SOCIAL: [Party_Car] DETAILS: 'Deep Slate November 2008: VOTE TUESDAY NOVEMBER 4TH

Tue Oct 21 16:29:33 PDT 2008

Tom (et. al.),

Interesting and thoughtful responses as usual.  My understanding though is
that wrt "regional" transit, prop. 1A only has about $950 million.  Spread
that over San Diego, LA, San Jose, Sacramento, and San Francisco, and it
comes out to not very much.

HSR is a nice to have, but regional transit is an essential.  So the
concerns I have w/HRT:  how many Bay Area residents want to travel to SoCal
each day vs how many want to get from the east bay to their jobs on the
peninsula or in SJ?   Do we really think that HSR is going to relieve
congestion in the bay area?  What worries me is that it could suck up all
the available funding for transit, making it impossible to fund the regional
network that will actually relieve congestion.

Stopping the "high speed" part of HSR in SJ does make sense.  Let some HSR
trains come all the way to SF, but just travel at a max speed of 79 mph.
There are some 50 or so grade crossings between SJ and SF.  Separating them
all is going to eat up a large chunk of the bond money.  Grade separate the
key crossings (like Ravenswood in MP), put in more passing tracks, electrify
the line, use positive train control, use quad gates, but leave the basic
layout as it is today.  You will get nearly the same level of service at a
fraction of the cost.  And can we even put four tracks in some parts of the
corridor w/o taking some houses?

The ultimate cost of this project is probably being low balled.  I think it
will be at least double the $45 billion estimate.

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 2:33 PM, Tom Radulovich <tomrad at well.com> wrote:

> The great thing about prop 1A is that it accommodates several different
> high speed, intercity, and regional services -- high speed from LA to SF,
> but also services that connect the main Central Valley towns to one another,
> the Bay Area, LA, and the international airports. Right-of-way improvements
> for High Speed Rail will benefit regional metro services and faster
> intercity services, too.
> Caltrain will be thoroughly transformed by the HSR bond, and for the
> better. Caltrain will finally become a fully electrified, frequent, reliable
> rapid transit system connecting SF to the Peninsula, San Jose, and Morgan
> Hill -- the same concept as in their 2025 plan, but a decade or two sooner.
> The current plan, if HSR passes, will introduce lightweight, European-style
> trains for High speed service, but will also replace Caltrain's lumbering
> diesels with electric multiple-unit trainsets. Lightweight electric trains
> will save time (faster acceleration and deceleration) energy (Japan's high
> speed trains use much less energy than US and British intercity trains,
> despite operating at much higher speeds), and reduce air pollution, noise,
> and vibration. Adding more third- and fourth tracks will accommodate
> Caltrain's current pattern of local, limited stop, 'baby bullet' service
> (15-30% faster, thanks to electrification and lightweight trains) as well as
> HSR. Grade separation is expensive, but essential if one is going to use the
> lightweight trains; they can't risk running into whatever might wander onto
> the tracks. No fast, frequent, and reliable rail rapid transit service can
> exist without grade separation, and the HSR bond will complete Caltrain's
> grade separation program in less than a decade.
>
> Caltrain is the furthest along in taking advantage of High Speed rail's
> right-of-way upgrades to improve regional service, but a few other corridors
> are promising ones for supplemental commuter service, including the
> Palmdale-Sylmar-Burbank-Glendale-LA, LA-Whittier-Fullerton-Anaheim-Irvine,
> LA-Pomona-Ontario-Riverside, and Murrieta-Escondido-San Diego. The HSR
> program will make LA Union Station a through-running station, which will
> improve existing Metrolink and Amtrak operations. The HSR bond also allows
> funding for upgrades to the Altamont corridor as a rapid (but not high
> speed) intercity and regional rail corridor.
>
> Serving city centers is expensive, but essential. European and Asian
> intercity rail systems rarely dump folks on the edge of town to take local
> transit the rest of the way in, even though it may cost billions more to get
> all the way downtown; high speed trains are designed to reinforce existing
> urban centers, and to provide the shortest point-to point journey between
> centers. It would make little sense to, as Supervisor Scott Haggerty has
> proposed, build a high speed service to, say, Livermore, and then add an
> hour to the journey by making folks to transfer to BART and make every local
> stop on the way to downtown SF. Bringing HSR into town centers will relieve
> existing transit capacity problems by providing complementary service,
> rather than exacerbate capacity problems, as edge-city stations would do.
>
> The other issue is that bypass stations and big park-and-ride hubs outside
> city centers will draw development out towards them, just like airports do,
> which creates a less sustainable land use pattern across the state. Park and
> ride hubs also abet sprawl. HSR made the decision to locate stations in
> existing town centers, serve them well with local transit, walking, and
> cycling, and foster transit-oriented infill development, as a deliberate
> sustainability and land use strategy. Spending the extra billion, or
> billions, may be worth it, if it draws tens of billions of private
> development back to the town centers.
>
> On Oct 21, 2008, at 1:51 PM, Eric Arons wrote:
>
> I do feel like I need to comment on (at least, and at this point, no more
> than) one of these recommendations.
> High Speed Rail.  I've had a lot of conversations down here with a
> co-worker and vice-mayor of Menlo Park, and we're not so sure high speed
> rail makes much sense in its current incarnation (beyond the sexiness of
> it).  It will be ridiculously expensive, and ultimately it does exactly what
> Deep says, gives people a convenient way to get from here to LA and back.
> It requires major rework of the infrastructure (grade separation all the way
> up and down the peninsula), and integration of current use of the rail
> (Caltrain and freight) with this new use.  Do we need this long distance
> transit solution for lots of money?  Or would that money be much better
> spent for regional transit planning that would allow us to get around the
> Bay Area more easily?  Would a better plan be to stop the train in SJ and
> then let it connect to better local service, saving billions?  A large part
> of the cost will be in revamping the current rail line.  Yes, I know that
> money is not immediately transferable from project to project, but there is
> a massive budget shortfall right now.  And there are some real concerns
> about the particular plan for this potential boondoggle.  Anyway, I'm not
> necessarily opposed to it, and we were actually hoping to have a debate on
> it here at SRI, but it's worth looking into more carefully.  Maybe this
> isn't the right plan.
>
> A few relevant links (some from people actually supporting the prop, but
> not the current plan):
>
> http://service.govdelivery.com/docs/CAMENLO/CAMENLO_1/CAMENLO_1_20080925_en.pdf
> http://www.transdef.org/HSR/HSR.html
>
> http://www.bayrailalliance.org/statement_on_high_speed_rail_and_lawsuit_against_hsra
>
> And a debate on the issue on the radio Wednesday:
>
> http://www.kalw.org/listen.html
>
> KALW Radio, 91.7 FM, on Wednesday, Oct. 22, debating Quentin Kopp, the Chair of the CA High-Speed Rail
>
>
> Authority.  Please call in with questions and comments during the second half of the show.
> The number is 415-841-4134.
>
>
>
>  State Initiatives:
>> *1A: YES  - HIGH SPEED RAIL*
>> This much delayed bond measure will start the funding for California to
>> build a new High Speed Rail system connecting SF to LA but eventually
>> Sacramento to SF to LA to San Diego.  If I didn't love it because it was a
>> great way to get people out of cars, or love it because it would represent a
>> hugh Green House Gas emissions win (it will reduce instate plane flights
>> DRAMATICALLY as well as reduce car trips), or love it because it represents
>> a big investment in CAs decaying infrastructure & will dramatically improve
>> service on our very own CalTrain, I'd vote for it because it will get me to
>> LA in 2 & a 1/2 hours door to door (4 by air? 8 by car?) & I'll probably be
>> able to bring my bike :-) YES YES YES
>>
>>
>>
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