tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post7154142062623429843..comments2023-10-30T09:03:07.163-07:00Comments on California High Speed Rail Blog: High Speed Rail and the Future of Air TravelRobert Cruickshankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06906581839066570472noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-71498715055197913082008-04-28T21:42:00.000-07:002008-04-28T21:42:00.000-07:00Thanks for that catch, other robert. I glanced at ...Thanks for that catch, other robert. I glanced at that headline earlier today but didn't read the actual article. That's a huge piece of information and will become the basis of a post here tomorrow, which will get crossposted to <A HREF="http://www.calitics.com" REL="nofollow">Calitics</A> and some other sites.Robert Cruickshankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06906581839066570472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-59809753711017783582008-04-28T10:44:00.000-07:002008-04-28T10:44:00.000-07:00Here is an article from the LA Times in the April ...Here is an article from the LA Times in the April 23rd edition of the business section:<BR/>http://tinyurl.com/5xj3d8<BR/><BR/>It talks about United's $512 million loss and how airlines will need to immediately raise their fares 15% across the board to stop hemorrhaging money.<BR/><BR/>Right at the bottom we see this bit of wisdom: "Heavily traveled shuttle markets, such as L.A.-San Francisco and New York-Washington are prime targets for schedule cuts, analysts said."<BR/><BR/>Schedule cuts mean higher prices, and thats on top of the fuel surcharges they already have in place and are increasing.<BR/><BR/>The macro-economic forces that favor HSR versus airplanes on short haul routes are already starting to play out. Airlines are cutting unprofitable short flights. Now is the perfect time for HSR to step into the picture and gobble up that segment, just like in Europe.<BR/><BR/>RobertRubber Toehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15723504969375352982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-32773520363599836542008-04-26T15:24:00.000-07:002008-04-26T15:24:00.000-07:00Whereas in Spain, RENFE will refund part of all of...Whereas in Spain, RENFE will refund part of all of your ticket if the train is 5 minutes late - a guarantee which rarely ever has to be paid out. <BR/><BR/>Built properly, an HSR line will be affordable and extremely reliable. It would be a huge boon for business travelers in particular, who would be able to get work done easily on the train (which would presumably have WiFi) than on the plane, where no effective method of providing internet to passengers has yet been found. Boeing had a project to provide WiFi on planes but it was very buggy and was scrapped a year or two ago.<BR/><BR/>And the Delta stats given in that article are making exactly the point I did - that for domestic travel, *especially* within the state, air travel is not going to be a useful option for much longer. From a market perspective alone it seems HSR is needed to take up the coming slack from the major carriers.Robert Cruickshankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06906581839066570472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-77053704694865344012008-04-26T12:01:00.000-07:002008-04-26T12:01:00.000-07:00Interesting article on how the airlines are cuttin...Interesting article on how the airlines are cutting back on domestic routes to focus on more profitable (and more energy-effecient) international routes. This gives a perfect opportunity for HSR to expand to fill the gap.<BR/><BR/>March 25, 2008<BR/>On the Road<BR/>More Delay and Frustration, and All at a Higher Fare<BR/>By JOE SHARKEY<BR/><BR/>OF the eight trips I have booked or taken in the last two months, two were scuttled, either by a missed connection or by an interminable delay that made the journey pointless.<BR/><BR/>Last week, I waited for hours in a departure lounge in the dreary Terminal A at Newark Liberty International Airport for a delayed AirTran flight to Atlanta, and for hours more the next afternoon in Atlanta for the delayed return flight home. The total time I invested for a mere three-hour meeting: 31 hours. The cost was about $800, including airfare, hotel and parking.<BR/><BR/>Last year was, as we know, the worst ever for flight delays. There is no hard data yet for this year, but every business traveler I know says the situation has gotten worse. And the peak business and leisure travel time of the year is only now starting.<BR/><BR/>Fares, meanwhile, are rising, it seems, by the week. Since January, major airlines have adopted six across-the-board increases in domestic ticket prices, according to Rick Seaney, chief executive of FareCompare.com. He predicts that the incremental increases will continue.<BR/><BR/>With oil prices soaring, the airlines say they are barely managing to keep their heads above water, even with the higher fares and fuel surcharges. For business travelers, this is already shaping up as one tough year.<BR/><BR/>For one thing, the domestic system already has almost no slack to handle disruptions of any sort. Most major airlines, meanwhile, are busily reducing domestic seating and flights — sidelining smaller, less fuel-efficient aircraft and diverting the bigger planes to international routes where there still is ample money to be made.<BR/><BR/>Last week, Edward H. Bastian, the president and chief financial officer of Delta Air Lines, gave an informative presentation at the JPMorgan Aviation and Transportation Conference in New York.<BR/><BR/>Mr. Bastian outlined Delta’s aggressive plan to expand internationally while shrinking domestically. Most other major airlines are doing the same. By the summer, he said, 41 percent of Delta’s available seats will be on international routes.<BR/><BR/>By the second half of this year, Delta’s domestic capacity will be “down a full 10 percent over where it was just last year,” he said. By this summer, international capacity will be 77 percent higher than it was in the summer of 2005, he added.<BR/><BR/>“A considerable amount” of Delta’s international growth is coming out of the domestic system, he said.<BR/><BR/>Delta will further reduce its domestic capacity by 5 percent by August, when the airline will have removed from its fleet (by sale, re-leasing or simply parking in storage) 15 to 20 larger aircraft and 20 to 25 smaller regional jets.<BR/><BR/>Regional jets, I do not need to remind many of you, provide most of the service at small and even some big airports.<BR/><BR/>Many airports could be facing sharp cutbacks in service, unless those cities happen to provide what Mr. Bastian called “better asset flights.” Those are flights whose passengers are headed to a hub in the United States to make an international connection.<BR/><BR/>“Domestic capacity is increasingly being pointed toward feeding international destinations,” he said.<BR/><BR/>By the way, remember that international flights go both to and from the United States. That is, even if international business travel from the United States slows (and Mr. Bastian and others say they see no clear sign of it yet), business travel to the United States from overseas may remain robust.<BR/><BR/>“Our offshore bookings are growing substantially in terms of euros” compared with the relatively weak dollar, Mr. Bastian noted.<BR/><BR/>Domestic demand, meanwhile, seems to be holding up — so far. Ovation Corporate Travel, a travel management company, analyzed some of its clients’ spending patterns and found that travel and spending were up from December through mid-March of this year, compared with the same period last year.<BR/><BR/>But Mr. Seaney said that in the last week or so, corporate travel managers and travel agents and some industry stock analysts have been telling him they are now expecting at least some cuts in domestic travel spending this spring.<BR/><BR/>“I’m surprised it hasn’t occurred yet,” he said. “I keep waiting every week.”Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-80573038623796485712008-04-26T11:03:00.000-07:002008-04-26T11:03:00.000-07:00bmfarley, my point in this post wasn't to argue th...bmfarley, my point in this post wasn't to argue that specific airports needed to or should expand - but that if we were to continue to rely on air travel, and if those airports wanted to expand, there is no room to do so. SFO and OAK cannot add runway capacity, leaving SJC to handle any potential Bay Area airport expansion - and since SJC can't do it either, the Bay Area is going to have to look to other methods to provide transportation, like HSR.<BR/><BR/>The Gilroy-Morgan Hill area is under pretty tight land use rules to prevent sprawl and maintain farmland. It would therefore be very difficult to put a major airport there, and I don't believe it's necessary anyhow.<BR/><BR/>As to anonymous' point about feeder lines to the Gilroy station: the Transportation Agency of Monterey County has been working to bring Caltrain to Salinas for some time now. They need $90 million to do this and are close to reaching that goal. Obviously increased state and federal support would help. <BR/><BR/>And even a share of that $950 million would help provide rail service to Santa Cruz along the line they're about to buy, and down to Monterey along the TAMC-owned Monterey Branch Line. The tracks go as far as Sand City and the ROW is being maintained all the way to downtown Monterey in an expectation that rail service will resume (sometime soon, we hope!)Robert Cruickshankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06906581839066570472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-2266623863587394872008-04-26T10:51:00.000-07:002008-04-26T10:51:00.000-07:00@tony d -welcome to the blog. As I understand it, ...@tony d -<BR/><BR/>welcome to the blog. As I understand it, HSR could capture as much as 50% of the main intrastate corridor, freeing up a lot of slots for long-haul destinations at Bay Area and SoCal airports. Therefore, I believe a brand-new airport near Hollister is not needed. Also, the location you propose is right on top of the San Andreas fault.<BR/><BR/>Fresno Yosemite airport (FAT) has runways as long as SFO's, its air corridor is to the south. There is an old freight rail spur immediately south of the access road to the terminal, E MCKinley Ave. With a 1/4 mi extension directly to the terminal building plus a turnoff at S East Ave and E California Ave, a regular-speed diesel-powered shuttle train to downtown should be feasible. Even so, FAT's growth potential is constrained by residential development, noise and air quality issues - the city is downwind of the Bay Area.<BR/><BR/>To better serve Merced, Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties <I>and</I> provide relief for Bay Area airports, I'd suggest expanded use of Castle Airport (MER) in Merced County. The air corridor there extends north - away from the city of Merced. In terms of future expansion potential, a second two mile runway may be feasible. An HSR spur into Castle Airport could lead passengers directly into a new terminal building - putting it on par with Palmdale and Ontario.<BR/><BR/>At night, Castle Airport could support cargo flights carrying priority mail, premium produce and cut flowers. La Poste in France owns several TGVs, so HSR is suitable for light, high-value freight as well as passengers.<BR/><BR/>Note that Castle Airport is a <A HREF="http://cfpub.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0902751" REL="nofollow">former Superfund site</A>. EPA considers the cleanup effort to have been completed.<BR/><BR/>Btw: San Benito, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties ought anyhow to combine forces to secure supplemental funding for HSR feeder services to Gilroy. The November ballot allocates $950 million for those and, there's more in the kitty in DC. Except for an extension/spur to downtown Monterey, the tracks already exist - albeit in a poor state of repair, thanks to heavy freight rail use.<BR/><BR/>But please: no maglev pipedreams, we get enough of that from Sen. Reid of Nevada.<BR/><BR/>BART originally picked broad gauge to keep trains from getting blown off the Golden Gate bridge, but after Marin county pulled out, that service was never implemented. Nevertheless, it's why there are now two incompatible and competing regional rail systems in the Bay Area.<BR/><BR/>Spain's national railways (RENFE) have a huge legacy broad gauge network. To end their splendid isolation from the rest of the EU, they developed <A HREF="http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=sistema+brava&sitesearch=" REL="nofollow">variable gauge bogies</A>. However, BART rolling stock does not feature these - in addition to incompatible gauges, there are grade separation, crash safety, non-existent or incompatible electrification and funding politics issues to contend with. At least those are solvable, at least in theory, maybe, one fine day in the distant future.<BR/><BR/>By contrast. Maglev cannot be made compatible with standard gauge infrastructure at all, ever.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-21206262545866508542008-04-25T21:48:00.000-07:002008-04-25T21:48:00.000-07:00^^^ HSR would mitigate some of the need to expand ...^^^ HSR would mitigate some of the need to expand airports because it would assume many of the in-state trips that would otherwise occur via the air.<BR/><BR/>I was unaware that SJ airport needed to be expanded. Does it really need to be? And, what portion of flights out of San Jose are to other in-state airports? Riders?Brandon in Californiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14796810137823230737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-81328030376118255442008-04-25T19:52:00.000-07:002008-04-25T19:52:00.000-07:00First time post on this site. I've been checking ...First time post on this site. I've been checking out this blog for the past two weeks and love it! Big time HSR supporter! Now living in Gilroy after living in SJ for the past 38 years, I can tell you that a perfect spot for a new "SJC" would be between Gilroy and Hollister. There's a lot of open land out there to build a new, state-of-the-art airport. It could have two, well spaced out runways for simultaneous take offs and landings. The runways could also be built to handle the next generation Airbus 380 superjumbo. As for the distance from San Jose, the new terminals could be connected to SJ/Silicon Valley proper via the proposed HSR line (with a spur line from the Gilroy area), or a dedicated Maglev line from the current SJC North Concourse now under construction. A transit/train line could even be built from the Monterey/Salinas area (Talk about an airport for San Jose, Silicon Valley and the Central Coast!). We currently see similar arrangements, remote airport connected to major city via transit line, in Honk Kong and Shanghai. Such a project would certainly cost billions and might run into environmental issues. Gilroy and Hollister NIMBY's might protest as well. But there are benefits to certainly consider: a larger airport with greater capacity than the current SJC, economic benefits (hospitality, retail, service) for South County and San Benito County, and a new/money making reuse development at the current San Jose airport site (Offices, residential, urban park, etc.). Again, this site is awesome and can't wait for the campaign to begin for HSR! Hope you like the thinking out of the box idea for SJC.Tony D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/03392232221747908883noreply@blogger.com