December 18, 2007
Good Riddance, Grapevine
Never having to drive through this again? Sob.
The East Bay and South Bay (more or less) are vying to be one of the destination points that will send travelers from SF to LA in 2½ hours. (Can you imagine? You're watch HSM and HSM2 on your iPhone and -- poof! -- you're kicking it in LA!) Over 700 miles of track would be devoted to getting you from SF to LA in record time, and tomorrow the California High Speed Rail Authority will decide on two plans for routing. Whatever the route, just thinking about getting to and from LA in such a short amount of time makes our tear ducts well up with joy. Seriously.
One option is the Gilroy-based Pacheco crossing, "which will connect to San Francisco through San Jose and the Peninsula [and] is favored because it follows existing Caltrain tracks and avoids cutting through wetland habitats around the Bay."
The second one is the Altamont, which "would better serve those who live north of Modesto, including residents moving between the Bay Area and Sacramento." This route would probably stop in Union City and "require a bridge across the Bay through the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, located mostly along the shoreline north and south of the Dumbarton Bridge."
Basically, one route would have precious SF denizens going to the East Bay and the other the South Bay -- much like the trying decision of choosing Oakland Airport or SFO. (Hint: SFO!) But which route is best? We implore you to duke it out between yourselves in the comment section. But according the the Examiner, "authority estimates, the rail could save up to 22 million barrels of oil annually, and uses one-third the energy per mile as air travel and one-fifth that of automobile travel." Which? Is awesome. But just how long and at what cost ($40 billion is one estimate) will prove itself in time. [via Examiner]
Still, this bullet train idea has gold written all over it. Gold, we say! Gold!
Image credit: AP Photo / via Examiner
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the less traveling i have to do to the east bay, or outside of sf city limits in general, the better.
this reminds me of one of the best conversations i remember having when i told someone that i lived in 'sunnyvale':
them: sunnyvale? is that south of san jose?
me: no, it's near the peninsula.
them: does BART go there?
me: JESUS CHRIST NO! JUST LOOK AT A MAP!
-g
the less traveling i have to do to the east bay, or outside of sf city limits in general, the better.
this reminds me of one of the best conversations i remember having when i told someone that i lived in 'sunnyvale':
them: sunnyvale? is that south of san jose?
me: no, it's near the peninsula.
them: does BART go there?
me: JESUS CHRIST NO! JUST LOOK AT A MAP!
-g
Imagine riding the train through Sunnyvale at 200 mph. Not fast enough, I tell you.
What's fun about Sunnyvale is that you can edit its Wikipedia page, and within 12 hours someone will remove all negative references. Imagine having nothing better to do than polish the Wikipedia page about Sunnyvale.
Will it terminate under Santa Monica Bv in West Hollywood?
Just don't let the folks at MUNI run this service...
The idea of a High Speed Rail link between SF and LA has been talked about a long time (teh Google shows 2,100 hits in various USENET groups like ba.transportation, misc.transport.rail.americas, etc.). Politicians keep pushing the idea around like a hot potato. Last I heard was that the Governator pushed the bond measure off to something like 2012.
I've kind of given up on ever seeing this great idea built in my lifetime.
Berkeley and Oakland-ites would only have to take a 15-30 minute BART ride downtown to catch the train to LA... Hayward would be a similar ride on BART. Future plans call for improvements along the Capitol Corridor Line to better connect the East Bay to HSR... why not the Pacheco Pass?
Berkeley and Oakland-ites would only have to take a 15-30 minute BART ride downtown to catch the train to LA... Hayward would be a similar ride on BART. Future plans call for improvements along the Capitol Corridor Line to better connect the East Bay to HSR... why not the Pacheco Pass?
Pacheco sucks. It's slower on the SF-to-LA route by a few minutes, will cause all trains to stop in SJ (i.e. no non-stop LA-to-SF service) and will make the SF-to-Sacramento trip almost twice as long. On top of all that it will encourage sprawl in the vicinity of Los Banos. Oh, and it's much more expensive.
Yeah...seems like it's way too early to start saying "Hmmm, I may be able to get to LA in 2 hours." HSR has been delayed time after time. It would be nice if it could garner enough political support to get under way in time for the opening of the new Transbay terminal in downtown SF, but don't hold your breath.
Details: with the Pacheco alignment, the distance from SF to Sacramento will be 484km, and the distance from SJ to Sacramento will be 405km. With the Altamont alignment, the distances will be 261km and 216km, respectively. So choosing the Pacheco route will double the travel time from SJ to Sac, and cause an annoying SJ stop on the SF-Sac line.
When the CHSRA first planned the route, they did not even consider Pacheco. Their original study contained only the Altamont alignment. Only after severe arm-twisting by suburban profiteers did the CHSRA decide to study Pacheco (and the related Diablo route).
With all of the talk of "Political Legacy" that one hears, you would think that this would be a no brainer. High Speed Rail in California is an urgent need, and a Governor or Senator with enough gumption to get the funding for it, would live on in infamy....
I'm conflicted.
Part of SF's appeal is that it is so far removed from LA.
Yes, but - and i know no one wants to hear this - without LA, SF would be another Portland. And no one wants that.
Regardless of what we all think, LA is still our sister.
jwb: I don't get why SF-Sac route would matter here. The main trunk is between the Bay Area and LA. SF-Sac is a whole 'nother ball of wax.
Also, wouldn't it be much quicker to build the Pacheco route, as you won't have to build yet another bridge across the Bay? Those things take decades, as we've seen with the new span.
No, it wouldn't be much quicker. The bridge across the bay is across a very shallow, very narrow part. Also, it's quite easy to build rail bridges compared to road bridges. It would be more causeway than bridge, because there would not be navigation under it. There's already an existing rail bridge there.
On the other hand, the Pacheco route requires rather more tunneling than Altamont.
Altamont is supported by all rail advocates in the Bay Area
The idea of HSR isn't simply the ability to go between cities but also that you build up a network of local, regional and long distance trains with all the track and station improvements.
There are a number of cities in the central valley that would benefit from the Altamont alignment and it is more functional for a future connection to Sacramento. Millions of people already live out here
Advocating for all trains to go through San Jose in the Pacheco alingment has more to do with that city's inferiority complex rather than with good planning
Also I would bet money that this train, if ever built will take much longer than 2.5 hours to get between LA and SF
Assume 70-80 miles per hour in urban areas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BATN/message/18563
I'm all for saving oil and energy per miles etc. etc. but I'm mostly curious if this will be any cheaper than just flying from Oakland or SFO to Burbank on Southwest, the Greyhound of the Skies. It certainly doesn't seem to be much more convenient. If it's mostly an environment-friendly choice, I'm wondering if it's going to be the travel equivalent of owning a hybrid, i.e. something I really can't afford right now.
I thought the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CAHSRA) had decided upon building both options? Pacheco would be built first to establish that LA connection followed by the Altamont Pass connection to Sacramento?
The dual-routes speak directly to Zig's point about building up a regional network. In the Bay Area, HSR means a lot of improvements along the trackway it's intended to share. Sethland mentioned BART connections in the Easy Bay already. Agent510 brought up the Transbay Terminal and building the extension for HSR gets us a Caltrain to downtown SF as a bonus. Likewise, the entire Caltrain corridor will be electrified and grade-separated (like BART, trains will have no surface crosswalks or road crossings) which both will speed up Caltrain service and additional passing-lane tracks means more baby-bullet, limited and local Caltrain service.
once you get to LA don't you pretty much need a car to get around anyways?
It depends...
Many people will need a car once they get to LA, and there will be taxis, shuttle busses, rentals and connecting transit service like we find at airports today. HSR may get you a lot closer than flying though and even if it doesn't get you any closer on the LA end, it may save you time and trouble on this end. Catching a train that runs every 15 minutes from downtown SF is a lot easier than transferring from Muni to BART to SFO, or worse taking Muni to BART to AirBART to OAK.
The people who will save the most time from HSR (or at least avoid the most headaches) are business travelers heading from their offices in downtown SF to meetings in downtown LA, or vice versa, assuming the train terminates at Union Station in LA.
For everyone else, it's not quite as much of a slam-dunk, but public transit is making inroads in LA every year, and you might see parking garages around the big HSR stations as well as all the stuff Jamison mentions. It all seems quite viable.
I wouldn't be sorry to see gas climb to $4-5 a gallon if it forces TPTB to consider stuff like this more carefully.
"once you get to LA don't you pretty much need a car to get around anyways?"
As in France and as we have at airports, there is no reason cars couldn't be rented at the station in LA
Also don't underestimate the number of people who can be picked up by friends and family. I took the interminable Amtrak trip from SLO to LA the other weekend and not only was the train literally packed with college kids heading home (I mean standing room only) but the station in LA was surprisingly not empty. And this is on horribly slow trains. The demand is there
"It certainly doesn't seem to be much more convenient."
Joel-no offense to you but if you haven't tried HSR in Europe or Japan (or even what we have on the East Coast) it is hard to express how much better and more civilized it is than flying
An HSR ticket will be about half the price of flying. Convenience comes from trains running every 15 minutes, so you just need to show up, buy a ticket and catch the next train. This isn't just trains vs. planes though.
SFO has endorsed HSR because each shuttle flight replaced means opening runway and terminal space for more profitable long distance flights. HSR will also be a high-speed shuttle connecting SFO to downtown SF with direct service and no stops in between.
> Joel-no offense to you but if you haven't tried HSR in Europe or Japan (or even what we have on the East Coast) it is hard to express how much better and more civilized it is than flying
I'll second that comment. It's just so much more pleasant in every way.
Also, on the point of connections in L.A. -- by the time HSR is up and running, L.A. will have a local rail network roughly equivalent in size to BART.
I've taken HSR elsewhere, both here and abroad, and I'm definitely aware of its benefits--but I've also had many of the same hassles in bustling train stations that I've had at bustling airports. I'd also be shocked if they ended up running the train between SF and LA every fifteen minutes: most MUNI lines don't even seem to run that often! For me personally, it's not much easier to get downtown than it is to get to SFO. (Again, that's just me personally though) "More civilized"? I've dealt with bad service, delays, drunks, crying babies, and obnoxious tourists on the trains, too.
That said, I am pro-rail...it makes sense. And if it's half the cost of the $49 it costs me to fly from SFO to Burbank, then it'll definitely be my preferred manner of travel to the Southland. I just think that some of the benefits may be over-stated.
I've personally never experienced a service delay riding dozens of HSR trains in France, Japan, and England but since Americans will be running the service this seems likely here
My comment was more related to not being crammed into a seat (I'm only 6'2 and it is a big issue between leg room and obese neighbors), not going through airport security and being able to read and write in peace with hardly a vibration which keeps me from feeling sick
If the frequency is decent, the train will make an appealing option. More flexibility, no need to get there 90 minutes ahead, no worry about a bottle of water or suncreen causing delays, etc, etc.