California High-Speed Rail (CAHSR) System

lpetrich wrote:Anaheim - Los Angeles? Complete with electrification? Or just an adding some track and improving the signals?

That seems like a rather tiny project compared to all the new construction that they will have to be doing between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

I recently read several of the documents in the Library section of the project's official site, and it looks like they are committed to San Francisco instead of to Oakland -- it would be too expensive and awkward to go to Oakland.

And elevated trackways through Livermore and Pleasanton and Dublin? And four tracks wide through downtown Livermore? I almost couldn't believe it.

please go back to the project website and look at what's actually be committed.

yes, this will be all-electric. yes, the section between LA and Anaheim is small, but it also has tremendous ridership potential because of the huge number of commuters and the ridiculous traffic jams that currently plague that commute.

going to oakland is not too expensive, it just attracts significantly fewer riders. if anything, going into SF is more expensive as it requires the construction of a brand new terminal with underground tracks – no such requirement in oakland.

the route will go through gilroy to reach the coast from the central valley, NOT through livermore. going through livermore presented a number of challenges, including strong opposition from towns along the route (dublin, pleasanton, livermore, and union city) as well as issues of getting across the SF bay.

Yes I know. But I couldn't help but marvel at how they were planning to get the tracks through Livermore and Pleasanton, if they had decided on an East Bay route.

As to LA - Anaheim, is that LAUS - Anaheim or San Fernando Valley - Anaheim?

It's not a great distance, and there aren't a lot of stations on it: 31 mi, with 1 Amtrak and 4 Metrolink stations in between.

An Orange County line ought to go further, to Irvine, 46 mi, or even to San Juan Capistrano, 58 mi.

And will the Metrolink line there also be electrified? I'm thinking of the case of Boston's MBTA, which continues to run diesel between Boston and Providence. However, some of Metrolink's lines may be busy enough to justify electrification.

91 Line: LAUS - Fullerton - Riverside: 9,0,0
Antelope Valley Line: LAUS - Lancaster: 24,10,6
IEOC Line: San Bernardino - Oceanside: 8,3,2
Orange County Line: LAUS - Oceanside: 19,6,6
Riverside Line: LAUS - Riverside: 12,0,0
San Bernardino Line: LAUS - San Bernardino: 34,20,12
Ventura County Line: LAUS - Montalvo: 20,0,0

So the best candidates are:
San Bernardino Line: all
Orange County Line: LAUS - Irvine or perhaps around San Juan Capistrano
Ventura County Line: LAUS - Chatsworth or perhaps around Moorpark
Antelope Valley Line: LAUS - Santa Clarita or perhaps all

And in the San Francisco Bay Area, electrifying Caltrain has long been discussed, and electrifying the Capitol Corridor line from San Jose to Sacramento may be worth doing.

afaik, LAUS is as far as that will go, initially. also, i don't think metrolink has any plans to electrify, esp since they just placed an order for more diesels. caltrain does have plans to electrify and i presume they will be trying to sync that up somehow with the HSR, though those plans are meant to go forward regardless of HSR's progress.

the reason it won't go further south is space – the ROW isn't wide enough or straight enough, esp once the line reaches the coast. the route will go to irvine eventually, but that will be through the imperial valley, not through the pacific surfliner's current route.

ps. the livermore alignment had nothing to do with going to the east bay. the decision on how to go from the central valley into the bay area was mostly separate from the routing inside the bay area itself. it was completely feasible to go through gilroy, then to san jose, then to oakland. the decisions to go to downtown sf and to go through gilroy were made fairly independently of each other...

I hope that timetable is better than the one that seems to be developing for the Gold Line extension. Possibly some of us will still be alive when it reaches Montclair.

I will concede that I was a bit startled when I saw a simulation of a possible line through Livermore in the Bay Area EIR/EIS.

A picture of downtown Livermore at the UP line with four HSR ones just north of them.

That made me compose a Livermore version of a famous NIMBY poster from 1839; I don't know if I have the nerve to post it.

not only is California facing a $14 billion budget deficit right now, but property values have fallen on average 35% are still failing (which greatly impacts the state going forward as the state general fund must cover the part of education budgets that the counties can not cover), but there is also this

Cities, states and other local governments have been effectively shut out of the bond markets for the last two weeks, raising the cost of day-to-day operations, threatening longer-term projects and dampening a broad source of jobs and stability at a time when other parts of the economy are weakening.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/busin ... ni.html?hp

No way, no how, is HSR getting built in California anytime soon. It amazes me that some folks still think that it might.

In a column today, the Wall Street Journal echoes the thought Steve expressed immediately above:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122368038058324729.html

Brief passage:

• With credit markets in New York in crisis last week, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sent an extraordinary letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson asking for $7 billion. Although the governor has since withdrawn that request, it testifies to the dire state of his budget.
  
  Yet days before penning his note, the governor told an audience at the Commonwealth Club of California not to worry about the state's budget crunch and to approve $9.95 billion in new debt on the November ballot to build a bullet train to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco: "Just because we have a problem with the budget does not mean people should vote 'no' on high-speed rail." (A spokeswoman confirmed Monday that, despite the request for federal money, the governor still supports the initiative.)
  
  Actually, the state's budget woes should give votes pause -- especially since high-speed rail is a fantasy that has as much chance of delivering on its promises of creating 450,000 jobs, vanquishing road congestion and lowering greenhouse gases as "Conan the Barbarian" had of winning the Oscar.........Regardless of whether California voters green light this project, Uncle Sam should have no part of it -- either directly by offering California matching rail grants as it is hoping or indirectly by approving any future requests for emergency cash. American taxpayers should not subsidize California's fiscal train wreck

We have to commit ourselves to rebuilding and modernizing our infrastructure, and back it as a long term effort regardless of the current state of the market, or resign ourselves to letting the U.S. become a third world nation.

Traditionally , governments have used large civil engineering projects to kickstart an economy in a recession . there are other positive sides to starting such a project now . Lower land values ( and helping to remove excess land from the market ) , and also you would expect contractors to put in a sharper tender than they would in a boom time .
The nz govt actually put off infrastrucutre jobs in the boomtime we have had over the last few years , saying they would start them in a recession . i guess that time is now .

David Benton wrote:Traditionally , governments have used large civil engineering projects to kickstart an economy in a recession .

True. For instance, the TVA was a product of the depression as I recall.

What is the TVA?

Tennessee Valley Authority.

David Benton wrote:What is the TVA?

A big programme of dam building, hydroelectricity and modernisation of a whole river valley. A good example of socialist planning that actually worked.

thanks , i wickied it , interesting .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority

back to the califionia HSR ,anyone know why they go via palmdale and techapachi out of la , rather than following I5 directly over to Bakersfield area ???