Matthew Yglesias (July 08, 2008) - By Request: Rails and Propositions (Domestic Policy)

I used to support direct democracy concepts like initiative and referendum. But then I moved to Colorado, where I have seen it in action. Our experience has been better than that of California, but not by much. People who write initiatives use deliberately vague and deceptive wording, and they often insert obscure clauses intended to help their business interests. It seems like a good idea in theory, but in practice it is really just voter manipulation. The only positive I see in them is that there are some issues that elected officials won't dare touch no matter how popular they are. Medical marijuana is a good example. But the Feds shot that down even though we passed it.

Posted by fostert | July 8, 2008 2:59 PM

Hear, Hear!

A scenic high-speed railconnection from Vancouver to San Diego would be awesome.

And proposition based direct democracy is just the poorest excuse for democracy there is.

Good for you matt.

Posted by Tomas | July 8, 2008 3:01 PM

I grew up in California. Direct Democracy sucks. You should definitely not want more of it. I live in Illinois now, and I pay a bunch of people to read, write, and pass laws for me. I don't have time to do all that stuff, nor do I want to. And the system out West is too easy to manipulate. Initiatives are nice in theory, and really, really bad in practice.

Posted by Seitz | July 8, 2008 3:02 PM

Related, a question about some rail proposal in Hawaii

I'm guessing this is light rail for Honolulu as any other rail project in Hawaii seems nonsensical.

Also, it's a complete travesty that you can't realistically go by train between the cascadian cities and California. Seems like such an obvious opportunity since the cities are so interconnected and the distances scream for high-speed rail.

Posted by BFR | July 8, 2008 3:04 PM

Despite California's strong liberal/Democratic itlt, the only straightforward and important CA propositions to become law I can think of have been reactionary. The proposition system has been a disaster.

Posted by Sam Penrose | July 8, 2008 3:06 PM

San Diego to San Francisco - yes. But SF to Portland? That's 500 miles (Sacramento to Eugene) without a single significant metropolitan area. East coasters generally don't understand how far south the LA to SF corridor is, and how much rural country there is between "northern" California - ie the Bay Area - and the Pacific Northwest.

Posted by Bloix | July 8, 2008 3:07 PM

"... It's an expensive undertaking, but one that will pay large dividends for a long time once it's done."

Is this based on anything besides blind faith? I doubt this high speed rail project is even close to passing any sort of objective cost/benefit analysis.

In an earlier post you called high speed rail "proven" technology. But this is true only in the sense that supersonic airplanes like the Concorde are proven technology. Technically possible but economically nonsense.

Posted by James B. Shearer | July 8, 2008 3:07 PM

Short electoral terms and term limits can cause legitimacy problems with this kind of long-term investment.

If you have a ten-year bond-backed infrastructure plan where there's a fair chance none of the elected officials who proposed and established it will be around after six or seven years -- that's quite likely in California -- it's important to have a piece of paper which says 'the people of the state wanted this funded through to the end'.

I'm generally opposed to plebiscites and ballot issues on non-constitutional issues, but that's based on the idea that if you promise something and get elected, the mandate is there to go ahead and bloody do it. In a gerrymandered environment, though, in which state legislatures play second fiddle and where the next election campaign starts the day after the votes are counted, it's harder to assume those kinds of mandates.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 3:07 PM

"... It's an expensive undertaking, but one that will pay large dividends for a long time once it's done."

Is this based on anything besides blind faith? I doubt this high speed rail project is even close to passing any sort of objective cost/benefit analysis.

In an earlier post you called high speed rail "proven" technology. But this is true only in the sense that supersonic airplanes like the Concorde are proven technology. Technically possible but economically nonsense.

Posted by James B. Shearer | July 8, 2008 3:10 PM

James B. Shearer's apple pie recipe is "proven" to contain nothing but oranges.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 3:12 PM

as a californian, i too am in favor of the SF-LA high speed rail link. however, i believe it will by pass all those lovely, but smaller, cities between the two end points. the line will pass through the central valley, largely following I-5. there are no towns along the 5 although it passes close to a few like fresno and bakersfield. all the lovely coastal towns are along highway 101 which, because of it's more coastal path, is nearly twice as long. towns skipped will be santa cruz, monterey, san louis obispo, santa barbara and ventura county.

Posted by captain disco | July 8, 2008 3:13 PM

What about direct election of the President? Do you believe that the Electoral College is still and effective institution, or do you believe that a popular vote should decide?

Posted by Trigger | July 8, 2008 3:16 PM

Don't worry. Even if the Proposition passes, they'll never be able to raise enough money to build this boondoggle.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 3:17 PM

Related, a question about some rail proposal in Hawaii whose opponents are trying to force a referendum...

Let me go on the record as being completely in favor of a high-speed rail link between Los Angeles and Honolulu.

Posted by James Gary | July 8, 2008 3:17 PM

Actually, the Coast Starlight used to be a stunning connection from Seattle to SF. You left Seattle about noon, went up the Willamette for a ways, passed Mt Lassen about 1 AM, a stunning sight in the moonlight, and arrived in SF at 0900. This took about as much time as if you drove straight through, and getting sleeper accommodations was cheaper than a hotel room.

Between 1890 and 1930 many railroads, and even some interurbans, offered sleepers for business travelers. You could board the car any time after dinner and go to sleep. The car would be picked up by a passenger train during the night and arrive at the destination early in the morning- passengers kept sleeping until 7 or 8, when they would arise, go to appointments, and often return home on a train departing just after lunch, thus getting home about dinner time.

Of course, this will be much derided by advocates of hurry-up-and-wait transportation, just as though our frenetic lifestyle had nothing to do with the speed at which we can make major mistakes.

Posted by serial catowner | July 8, 2008 3:25 PM

The prospects for high speed rail north of SF aren't that great. For a detailed look at the routes and constraints, this German rail fan's site is very interesting.

Posted by md 20/400 | July 8, 2008 3:28 PM

San Diego to San Francisco - yes. But SF to Portland? That's 500 miles (Sacramento to Eugene) without a single significant metropolitan area.

Even Santa Barbara to San Jose is 300 miles of relatively sparse population. Best to start with Tijuana to Santa Barbara and see if you can't get Southern Californians onboard (in an area where it makes a ton of sense) before pushing northward.

Posted by right | July 8, 2008 3:35 PM

Even Santa Barbara to San Jose is 300 miles of relatively sparse population. Best to start with Tijuana to Santa Barbara and see if you can't get Southern Californians onboard (in an area where it makes a ton of sense) before pushing northward.

This is kind of backwards. Tijuana to Santa Barbara is a great test-bed for local rail projects - for example getting people in Ventura County down to LA, but it's a lousy test case for high speed rail since the trips are relatively short and require more frequent and distributed stops.

LA to San Jose (or Sacramento) is a good candidate for high speed rail since a large % of the traffic on the corridor is traveling between those two points, so you don't need a lot of intermediate stops and the line can achieve very high speeds without losing out on many passengers.

Posted by BFR | July 8, 2008 3:53 PM

Thanks for the answer. I stand corrected on your views of direct democracy (I might have been thinking of Ezra Klein)

I'm guessing this is light rail for Honolulu as any other rail project in Hawaii seems nonsensical.

I am unfamiliar with where the line is drawn between heavy and light rail. Here is the official rail project site. Here is the site by those who oppose.

Posted by Kolohe | July 8, 2008 3:54 PM

I'd like to request analysis of and comment on the Pickens Plan. It's T Boone Pickens plan on how to stop sending $700 billion out of the country via oil exports. It seems to have some potential beneficial environmental impacts that are secondary to its goal.

pickensplan.com

Posted by crack | July 8, 2008 3:55 PM

Bloix - Isn't that the point? 500 miles on a 200 mph train, without the annoyances of an airport or the slower speed of a car. 2.5 hours from Sacramento to Eugene, maybe a little more for very brief stops in like 2 towns.

Another useful idea would be a circle route, going from Los Angeles to San Bernadino to Las Vegas, to Flagstaff, to Phoenix, to San Diego, to Los Angeles.

Here in the midwest, I dream of a high speed rail system that stretches out from Chicago like a spiderweb, with links going southwest to St. Louis, north to Milwaukee and Minneapolis, east to Detroit and then Cleveland, Southeast to Indianpolis and Cincinnati.

Posted by jerry 101 | July 8, 2008 3:58 PM

High-speed rail between SF (and Oakland, with a junction in San Jose) and San Diego is fine, but not north of SF. And it doesn't go "along the coast" to LA but well inland, bypassing San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. Have you ever looked at a topographic map of the area? Those things along the coast are the Coast Range Mountains. There is barely rail north of SF to Eureka. And nothing above that for a very long way. And nothing on the coast below SF either. The central route bypasses the coast entirely, going through Sacramento and then north to Klamath Falls and Bend, but of course there aren't any cities between SF/Oakland and Portland on the coast or even well inland. Really, they don't call the West the "wide open spaces" for nothing.

Posted by Mimikatz | July 8, 2008 4:05 PM

Mixner do you have any evidence that this is a boondoggle, or is that just some assertion that you pulled from, well, the same place you get all of your knee-jerk ideologicaly based assertions?

Posted by Not As Stupid As Mixner | July 8, 2008 4:07 PM

Even Santa Barbara to San Jose is 300 miles of relatively sparse population.

Exactly why the HSR system on the ballot doesn't go via the coast route, but instead goes over Tehachapi Pass to Bakersfield and up the Central Valley. Bad wording on MY's part.

Posted by Michael | July 8, 2008 4:08 PM

Bloix - Isn't that the point? 500 miles on a 200 mph train, without the annoyances of an airport or the slower speed of a car. 2.5 hours from Sacramento to Eugene, maybe a little more for very brief stops in like 2 towns.

Yeah, it would make very few stops but getting around Mt. Shasta is always going to be a challenge - this is especially clear if you've ever done the drive in mid-winter during a storm. Achieving high speeds on this segment is always going to be a challenge.

I'd really like to see this happen for my own personal reasons but the reality is the CA corridor and the Cascades Talgo both are far higher near term priorities.

Posted by BFR | July 8, 2008 4:09 PM

To clarify: the current proposals for CA parallel 99 instead of I5, hitting the major valley towns. See The Official Site of California's Proposed High-Speed Train System.

Posted by ScottM | July 8, 2008 4:09 PM

As a Texan, my dream is the Texas Triangle High Speed Rail System -- The top point of the triangle is DFW Airport -- the eastern leg runs east to Tyler then south to Beaumont and ending in Houston. The western leg runs through Waco, Ft. Hood, Austin, and ends in San Antonio. The base of the triangle runs Houston, College Station, then to San Antonio. It would completely bankrupt the state and federal transportation budget, but a 2 hour train ride from DFW to the Riverwalk would be pretty nice.

Future improvements would extend the eastern leg to Corpus Christi and Brownsville. The base would get extended west from San Antonio, through Midland and end in El Paso.

Posted by Blue Moon | July 8, 2008 4:12 PM

Wow - that Hawaii anti-rail site looks pretty lame. One of the alternatives they are pushing is an elevated HOT highway running above H-1 - not inexpensive - and the other alternatives are seriously lame ("crackdown on uninsured motorists!", etc.). I'm wondering if, as in other stops, the proposed HOT highway is to be a private venture and that is who is funding the anti-rail movement.
That is one serious problem with privatization of public works - those who have profit to gain will try and unduly influence the public debate solely on the basis of enhancing their profit objects rather than enhancing the public good.

Posted by Ethel-To-Tilly | July 8, 2008 4:12 PM

The official site has the proposed California high speed rail system map.

I think the cost benefit analysis is not too horrible, especially if you're looking at the benefits of pairing it with lots of new urban rail in LA and the Bay. The big expense is obviously getting through the mountains between Fresno and Gilroy.

High speed rail all the way to Seattle (or Vancouver) will probably have to wait a long time. As others have said, there really is a lot of space between Sacramento and Portland. Without any population centers in between, that's pushing hard against the distance where high speed rail can reasonably compete with air travel.

Optimistically, maybe the CA project will inspire some some kind of high(er) speed link from Portland to Vancouver, and that might in turn justify at least some modest track improvement to better link it to the CA system.

Posted by jack lecou | July 8, 2008 4:13 PM

To clarify: the current proposals for CA parallel 99 instead of I5, hitting the major valley towns. See The Official Site of California's Proposed High-Speed Train System.

Posted by ScottM | July 8, 2008 4:14 PM

As a Texan, my dream is the Texas Triangle High Speed Rail System -- The top point of the triangle is DFW Airport -- the eastern leg runs east to Tyler then south to Beaumont and ending in Houston. The western leg runs through Waco, Ft. Hood, Austin, and ends in San Antonio. The base of the triangle runs Houston, College Station, then to San Antonio. It would completely bankrupt the state and federal transportation budget, but a 2 hour train ride from DFW to the Riverwalk would be pretty nice.

Future improvements would extend the eastern leg to Corpus Christi and Brownsville. The base would get extended west from San Antonio, through Midland and end in El Paso.

Posted by Blue Moon | July 8, 2008 4:15 PM

LA but well inland, bypassing San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara.

Santa Barbara and SLO are not major population centers nor industrial areas, so the fact that high speed rail doesn't go there isn't very important.

Posted by BFR | July 8, 2008 4:17 PM

this will be much derided by advocates of hurry-up-and-wait transportation

Nothing does more damage to the cause of rail than the people who are advocating it because they are afraid of flying or don't mind spending days getting somewhere that a plane can cover in a couple of hours.

Posted by Tyro | July 8, 2008 4:20 PM

Since Mixner is the nation's clearest contrarian signal, we can feel confident it will be a big success.

Posted by Walt | July 8, 2008 4:21 PM

Mimikatz, there is rail along the coast south of San Francisco. The ex-Southern Pacific "Coast Line" heads south from San Jose through Morgan Hill, Gilroy, Salinas, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura, before entering the San Fernando Valley and ending in downtown Los Angeles.

This line currently sees a daily passenger train, the Coast Starlight, which travels a Seattle-Portland-Sacramento-Oakland-San Jose-Santa Barbara-Los Angeles route.

However, the coast route is definitely not suitable for a high-speed line... way too many curves and grades.

Also, there are definitely cities between SF/Oakland and Portland. While Chico, Red Bluff, Eureka, Redding, Medford, Grants Pass, Klamath Falls, Eugene, Salem, et al. are not gargantuan consolidated metro areas, they're not exactly Podunkvilles, either.

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | July 8, 2008 4:22 PM

As a Texan, my dream is the Texas Triangle High Speed Rail System -- The top point of the triangle is DFW Airport -- the eastern leg runs east to Tyler then south to Beaumont and ending in Houston. The western leg runs through Waco, Ft. Hood, Austin, and ends in San Antonio. The base of the triangle runs Houston, College Station, then to San Antonio. It would completely bankrupt the state and federal transportation budget, but a 2 hour train ride from DFW to the Riverwalk would be pretty nice.

Future improvements would extend the eastern leg to Corpus Christi and Brownsville. The base would get extended west from San Antonio, through Midland and end in El Paso.

Posted by Blue Moon | July 8, 2008 4:26 PM

As a Californian, believe me you don't want direct democracy. Comparing referenda to directly electing a President (as one poster seems to do) is not a very apt analogy. We directly elect representatives to pass our laws. Laws are complex and have complex interactions with other, existing laws, that is very difficult for voters to understand. I would much prefer my duly elected representatives who have the time and staff to fully evaluate the merits or lack thereof of the bills being proposed. A proposition is a good way to hoodwink a bunch of people into voting for very stupid things.

Posted by Vince | July 8, 2008 4:27 PM

Also, there are definitely cities between SF/Oakland and Portland. While Chico, Red Bluff, Eureka, Redding, Medford, Grants Pass, Klamath Falls, Eugene, Salem, et al. are not gargantuan consolidated metro areas, they're not exactly Podunkvilles, either.

Dunno - I've driven that route a couple of times and recall it being some awfully empty country out there. It would be one thing if it were flat open terrain but you've got to go over Siskiyou and around Mt. Shasta, each of which are going to be costly.

From a political standpoint, I'd rather see a heavy focus on getting actual high speed rail between Vancouver and Portland along with the development of the CA project. If both of those are as successful as they should be, then pressure will build to bridge the two lines.

Posted by BFR | July 8, 2008 4:30 PM

500 miles on a 200 mph train, without the annoyances of an airport or the slower speed of a car.

But it wouldn't be a 200 mph train. Even if it could reach a maximum speed of 200 mph, its average speed would be slower. And the more stops along its route, the slower it would be. And since most people do not live or work close to the central train stations in Los Angeles or San Francisco/San Jose, transfers between the train stations and the origin/final destination of the rider would add even more time to the journey. And ticket prices wouldn't be remotely competitive with airlines without massive subsidies. It's a joke.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 4:37 PM

And ticket prices wouldn't be remotely competitive with airlines without massive subsidies.

Massive subsidies eh? You mean like runways, gates, terminals, interstate highways, air traffic control facilities & equipment, airport security, highway patrolmen, etc., etc., etc?

Posted by BFR | July 8, 2008 4:42 PM

Jack, those mountains will be a serious obstacle, but my guess is that the most expensive section will probably be the route punching through the larger and steeper Tehachapi Mountains between Bakersfield and Mojave, along California State Route 58.

A conventional rail route currently exists along this alignment, but it is known as one of the steepest and most difficult rail lines in America. At one point, the rails circle back atop themselves to gain the necessary elevation in limited space - Google "Tehachapi Loop" for pictures.

It's the main rail link between Northern and Southern California, and for years has been a huge bottleneck. The Union Pacific Railroad, which owns it, has never allowed Amtrak to use it for scheduled passenger trains because of its limited capacity. That's meant that the current Central Valley trains have terminated at Bakersfield since the 1970s, with bus bridges serving Los Angeles.

The construction of this line will be the first great engineering project attempted in California since the State Water Project.

And as for the naysayers... I'll just point to the SWP. This state spent billions of dollars to bring Feather River water to the fields of the San Joaquin and to flush the toilets of Angelenos. Don't tell me we can't spend billions of dollars to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles with high-speed rail.

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | July 8, 2008 4:42 PM

Yes BFR, I agree - it would definitely be a long-range project, and climbing the Siskiyous... well, I think there's serious questions as to whether it would even be doable without some massive Euro-scale tunneling, and then we're talking about driving the costs into the ionosphere.

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | July 8, 2008 4:47 PM

Hm...another unsourced assertion from Mixner:

ticket prices wouldn't be remotely competitive with airlines without massive subsidies.

Care to back that up? And while you are claiming your glibertarian right to deny subsidies to rail, care to discuss the subsidies of air travel?

Posted by Not As Stupid As Mixner | July 8, 2008 4:50 PM

Massive subsidies eh? You mean like runways, gates, terminals, interstate highways, air traffic control facilities & equipment, airport security, highway patrolmen, etc., etc., etc?

No, I don't mean like that. Subsidies for even existing passenger rail services are vastly greater than for commercial aviation. For high-speed rail to be even remotely competitive on ticket price with commercial air travel, the subsidies would have to be even higher still.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 4:52 PM

Mixner's argument is always, essentially: the infrastructure sucks, it's crowded, and the delays are ridiculous, but I'm getting such a good deal on it!

Yes, Mixner, the high speed rail link will be expensive. But it's an expense being made to improve everyone's quality of life.

I'm sure that living in a ramshackle shed with a camping stove can fulfill your need for shelter and cooking, and it's not that expensive, but somewhere down the line, you feel that living in a real house with a nice kitchen is much more preferable. Californians are going to decide to shell out the money necessary to raise their standard of living.

Also, Mixner, as everyone has reminded you over and over again, per-passenger subsidies for rail appear high on a per-passenger basis only because they subsidize rare-used corridors. This rail link is for a congested,desnse route connecting large population centers. And in any event, the sum of the subsidies is very, very tiny.

Posted by Tyro | July 8, 2008 4:55 PM

Shorter Mixner - Subsidies for rail suck, subsidies for stuff I like don't count.

And no one is ever going to use rail because I said so.

Posted by BFR | July 8, 2008 4:56 PM

Googling around a little for actual information about this (a novel concept, to be sure) I found that the California airport commission is in favor of the HSR proposal-

"This comes from an April 2005 interview with John Martin, the head of San Francisco International Airport.

Q: How do airport managers feel about establishing high-speed rail for California? Do you support the high-speed rail initiative?

A: The airport commission has come on record in support of high-speed rail...

So again, we see that airports and high speed rail can work in concert. If they clear out the smaller planes, they gain capacity, especially runway capacity, for bigger planes. The airport makes more money from bigger planes. Rail covers the markets it can serve best, feeding the markets that airplanes serve best. SFO grows as an interchange."

A little more websurfing and we learn that "Air France, France’s national air carrier and one of the world’s largest airlines, is considering replacing some of its connecting flights with high-speed rail service in conjunction with Veolia Transport, also of France. According to the International Herald Tribune:

“More than half of all flights are connections, and in effect long-haul is where the value is. Short haul is just way for Air France to get passengers to Charles de Gaulle” airport in Paris, Van den Brul said.

Shifting passengers onto trains from planes would result in “significant” cost savings, a particular concern for airlines struggling to cope with record high oil prices.

Energy accounts for about 40 percent of an airline’s total costs, against only around 10-15 percent for rail."

Mixner and James Shearer will try to paint Californian HSR as one of Matt's wacky ideas, but in actuality it emerged quite independently from Matt, from a number of responsible people in California trying to keep the state liveable. It's not a crazy proposal, it's the solution you arrive at after you've compared the alternatives.

And, considering the inability of the Governor and Legislature to solve the crisis they've created, I guess it might be a good thing to have an initiative or referendum process so the people can break the logjam.

Posted by serial catowner | July 8, 2008 5:00 PM

Also, there are definitely cities between SF/Oakland and Portland. While Chico, Red Bluff, Eureka, Redding, Medford, Grants Pass, Klamath Falls, Eugene, Salem, et al. are not gargantuan consolidated metro areas, they're not exactly Podunkvilles, either.

But none of these are really major population centers. The population of all of these together adds up to less than twice the population of Fresno alone, never mind Sacramento, San Diego, SF, or greater LA...

They just could not generate enough local traffic to make California to Pacific NW high-speed rail work. You'd need to rely on lots of long haul, e.g., Seattle-LA passengers, but for them, a plane is probably faster.

The best bet is to focus on medium distance routes in economically integrated regions like CA, Chicago/Midwest, Portland-Vancouver, etc., and leave longer distances to the airports.

However, local feeders are also important, and I could well believe that a Portland-Vancouver high speed line stimulate (or be stimulated by) development of commuter rail in the Willamette Valley, for example.

Posted by jack lecou | July 8, 2008 5:03 PM

According to CA High Speed Rail Authority.
train $ 38
plane $175
car $ 49
Between Fresno and LA.
http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/map.htm

Posted by cheflovesbeer | July 8, 2008 5:05 PM

Yes, Mixner, the high speed rail link will be expensive. But it's an expense being made to improve everyone's quality of life.

No, it would be an absurdly high expense for a small benefit concentrated among a small group of people.

Also, Mixner, as everyone has reminded you over and over again, per-passenger subsidies for rail appear high on a per-passenger basis only because they subsidize rare-used corridors.

Wrong. Passenger rail subsidies don't merely "appear" high. They are high. Astronomically high in comparison to other transportation modes. And massive subsidies are applied not just to "rare-used corridors," but to the busiest route in the nation. The Acela is a massive example of corporate welfare. A small number of relatively affluent riders, mainly businessmen, enjoy the benefit of massively subsidized ticket prices on Acela paid for by ordinary Americans who get no benefit whatsoever from the service.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 5:06 PM

A centerpiece of Honolulu Mayor Hannemann's election campaign was a light rail commuter system. There was no ambiguity. The anti-campaign is probably loaded with 1) the folks who voted for someone else and 2) those who don't have much of a commute.

If we could get a geographic break down of the opponents, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that a good percentage are either in Hawaii Kai or Kaneohe, neither of which has much of a traffic problem. In fact the multi-billion H-3 to Kaneohe is so lightly traveled, I think the folks out there owe us a refund.

Posted by cmholm | July 8, 2008 5:06 PM

Mixner, I'm not sure that millions of people who travel across a very, very congested corridor counts as a "small group of people." But suit yourself. Unless you're going to offer 150 mph buses travelling along dedicated highways or somehow magically create lots of airports for shorthaul flights that will be immune to congestion problems, you're pretty much just blowing smoke.

Posted by Tyro | July 8, 2008 5:10 PM

Y'see, Mixner, California has a history of voting to spend its own money on infrastructure.

The citizens of California know that what separates the Golden State from, say, Mississippi, is more than a lack of summer monsoons and magnolias. It's investment - in schools, colleges, universities, roads, parks, aqueducts and transportation networks.

It's no accident that the largest higher education system in the world is located in the state of California.

Californians have rarely hesitated to vote for rational, economically-sound long-term investments in public infrastructure, because they see the benefits of those investments come back to the state many times over.

Now, we may have a problem voting enough money to operate that infrastructure sometimes - but build it? No, siree. There's hardly a bond the voters don't want - parks, schools, libraries, crime labs, roads, transit systems, water transport and yes, even that evil monstrosity high-speed rail. My guess is that it'll pass with 60-40 margins.

With gasoline pushing $5 per gallon and heading higher, the people of California are smart enough to see the writing on the wall. Rail is not the end-all solution - but it's one more link in the transportation network that we need.

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | July 8, 2008 5:11 PM

OK, I hate to be the guy complaining about the quality of a post that's here to fulfill our request, but would it kill you to take a look at Prop 1 instead of just saying, "rail, good. Sounds like a great plan!" Just the cost alone to repay the bonds seems like a tough thing for California right now, since the state is damn near bankrupt.

That said, an SF-to-LA high speed rail would be hugely successful. Shit-tons of people would use that. It's the perfect distance: just a little too long for a pleasant drive (about 6 hours), but almost too close to fly (though Southwest does have $49 flights). The problem is, you need to minimize the stops to make it fast enough to compete with air travel, but every podunk Valley town on the way would want a stop.

Posted by too many steves | July 8, 2008 5:12 PM

People that do not fly still pay the FAA budget.
2008 FAA budget 14.8 billion. Plus TSA budget. All those airports are government subsidized. Roads to from air ports. massive subsidies.

Posted by cheflovesbeer | July 8, 2008 5:18 PM

I just don't think that Matt (whose sense of geography is poor) really knows where SF and Portland are. San Francisco is at the same latitude as Richmond, Va. Portland, Ore is at the same latitude as Montreal. Northeasterners don't really understand western distances.

Posted by Bloix | July 8, 2008 5:19 PM

According to CA High Speed Rail Authority.
train $ 38

Ha ha ha ha! Good one. Acela tickets already costs 4 times as much to travel a shorter distance at a slower speed. And that route doesn't even use special track.

You can safely ignore all cost and benefit "estimates" quoted by proponents of rail projects. The more enthusiastic the proponents, the more ridiculous their figures are likely to be.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 5:20 PM

Mixner, I'm not sure that millions of people who travel across a very, very congested corridor counts as a "small group of people."

It's a small fraction of the people who pay to provide the service. Apparently, liberals now favor taking money from a large number of poorer people to benefit a small number of wealthier people.

But suit yourself. Unless you're going to offer 150 mph buses travelling along dedicated highways or somehow magically create lots of airports for shorthaul flights that will be immune to congestion problems, you're pretty much just blowing smoke.

Unless you can provide a serious, independent cost-benefit analysis showing that the proposed rail link would be remotely cost-effective and competitive with air and road alternatives, you're just making stuff up.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 5:26 PM

Ah, the Standard Mixner Demand For Celestial Standards Of Evidence To Match With His Out-The-Ass Assertions.

Why should we believe anything you say?

Provide a serious, independent cost-benefit analysis showing that we should take you seriously, or fuck off.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 5:30 PM

Memo to Tyro- I got a bellyfull of that "nothing does so more damage to the cause than" stuff back in the 60s. Sheesh, you sound like a stalinist denouncing a trotskyite.

And, call me old-fashioned, I think one reason to travel on a vacation is to see the country.

Maybe if I were younger I would think that a good vacation would be to fly as quickly as possible from one set of hip trendy downtown bars to another, comparing sushi plates and boutique beers. Ha ha! Just kidding! If you're that damn young, you haven't lived until you've had sex on the train, traveling through the western desert on a moonlit night with the window curtains open. Gosh, I feel so deprived that I had to settle for that instead of having cool sushi plates in trendy bars.

Disclaimer- this comment is not about HSR. It is about Tyro's belief that I am obligated to work for his "cause". I'm not.

Posted by serial catowner | July 8, 2008 5:30 PM

I just don't think that Matt really knows where SF and Seattle are. A rail line from San Francisco to Seattle wouldn't be an "extension" of a line from San Diego to SF - the distance from SF to Seattle is twice as far as San Diego to SF.

San Francisco is at the same latitude as Richmond, Va. Portland, Ore is at the latitude of Montreal, and Seattle is at the latitude of St John's, Newfoundland. The entire northeast corridor from DC to Boston would nestle comfortably in California's Central Valley. Northeasterners don't really understand western distances.

Posted by Bloix | July 8, 2008 5:33 PM

No, it would be an absurdly high expense for a small benefit concentrated among a small group of people.

Well, again, if you don't count the benefit to, say, everyone that lives on a coastline, who will be less threatened by rising sea levels, and increasingly severe hurricanes. And everybody who lives anywhere near a river, who will be less likely to have their cities flooded out. And of course anybody that eats food, as their food chain will be less likely to be disrupted by the aforementioned flooding, or droughts, or any of the other not-necessarily-foreseeable effects of climate change. Apart from them, yes, it's a very small group of people that benefit.

Posted by OhioBoy | July 8, 2008 5:33 PM

Shorter Mixner - Subsidies for rail suck, subsidies for stuff I like don't count.

And no one is ever going to use rail because I said so.

Don't forget "I don't like math" (Also starring: "models aren't valid if they make 'assumptions'").

Posted by jack lecou | July 8, 2008 5:34 PM

For the record, let's cite that bullshit asymmetric demand for evidence as 'Mixnerism 1' for future reference, so that it can be dismissed with the contempt it deserves.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 5:35 PM

Mixner, the road alternative takes many, many more hours than a train. It depends how much your time is worth.

Airports suffer from such a massive amount of congestion that shorthaul flights are frequently delayed, quickly eliminating any time savings you get.

a serious, independent cost-benefit analysis

What's the cost-benefit return of California maintaining a large number of major public research universities and a huge network of community colleges? What kind of return are they getting on constitutionally-mandated public beaches? They're building the state they choose to live in. And they're rapidly choosing to live in a place that has alternatives to massive flight delays and 6-8 hour drives at 65 mph.

It's a small fraction of the people who pay to provide the service

Millions of people travel up and down the west coast. You keep forgetting that the service problem being addressed is not the provision of rail. The service provided is the provision of transportation between SF and LA. Why you find this impossible to understand is beyond me. People who travel between SF and LA are willing to pay to create an infrastructure that allows traffic to be diverted to a rail corridor.

This inability of yours to understand all the dimensions of the problem is much like how your skull was impervious to the fact that more people wanted to live in denser, walkable neighborhoods in certain parts of the country than were available, even if many other people chose another option. You're a very simple-minded thinker.

Posted by Tyro | July 8, 2008 5:37 PM

Why do you guy bother answering a thing that Mixner says about rail? He can be practically rational about other things, but he becomes a robot once rail is mentioned.

He won't convince you, and you won't convince him. He lives in a world where Jet fuel is going to fall back down to 60 bucks a barrel and stay there until the day he dies.

Stop raising your blood pressure.

Posted by Kiran | July 8, 2008 5:44 PM

serial catowner, the times I've taken a slow overnight train to a place I needed to get to was a time when I was on a long vacation and when I was basically taking advantage of the fact that the country I was travelling through depended on that kind of transportation because the population was poor and could not afford to fly.

Aunt Mabel who feels that airplanes are unproven technology or the semi-retired person who has enough vacation days to spend 3 days going from Chicago to San Francisco instead of taking a 3 hour flight is not really a reason to encourage more rail. Because those people are rare breeds, and pandering to their needs doesn't really benefit anyone.

Train transportation is good for one thing: getting somewhere you need to, fast, without being caught in traffic and without the huge overhead of airport bureacracy that takes longer than the flight itself.

Posted by Tyro | July 8, 2008 5:46 PM

Unless you can provide a serious, independent cost-benefit analysis showing that the proposed rail link would be remotely cost-effective and competitive with air and road alternatives, you're just making stuff up.

Can you? Can anyone at this point? Most of those cato studies you trot out show highway subsidy figures from 2001 and before and compare them with rail subsidies etc... Different game now. In 2001 California paid between $80 and $128 per ton for asphalt, a petroleum product. They are paying $716 per ton today. How is this going to effect dollar per passenger mile figures this year? Dunno. And neither do you. Lots of local municipalities are having trouble paying for routine road maintenance this year. I'm willing to wager the Feds are taking a hit too.

Posted by RoboticGhost | July 8, 2008 5:46 PM

"massively subsidized ticket prices on Acela"

Evidence?

Posted by freddiemac | July 8, 2008 5:49 PM

too many steves, the "stops" question is definitely an issue, but it has been addressed. There would be, at most, eight stations between downtown San Francisco and the Los Angeles basin, and not every train would have to stop at every station.

The Central Valley would have stations in Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, Merced, Fresno, a combined Visalia/Tulare/Hanford site, and Bakersfield. However, the line from San Francisco would cut in south of the Merced stop, leaving the northerly stations to be served by Sacramento trains.

I think that's a good balance between not stopping in, as you said, every podunk town, but also serving the legitimate local markets - lots of people want to travel San Francisco-Fresno and Merced-Los Angeles, too.

It's also political. The travel time might be faster if you just shoved it straight down I-5, but you'd have no support from Central Valley residents - who'd gain little or nothing by having a high-speed rail line down I-5's route, which is essentially the Rub al Khali of central California, virtually uninhabited except for gas stations and fast food joints.

Also by going down I-5, you'd miss all those local markets, which means fewer riders. The point isn't just SF-to-LA. It's providing better intra-state transportation across the board.

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | July 8, 2008 5:52 PM

This is a clear example of the problem with direct democracy - while a high speed rail line would make sense in California if done in conjunction with a lot of other local planning, it doesn't make sense in isolation. Once you take the rail down to SoCal, how do you get around without a car?

Posted by bob | July 8, 2008 5:55 PM

Well, again, if you don't count the benefit to, say, everyone that lives on a coastline, who will be less threatened by rising sea levels, and increasingly severe hurricanes. And everybody who lives anywhere near a river, who will be less likely to have their cities flooded out. And of course anybody that eats food, as their food chain will be less likely to be disrupted by the aforementioned flooding, or droughts, or any of the other not-necessarily-foreseeable effects of climate change. Apart from them, yes, it's a very small group of people that benefit.

All of that, certainly, but more directly than that, as well. Mixner's point seems to be along the lines of "it's just a few business travellers, so nobody else benefits". Of course, it's not necessarily only elite business travelers (at the very least, the system will serve a lot of commuters and local travelers), but even if that were true, the rest is idiotic.

Those business travelers aren't going from Palo Alto to LA to pick their noses. They're going to do business. Business that builds and ties together the whole economic region.

It's like saying the highway system doesn't benefit me because I personally haven't driven on most of it lately.

Posted by jack lecou | July 8, 2008 5:55 PM

REQUEST:

What are your thoughts, MY, on rails-to-trails efforts? They make cities more friendly to a carless lifestyle by providing bikable trails, but they also pull up existing, though unused, rail lines. I have no feel for how many of those lines are engineered for or suitably situated for repurposing to mass transit, but presumably at least some are.

Posted by urbino | July 8, 2008 5:56 PM

REQUEST:

What are your thoughts, MY, on rails-to-trails efforts? They make cities more friendly to a carless lifestyle by providing bikable trails, but they also pull up existing, though unused, rail lines. I have no feel for how many of those lines are engineered for or suitably situated for repurposing to mass transit, but presumably at least some are.

Posted by urbino | July 8, 2008 6:01 PM

bob, you get around the same way you'd get around if you flew from SF to LA. Your buddy would pick you up at the train station, or you'd get on the LA metro, or you'd rent a car. Yeah, it's not ideal, but this isn't commuter rail. We're talking about replacing 8-hour car trips or plane flights.

Posted by too many steves | July 8, 2008 6:02 PM

Once you take the rail down to SoCal, how do you get around without a car?

The same thing that people do now when they fly into SoCal - have someone pick you up, take public transit/taxi/shuttle, or rent a car. If this system gets built, you better believe that there's money to be made by having car rental lots close to the main stations.

Posted by jrc | July 8, 2008 6:03 PM

Jinx!

Posted by too many steves | July 8, 2008 6:08 PM

Yeah, it would make very few stops but getting around Mt. Shasta is always going to be a challenge

As someone who lived in that area, getting around Mt. Shasta is pretty easy compared to what is north. The difficult part in the area is heading over the Siskyou Mountains to the north on the California/Oregon border. The I-5 freeway heads through those mountains and closes at least once a year due to snow. Northern California and Southern Oregon are also very mountainous making high-speed trains impractical there.

I still think a SD to LA to SF train would be very successful as long as it didn't stop for 15 minutes at 20 different stops along the way. I'd certainly head to SF a lot more. The I-5 corridor between these two places sucks for traffic on a good day and during holidays getting through LA is a nightmare.

Posted by JordanT | July 8, 2008 6:21 PM

Well, again, if you don't count the benefit to, say, everyone that lives on a coastline, who will be less threatened by rising sea levels, and increasingly severe hurricanes. And everybody who lives anywhere near a river, who will be less likely to have their cities flooded out. And of course anybody that eats food, as their food chain will be less likely to be disrupted by the aforementioned flooding, or droughts, or any of the other not-necessarily-foreseeable effects of climate change. Apart from them, yes, it's a very small group of people that benefit.

The arguments of rail proponents just get more and more ridiculous. Do please tell me how you have determined that the proposed California HSR would reduce the risks from climate change-induced flooding and hurricanes, and by how much that risk would be reduced. 0.0000000000000000001%?

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 6:22 PM

Fuck off and get that study you owe us, Mixner.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 6:23 PM

Fuck off and get that study you owe us, Mixner.

"Now go get your fucking shinebox."

Posted by BFR | July 8, 2008 6:30 PM

So Mixner, I assume you're also opposed to the massive federal and state subsidies provided to water users in the Central Valley and Southern California, courtesy of exorbitantly expensive dams, pumping stations and aqueducts which keep Los Angeles from drying up and blowing into the Pacific?

You're opposed, too, to the directly-subsidized Federally-mandated airline services to small towns, known as "Essential Air Service?"

Were you opposed to the federal government building the Eisenhower Interstate system, a massive subsidy for the auto industry, if ever there was one?

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | July 8, 2008 6:32 PM

Do please tell me how you have determined that the proposed California HSR would reduce the risks from climate change-induced flooding and hurricanes, and by how much that risk would be reduced.

According the the State of California, a single rail trip from San Diego to SF saves 438 lbs of CO2. At $30/ton or so, well, I'll leave the math to you...

Posted by jack lecou | July 8, 2008 6:33 PM

Tyro,

Airports suffer from such a massive amount of congestion that shorthaul flights are frequently delayed, quickly eliminating any time savings you get.

Acela is also "frequently" delayed. And Amtrak in general is delayed even more frequently. The on-time record of Acela service between DC-NYC-Boston isn't much better than the on-time record of airlines serving that route. And the more frequent the rail service, the higher the chance of delays and cancellations.

What's the cost-benefit return of California maintaining a large number of major public research universities and a huge network of community colleges?

I don't know. But since we're not talking about that, it's irrelevant. We're talking about the costs and benefits of a proposed HSR service in California. Do you have a serious, independent study of the costs and benefits of that proposal or don't you? I didn't think so. Your "arguments" consist of nothing more than guesses and wishful thinking.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 6:35 PM

cmholm-
Re: H-3
There is no place like Oahu that illustrates the 'defense' part of the 'Defense Highways Act'.

It is incredibly easy to use the 'interstates' to get from military base to military base. To get anywhere else is considerably more problematic. The fact that the H-1 viaduct essentially disapeears at the middle street merge heading into downtown is the stupidest thing I've ever seen, and I used to go frequently through spagetti junction in Atl, and the old franconia-springlfield interchange.

Posted by Kolohe | July 8, 2008 6:41 PM

If you want to commission Cato, Mixner, I'm sure they'll produce a study saying your assertions are worth more than a pile of dogshit.

So fuck off until they write it.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 6:42 PM

jack lecou,

According the the State of California, a single rail trip from San Diego to SF saves 438 lbs of CO2. At $30/ton or so, well, I'll leave the math to you...

Sorry, it's your responsibility to do the math for your claims, not mine. And your claim above is pretty meaningless, anyway. Is that "438 lbs of CO2" per passenger? Per seat? Per train? Or what? And it "saves" this amount compared to what? Flying? Passenger car? Bus? And what is the "$30/ton" supposed to refer to? And what is the relationship between any of this and the alleged benefit from reduced risk of flooding and hurricanes attributable to the proposed HSR route? And how much CO2 would be produced by constructing the new rail track and stations and other infrastructure needed for the HSR route?

If you have a serious, quantitative environmental argument to make for the HSR proposal, then make it. Dangling half-baked thoughts and meaningless numbers is not an argument.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 6:46 PM

Sorry, it's your responsibility to do the math for your claims, not mine.

Mixnerism 2: FAIL.

If you have a serious, quantitative environmental argument to make for the HSR proposal, then make it. Dangling half-baked thoughts and meaningless numbers is not an argument.

Mixnerism 1: FAIL.

Now fuck off and get us a serious, quantitative argument for responding to your claims.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 6:50 PM

Acela is also "frequently" delayed. And Amtrak in general is delayed even more frequently.

That is because Amtrak has to give the right of way to freight trains. If Amtrak had dedicated lines they wouldn't be delayed so frequently. Speaking as a Californian who'd be serviced by this rail line I think it's a spectacular idea. It seems like everyone I know agrees as well. It's being voted on by the people as well, not crammed down our throats.

As for the benefit, decent transportation between the major cities in my state would be nice. The San Diego airport is at max capacity so this would ease some of that burden (less inter-CA travel and connections could be made with HSR). This would probably apply to many CA airports. The I-5 corridor between SD and SF is heavily congested making car trips a pain. We need to do something about this in our state, and HSR seems like a better option than building more airports and expanding the road.

Posted by JordanT | July 8, 2008 6:50 PM

Mixner, a high-speed rail line between LA and SF would benefit everyone who drives in any of the cities in between, because on weekends, the freeways are packed with people making long-haul trips. You can tell that's what they're doing because they're loaded with suitcases and hauling waterskiis and stuff. Even if I never used the rail line, it would help me.

Posted by too many steves | July 8, 2008 6:55 PM

TMB,

too many steves, the "stops" question is definitely an issue, but it has been addressed. There would be, at most, eight stations between downtown San Francisco and the Los Angeles basin, and not every train would have to stop at every station.

Yet another reason to believe this proposal isn't remotely credible. If I have to wait three or four hours for the next non-stop train from SF to LA, I'm probably going to fly instead. Even if the train were competitively priced (it couldn't be without massive subsidies) and even if it were competitive on total travel time (it almost certainly would not be, given the low probability that my origin and final destination would be close to the train stations).

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 6:57 PM

too many steves: with respect, don't engage the troll until he's brought back that independent study proving he should be taken seriously.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 6:57 PM

Shorter Mixner:

"I've clearly never driven on the I-5 or 101 corridor, nor have I ever taken a flight between the Bay Area and Southern California, but I'm sure they work great for transportation. I really have no idea what I'm talking about but I'm sure that trains are a bad investment."

Posted by BFR | July 8, 2008 7:04 PM

For the record, ignoring Out-My-Asster's ever-more-spurious bullshitting about scheduling, London-Edinburgh trains cover about the same distance over the same time as LA-SF, with on average 6-8 stops that vary according to the route.

The average time spent at each station? Oh, yeah: five to ten minutes.

Funny thing, trains: unlike planes, you can get on and off pretty fucking fast, because you don't need to be strapped in and given the safety briefing before you get moving. You can unload your stuff in advance, walk to the door, and step off. The wonders of 19th century technology. Also, more than one door.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 7:07 PM

Oh and I forgot - "I LOVE sitting at SFO for 4 hours because my 1 hour flight to LAX was delayed because of patchy fog over the Bay. LOVE it!!!"

Posted by BFR | July 8, 2008 7:09 PM

If I have to wait three or four hours for the next non-stop train from SF to LA, I'm probably going to fly instead.

But you won't have to wait. If you have to travel to San Francisco for a weekend conference, you'll book your trip on Tuesday afternoon and board the train Friday morning.

Yes, of course, the sudden, critical, non-cost-sensitive need to travel will likely continue to be serviced by airlines. But so what? What's wrong with some competition for the airlines? What's wrong with giving people options? What's wrong with the avoidance of putting all our eggs in one basket, and preparing in advance to deal for gridlock (both airport and highway)?

Posted by Jasper | July 8, 2008 7:09 PM

That is because Amtrak has to give the right of way to freight trains. If Amtrak had dedicated lines they wouldn't be delayed so frequently.

They might not be delayed "so" frequently, but they'd still be delayed frequently. Amtrak's system-wide on-time performance for 2006 was about 68%. Less than for most air routes. And its on-time performance for long-distance routes was a pathetic 30%. The causes of these delays, as cited by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, include equipment or engine failures, passenger handling, train servicing, power failures, signal failures, commuter train interference, track repairs/track conditions, weather, and law enforcement.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 7:09 PM

For the record, ignoring Out-My-Asster's ever-more-spurious bullshitting about scheduling,

Ignoring head-up-his-ass's ever-more-ignorant-and-idiotic bullshitting about everything ...

London-Edinburgh trains cover about the same distance over the same time as LA-SF, with on average 6-8 stops that vary according to the route.

Er, the fastest train between London and Edinburgh takes over four and a half hours. The typical train takes over seven hours.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 7:18 PM

If I have to wait three or four hours for the next non-stop train from SF to LA, I'm probably going to fly instead.

I don't think that will be a problem. Right now, the high speed rail authority says that the route between SF - LA will take ~2:40 (including stops). Even if we round this up to 3 hours, and include 1 hour between runs, a single train could easily make 4 one-way trips between the cities in a day.

That means that even if the system only has 4 trains running on a given day, departure times likely won't be more much more than 2 hours apart on average. Throw in a few more active trains in a given day, and it gets pretty easy to have hourly service most of the day.

Besides, have you ever flown between SF & LA? I know I've had to wait 3-4 hours for my plane to leave many times (not to mention security)...

Posted by jrc | July 8, 2008 7:22 PM

Part of why California is interested in HSR-

"While high-speed rail would be the largest public works project in the history of California, and thereby presents a cost that seems daunting, it's cheap compared to the alternatives. In lieu of high-speed rail, the state would need a combination of more than 2,900 new lane-mi (4,667 km) of highway, 6 new runways, and 68 new airport gates to meet the projected travel demand. Altogether the various piecemeal costs of building these highway and airport expansions amount to at least twice as much the cost of building high-speed rail. To this we can add the costs that result from increasing our greenhouse gas emissions and from worsening our health and air quality.

Large expansions to airport capacity are not even a viable option in some cases. For example, Los Angeles planned to spend $11 Billion to expand LAX. This plan was dropped in part because of environmental concerns and neighborhood resistance. Los Angeles has agreed to a settlement that requires LAX to reduce capacity and cap its annual usage. Orange County also turned down the opportunity to move its airport from the cramped current location to the much larger former El Toro air base."

The other reason is that California is very interested in curbing GHG emissions and AGW, which could kill the $30 billion agricultural industries of California.

Mixner may now resume his regularly scheduled ranting and raving.

Posted by serial catowner | July 8, 2008 7:28 PM

No, Mixner, you are full of shit. You are full of shit on the generalities and the specifics; you are full of shit when you make bullshit assertions and when you offer bullshit predictions as fact.

Wherever and whatever, you're full of shit.

Now fuck off unless and until you have an independent study proving the opposite to my satisfaction. It'll be Mixner rules applied to Mixner, the ever full of shit.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 7:34 PM

(And he can come back after he's analysed the British rail schedule and produced comprehensive statistics to back up his bullshit. Which isn't going to happen, because he's simply full of shit.)

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 7:46 PM

If I have to wait three or four hours for the next non-stop train from SF to LA, I'm probably going to fly instead.

Last time I flew between Boston and DC, my flight was canceled, and I had to take a flight that left 3 hours later, AND I arrived at a different airport, an hour away from where my car was parked. And that's when thought, "If there were a train that could make the trip in 4-5 hours, it would be a great alternative to flying."

Orange County also turned down the opportunity to move its airport from the cramped current location to the much larger former El Toro air base.

Well, that was probably a bad idea. Orange county has gotten a lot larger since its airport was first built. You'd think they'd want a larger one.

Posted by Tyro | July 8, 2008 7:47 PM

Mixner, have you ever flown between SF and LA? The airports aren't close to anybody's final destination, and yet, they manage to get there. Train stations would be closer to the central cities than airports. Once you get to the station, you take a cab, or you call a friend, or you take a bus, or whatever. In the Bay Area, there'd probably be a BART connection at the train station.

If you live a decent distance from LAX, and you want to fly to San Francisco for the weekend, here's what you're looking at: say you have a noon flight. You need to be at the airport at 11 a.m., but since you'll have to park remotely and catch a shuttle, you'd better plan on hitting the airport perimeter at 10:30. Say you live an hour from LAX (trust me, everywhere is an hour from LAX), so you need to leave home at 9:30. Your noon flight lands a t 1 p.m., you wait to get your luggage, and by 1:30 you've left the airport. That's four hours travel time, maybe more if the traffic sucks in LA that morning. That's faster than driving, but barely. Driving takes 5-7 hours, depending on where you're starting from, the traffic, and your level of respect for the speed limits.

Now, if this is a high-speed train, you might still need an hour to get to the train station, but you wouldn't need that half-hour to make it to the terminal, because there's no way LA's high-speed rail station is going to be as huge and remote as LAX. And if you already have your ticket, you can walk into the station 10 minutes before your train leaves. Now you're leaving your house at 10:45 for your noon train, arriving in SF at 2:45, and your luggage is with you. That's the same travel time as the flight, 4 hours.

My assumption is the train would end up costing more than the cheapest LA-SF flights, which are $39 or $49 now. But airline tickets have hidden fees, plus exorbitant charges for parking at the airport. I think in the end the train could compete with the cheapest flights. Most flights between SF and LA are closer to $100 each way, anyway, especially if you're booking them on short notice.

Posted by too many steves | July 8, 2008 7:47 PM

Why would anyone worry about not taking the non-stop LA-SF as opposed to the stopping LA-SF, Mixner? The total time difference is likely to be maybe 30-45 minutes, if even that. It doesn't take 20 minutes to unload and load passengers at a given stop - in fact, it can be done in just a couple minutes.

I've been on several European high-speed routes, including the Channel Tunnel, and with the exception of the terminal stations (obviously), station dwell times are usually from two to five minutes, at most.

It's blatantly obvious that you have zero experience with high-speed rail, Mixner, and that you're just making stuff up as you go along.

Oh, and what final destinations are ever convenient to the airports? LAX isn't remotely convenient to anything, and neither is, say, Chicago-O'Hare. Red freakin' herring.

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | July 8, 2008 7:47 PM

Speaking of ballot initiatives and transit, Phoenix's light rail system was approved in 2000. Here we are in 2008, and the first segment, serving downtown, the airport and ASU, still isn't open. It's scheduled for December 2008.

Meanwhile, the westernmost north-south bus line runs down 67'th Avenue, but University of Phoenix Stadium (Super Bowl, AZ Cardinals) and Jobing.com Arena (PHX Coyotes) are on 91'st Ave. About half the West Valley has crappy to no bus service.

Needless to say, I'm waiting to be impressed by Arizona voter initiatives.

Posted by Aatos | July 8, 2008 7:52 PM

Also, Mixner, if you have to wait 3-4 hours for the next train, that's because you missed the one you were supposed to catch. If you miss a flight, you're sure as hell waiting a few hours to get another one.

Posted by too many steves | July 8, 2008 7:53 PM

I don't think that will be a problem. Right now, the high speed rail authority says that the route between SF - LA will take ~2:40 (including stops). Even if we round this up to 3 hours, and include 1 hour between runs, a single train could easily make 4 one-way trips between the cities in a day.

So, 3 hours actual travel time on the train. Plus the time needed to travel between your origin and the departure train station. Plus the time needed to travel between your arrival train station and your final destination. Plus whatever time you need to spend at each train station. And far fewer departures a day to choose from. Sorry, this doesn't sound remotely time-competitive with flying for the vast majority of travelers, even if we assume rail ticket prices were competitive and rail service delays/cancellations were not an issue. Ticket prices could not be competitive without massive subsidies, and given passenger rail's abysmal record of on-time performance, there's no basis for assuming the service would be reliable either.

Throw in a few more active trains in a given day, and it gets pretty easy to have hourly service most of the day.

Oh really? You've determined that there would be sufficient demand to fill a train every hour throughout the day, have you? Where may I find this analysis?

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 8:00 PM

Jesus H Effing Christ, why am I arguing with this guy?

Anyway, do you really think that flying doesn't include "the time needed to travel between your origin and the departure train station. Plus the time needed to travel between your arrival train station and your final destination. Plus whatever time you need to spend at each train station."

Flying has way more waiting time than a decent rail system. I'm not saying we should have passenger rail criss-crossing the country. But distances of 200-500 miles are perfect for rail, and that's what we've got here in California.

Plus, California needs to do something to provide more transportation infrastucture. The freeways are horribly overcrowded, and a lot of that traffic is long-haul trips from NorCal to SoCal. Even with high-speed-rail, we'll probably need way more new freeways and freeway lanes than are politically and logistically feasable.

Everybody who takes the train is another guy who's not screwing up my commute on the 101.

Posted by too many steves | July 8, 2008 8:10 PM

There is sufficient demand to fill several 737, A320 and 757 aircraft every hour between the San Francisco Bay Area and the Southland. A quick check of airline schedules from United, Southwest and jetBlue would confirm that, Mixner. Once again, you're proving that you have no clue what you're talking about.

Southwest Airlines alone has 22 daily flights from Oakland to Los Angeles - and that's not including the flights to Santa Ana/Orange County, Burbank, Ontario and San Diego, nor the flights from San Francisco, San Jose or Sacramento.

There are hundreds of large jet airliners flying every day between Northern and Southern California. It's the single busiest air travel corridor in the world. It is *ripe* for high-speed rail.

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | July 8, 2008 8:21 PM

Tyro,

Last time I flew between Boston and DC, ....

Ah, right. I forgot your third preferred method of argumentation (along with "argument by guesswork" and "argument by wishful thinking").... argument by anecdote. Not even substantiated anecdote.

Tell me, Tyro, do facts mean anything to you at all? E-v-i-d-e-n-c-e? Scientific study? Or is everything just a matter of what you hope is true and what you guess is true?

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 8:29 PM

Current daily airline schedules from Oakland International Airport to Southland airports:

OAK-Los Angeles International
18 daily flights on Southwest Airlines
4 daily flights on United Express/SkyWest

OAK-San Diego
16 daily flights on Southwest Airlines

OAK-Burbank/Glendale/Pasadena
15 daily flights on Southwest Airlines

OAK-Ontario
10 daily flights on Southwest Airlines

OAK-Santa Ana
9 daily flights on Southwest Airlines

OAK-Long Beach
5 daily flights on jetBlue Airways

That's 77 jet airliners a day departing Oakland for the Southland. We haven't even started considering San Francisco, San Jose and Sacramento. I'll pull those schedules too, if you want.

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | July 8, 2008 8:33 PM

Plus the time needed to travel between your origin and the departure train station. Plus the time needed to travel between your arrival train station and your final destination. Plus whatever time you need to spend at each train station.

I don't see how this is any different than using an airline. In fact, with security and luggage lines, I can imagine this overhead time being worse for flying.

And far fewer departures a day to choose from.

There doesn't need to be 500 departures a day. One departure an hour from each of the main hubs would likely be convenient enough for anyone.

massive subsidies...

My post concerned the user convenience compared to airlines. You're changing the subject - carry on your subsidies rants with others.

You've determined that there would be sufficient demand to fill a train every hour throughout the day, have you?

A quick look at flights between LA-area airports and SF-area airports shows that on July 22 there are 112 non-stop flights between these airports, and this doesn't even include Southwest which runs many flight between the metro areas. Many people travel this route. A high-speed train will surely syphon off some of this air traffic - not to mention long-distance auto traffic. Will there be demand for hourly trains? I suspect there will be if the out of pocket cost per traveler and total transit time are competitive with the alternatives. Right now, both of us have to make assumptions to determine how those factors will play out.

Link to flights

Posted by jrc | July 8, 2008 8:34 PM

Just to drill this into Mixner's head, because it's hilarious:

Daily flights San Francisco-Southland:

SFO-Los Angeles
18 daily flights on United Airlines
12 daily flights on Southwest Airlines
7 daily flights on American Airlines
7 daily flights on Virgin America
1 daily flight on Alaska Airlines

SFO-San Diego
10 daily flights on Southwest Airlines
9 daily flights on United Airlines
5 daily flights on Virgin America

SFO-Orange County/Santa Ana
7 daily flights on United/United Express
5 daily flights on American Eagle

SFO-Santa Barbara
9 daily flights on United Express

SFO-Burbank
6 daily flights on United/United Express

SFO-Ontario
5 daily flights on United Express

SFO-Palm Springs
2 daily flights on Alaska Airlines
1 daily flight on United Express

SFO-Palmdale
2 daily flights on United Express

That's another 106 daily round-trips. We still haven't gotten to count San Jose or Sacramento yet. Need more evidence that there's enough demand?

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | July 8, 2008 8:51 PM

The airports aren't close to anybody's final destination,

That's obviously not true. Los Angeles alone is served by five major airports. LAX, Long Beach, Burbank, Ontario and Orange County. The vast majority of travellers are likely to be much closer to one of those airports than to Union Station. And getting to the airport is probably going to be quicker and easier than getting to the train station, too.

Train stations would be closer to the central cities than airports.

Most people who live or work in the LA and SF metro areas do not live or work in the central city. Or even close to the central city. LA is effectively a giant suburb. And by the way, are you also planning a build a huge new rental car facility next to Union Station so that travellers arriving on your HSR train can rent a car? How much is that going to cost? What are the rental rates likely to be, given the huge expense of building such a facility in downtown Los Angeles?

Once you get to the station, you take a cab, or you call a friend, or you take a bus, or whatever.

Oh, yes, I can just see those businessmen lining up to take the city bus in downtown Los Angeles. The vast majority of visitors are obviously not going to get around by bus or cab or "whatever." They're going to want to rent a car. Which would require a huge new rental car facility in downtown LA.

If you live a decent distance from LAX, and you want to fly to San Francisco for the weekend, here's what you're looking at: say you have a noon flight. You need to be at the airport at 11 a.m., but since you'll have to park remotely and catch a shuttle, you'd better plan on hitting the airport perimeter at 10:30.

Nonsense. I love your bait-and-switch. What happened to cabs, buses and calling friends? How come train riders can use those but air passengers can't? And who said you have to be at the airport at 11? If you have no luggage to check you can go straight to the gate. The TSA now even has a program to expedite frequent travellers through security.

And if there's ever a serious terrorist incident on an intercity passenger train or in a train station, the government will probably institute airport-like security procedures at train stations, which would add further delays to train travel. Amtrak already checks ID, and according to this report it is planning to start random screening of carry-on bags using armed police with bomb-sniffing dogs patrolling platforms and trains. This is likely to cause additional delays and make its already abysmal on-time performance even worse.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 8:57 PM

I, for one, would like to see the tally include San Jose and Sacramento. Because, you know, I'm still just not quite convinced.

Posted by Kevin | July 8, 2008 8:58 PM

Or is everything just a matter of what you hope is true and what you guess is true?

Oh, the irony, coming from Full-o'shixter, who's already determined beyond question the schedules and demand for a California coastal service in his rabbit-turd brain, as well as the time trains will stop at each station.

You're full of shit, so fuck off until you prove otherwise.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 8:59 PM

Umm, hello Mixner, this is reality calling. Union Station is not the only proposed station for the high-speed rail system.

There would be stops in Palmdale, Sylmar, Burbank, downtown LA, City of Industry, Ontario Airport, Riverside, Murrieta, Escondido, University City (UCSD) and downtown San Diego. A spur would be constructed to Irvine, via Norwalk and Anaheim.

Seriously, is it that difficult for you to do 5 minutes worth of research before you post? Or do you just like making posts that can be logically destroyed in milliseconds?

Here's a map for you. Enjoy.

http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/images/chsr/20080323164928_Preferred_State_020608-Small.pdf

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | July 8, 2008 9:05 PM

TBM,

There is sufficient demand to fill several 737, A320 and 757 aircraft every hour between the San Francisco Bay Area and the Southland.

Right. The huge choice of flight departures, from multiple airports, makes HSR even less viable. You can buy a plane ticket to fly more or less at any time of the day you like, from any of several airports, and the flight only takes little more than an hour.

You haven't produced any evidence that the demand for HSR would be sufficient to fill a train even just once an hour, let alone to support a frequency of service remotely competitive with the airlines. How many passengers will each train hold? How many will you be able to lure away from the airlines? What will your average load factor be?

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 9:09 PM

Union Station is not the only proposed station for the high-speed rail system. There would be stops in Palmdale, Sylmar, Burbank, downtown LA, City of Industry, Ontario Airport, Riverside, Murrieta, Escondido, University City (UCSD) and downtown San Diego. A spur would be constructed to Irvine, via Norwalk and Anaheim.

I thought this thing was supposed to be time-competitive with planes. How is it going to compete if the train makes ten stops before it even leaves the Los Angeles area? And an additional six or more stops before it gets to Sacramento, San Jose or San Francisco?

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 9:16 PM

Los Angeles alone is served by five major airports. LAX, Long Beach, Burbank, Ontario and Orange County.

Last I checked, the high-speed rail will have stops near each of these points.

And by the way, are you also planning a build a huge new rental car facility next to Union Station so that travelers arriving on your HSR train can rent a car? (among other car rental rants)

There are already many rental facilities downtown. People can take a shuttle to these locations. BTW - you have to take a shuttle at LAX to rent a car.

Posted by jrc | July 8, 2008 9:17 PM

Last I checked, the high-speed rail will have stops near each of these points.

Then, as I said, how is it going to compete with the airlines on time if it has to keep making all these stops?

There are already many rental facilities downtown. People can take a shuttle to these locations.

But you're going to need many more or much larger facilities if you're diverting a significant amount of current passenger traffic from the airports to downtown LA. Have you ever seen the rental car facilities at LAX? They're huge.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 9:24 PM

Umm... where to begin.

First, the flight takes "little more than an hour." True, yet entirely misleading. It's obvious you haven't tried to fly much lately.

If I tried to show up to an airport for a flight at the minute it was scheduled to push back from the gate, I'd be looking at a ticket counter agent telling me "you're hosed." It is *impossible*

Every airline now advises passengers show up *at least* an hour before scheduled departure. That means that one-hour flight just became two hours worth of travel time. If you're at SFO at peak times, better make it 90 minutes ahead or more - security lines can be absolutely insane, unless you happen to have a magic elite frequent-flyer card.

Then figure that if you've checked any luggage, you're looking at a 15 to 30 minute wait post-arrival for your bags to be unloaded from the plane and delivered to the terminal. Now you've got a two-hour, 30 minute travel time.

Hey, wait a minute... isn't the high-speed rail supposed to go downtown SF to downtown LA in two hours, 40 minutes?

I flew 130,000 miles last year, making it to Mileage Plus 1K status on United. Several of those flights were corridor hops from the Bay Area to Los Angeles. Between dealing with TSA goons and the magic disappearing luggage (how do you confuse Denver with Monterey?), I'd have swapped those for high-speed rail trips, no question about it.

As for the "choice" question, wow, how wrong can you possibly be. You can buy a rail ticket to depart more or less any time of the day that you like, from any of several rail stations, and the trip takes about as long as the airline trip would. So... what's your point?

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | July 8, 2008 9:27 PM

Then, as I said, how is it going to compete with the airlines on time if it has to keep making all these stops?

Cited travel times include the stops. Downtown LA to Downtown SF 2 hours 38 mins. Add 20-30 mins if you're starting someplace like Irvine. Based on my experiences with trains and the associated time overhead compared with the time overhead at airports, this is competitive - especially for this route.

Have you ever seen the rental car facilities at LAX?

Yes. I've been stuck there many times. Will the rental cars centers downtown need to expand? I have no doubt they'll find a way if it makes them money. Even without the train, there seems to be a decent market for rentals downtown. The number of cars for rent downtown doesn't need to be the same number as LAX b/c I'm sure LAX will still have more people passing through there and renting cars.

Posted by jrc | July 8, 2008 9:32 PM

How is it going to be time-competitive? Seriously, are you dense? Mate, a train stop is not like an aircraft arrival. It doesn't take 30 minutes to dock, unload, clean, service and reload a train. Station dwell times can be two to three minutes. You could add 10 stops and only add half an hour to the transit time.

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | July 8, 2008 9:34 PM

How is Mixner going to cope with being full of shit all the fucking time? Oh, I know: by cavilling like a spoilt six-year old.

'koff, little boy.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 9:35 PM

You haven't produced any evidence that the dem-

Mix-2, with a bit of Mix-1 thrown in.

And if there's ever a serious terrorist incident on an intercity passenger train--

Mix-3: endless fucking whining. Dump whatever random objections you can scramble together and pretend that they're dealbreakers. If-if-if-but-but-but...

Shut the fuck up, you whiny brat: if your asshole were connected to the grid, it could power the entire planet.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 9:44 PM

TMB,

If I tried to show up to an airport for a flight at the minute it was scheduled to push back from the gate, I'd be looking at a ticket counter agent telling me "you're hosed."

And they'd tell you exactly the same thing if you showed up at the train station the minute the train was scheduled to pull out too, so this observation is utterly irrelevant.

Every airline now advises passengers show up *at least* an hour before scheduled departure.

Yes, but what airlines "advise" you to do and what you actually need to do are two different things. How long before the HSR train scheduled departure time will passengers be advised to show up?

Then figure that if you've checked any luggage, you're looking at a 15 to 30 minute wait post-arrival for your bags to be unloaded from the plane and delivered to the terminal.

Baggage handling would obviously also take additional time by train. If passengers are required to lug their bags along the platform and on and off the train, and through the narrow aisles to their rail car or seats, that's another reason to avoid the train.

Hey, wait a minute... isn't the high-speed rail supposed to go downtown SF to downtown LA in two hours, 40 minutes?

How's it going to do that if it keeps making all these stops? Where is your analysis? Where are your numbers showing that this estimate is even feasible, let alone realistic?

As for the "choice" question, wow, how wrong can you possibly be. You can buy a rail ticket to depart more or less any time of the day that you like, from any of several rail stations, and the trip takes about as long as the airline trip would.

Well, make up your mind. I thought there was only going to be one train an hour. And even less often than that for "express" trains that skip some or all of the stops between major destinations.

You could add 10 stops and only add half an hour to the transit time.

This is a joke, right? How long is the train going to stop at each station? How much will the deceleration and acceleration needed for all this starting and stopping affect the average speed of the train? Do you have any data? Do you have any analysis?

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 9:55 PM

Shut the fuck up, you whiny brat

Shut the fuck up, you insufferable bore.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 9:59 PM

How much will the deceleration and acceleration needed for all this starting and stopping--

Christ on a fucking pogo stick, stop whining, troll.

You're embarrassing your mother, pissing your pants in the store again because you can't have your candy car.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 10:11 PM

Will the rental cars centers downtown need to expand? I have no doubt they'll find a way if it makes them money.

And if they can't make money, then what? High rental car rates, caused by the high cost of land in downtown Los Angeles needed to store all the vehicles, would be yet another incentive for travellers to stay away from the train.

I don't see how this is any different than using an airline.

The point is that one of the supposed advantages of HSR over flying is the alleged easier and quicker transfers between train stations and the origin and final destination of the trip as compared to airports. This alleged saving is supposed to compensate for some or all of the time lost due to the slower speed of trains vs. airplanes. But in reality, transfers to and from train stations are likely to be no quicker than transfers to and from airports. And if security procedures are enhanced at train stations, as Amtrak is already planning to do, the supposed savings from that difference would also be reduced or disappear.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 10:11 PM

http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/map.htm

The map has the answers. Smart people who get paid to study transit and rail systems came up with the timetables, travel time estimates and other relevant data. You're some annoying guy on the Internet who likes to ask questions that have already been answered several times over.

So this time, I'll ask the questions. Where's your evidence that the CA High Speed Rail Authority's projections are wrong? What background do you have that gives you the credentials to question these numbers? Have you taken a European high-speed train? Have you dealt with air travel more than once in the last five years? How do you know Californians won't choose to take the train? How do you know that their fare/revenue models are inaccurate?

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | July 8, 2008 10:12 PM

Shorter Mixner: "Whine, pout, whine."

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 10:15 PM

The map has the answers.

No it doesn't. The map just makes assertions. Wildly implausible assertions.

For LA to SF, for example, it claims a distance of 432 miles and a travel time of 2 hrs 38 minutes. With 10 stops along the route. That's an average speed of 164 mph. That's only slightly slower than the average speed of the fastest train route in the world, the TGV route between Lorraine and Champagne, which contains no stops at all and has a travel time of only 36 minutes. The CA HSR Authority's assertion isn't remotely plausible.

And of course, there are all the other issues I have mentioned: High probability of delays and cancellations because of equipment failures, signal failures, track repairs, etc, time and inconvenience of tranfers to and from train stations, massive subsidies required for ticket prices to be competitive with airlines, delays due to security procedures, and so on.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 10:25 PM

Christ on a fucking pogo stick, stop whining, troll.

Allah on a fucking unicycle, shut the fuck up, moron.

You're embarrassing your mother, pissing your pants in the store again because you can't have your candy car.

You're embarrassing the human race, shitting your pants in church again.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 10:29 PM

Mixner, for the record, have you ever been on a train? Because, while some of your arguments may be legitimate, you seem to have no understanding about the mechanics of the whole thing. The train takes five minutes at the most to load. Not every train hits every station, and most won't except for off hours service.

Posted by thejerz | July 8, 2008 10:45 PM

The silly boy's in full-on six-year-old mode now: 'No, you're poopy! Waaaaaaah!'

He's got three types of sulk, and he's used them all up. Whine, whine, whine. He made a fool of himself getting his facts wrong, and now he's all 'b-b-but it's not fair!'

Ever been on a train? He's never been allowed out of the booster seat in his mom's minivan. How very sad.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 8, 2008 11:06 PM

The train takes five minutes at the most to load.

According to this entry from Wired's transportation blog:

Amtrak currently allows passengers to check luggage at almost every station, similar to the airline service. Like with planes, baggage claim service is slow, but since one train serves multiple destinations, the time waiting at each station searching the bags to take off often leads to delaying the whole train. European and Asian train systems do not offer this service and require passengers to keep their bags with them at all times. This allows trains to stop for a mere three minutes. Amtrak stops for 10 minutes in Emeryville, 15 minutes in Oakland, and 12 minutes in San Jose. All of these cities are in the same Bay Area region. This time adds up to 37 minutes of time sitting at a station.

And it's not just the time the train spends standing in a station, anyway. It's the time lost from all the slowing down as the train approaches a station and the time needed to accelerate back up to "cruising" speed when a train leaves a station.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 11:11 PM

Thank goodness for direct democracy: Mixner can move to California and vote against the proposition. Maybe that would help his anger.

Posted by jacobus | July 8, 2008 11:24 PM

As for the claim that train travel requires little or no advance arrival at the station, and no delays associated with baggage handling, Amtrak's own website states that:

We recommend that you arrive at the station at least 30 minutes before your train is scheduled to depart ... If you need help with your baggage, tickets or any other services, or if you are departing from a large or busy station, we recommend you arrive at the station even earlier than stated above. You should expect and plan for long lines at busy stations.

If you are making a connection, you need to allow an hour:

Amtrak does not normally guarantee connections of less than 60 minutes (90 minutes between arriving long-distance trains and local trains in the Northeast Corridor).

If you're checking baggage, you need to do so at least 30 minutes before the train's scheduled departure time:

Check all baggage at least 30 minutes prior to departure, and longer for special items. Baggage checked less than 30 minutes prior to departure may be delayed.

And claiming your checked baggage at your destination may take an hour:

Checked Baggage will be available for claiming generally within 30 minutes of arrival. However, some items may require additional handling and therefore may take up to 60 minutes.

But of course, we're supposed to believe that none of these delays and problems will be an issue on the Magic Fantasy California Train. Nor will there be any delays or cancellations due to equipment failures, passenger handling, power failures, signal failures, commuter train interference, track repairs, security procedures or any of the other problems that plague Amtrak.

Posted by Mixner | July 8, 2008 11:39 PM

Mixner, what makes you think California's high-speed-rail would look more like Amtrak, and less like European high-speed rail? I've ridden plenty of trains, and you can indeed arrive 5 minutes before the train leaves, and stop for 3 minutes at each stop.

By the way, I've arrived at the airport 30 minutes before departure and missed my flight. It's highly inadvisable to arrive at a major airport less than an hour before departure. 45 minutes works, but it's cutting it close. They won't even let you onto the plane if you don't get to the gate 15 or 20 minutes before departure.

Posted by too many steves | July 9, 2008 1:00 AM

With regards to transfers/luggage - I believe CA High Speed is separate from Amtrak. There's no reason why CA High Speed cannot follow the Asian/European model rather than Amtrak with respect to luggage. Citing Amtrak (b/c it's American) isn't any more or less applicable than citing Europe/Asia (b/c they're high speed systems). Until the High Speed Authority decides how they're going to run things, everyone is free to cherry-pick.

Second, citing connection/transfer numbers is meaningless. The system is essentially self-contained. There aren't any other lines to transfer to. A stop on a line is not the same thing as a transfer. As others have suggested, please look at a map of the system.

high cost of land in downtown Los Angeles needed to store all the vehicles, would be yet another incentive for travellers to stay away from the train

Downtown LA isn't actually all that large. And it's clearly not too expensive for car rental establishments b/c there are already 20+ car rental places within shuttle distance of downtown. Do you have any evidence that they cannot expand if there was increased demand? I have evidence a number of rental facilities exist. If hertz/budget/dollar/etc. saw increased demand for rentals downtown, I have no reason to believe they would have any problem finding additional garages to store cars since they already operate there. I have no idea why you think they'd act otherwise. Sure...it may not be all in one gigantic lot like by the airport, but why is that necessary? They're not going to leave money on the table. There's room - downtown LA is not Manhattan.

Posted by jrc | July 9, 2008 1:04 AM

This magical thinking is how ridiculous boondoggles like corn based ethanol get enacted. Just invent some environmental benefits. The numbers don't have to make sense because environmentalists reject cost/benefit analysis on principle.

Posted by James B. Shearer | July 9, 2008 1:13 AM

There's no such thing as checked baggage on dedicated high-speed rail routes, Mixner.

You're comparing Amtrak conventional rail service, which isn't all that far removed from the diesel passenger trains of 55 years ago, to a dedicated high-speed rail line with 21st century passenger car technology built on the proven engineering of dozens of high-speed lines in Europe and Japan. That's... not even worthy of discussion. It's just patently inapplicable, and you assuredly know it.

Please don't even attempt to compare it to Acela, because anyone who knows anything about rail, knows that Acela is as to true high-speed rail as an apple is to a pear - there's a superficial resemblance there, but that's about it.

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | July 9, 2008 1:14 AM

The numbers don't have to make sense because environmentalists reject cost/benefit analysis on principle.

The sense I get from the comments on this board is that while most people see any environmental benefits as a nice potential benefit, it's not the primary reason for building it. There's a growing need for additional travel routes between Northern and Southern CA, and for various reasons expanding highways/airports alone is not going to meet the future needs.

In fact, from what I've heard, environmentalists have been lukewarm on the project b/c of environmental concerns of putting down track through some protected areas through the Pacheco Pass.

Posted by jrc | July 9, 2008 1:27 AM

California's experience with direct democracy has been pretty awful. On the one hand, we have referenda making it very difficult to raise taxes and to get a budget passed. On the other hand, we have a zillion voter-mandated spending requirements that continue indefinitely and can't be cut even after the need for them is long past. Are we really going to need lots taxpayer funding for stem cell research in 20 years? The result is that a significant portion to the budget is completely outside the legislature's control even though they can't raise taxes to pay for it and coming to an agreement on how to deal with the situation is virtually impossible because of the supermajority requirements to pass a budget.

Posted by tennisfan | July 9, 2008 1:51 AM

This Mixner trolling is great. He always demands tons of rigorous "evidence" for any claim made on behalf of rail, and then throws out crap like this: "They might not be delayed "so" frequently, but they'd still be delayed frequently". Based on what? What evidence do you have that suggests high rate of delays if Amtrak owned the lines? Any evidence at all? Of course not, because Mixner is a lying shill. Are you on Pulte's payroll? Or Delta? Who pays you to troll here?

Posted by freddiemac | July 9, 2008 9:44 AM

"And of course, there are all the other issues I have mentioned: High probability of delays and cancellations because of equipment failures, signal failures, track repairs, etc, time and inconvenience of tranfers to and from train stations, massive subsidies required for ticket prices to be competitive with airlines, delays due to security procedures, and so on."

Issues you mention without providing evidence. Why do you lie? Who pays you to lie and make up junk with no facts or evidence at all. Baseless assertions; are you just really bored? If so, that is really sad.

Posted by freddiemac | July 9, 2008 9:52 AM

God, this Mixner is an idiot. Hey Mixner I fly frequently from DC to other parts of the country. I also take the train frequently to New York.

A. The Acela and the Northeast is Amtrak's one profitable train route. Why? Because by the time you drive to DCA (20 minutes from where I live) or take the Metro (again 20 minutes from where I live, plus 10 minutes to walk to the station you add a half hour to travel time. DC's Amtrak station is in the heart of DC and you can take a cab there in 10 minutes.

Then even for the NY shuttle, you have to be AT the airport an hour ahead of time. And god forbid you're checking your suitcase, as I learned the hard way. They might stick on the shuttle plane before yours. I've never gotten my bag in less than 25 minutes if I checked it.

Then if you're lucky and your plane arrives on time, because, you know, LaGuardia's on-time is among the worst in the nation, you have to take at least a half hour, if not more, to get to Manhattan.

And by the way, you definitely know nothing about trains if you think you have to check baggage like you do for planes. RARELY do you have to check a bag. They fit overhead very nicely, because trains have MUCH bigger storage compartments than planes do. A bag I check on a plane can easily go over head in a train. They also have storage closets at the end of each car. The only people who check bags are people who are going somewhere for two months.

Thank you, I'll board a train without the stress of security or the worries about whether I forgot to stick that three ounce bottle of fluid in the quart sized zip lock bag instead of just being able to throw it in my suitcase. Or whether I remembered to finish the bottled water in my briefcase before going through security.

Posted by lou | July 9, 2008 10:48 AM

It's weird to use the word 'subsidy' to describe the public funds that help support public transit. (By the same token, it's also weird to use it when discussing the public funds that help support our car-centered culture.) 'Subsidy' is when you give public money to support a largely private endeavor.

I finally figured out one of Mixner's logical fallacies. Mixner basically likes to say 'trains suck,' but you know, does it occur to you Mixner that our trains suck not because 'trains suck' but because OUR trains suck? (And our service sucks?)

Train service in America is caught in a classic prisoner's dilemma (like taxi cabs in SF circa 1993, no cabs, no fares, so all cabbies wanted even LESS cabs. Dot com boom came, cabs increased by 50% overnight, suddenly, a lot more fares.)

Take CalTrain (which runs along the Peninsula corrider here in Northern California.

CalTrain sucks. I mean, it sucks sucks sucks.

However, if CalTrain stopped sucking, that is, it started using 20 year old French technology, added several more tracks that supported more express lines (say 8 stops between SF and San Jose), CalTrain would stop sucking and with gas at $4.75 and rising, would suddenly be a terrific alternative.

Posted by mike | July 9, 2008 11:26 AM

Mixner's evidence-free trolling about delays is particularly rich, as the CA ridership forecasting study clearly points out that on time performance for similar service in Japan and France is well over 99% (average delays of just 29 to 40 seconds).

That's largely due to the advantage of a dedicated, fully grade-separated right of way. (That and safety- Japan's system, for example, has not had a passenger fatality. Ever. In 41 years of operation.) And of course highways and airports perform a LOT worse.

But I suppose those facts are just "biased", so no doubt they won't count. Mixner cites Amtrak, which is obviously so much more relevant. Riiight.

Posted by jack lecou | July 9, 2008 11:43 AM

Mixner, what makes you think California's high-speed-rail would look more like Amtrak, and less like European high-speed rail?

Er, what makes you think the Magic Fantasy California Train would look more like European high-speed rail than Amtrak? You're the one with the burden of showing that this thing would work. If passengers would not be permitted to check baggage, as they are currently able to do on Amtrak, then you've probably killed half your potential market right there, just with that one restriction. And as the Amtrak information I posted above indicates, the idea that riders will simply be able to show up at the station a few minutes before the departure time and get on the train is not remotely plausible.

But this is all pretty academic anyway. The price tag alone on this thing will kill it. The CA "authority" "estimates" that cost at $40 billion. We can safely double or triple that figure to get a more realistic number. They expect most of this money to come from the federal government and "private partnerships." There is no way Congress is going to give tens of billions of dollars to California for this boondoggle. It is only willing to continue to subsidize existing Amtrak services because they serve lots of states and congressional districts. The Magic Fantasy California Train would provide nothing of benefit to anyone outside California, and congressmen representing other states and districts have no incentive to send their constituents' precious tax dollars to California so wealthy Californians have abnother way of getting from LA to SF. And no private investor is going to support this fiasco either. There is zero chance they would make a profit from it. It would just be money down the drain.

Posted by Mixner | July 9, 2008 12:49 PM

Caltrain will stop being a joke when it doesn't stop at every bumfuck gentrified city in northern Santa Clara County/San Mateo County. Of course, then all the cities in the Peninsula will complain that Caltrain doesn't stop there...and nothing will get solved.

Posted by Amanda in San Jose | July 9, 2008 12:50 PM

jack lecou: remember, all those studies are undermined by the fact that trains slow down at stations rather than throwing people and their bags onto the platform at full speed. Or that Americans are just incapable of building an efficient high-speed rail link using modern rolling stock, when given the chance to do so on a dedicated passenger line.

Or something. The trolling from the unsupervised child just headed off into La-La-Land this time.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 9, 2008 12:55 PM

Mixner's evidence-free trolling about delays is particularly rich, as the CA ridership forecasting study

Ha ha ha ha! What "CA ridership forecasting study?" You mean the made-up-out-of-thin-air numbers from the CA HSR "Authority?"

The Acela and the Northeast is Amtrak's one profitable train route.

Acela is not profitable. It has received billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies. Acela ticket prices are barely competitive with airlines, and don't even cover the service's operating costs, let alone its total costs. Acela is a huge wealth transfer from ordinary Americans who will rarely or never use the service at all, to a small number riders, mainly affluent business travelers.

Posted by Mixner | July 9, 2008 1:01 PM

remember, all those studies are undermined by the fact that trains slow down at stations rather than throwing people and their bags onto the platform at full speed. Or that Americans are just incapable of building an efficient high-speed rail link using modern rolling stock, when given the chance to do so on a dedicated passenger line.

Exactly. Unlike Japanese and European rail passengers, Americans will mostly refuse to jog along the platform at 150 mph in order to board the train. (This is because, unlike the French, Americans are fat and out of shape and usually cannot run faster than 25 or 30 mph). This will cause crippling delays on the "California Fantasy Train", and slow the whole system to a crawl. This is why its operational characteristics will most resemble the 60 year old Amtrak system running on rented track, rather than modern Asian or European systems.

Also, Americans, unlike weirdo foreigners (or Americans traveling in foreign countries), demand that their bags be checked, so they can have the convenience of waiting for them when they arrive at their destination. If we don't let people check their bags, we will probably lose "half our potential market".

This means every stop on the line will add at least 20 minutes to travel time, and all the operations modeling done by the state of CA is nonsense.

Posted by jack lecou | July 9, 2008 1:16 PM

jack lecou,

Still waiting for your citations to these "studies" and "modeling" you keep referring to. Where are they?

Posted by Mixner | July 9, 2008 1:28 PM

Ha ha ha ha! What "CA ridership forecasting study?" You mean the made-up-out-of-thin-air numbers from the CA HSR "Authority?"

Well, if by "made up out of thin air" you mean the results of extensive user surveys and a peer-reviewed, multi-modal regional transportation model, than yeah.

Of course, on time performance for French and Japanese trains isn't modeled, it's just empirical fact. If you think the CA HSR Authority is fabricating those statistics, I guess you're welcome to make some overseas calls and prove it...

Posted by jack lecou | July 9, 2008 1:30 PM

Ah, jack lecou, he's too busy trying to get trains from London to Edinburgh to run at two-thirds of their usual speed after humiliating himself with that particular heap of bullshit. Or perhaps he's just sulking again.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 9, 2008 2:03 PM

Well, if by "made up out of thin air" you mean the results of extensive user surveys and a peer-reviewed, multi-modal regional transportation model, than yeah.

You haven't produced any studies at all, let alone any "extensive user surveys and a peer-reviewed, multi-modal regional transportation model." Where are they? Where is your evidence? Where is your data?

Ah, jack lecou, he's too busy trying to get trains from London to Edinburgh to run at two-thirds of their usual speed

What are you babbling about now? As I told you before, the fastest train from London to Edinburgh takes over four and a half hours. The typical train takes over seven hours.

Posted by Mixner | July 9, 2008 2:23 PM

The typical train takes over seven hours.

Liar. Stop lying, Mixner.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 9, 2008 2:28 PM

The typical train takes over seven hours.

Wrong. The sleeper train takes about 7.5 hours. The "typical" train leaving during the day takes about 4.5 hours.

Check the schedules yourself. If you look at the schedule one train a day takes 7.5 hours. The rest (I count 19) are generally around 4.5 hours.

Also, some summary articles.

Link 1
Link 2

Posted by jrc | July 9, 2008 2:49 PM

The typical train takes over seven hours.

Wrong. The sleeper train takes about 7.5 hours. The "typical" train leaving during the day takes about 4.5 hours.

Check the schedules yourself. If you look at the schedule one direct train a day takes 7.5 hours. The rest of the direct trains (I count 19) are generally around 4.5 hours.

Also, some summary articles.

Link 1
Link 2

Posted by jrc | July 9, 2008 2:49 PM

jrc: you've fallen into the silly boy's trap. He flat-out lies, then demands that you prove him a liar, and then won't accept your evidence, because he's a liar.

(I prefer this link from a site that a very smart friend of mine put together to make the live schedules human-readable.)

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 9, 2008 3:02 PM

No worries. I'm correcting the record for others who may come across this page as much as I'm responding directly to him.

Posted by jrc | July 9, 2008 3:16 PM

You haven't produced any studies at all, let alone any "extensive user surveys and a peer-reviewed, multi-modal regional transportation model." Where are they? Where is your evidence? Where is your data?

Um. Poke around a little on the CA High Speed Rail site.

I mean, I assume you already have, because your "criticism" is based on lots of in-depth research, right? Not just random non-sequitur bits of statistics you google up and then misinterpret?

Oh. Right. Forgot who I was talking to.

What are you babbling about now? As I told you before, the fastest train from London to Edinburgh takes over four and a half hours. The typical train takes over seven hours.

As others have pointed out, that's blatantly false. But it's also not relevant to the topic at hand: The only high speed rail in Britain runs to France, not Edinburgh.

Posted by jack lecou | July 9, 2008 4:03 PM

jack lecou,

Um. Poke around a little on the CA High Speed Rail site.

Um. No. You claim these "studies" exist. Produce them.

You can't, can you? Because you're just making things up yet again. Same as you always do.

Posted by Mixner | July 9, 2008 4:59 PM

jrc,

Wrong. The sleeper train takes about 7.5 hours ... The "typical" train leaving during the day takes about 4.5 hours.

No, you're wrong. You only looked at direct trains. Most trains between London and Edinburgh are not direct.

As I said, the absolute fastest service takes at least four and a half hours. This directly contradicts pseudo's claim that "London-Edinburgh trains cover about the same distance over the same time" as the proposed LA-SF high-speed service. Not that the "estimate" of two and a half hours for that service is remotely plausible anyway.

Posted by Mixner | July 9, 2008 5:12 PM

19 direct trains is not enough? during peak times trains leave every 30 mins - why would you take another train if you were going to London to Edin. by train? That's like saying the trip from NYC to Boston takes 12 hours by car because even though I can drive it directly, I choose to drive to Buffalo first before going to Boston. But please, keep going...your BS is amusing.

Posted by jrc | July 9, 2008 5:23 PM

Um. No. You claim these "studies" exist. Produce them.

Wow. Just. Wow.

You want me to paste them inline or something? Write an easy to read executive summary for you? Maybe move your eyeballs across the page for you, since that's too much effort?

I told you where to find them. You can damn well click on the link yourself.

Posted by jack lecou | July 9, 2008 5:26 PM

jrc,

19 direct trains is not enough?

"Enough" for what? And pseudo was specifically referring to non-direct services, anyway. He claimed, absurdly, that even services "with on average 6-8 stops" take only about as long as the "estimate" of around two and a half hours for the proposed LA-SF high speed route. Even the fastest London-Edinburgh service takes two hours longer than that.

Posted by Mixner | July 9, 2008 5:31 PM

Shorter Mixner: the train timetables are wrong, because you could feasibly travel from London to Edinburgh via Cardiff as long as you paid the Golden Fuckwit fare. Also, a train that starts from point A and stops at point B is not 'direct', since Mixner is playing Humpty-Dumpty.

But, remember, Mixner insisted that the typical train from London to Edinburgh took seven and a half hours. And he was wrong. Except, that to admit he's wrong might cause the breakdown of space and time, because he's a bullshit artist.

Seriously: he's beyond fucking parody.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 9, 2008 5:44 PM

I'd like to point out to anyone still paying attention that it appears that Mixner has not even been aware of the existence of the various easily available documents about the CA rail proposal, never mind read them

Yet he has spent the better part of the thread making wild assumptions about trip duration, service frequency and so forth. (Not to mention accusations of fraud and dishonesty.)

Posted by jack lecou | July 9, 2008 5:51 PM

And you know what? I was right about the comparable distance, but was wrong to presume that California would be using 125mph rolling stock. Mea culpa. With faster trains, the LA-SF rail link is even more compelling an option.

Now let's see if Bullshixner admits that trains a) don't have hour-long layovers; b) have more than one door; c) make it easy to travel with luggage. Because for all his past waffle about travelling in Europe, he acts as if the only train he's ever travelled on is the choo-choo his mommy lets him ride at the amusement park.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 9, 2008 6:00 PM

Shorter Mixner: the train timetables are wrong,

No, pseudo is wrong. Completely, utterly, laughably, stupendously wrong. pseudo's absurd claim that rail service between London and Edinburgh takes only about two and a half hours, "with on average 6-8 stops," is just so utterly false it demonstrates what a complete fool and ignoramus he is.

Posted by Mixner | July 9, 2008 6:26 PM

jack lecou,

Still waiting for those "studies" and "models" you keep alluding to. Where are they? You claim they exist. Produce them.

Posted by Mixner | July 9, 2008 6:30 PM

For the record:

the fastest train between London and Edinburgh takes over four and a half hours. The typical train takes over seven hours.

Bzzt. Wrong. A lie. A repeated lie from a sad, pathetic liar. And that's the last time I'm going to feed the troll.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 9, 2008 6:36 PM

Bzzt. Wrong. A lie.

Bzzt. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Lie, lie, lie.

For the record:

London-Edinburgh trains cover about the same distance over the same time as LA-SF, with on average 6-8 stops

Utterly, laughably false. Completely wrong. Stupendously ignorant. pseudo has no fucking clue what he's talking about.

Posted by Mixner | July 9, 2008 6:47 PM

No, pseudo is wrong. Completely, utterly, laughably, stupendously wrong. pseudo's absurd claim that rail service between London and Edinburgh takes only about two and a half hours, "with on average 6-8 stops," is just so utterly false it demonstrates what a complete fool and ignoramus he is.

This may surprise you, but sane people reading this are making a very different conclusion. Stop playing ridiculous gotcha games.

Pseudonymous admitted a small mistake, but it hardly makes things better for your ridiculous claims.

We've established that the typical train from London to Edinburgh takes about 4.5 hours. We also know that the distance from LA to SF is about the same, and furthermore that CA trains will be much faster. In that light, your utterly unsubstantiated assertion that a travel time of 2.6 hours is impossible looks, well, kinda stupid.

And before you make more silly noises about "direct" trains and so on, note that the CA proposal you're finding it so difficult to locate indicates that the plan calls for about 20 daily SF-LA-SD express trains. (And over 80 daily trains altogether, serving various combinations of stops.)

Posted by jack lecou | July 9, 2008 6:51 PM

(I should also note that the interactive map gives an LA-SF time of 2:38, but in the Secret Documents We're Hiding From Mixner, that trip time is given as 3:23. Not sure if this simply reflects a difference in local/express service, or the interactive map is being a bit optimistic, or what. In the end not that important, since 3:23 is still excellent.)

Posted by jack lecou | July 9, 2008 6:58 PM

jack lecou,

Pseudonymous admitted a small mistake,

It's a not a "small mistake," it's a great honking pile of ignorance and stupidity. Not even the fastest rail service between London and Edinburgh comes remotely close to the absurd "estimate" of two and half hours for LA-SF via the Magic Fantasy California Train.

We've established that the typical train from London to Edinburgh takes about 4.5 hours.

You've established no such thing. You didn't even examine non-direct services.

I'm still waiting for those "studies" and "models" you keep alluding to. Where are they? You claim they exist. Produce them.

Posted by Mixner | July 9, 2008 7:03 PM

In the end not that important, since 3:23 is still excellent.)

Ha ha ha ha ha! Let's see: An hour from home/work to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. At least 30 minutes at the station prior to departure ("You should expect and plan for long lines at busy stations," says Amtrak). Almost three and half hours on the train, optimistically assuming it departs on time and there are no delays en route. At least 30 minutes waiting at the station in San Francisco, if you checked a bag. And an hour from the station in SF to your final destination.

Total travel time, assuming no delays or problems: At least 6 to 6.5 hours.

Yeah, the Magic Fantasy California Train would be real "high speed." You can drive from LA to SF in about the same amount of time.

Posted by Mixner | July 9, 2008 7:17 PM

Ha. Thanks for reminding me. I wasn't paying attention.

The table I got the 3:23 from was of course a table of typical door-to-door travel times. The interactive map is giving only the actual time on the train, 2:38.

Silly of me. Sorry.

Posted by jack lecou | July 9, 2008 7:25 PM

optimistically assuming it departs on time and there are no delays en route

Since TGV style high speed rail has a proven field record of on time performance much greater than 99%, I fail to see why any optimism is required.

Posted by jack lecou | July 9, 2008 7:35 PM

At least 30 minutes waiting at the station in San Francisco, if you checked a bag.

Didn't we cover this?

Posted by jack lecou | July 10, 2008 11:21 AM

OK, Mixner, just explain this one tiny portion of your argument: Why on earth should we compare the performance and operation of the CA high-speed train to Amtrak instead of comparing it to other high-speed trains?

Also:
Oh, yes, I can just see those businessmen lining up to take the city bus in downtown Los Angeles.

Yeah, and so can I, if I look out the window of my office. Actually, many of them take the train, which I can see this evening when I take the train home, too. (Actually, I'm stopping off on the way home to see a concert in Hollywood, where I won't have to worry about where to park my car or deal with traffic.)

Posted by Adam Villani | July 15, 2008 4:41 PM

By Request: Rails and Propositions

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