California Knows How To Party (On Rails)

photo courtesy of railla.org

On Friday July 6th, the California State Legislature passed a bill authorizing the state to begin selling $4.5 billion in bonds. This includes $2.6 billion approved to build the initial 130-mile stretch of the high-speed rail line in the Central Valley. It’s a good thing I’m on RailLA’s mailing list or I’d have missed this historic tidbit. Sure, the ground has yet to be broken, but approving the funding is the first step. This will be the first high speed rail line in the entire United States. Let’s hope that California influences the rest of the nation in this as it does in other clean transportation methods.

The California High Speed Rail website has a nifty trip planner to get us all VERY excited about this. Just imagine! Traveling over 400 miles in 2 1/2 hours with NO speeding tickets! Not even having to cry one’s way out of a speeding ticket. Or plead for mercy. Or whatever. I truly hope that trip planner includes time spent stopped at the stations, because the driving route from LA to SF is more direct. But much longer. And not fun at all. There are fun ways to traverse the state, but they take at 8-12 hours, even at speeds well above what’s posted. Not that I know from personal experience, just that I’ve heard stories. Of course, the central valley is not as scenic as our famous coastline, but nobody wants to speed along the coast at 220mph anyway. They want to drive slowly enough to take pictures. This train is for when the destination is more important than the journey. Which is most trips, really. I am overjoyed that it will connect some of the more impoverished parts of the state to the bigger cities. This should make it easier for people to commute longer distances without having to spend too much time away from their families.

Screenshot courtesy of cahighspeedrail.ca.gov

However, this is also a boon for Palmdale/Lancaster residents. Many a time I’ve driven to Willow Springs raceway for a weekday track day and seen them all parked on the 14 and 5 south, gradually making their way toward work as I zip off to the track. Sometimes I’ve even braved the Palmdale 500, aka the Angeles Forest Highway, against rush hour traffic. Not a great idea when you’re on a motorcycle and some commuter thinks the racing line means ignoring the double yellow in that blind curve. There are dozens of deliciously blind curves on AFH, making it a truly wonderful commute for anyone with racing in their blood. However, this 1-3 hour commute will now be slashed to 27 minutes. The real question many of us want to know is- what can we bring along? Bicycles, of course. But what about motorcycles and cars, like the trains on the Eastern Seaboard? Will it be affordable to commuters who currently take the bus? Will the on-board wifi be fast and free?

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Tags: california, high speed rail

About the Author

Susanna Schick Susanna is passionate about anything fast and electric. As long as it's only got two wheels. She covers electric motorcycle racing events, test rides electric motorcycles, and interviews industry leaders. Occasionally she deigns to cover automobile events in Los Angeles for us as well. However, she dreams of a day when Los Angeles' streets resemble the two-wheeled paradise she discovered living in Barcelona and will not rest until she's converted the masses to two-wheeled bliss.

Freemon Sandlewould

Dumb as dirt in California. They are broke.

Good chance this ends up like the Superconducting Supercollider in Texas. ( a much more meritorious project )
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JLawson

Three questions –

How many times a day will the train run?

How much will a ticket cost? (I’m figuring by the time it’s all said and done – if it ever does get done, which I wouldn’t bet on considering the cost, lack of actual benefit beyond being cool tech, and ensuring cushy politically-connected jobs for the legislators that voted for it – the project’s going to run close to a trillion… so ticket prices will reflect that. You’ve got to at least attempt to persuade the taxpayer they’re getting their money’s worth.)

And number three – How’s a bankrupt state like California going to hold up its end of the funding, and why should the rest of the country pay for this boondoggle?

Look, I LIKE trains. They’re neat. It’s a peaceful ride. But economically, they’re flippin’ disasters in the US. Outside the NE, AmTrak’s a money pit. Even if the train is FULL they’re losing money hand over fist on the transcontinental routes. There’s a very few local, touristy routes that are breaking even, but the ticket prices on them are at levels that reflect their tourist appeal, not priced down to a point where people would use them as commuting options. (For example, the Grand Canyon Railway is a $75 round trip, lowest class.) I love the concept of HSR – but even a cursory examination of the numbers worldwide shows it’s worse than AmTrak. (Except in Japan on one line – but there they pack people on like sardines sans oil. And even there, with no other options for people to commute on, it’s iffy.)

So… what multiple of the GCR price will the tickets on this be? 10x? 15x?

Yes, I know – don’t ask such silly questions before the line’s even built. But this isn’t a case of ‘build it, they will come’ like the original Transcontinental Railroad – the cities and towns are already built, and if this is ever to work there’s got to be sufficient usage to justify it. Price the ticket higher than airfare – and people will go by air. Price the ticket too low, and you won’t even make your operating costs, much less pay down the costs incurred to build the thing.

And building it just so we can go “Look! We’ve got HSR! Aren’t we modern!” seems like paying a whole lot of money for a status symbol of dubious utility, either long or short-term.

If that’s something you want to do with your own money, that’s your decision. But dragging everyone else in the country into paying for it via federal funds (and I won’t go into how crappy the economy is at present) doesn’t seem fair at all to me.
- http://importantmedia.org/members/susannaschick/ Susanna Schick
  
  Those are all excellent points you bring up. It will indeed have to be cheaper than air travel. It will certainly be more pleasant, not being violated by the TSA. I seriously doubt Congress would approve it just to be cool. I’m sure they’ve done some feasibility studies as well. Since the Federal gov already set aside funds for this sort of thing, I don’t think it’s taking money away from other stuff. If anything, it will improve the CA economy, especially during construction, with all the jobs it creates. Can’t build a railroad overseas! Let’s just hope they use American steel, unlike that fiasco with the Bay Bridge using subpar Chinese steel….
  - JLawson
    
    What makes you think there’ll be no TSA on these? They’re already talking about setting up for AmTrak. A high-value project (assuming this ever gets started… and finished) would be a tempting target for the TSA. They’ll be there, don’t worry. You’re not getting away that easily. (grin)
    
    As far as setting aside funds – we’re broke, nationally. We’re the equivalent of someone earning 20k a year spending 39k, and shuffling credit card debt around by transferring the $160k he owes to as many new cards as he can sign up for. And now his friends in CA are asking him to buy them a new 60″ flatscreen.
    
    CA is broke also – this money could go a long way towards paying teachers or doing badly needed infrastructure maintenance.
    
    “I’m sure they’ve done some feasibility studies as well.”
    
    I’ve seen references to them – the studies indicate they might have as many as 90 million riders a year. That’s the best case, and done by the CHSRA itself. This is with 57 trains each way during peak hours, 71 in the off-peak, for a total of 256 trains each day.
    
    Bluntly, I think they’re wildly exaggerating both what can be done on the system, and the number of trains they’ll be able to afford. Those aren’t realistic assumptions, those are designed to be given to politicians who don’t have a clue about what’s going on – and will be easy to fool.
    
    http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/assets/0/152/198/224ab013-0771-4f9d-ae65-b667310e41d1.pdf
    
    I think the reality will be much worse.
    
    Re Congress – There’s a lot of voters in CA. They’re throwing a (to them) pittance at your state (I’m assuming you’re in CA) and hoping to reap votes with it. Even if this never gets built, that money’s going to disappear… and not to jobs, either.
    
    But then, after watching government for 30 years, I’m kind of cynical about things like this. Seems like the same project patterns play out time after time – and ‘but this time it’ll be different!’ just means it won’t be. Cynicism is the triumph of experience over hope, after all…
    - Jerry
      
      First, the ridership report is by an independant firm.
      I am not sure why you think the “57 trains each way during peak hours, 71 in the off-peak” unrealistic. The document you gave explained the interval of 9 minutes at the busiest station. 57 trains are not from one single station.
      If you are concern about the number of 90 million rides every year. You need to put it into perspective. The same estimate talks about 911 billion of inter regional rides in 2030, this is a 65% of growth with the 48% growth in population from 2000 to 2030. Unless you question the population and economy growth model, 90 million of ride is a small percentage of the total.
      The main point here is you can’t determine this based on your current experience about the traffic, population density or economy, you need to think ahead. In the last 20 years, we have seen tremendous change in terms of urban sprawling, traffic congestion, and air pollution, and it will continue to deteriorate in the next 20 year if we do not plan for it.
      - Ziv
        
        90,000,000 riders is not even a remote possibility unless we are talking late in this century. Amtrak has a total ridership of 30,000,000 in the entire country, and this study is saying 90m is possible? I would be shocked if there were more than 30 trains a day within 10 years and the numbers simply do not support this line being able to even come close to breaking even, or just losing a lot of money per year. This line will lose a ton of money every year before it goes bankrupt and the trainsets are sold overseas, used, at a huge discount.
        This is simply a bridge too far, too soon.
      - Jerry
        
        Ziv, it’s not comparable. The ridership includes urban trip as well as intercity trip. Cambridge Systematics used transportation study model which is the model used for transportaion planning for either highway, airway or railway. Many peer reviews have been conducted including UV Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine, Northwestern University, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, and many more. I do not believe that many of professionals are out of their mind.
      - Ziv
        
        Jerry, I don’t think they are out of their minds, I just think that they know where the money is. Caltrans and Metrolink simply aren’t that popular, and there is no way that the CA HSR is going to come close to meeting their best estimates. What if the detractors are right, what if the HSR ridership is only 25-30 million a year? The cost to operate the system will break the bank and CA will be forced to dump the service.
        Reason said that the $33Bn price tag was ridiculous, and they were ridiculed for it. Then CHSRA came out 6 months later and said Reason was right, and the projected price got doubled.
        I hope that I am wrong, I would love to see true HSR in the US, but I think that a series of incremental improvements would be MUCH more likely to succeed than a single leap like CA HSR.
        This thing could crater in a big way and drive HSR back a decade here in the US.
      - Jerry
        
        I think it is reasonable to question that Cambridge Systematics has some vest interest, but other peer reviewer, I don’t think so. The assumption might be bold, but the methodology must be scitifically sound. That’s why the detractor don’t have much countable rebut to the study. I agree money is best spent upgrading current system, optimize controlling system. Even China sped up their existing rail system 6 times before they built the HSR. But it’s too hard to do anything here, without a dramatic political drive. We either use this opportunity, or we won’t have any more rails.
      - Ziv
        
        Jerry, I can’t say that you are wrong, I am just afraid that if it doesn’t work HSR is going to be 20 years later to arrive. I just looked at the projection of 90m riders on 128 trains (each way) and was dumbfounded. That is an incredible amount of riders and the idea of having 128 southbound trains on a line when the San Fransisco to LA section is only 432 miles long? Sure, Sacramento and San Diego add a lot of miles to that 432 but the majority of passenger miles are going to be traveling sections between SF and LA. And that worries me.
        I hope it works. Even 60m passengers a month would be phenomenal!
      - Ziv
        
        I must be on drugs! “60m a month” was supposed to be 60m a year. And it would still be phenomenal…
Ziv

I am big fan of rail travel and I truly wish that there was a way for us to bootstrap our way to having a significant portion of our Amtrak miles be at IC speeds of 125 mph. But trying to build ridership while building HSR in California is putting the cart before the horse. Add the fact that California is $16Bn in the red this year and this just looks ridiculous.
I wish they would use the $3.2Bn in federal funds to buy more cars for Amtrak to use on its most popular routes where the profitable sleeper cars book up months in advance. I wish they would spend that money on re-building the tunnel at Baltimore so taller passenger and freight trains could travel there. Use the money to double track the high traffic areas all over the US where both passenger and freight trains are backed up due to high volume. Or to build overpasses on country roads that cross the tracks, or to hurry the use of Positive Train Control so that Amtrak can increase their max speed from 79 mph to 95 mph or more in hundreds of stretches of tracks, or open new long distance trains over routes that historically have supported daily service, or to make the most popular routes like the Empire Builder or the California Zephyr twice daily instead of one train a day…
But no, we get a rather fast train that is over budget that will run very quickly between two small towns due to the funding running out before the tracks were completed to LA and San Fran.
- http://importantmedia.org/members/susannaschick/ Susanna Schick
  
  hahaha! I know it’s wrong, but I found that last paragraph funny, in a Monty Python sort of way. I certainly hope that doesn’t happen. I really think it would be nice if we could replace more of the older trains back east with high-speed rail. But of course that would mean either stopping service completely during construction or building the lines somewhere else, right? It’s been hard enough to get San Francisco Peninsula residents to accept this, and I’m sure they’re not done fighting. They don’t need high speed rail, they’ve got private jets for such silly little trips. And god forbid Fresno Okies invade the Peninsula…
  
  (says the girl born & raised in San Mateo by the best Okie mom in California)
  - Ziv
    
    I originally wrote that the California HSR was going to run from West Vegetable to South Nowhere when the money runs out, but I think I am plagarizing a better writer, and still getting it wrong. I do agree that the population density out east makes for better HSR connections, but as you point out, straightening the corners that hold the speeds down and building fences to keep the kids out in densely populated areas is neither cheap or easy. I really do think that the critical thing for improving the train system in the US is to harvest the low hanging fruit first. Speed up the Amtrak and commuter trains from 79 mph to at least 95 mph and where possible up to 125 mph as is now possible in several places in the US. The superliners we have now top out at 110 mph, but the new Superliner III’s are expected to have a top speed of 125 mph, which isn’t bad.
Jim Loomis

Of course there are those still against this project, but much of that opposition has been generated by a massive misinformation campaign supported by the Reason Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and other so-called “think tanks”, all of which advocate an ultra-conservative and/or Libertarian philosophy. Sadly, and to the everlasting shame of those organizations, their anti-rail efforts have been shot through with half-truths and outright fabrications.

Furthermore, ordinary citizen/taxpayers should be aware that much of the funding for these “foundations” comes from oil companies, several of the major airlines, the highway lobby and, of course and in particular, from the infamous multi-billion dollar Koch Family Foundation.

Here’s what these self-proclaimed experts do not tell you: Their alternative transportation “solution” is to build more and more and more highways, the cost of which will far exceed the one-time cost of building high-speed rail.

The truth is, high-speed rail has been proven to be fast, efficient, cost effective and — most important — the preferred mode of transportation everywhere else in the world. What a pity its future is in doubt here in the United States as the result of a misbegotten campaign based on an inflexible anti-government-no-matter-what political ideology.
- http://importantmedia.org/members/susannaschick/ Susanna Schick
  
  Excellent point, Jim- always follow the money. So which companies/PAC’s are pro-HSR? Also, I think getting some corporate partnerships on board will help this stay afloat regardless of ridership. Like- who’s going to provide the wifi? I would think that’s something you could get companies to pay to be the provider, and they charge a nominal fee to riders, but have other ways of making money. Then there’s advertising, which some airlines use now too. I suspect there are other ways to get companies interested in paying to be involved in this, as they have a captive audience…
  
  I am loving everyone’s input here, it sounds like Jerry is about as well informed as Jerry Brown!
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