If I had known that they were going to run this through the Central Valley instead of down the coast where it belongs I never would have voted for it. It should have gone straight from la to Oakland or emeryville, turned and gone straight to Sacramento. Instead we have a convoluted mess of rail connections that take people places they don't even want to go (no offense to Bakersfield buts it's hardly a holiday destination).
It's a farse because of how it's getting implemented, and nobody is under any illusions this isn't going to turn into another bay bridge budget monster in California.
Still a rail proponent, but bitterly disappointed in the implementation choices of this project.
Nah, the coast is too expensive; you have to go over a bunch of hills and deal with steep terrain and thick forests. The correct option is to go for the cheapest land available, which any private company (not sure this kind of thing should be privatized but it's a useful comparison imo) would have obviously gone for. That would be just west of I-5, up the eastern edge of the Central Valley. Throw in a few improvements to the E-W roads between [Modesto/Bakersfield/Santa Cruz/etc] and the train corridor (which can be put off a few years to raise money) and you end up with nearly the same level of service to those areas anyway. But because it's political and activists want train service to their towns because [ideology] or just for the property values, we get cost overruns while delaying the big prize: service from SF to LA.
The inner areas will be more likely to want transit to the endpoints than to each other. Of course having only two stops wouldn't pay for the train but it's probably easier to drive from Bakersfield to Fresno eg and you need a car both places whereas going to LA/SF without a car doesn't present a hassle. If you look at page 43 here on the ridership projections:
It looks like about 2/3 or so of the revenue is to either the MTC or SCAG regions, with the remainder dominated by the San Joaquin Valley. So while traffic may not be entirely between the endpoint it is highly concentrated in trips going to and from the endpoints, and for this purpose, driving 30 minutes down a freeway to the train might not be too much of an inconvenience for the residents of Modesto who despite technocrats' brainwashing ambitions will probably still like to drive cars in 2030. Plus they won't complain about a cheaper fare, even if road improvements take another ten years to get in place (the train is the important part).
I don't quite get how you're coming to 2/3 of revenue between MTC and SCAG regions (Its not adding up to that for me). It also isn't very clear: MTC has a projection for ridership to SCAG, but SCAG doesn't have projections for ridership to MTC but they do for the SJV?
I'm also not sure where this newer forecast model came from, but it seems highly subject to politicized biases: they basically asked individual regions to forecast their ridership and revenue to other regions, and then added it all up.
The original forecasts [0] were built off of SNCF forecast modeling expertise, which is one of the best in the world and also from a country with very similar geodemographic characteristics as California. For just the subsegment of LA-SF, less than 50% of revenue is between SF and LA, and the ridership between SF-SJV and LA-SJV adds up to approximately the same amount as LA-SF. In other words, going through the valley doubles revenue potential.
This isn't a new phenomenon. It has been noted by and (if necessary) relearned by railroad capitalists going all the way back to the foundation of railroads. For an example, read chapters 16-20 of this economic history of Railway Mania [1]. Railway demand between termini has almost always been overforecasted by railroad capitalists, and they either figure it out and start serving intermediate destinations or they go bankrupt. If they build the line from the very beginning by bypassing intermediate population centers, their overestimates of ridership will doom them to a fate they can't recover from, barring major track realignment.
A background in Operations Research gives me a professional social network of people across pretty much every industry, all of whom understand some of the hardest business and technical problems of their industry. Some of my contacts work on schedule optimization in Germany and Spain. One of the quotes that constantly gets spouted in their conferences is that HSR is politically successful because of its top speed, but it is commercially successful because of the first derivative of its speed. Top speed gets votes, but the ability to start and stop very quickly allows them to obtain very significant ridership boosts with very little degradation in average speed. This is a very distinct competitive advantage...they can do something that no airline could ever do. Between major termini, there will always be some form of competition with airlines, but intermediate stations will always be a veritable monopoly for rail.
>I don't quite get how you're coming to 2/3 of revenue between MTC and SCAG regions
I said "to either", not "between". I also didn't suggest cutting out intermediate stops, but I did allow them to move outside of the town centers. In other words, most travelers from SJV are going to either MTC or SCAG, not within SJV, and in particular this is not directly analogous to the 19th century because of the extensive road network and the popularity of cars. Similarly, putting the rail corridor 30-60 minutes from the town is probably OK since the majority of residents of those towns will probably be driving to the train anyway, while doing that in a horse-and-buggy economy will of course doom ridership.
From page 5 of your link:
LA-Bay = $735M
LA-SJV = $355
SJV-Bay = $346
...
Within SJV = $29
total = $2355
to [LA or Bay] = 735 + 355 + 346 = $1436 or 62% of total.
So over 90% of ridership from SJV is going to either SCAG or MTC or further. The data seem to comport with my estimate that in order to start recouping costs you need, at the very least, service to one endpoint. This doesn't mean you should remove intermediate stops but it does support the idea that SJV HSR customers are mostly traveling long distances and might not mind leaving town to get to the train. This is particularly true if parking fees can be reduced by moving the train station out of town, since the current projection is $12 which I'm afraid might be "per day" (nearly as bad as the airport!) and people hate that.
The report I linked notes that the projection is for cars to continue accounting for 93% of intra-regional travel demand: i.e. while "the world is local" as your link states I have a hard time believing that market insights from a world without cars will translate readily to one with cars. Additionally, while some New Urbanists have started to try to build car-free cities, this goes against the wishes of the general public (including me) and I doubt it'll be popular in the politically conservative Central Valley. In this light, driving the train through the middle of Bakersfield as opposed to the outskirts looks like an attempt by the state to implement a vision of Bakersfield's future that the residents of Bakersfield did not really ask for. The majority of Central Valley customers will be driving, rather than walking/bussing, to the train even under the current plans. I'd also like to point out that, while there is an environmental motive for reducing our dependence on gasoline via cars, I personally expect electric cars to arrive sooner than a restructuring of the infrastructure of Central Valley cities that deprioritizes cars in favor of public transit. It could happen, but I'm not betting on it. So this:
>intermediate stations will always be a veritable monopoly for rail.
doesn't seem as clear to me as it does to you. And while as you mention the projections may have underestimated ridership in the (less-infrastructure-keen) non-city regions, they also assume a 50% real increase in the cost of auto travel, which as noted may be softened or reversed by the adoption of battery-powered vehicles. Therefore, Dionysus Lardner's observation that the median trip in 1846 was about 15 miles long probably would not apply in 2025.
As you've probably inferred, most of my background in this area is political and personal rather than technical. So, for example, I don't really know if moving the train line out of Tulare actually results in a significant savings on land and/or a reduction in construction time (especially this!), without which my whole point is moot. But I do not think that Fresno is analogous to a city in Germany, nor do I have a desire to turn it into one. Americans like cars, despite the powerful people with professional social networks who want to control us.'
edit: agh this is a bit of a mess, I hope it isn't too confrontational, and I appreciate you sharing your expertise.
>I did allow them to move outside of the town centers.
Which is the case with a number of the shin- stations on the shinkansen lines. (Although, being Japan, those stations are still well-connected to the city transit systems and they're not that far out of the traditional town centers.)
I would agree that having two major city termini is a huge determinant of demand. I definitely wouldn't suggest starting with one city, although branch lines can definitely be built at lower risk levels once you have a strong backbone.
I've seen overviews of the LGV models to know that they aren't making decisions on where to stop based purely on politics (I'm sure there are some politics involved, but the schedule optimization models are very objective). Those optimization models take into account things like cannibalization, where most riders from two close small towns can be served by one station in between them, only losing a small percent over a situation with two stations. But mostly the model is an LP of the total revenue lost from removing a station vs the total revenue gained from adding a station, and the revenue projections obtained from a forecast model that predicts the cartesian set of all possible orig-dest pairs of a line. And these models have resulted in stops in tiny towns like Loche (pop 35k), Macon (pop 35k), and Le Creusot (pop 22k).
> It could happen, but I'm not betting on it. So this: [...] doesn't seem as clear to me as it does to you.
In France, the outlying towns are not much different from California. They may not be as car-centric as places like Madera or Merced, but they are at least as car-dependent. Density is low enough that cars are still a necessity. And while some of these stations avoid going directly through the towns they serve, very few are more than a 3-5 km from the town center.
From the perspective of someone who grew up in Stockton, I'd say that concerns about car dependency are still overblown outside of intra-SJV trips in general. If the destination is a line terminus, transit/taxis are abundant enough to use easily, and that leaves the trip to the station as the only deterrent. But getting a ride isn't that big of a deal. Living there, you almost always have access to someone that can give you a ride to the airport 45 minutes away if you need it...a trip across town should be pretty easy. Taxis are available on a scheduled ride basis, and most businesses with regular travelers maintain a list of van services that handle trips to and from airports. The concern is real, but I think most valley-dwellers have adapted to their situation quite well.
I'm not an expert on property values in the valley (haven't lived there for 2 decades), but I can imagine the possibility of it being cheaper to build through the cities simply because they already have freight ROWs running through them. Getting a ROW easement on an existing un-partitioned property tends to be fraught with peril. It is easy for a large land owner to hold a line hostage for higher prices if they know that one "no" ruins an entire plan. Buying up existing freight ROW (which I believe is part of the plan) would definitely be easier and faster...it might also end up being cheaper.
And no worries about being confrontational. I wasn't trying to, and I didn't interpret your response as confrontational either.
> If I had known that they were going to run this through the Central Valley instead of down the coast where it belongs I never would have voted for it.
The coast would be a stupid place to run high speed rail; it would be both more expensive to the lay the track there and less useful.
> no offense to Bakersfield buts it's hardly a holiday destination
No, it's not. I was born in and grew up there, and I'm glad I left (though as a kid, I thought it was a nice place to live).
But it (and Fresno, and the CV in general) does have something that the coast and SF/LA doesn't have: Low-cost housing/property.
Imagine being able to live in Bako, Fresno, etc - and commute quickly to SF or LA. By high-speed rail, it'd probably only take an hour or two each way. Provided that it didn't cost a lot (or you could get monthly 2-way passes), it would be a great way for those who want to work in SV or such to do so, and be able to afford to live comfortably in a home with a family.
In fact, the idea is interesting enough to me to consider moving back to California (I'd love a tech job in the SF area, but the cost of living - mainly housing - just blows that idea out of the water).
Seems to be the kicker with using these trains for commuter purposes. Everywhere you look - Switzerland, Japan, Spain, Eurostar - the prices seem to be at either high double digits or low triple digits one way.
The way it was sold to voters in California is that it would become a revenue generator, so some additional padding is needed for profit margins.
Seriously - trains should go where the people are. The people are in the central valley. Between Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz the population is very light and the terrain is very difficult.
It wasn't until the 20th century that access to the Big Sur area was possible. And even today for over a hundred miles highway 1 is the only access.
Fresno - 509,000 people
Bakersfield - 363,000 people
The first segment connects 1 million people with a high quality dedicated rail connection. Take a trip on the San Joaguin train - that train slow as it is, is very popular.
Next take a look at a map. Los Angeles is due south of Lake Tahoe. So going to central valley is not a detour or some other political game.
The real political mess is the choice of Pacheco Pass (hwy 152) rather than the Altamont Pass.(I-580) Once again Altamont Pass - a lot of people. hwy 152 - crickets in comparison.
Not every train needs to stop at every station. If you design the tracks and stations properly, you can operate a mix of non-stop trains and other trains that take some or all of the stops in between, and you can vary the composition depending on actual ridership.
BART is already being extended to Livermore (just west of the Altamont pass), and already goes to Dublin, so that area is at least already well-served by regional transit.
Going over the Pacheco Pass allows the train to hit San Jose and the Silicon Valley without going through huge windy detours, which has a lot more people in it than the Altamont Pass area.
Making trains go where people aren't relieves the pressure on ever increasing prices in populous areas. People will have a realistic option of living in cheaper areas.
AND it allows real estate speculators to get a much higher rate of return when they build up cookie cutter neighbourhoods in cheap land that is soon to be linked up by rail.
Both a good and a cynical reason for this behaviour, which is why I don't think you'll ever see it change (no matter where you are).
It is really disappointing that it doesn't at least go near the coast. I doubt they'd be able to eminent domain coastal lands now that california homeowners are so politically powerful now, but they at least could have tried to build it along the 101 so it was driving/bus distance to the coast.
If you want to take a beautiful coastal train ride, nothing beats the Amtrak from LA to San Diego.
In germany they have a similar problem, if you want to build a train rail through some unimportant backwaters, these backwaters will want you to make a stop in their little cities.
There is a relative easy solution to that problem, one that I suspect has happened quite a few times in history. The budget to staff and maintain the stop is put on the local budget of the backwater, and sooner or later a local politician will want to reclaim those costs.
If you look carefully at a map, LA is actually as far East as Lake Tahoe. It's confusing but what this means is essentially going through the Central Valley is not really particularly out of the way. In fact that's why the fastest way to drive to La is on I5. It was also important to incorporate all major metropolitan areas in the state for political reasons.
There is such an effort for LA to Vegas. Its been setback as it was a joint venture between a US firm and a Chinese partner. The Chinese pulled out, however, because of the requirement that high speed trains be manufactured in the US (there are currently no such manufacturers).
Another potential concern is that it runs through some good farmland, which CA has some of the best of in the world.
I would love to have an HSR along the coast however. When I was in Taiwan it was amazing being able to get to the bottom of the island in a couple hours.
We have more good potential farmland in CA than we have water. I don't see the impact to agriculture as being very large if the water allotment can be transferred.
>some good farmland, which CA has some of the best of in the world.
Is that a joke? California is a terrible place to be farming. Farming in California is only viable because farmers are allowed unfettered access to water, depriving it from residents (who are told they should turn off the water in the shower while farmers are pouring untold millions of gallons on crops that could be grown somewhere actually suited to farming).
From a nytimes article
"the valley is the world’s largest patch of Class 1 soil, the best there is. The 25-degree (or so) temperature swing from day to night is an ideal growing range for plants. The sun shines nearly 300 days a year. The eastern half of the valley (and the western, to some extent) uses ice melt from the Sierra as its water source, which means it doesn’t have the same drought and flood problems as the Midwest. The winters are cool, which offers a whole different growing season for plants that cannot take the summer heat. There’s no snow."
By volume (though certainly not by quality), I assume the Central Valley is the largest producer. Warmer temperatures mean more production but often low quality stuff.
You think two buck chuck is made from grapes grown in ritzy Napa valley? Large majority of California wine comes from grapes grown in the central valley.
* The Central Valley is California's largest wine region stretching for 300 miles (480 km) from the Sacramento Valley south to the San Joaquin Valley. This one region produces nearly 75% of all California wine grapes and includes many of California's bulk, box and jug wine producers like Gallo, Franzia and Bronco Wine Company.*
It's actually not false. If you read the article you posted, you will see that half of the water is used for environmental uses. That means is not used by humans, but "let go".
So if you sum the rest, agriculture does use 80% of the water used by humans.
Directing water to a tree to grow almonds, and directing it to a stream to support the delta smelt are both human directed usages. You can't just count the usages you don't like to make the number look big.
If you're looking at it this way, that every single stream is managed, then yes, you're right. I rather think that we develop only the water sources that make the most sense and leave the rest be.
This way we could talk about the incredible amounts of gold that is diluted in oceans that we could harvest "anytime" [0]. It's around 21x more than humans mined in the whole history.
"Solely relying on these statewide volumes is controversial because they don't consider the fact that most of the volume of water used for environmental purposes includes flows down Wild and Scenic Rivers in the North Coast where there is no practical way to recover it for either agricultural or urban use because it lacks many connections to the statewide water supply system."
The problem isn't that farming occurs, it's that some stupid crops are grown in California--like alfalfa. It uses a ton of water and it's not very profitable.
But the state can grow a lot of crops that are worth the water usage.
All that is needed is to price water with a market mechanism rather than first come, first serve free water.
> If I had known that they were going to run this through the Central Valley instead of down the coast where it belongs I never would have voted for it.
Do everyone a favor. In the future, when such projects come up for vote, assume the politicians are lying to you and, most importantly, they are as incompetent as a truck driver attempting open heart surgery. That's a good start. Then do some research and see if in the last fifty years they have ever completed any project on time, on budget and without major problems.
Armed with that reality, please don't vote to give incompetent liars the ability to create another mess and screw us all, again.
It's a farse because of how it's getting implemented, and nobody is under any illusions this isn't going to turn into another bay bridge budget monster in California.
Still a rail proponent, but bitterly disappointed in the implementation choices of this project.