East Meets West 293 – Never trust a committee

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Roger and Tom talk news, politics and weather. It’s like a local news broadcast but with more theory and less hyped-up kittens in trees.

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/EastMeetsWest293NeverTrustACommittee/eastmeetswest293.mp3

http://www.facebook.com/faiz.imam Faiz Imam

Rogers critique of the California HSR was interesting, but would do better with more context.

One thing to remember is that “rail” is many different things, you have subways/metro, streetcars, LRT, commuter rail, HSR, and others. Each is best for a certain geography, topography, budget and ridership among many other factors

Most important is how fast it goes, which is based mainly on how many stops there are(since one has to slow down and stop for each one). Commuter rail(as roger desires) has many stops and is designed to work over a metropolitan area. In SoCal this is done by MetroLink, and they are getting huge ridership numbers and have put/are putting $billions into expanding their network.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrolink_(Southern_California)#Expansion

HSR is different. TO achieve sustained speeds of over 200mph, you can’t have stops every few miles.

The rationale behind it becomes clear when you consider the alternatives. The freeways and airports are nearing capacity. expanding them means costs in the tens of $Billions. Plus this would have no lasting effect on actual congestion (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand).

SO if you have to spend tens of $Billions ANYWAYS, what is the best choice?
http://jollyroger.myopenid.com/ jollyroger

I appreciate that there is a difference between urban, regional, subway and light rail networks, however, that’s not what I’m upset about. As with most major infrastructure projects the costs are always lowballed and steadily get re-evaluated at higher and higher price. The initial work on HSR is being done will have little benefit what will cost an enormous amount of money, which is maddening in period of deep budget cuts to health, education and public services in California.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Bay-Area-faces-new-high-speed-rail-costs-3726796.phpSecond the LA route of the rail system is already designed to link several adjacent cities together so I’m not asking for something new. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cahsr_map.svg What I am questioning is the initial build of the section that will cost the most and see very little use until the other sections are in place. It would make more sense to start at each end or maybe even just the southern end and build that out first. You would have an immediate source of ridership and some revenue to offset costs and you can gauge costs/efficiency as the system gets rolled out.
http://www.facebook.com/faiz.imam Faiz Imam

Seems like a valid criticism, but as an outsider I can’t comment. I would assume some sort of NIMBY or other political roadblock is preventing this from happening.
Also I recall that this first section is being built with help from federal funds, the projects that this money funds must be complete and running by 2017 to qualify. Perhaps this section is the only one that could be finished in time?

On the wider issue of spending in a res/depression, its a difficult one. In a state like California tens of Billions will be spent on transportation no matter what. I actually am not a huge supporter for HSR because I just don’t think they can afford it. I think Amtrak should get a lot more money and conventional rail should be massively improved. Its not sexy, but it will be much more effective in the long run. But any rail is better than building a new airport, or further widening a massive highway system.
Joe

The Gold Metro line does connect Pasadena to downtown LA at Union Station.