Posted on Friday July 10th by The Infrastructurist | 43
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- New Mexico, Colorado and Texas are applying for federal funds to study a 720-mile high speed link between Denver and El Paso. The proposed service would top out at 200 mph. (AP)
- California’s ambitious HSR project could still be derailed by NIBMY resistance from wealthy Silicon Valley burgs like Palo Alto. NIMBY allies in the legislature have put language in a budget bill that would require more study of things that have already been exhaustively studied. (Oregon Live)
- Silicon Valley’s biggest newspaper does the right thing and insists in editorial that the “poison pill” NIMBY language be stripped out of the budget legislation. (San Jose Mercury News)
- Florida is pushing ahead to get federal funds for an HSR link between Tampa and Orlando. The right of way has mostly been secured and would run along the median of I-4. Longer range plans would have the line continue on to Miami. (WPEC)
- Wyoming is interested in HSR service between Denver and Cheyenne. A study determined that pushing it farther north to Casper wouldn’t be feasible because there’s too much coal train traffic. (AP)
- Are you confused why the proposed bullet train line from Vegas to LA would actually run between Vegas and the shabby little exurban meth mecca of Victorville? Here’s an explanation. (LAist)
- Britain’s rail czar Lord Adonis says HSR should replace short haul airline travel–between, say, London and Amsterdam–within 20 years. (Telegraph)
July 10th, 2009 at 11:36 am
You really hope that California’s lofty goals for HSR don’t get taken down because of its crazy politics. HSR could be a great ecocomic stimulus and would be the best way to travel in that state. I guess if the Bay Bridge can be rebuilt, HSR could get moving as well!
July 10th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I’m still not convinced that keeping HSR off the peninsula would be so terrible — not for NIMBY reasons, but to keep a stub line off the network. Every train that goes to San Francisco is a train that can’t continue on to Sacramento and the Central Valley. If you put the Oakland Airport stop on the HSR line, folks bound for SF could transfer there to BART and be at the Embarcadero in less than 20 minutes. This is, after all, what long-range intercity rail always used to do to get to the Bay Area (though back in the day they used to link to SF by ferry, I think).
July 10th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
I suspect SF is a bigger destination and passenger draw than everything north of it put together. Bypassing the primary urban center in order to more easily serve some satellites seems counterproductive.
As for Wyoming, I would think the real reason not to go on to Casper is that it’s an awfully long way for an awfully tiny city, with nobody along the line in between.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
WOW, sounds like Denver could become the HSR hub of the USA!
July 10th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Long time follower, first time poster. Your enthusiasm for Portland (with its potential HSR system) got me thinking about mass transit in the area, so I wrote a couple suggestions on my own blog.
Keep up the good work.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
They should be thinking Phoenix (and on to SoCal) from Albuquerque instead of El Paso.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
BeyondDC — The East Bay-SacTown corridor has a population somewhere around 4.5 million people, as opposed to 1.5 million in San Mateo (the source of the NIMBYs) and San Francisco proper. I’m not sure if that qualifies as a “sattelite.” Many people who say in shorthand that they’re going to “San Francisco” are actually going to this side of the Bay.
I’m not actually opposed to HSR to SF by any means; I’m just saying that a lack of a link to downtown SF shouldn’t derail (ha ha) the entire project, as long as there’s a good BART connection. If nothing else, it’s fully possible to build the network now with just the Oakland-Sacramento route (which would be built in any configuration) and then upgrade the Peninsula route into the city once NIMBY opposition has been overcome.
Of course, the ideal thing would have been if the new Bay Bridge had included a new rail crossing (two tracks for HSR, two for BART), but, you know, that was never very likely…
July 10th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
HSR across the Bay Bridge would be the ideal solution, but ultimately failing that, there needs to be a terminus in SF, as it would supplement commuting between SF and San Jose. The bulk of the freight traffic in the Bay Area comes out of Oakland because of the Port, so there will always be an issue with rail congestion in an Oakland based corridor.
There are going to be NIMBY’s for every issue, as much because the people who are contesting the issue haven’t been paying attention until the last minute and then decide they don’t like the idea. Some will never be convinced that the train is a good idea and some just fear change.
BTW, if you look at old photos of the Bay Bridge, it was designed to handle streetcar traffic and I believe the new eastern section is capable of handling the rail load.
July 11th, 2009 at 6:32 am
@ jfruh -
what would be nice and what is possible are two different things. Between BART, UPRR and Caltrans all the contiguous ribbons of land between San Jose and Oakland have been used up. All that’s left are disjoint pieces, e.g. the I-280/I-680 median and the apparently abandoned, narrow SP ROW right next to BART between Union City and south Oakland. Between Oakland and Benicia the only available ROW is the I-4 corridor section from Hercules to Martinez.
A more realistic approach in the East Bay would be to upgrade the Capitol Corridor to 110mph between Benicia and Sacramento and, to eliminate freight-related delays with dual tracking (Niles-San Leandro) and bypass sections. There would also be value in semi-express service that skips a lot of the smaller stations.
Finally, there is a bus service from downtown SF to Emeryville but no intermodal station serving both Amtrak CC and BART between Richmond and Coliseum. EPA Tier 4 diesel engines and a subway tunnel under the median of Nelson Mandela Parkway and a bit of 3rd Street would create one at West Oakland BART.
@ Future Schema -
the new east span of the Bay Bridge was originally designed to support light rail, but the extra concrete was taken out again once the bigwigs decided to splurge on a showpiece arch because they felt a causeway was too boring. Now, there will be a bike path instead. The lower level of the old west span did support trains to the Transbay Terminal once, but those lanes have long since been usurped by the asphalt lobby. Slinging tracks to either side or underneath the bridge would have cost about $3 billion.
It probably does make more sense to just run a second transbay tube from Franklin St. in Oakland to Mission St. in SF via Point Alameda at some point in the future. Whether that will be standard or broad gauge (BART) remains to be seen.
July 11th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
The Nimbys will NOT stop HSR from arriving in San Franicso..its a small loud group
and 65 percent of the voters in these areas voted YES on the HSR bond. San Francisco has to be on the sytem to make it work and be profitable. IF anything the EastBay has all the intercity rail now and SF none so its really need.Between the major end points it has to be a one seat ride ..LA-SF The idea that people switch to commuter (Caltrain)trains to complete the trip to SF would be the same as having AcelaExpress passengers switch to MARC to finish the trip to DC
just becuse some nimbys did not want the train going by their house,and the ridership would plummet
July 11th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
What’s happening with the Chicago service? That’s the ideal first step. I hope those guys get off their butts
July 12th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
EPA Tier 4 diesel engines and a subway tunnel under the median of Nelson Mandela Parkway and a bit of 3rd Street would create one at West Oakland BART.
3rd Street? that would leave freight still running down the the middle of 1 st street wouldn’t it? And there is no need for a tunnel under Nelson Mandela Blvd. All they have to do is build a station where the two lines cross over one another a few blocks west of the West Oakland BART station.
And why would they use diesels? Spend billions of dollars to build tunnels and then not spend the few hundred million to electrify?