statistics or change what they mean.
It's simply not a "fact beyond argument", when the only source of this "fact" are a group with a very strong vested interested in high numbers and a history of not truth telling.
The 100-200 units number only came out after a lot of pushing.
They claim there are 22,000 units in planning/approval as of 2012, and we are 3/4 of the way through 2013.
Combined with the 4000 that were under construction, they should be visible by now somewhere.
Maybe you'd like to point out where you see 20k+ units under construction?
At that many, it should be blindingly obvious. SF is simply not that large, and does not have that much hidden space (open or otherwise).
I'm sorry that you don't know what it means for construction to be approved. It means the units will be built in the future. This isn't Sim City.
If you are feeling exceptionally lazy and only have time to look outside your bubble once, go to Market between 7th and 9th. The new building on 8th between Market and Mission has over 1900 units (over 1400 units net of what were demolished) and the one at 55 9th Street has 300 new units on what used to be an empty field.
You seem to be deliberately misrepresenting what i'm saying in order to argue about things i'm not claiming, so i'm just not going to continue this discussion.
Among other things, rail is worthless in CA, because you need a car to get anywhere anyway.
If you can afford to rent a car at the end of your train ride, you can afford a plane ticket.
In my opinion, most likely, the CA rail proposal is just a political folly being undertaken by corruptocrats who have ideas to profit from it.
Yes, the rail would be useful for poor people who want to visit family, but that is not a business case, and does not justify harvesting tens of billions from the innocent citizens of CA. (Even if a tyranny of the majority voted to do it.)
> Among other things, rail is worthless in CA, because you need a car to get anywhere anyway.
Which is one reason a not-insignificant part of the HSR plan in California is improving commuter rail and other connecting mass-transit systems that will interface with HSR, to reduce exactly that problem.
It seems pretty clear that California needs it and generally HSR is a pretty sensible infrastructure investment.