A Reality Check Must Be Grounded In Reality

It's a bold headline from my alma mater: "A Reality Check on High Speed Rail" is how UC Berkeley bills a recent HSR symposium. Already Morris Brown is peddling this as yet another reason why HSR is terrible and doomed to fail. Morris wants us to not dismiss the symposium lightly. OK, I'll dismiss it heavily:

Even if high-speed rail attracted everyone who drove and flew between the Los Angeles basin and the San Francisco Bay Area during the year 2007, it would amount to only eight million passengers per year, nowhere near the numbers projected by the California High Speed Rail Authority, explained CEE professor Mark Hansen. But even that estimate is optimistic. HSR would be extremely unlikely to capture most current air travelers due to lack of transportation connectivity in most California cities and regions.

“In Europe and Japan, where HSR has been especially successful, it is a very simple thing to take a subway to the HSR station, go upstairs and get on the bullet train,” explained Madanat. For example, access to Eurostar—the HSR system that passes under the English Channel to link Britain with mainland Europe—is easy and car-less; a typical business passenger traveling from London arrives in downtown Paris in two-and-a-half hours and can walk or take the Métro from the same station to his or her meeting. This connectivity, or short access and egress time, is essential to the success of high-speed rail, and California has very little of it.

Oh really? This would be an accurate statement if HSR stations were going to be built on the edges of city centers. But they're not. The two key endpoints will be directly in the center of the existing mass transit networks in the state: SF Transbay Terminal and LA Union Station. Both are already served by an impressive amount of mass transit, and if Antonio Villaraigosa gets his way, LAUS in particular could be reachable from West LA and much of the San Gabriel Valley by passenger rail by the time HSR opens to SF. As anyone who is even remotely familiar with both SF and LA knows, Transbay Terminal and Union Station are both far more accessible, in a shorter period of time, than slogging through traffic on the freeways to LAX or even Burbank.

We can look to the Acela as an example. The Acela is a successful HSR route. It generates operating surpluses and has no trouble attracting riders. Sure, it helps that NYC has an excellent mass transit system. Washington D.C.'s system is pretty good, built in a very similar way to BART. Stations are located in the centers of both cities, even though DC has an easily accessible airport just across the river from downtown. Suburban DC is very car-centric, as is much of NYC outside the five boroughs, and that hasn't hurt the Acela either.

The presenters at the UCB symposium are not being realistic when they dismiss CA has having "very little" connectivity. Even in cities where the network still has some work to do, like San José (a stop they do not mention), the HSR station will be located very near to the airport (and is actually closer to downtown than the airport), putting both on an equal footing. And unlike SJC, Diridon Station has a stop on the VTA light rail line.

Of course, as Joey pointed out in the comments to yesterday's post, the UCB symposium seems to have neglected the fact that HSR isn't just serving SF and LA, and includes places like San José, Fresno, and Bakersfield, where HSR would still be a compelling choice even without mass transit connectivity.

In short, their theory that HSR ridership depends on mass transit options CA lacks doesn't seem to hold water.

Travelers heading to Los Angeles from San Francisco, for example, will consider the time it takes to go to and from airports at each end of the trip, versus the time spent getting to a high-speed rail station. Time spent on the line-haul portion of the trip (actual flying or riding time) is more productive than the access and egress portions. But if access and egress times from HSR stations are as long and onerous as those for air, passengers will save time by driving to an airport instead.

“High-speed rail trades unproductive access and egress time for productive line-haul time,” explained Madanat. That is advantageous to travelers, and they are willing to spend an extra hour or more in line-haul time if egress and access time are diminished. Air travel between some cities in Japan has become nonexistent, thanks to the ease of traveling by high-speed rail.

I'm sorry, but Madanat is just plain wrong here. The unproductive access and egress time belongs entirely to airplanes, at least in California. He does not appear to have included the ridiculous security theater involved in air travel that adds up to a half hour to travel times. TSA recommends people arrive two hours before a domestic flight. Add in the travel to LA-area airports, none of which have good mass transit connections (whereas LAUS is the hub of the entire Southern California mass transit network), and it is not conceivable to me that HSR is at a disadvantage in terms of travel times. If anything it is likely to have an advantage, or would be comparable, which is all it really needs to be.

Again, we can look at reality to demonstrate the point: if HSR was such a bad deal, why does the Acela have half the market share on the Northeast Corridor? Madanat apparently didn't speak to actual Acela users:

Barry Ginsberg of Deer Park, N.Y., boarded an Acela train after a meeting in Washington.

"It's a lot less hassle and more comfortable," Ginsberg says. "When you figure how much in advance you have to get to the airport, it's a lot more convenient."

So there's another strike against the "reality check."

The other piece of the symposium report deals with emissions, and claims that HSR won't actually be the cleantech wonder we expect:

Proponents of California high-speed rail tout its energy-saving, greenhouse gas–eliminating characteristics. But panelist Arpad Hovath, also a CEE professor, reported on research showing that, unless ridership is very high, rail cannot perform better than air travel. To compare the carbon footprint of rail with air or driving, he explained, far more than just tailpipe emissions must be taken into account.

Horvath’s life-cycle analysis of the three modes suggests that high-speed rail will produce some 10 million metric tons of CO2 per year during construction. Furthermore, electricity to run the trains must be generated from coal-fired plants, leading to additional greenhouse gas emissions once HSR is operational.

Except that Horvath didn't mention the reality that the CHSRA has mandated that its trains will be powered by alternative, renewable sources to the maximum extent possible, with the goal being generation from 100% renewables. CHSRA's very existence helps bring online that capacity, by providing a guaranteed buyer of solar and wind power.

Horvath's assumptions also assume that ridership will be low. It will take about five years to reach the projected ridership levels (which is why many of CHSRA's projections are for 2030, not 2020), but once you're there, HSR will produce the reduced carbon footprint we expect.

He also charges that the construction alone will generate 10 million metric tons of CO2 per year. Maybe it will. But the cost of doing nothing is not zero. Even those tons of CO2 are a worthwhile investment for long-term significant reductions in CO2, since without HSR CO2 emissions are either going to continue rising and drown us in rising seas, or they'll crash totally without any alternative method of transportation when the oil gives out. And no, this symposium report does not mention "peak oil" at all. If it was discussed, UCB didn't see fit to mention it.

Oh, and the symposium report got in one last shot that Morris Brown, Stuart Flashman, and the PCL will just love:

Changes in alignment could help build ridership early, Madanat said. By switching the Northern California route from Pacheco Pass to Altamont, many more potential riders from fast-growing areas of Contra Costa and Alameda counties could be lured away from air travel.

Or Madanat could have mentioned the Altamont HSR corridor that the CHSRA is planning, which will bring the very kind of "connectivity" he claimed those potential riders needed in the form of a much faster ACE train.

Now it's possible that the problem here is with the staff producing the UC College of Engineering newsletter in which this article appeared. They didn't have to frame it as "reality check" and there may have been a more balanced discussion than what the article presented.

Still, it's a pretty lame "reality check," especially since it doesn't actually consider the realities I described above.

UPDATE: In fact, that's what seems to have happened. Alon Levy in the comments points to a post by Andy Nash about the symposium, which was apparently far more balanced, insightful, and useful than the UCB newsletter made it appear:

Professor Carlos Daganzo gave the first presentation. He showed convincingly how high speed rail can bring down the total cost of travel given the expected increase in travel demand combined with the HSR's decreasing cost per passenger model. This means that there is a very strong case for subsidizing high speed rail in the early stages of development, since it will improve the overall transport system....

Professor Mark Hansen spoke next. Hansen looked at the relationship of HSR to air travel. He believes that with HSR the air travel market will become less competitive and that the reduction in flights will be most evident in secondary airports (only a small share of SFO, LAX and SAN flights are intra-state ... although they use more than their share of capacity since they are generally smaller planes)....

Professor Robert Cervero proposed four lessons for California: (1) station siting is critical, building stations in freeway medians or surrounded by free parking will lead to more sprawl development and greater driving; (2) feeder systems are important for solving the "last mile" problem, extended TOD corridors are a good solution; (3) TOD as a necklace of pearls (e.g. like Copenhagen's approach) would be excellent, but California's current planning regime does not support this approach; (4) joint development must be high quality and pedestrian-oriented, studies of joint development in Hong Kong show that these types of joint development can be much more effective than the alternative basic systems.

So now the question is, why the biased report by the UCB "Innovations" newsletter?!

Freakonomics: High-Speed Rail and CO2

by Rafael

Eric A. Morris has published a post on the Freakonomics blog of the New York Times entitled "High Speed Rail and CO2". IMHO, his is a poorly researched and extremely biased article since it completely disregards research commissioned by CHSRA.

Before I explain my gut reaction to Mr. Morris' hit piece, please bear in mind that reducing CO2 emissions is not the core objective of the California HSR project. Rather, its principal purpose is to enhance population mobility at the medium-distance scale by giving residents and tourists a safe, affordable and environmentally responsible alternative to long drives and short flights.

The CO2 emissions avoided during construction and operations are a result of rail technology, i.e. making do with just a narrow strip of land, avoiding asphalt and using grid-electric traction. Personally, I think of any direct reductions in CO2 emissions as icing on the cake.

What follows is a cross-post of my comment on the NYT blog.

• First of all, Mr. Morris' article portrays the cost estimate of $80 billion produced by one person in Minnesota as gospel while failing to mention that the California High Speed Rail Authority's (CHSRA) own forecast is around $33 billion for the SF-San Jose-Fresno-LA-Anaheim starter line and another $12 billion total for the phase II extensions to San Diego, Irvine and Sacramento, respectively.
  
  It also neglects to mention that phase II construction will be funded with non-state bonds backed by operating surpluses from phase I. It is completely disingenuous to report that California taxpayers will be burdened with the cost of funding the entire network. Indeed, the language of California AB3034(2008) includes numerous safeguards to ensure the state's contribution remains limited to $9.95 billion, of which $950 million is reserved for capital projects of local and regional agencies that operate connecting transit.
  
  All this must be compared to the cost of doing nothing and also to the cost of building more roads and runways instead. Both alternatives were estimated to be much more expensive, with the cost of the no-build alternative measured in lost productivity and other opportunity parameters. This aspect of the program EIR/EIS study did not even include the option of providing reliable broadband internet access to HSR passengers.
  
  
• Second, wrt to CO2 emissions: it beggars belief that the author should compare a study for HS2 in the UK - which assumes the extra electricity would be produced mostly from coal - with the California situation. CHSRA decided before the election last fall that the entire system would operate exclusively on renewable electricity, with new wind turbines being the cheapest way to implement that. Using renewables will eliminate most of the 19.1 million barrels of oil equivalent* that would otherwise be required each year (vs. 24.3 for the no-build and 24.5 for the modal alternative). CHSRA estimated the additional power requirement for peak period operations in 2020 is 480MW, about 0.6% of total generating capacity in the state at that time.
  
  As for the energy required for construction, CHSRA estimates 152 trillion** BTUs, equivalent to 26.2 million barrels of oil equivalent. That's comparable to about 16 months of operations - not trivial, but not terribly significant relative to a system life expectancy measured in decades. For reference, the construction of highway lane-miles and airport runways under the modal alternative would require 37% more energy. Again, the overwhelming majority of total energy is consumed during the years of operation.

For more details, please consult the document library at the CHSRA web site.

* CHSRA Final Program EIR/EIS Chapter 7.1.1 (Library -> Archived Materials)
** The document actually interprets 1 MMBTU as 1 million BTUs but that strikes me as a clerical error.

Thursday Open Thread

So I'm off to Portugal for 2 weeks, and you will be in the capable hands of Rafael and Matt Melzer, who will be doing some guest posts. There will be some open threads every other day, although if any of the guest posters want to move one of those to another day in order to post something, particularly if it is timely, they're welcome to do so.

Today's topic: rising gas prices. Breaking the magic $3 mark across the state. It was when gas prices stayed above $3/gal for an extended period in mid-2006 that the housing bubble burst. Sure, the bubble was going to burst eventually, but it burst at a specific time and due to specific causes, which we can't overlook. Further, the gas price spike of 2008 surely helped play a big role in sending the economy into a tailspin in the latter half of that year.

As a number of economists are coming to realize, any economic recovery could be strangled by rising gas prices. The underlying factors are still there - peak oil, exacerbated now by slackening investment in production. Any hint of recovery is going to send gas prices soaring.

So tell me again why we would NOT want to be investing in a form of transportation that is not dependent on the fluctuating price of oil? That could promote economic growth instead of throwing a drowning economy an anvil?

Earth Day 2009: Focus on Electricity

Ever since 1970, April 22 has marked Earth Day in the United States. The objective has always been to raise awareness of environmental issues and to prompt individuals to take actions that benefit the environment in some way.

Today marks the first Earth Day of the Obama administration. The President will head to Iowa to promote renewable electricity generation, specifically wind farms. This is part of a larger strategy to gradually wean the US economy off fossil fuels in general and oil in particular. Reducing US dependence on these finite resources is an essential contribution to both climate policy and national security. The administration's energy-cum-green-collar-jobs legislation is already making its way through Congress, albeit slowly.

Of course, any sensible energy policy needs to address not just how electricity is generated but also the total amount used. Without aggressive conservation, renewable electricity - hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass - will always struggle to cover more than a tiny fraction of total demand.

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Florida Power & Light has embarked on a $200 million project to install "smart meters" in all homes in Miami-Dade county. Each meter contains a WiFi transceiver that allows consumers to track their electricity usage with software installed on their PC. Knowing when they consume which amount of electricity on a given circuit - mapped to specific rooms or appliances - makes it much easier for them to identify and eliminate power hogs.

California's Bay Area and San Diego are just as exposed to the threat of slowly rising sea levels as south Florida. Yet it is air conditioning demand in the hot inland areas of both states that places enormous strain on the utility companies on the 10 hottest days of the year. In California, aggregate demand can jump by as much as 50% when people return home in the late afternoon and switch on their central A/C unit, often at full power to bring temperatures back down quickly. According to a KQED Quest radio report, simply selecting a device that is optimized for the temperature and humidity range in a particular area can save 20% on A/C-related electricity consumption. There are more than just cost savings here, because the rarely-used power plants that exist purely to cope with extreme peak demand have to deliver that power quickly and reliably - which means using gas turbines. While these could run on stored biogas, the regulatory structure still favors the use of fossil natural gas.

There are plenty of other examples of scope for structural reductions in electricity consumption in California:

• for new buildings, solar architecture encompasses everything from avoiding large south-facing windows to insulation to self-shading, water features and vegetation, all in an effort to keep the indoor and interior courtyard areas naturally cool during the summer months
  
• in some locations, apartment complexes and businesses can already choose to deploy green roofs with drought-resistant plants supported by recycled water to provide natural insulation
  
• the pumps used to transport water from the Sierras to Southern California and the Bay Area consume around 2% of the state's total, so encouraging newcomers to move to where the water flows naturally is a good idea - especially since it will also discourage the agriculture of thirsty crops
  
• Internet data centers in California also consume around 2% of the state's total, of which about half is A/C load. Emerging liquid cooling technology for servers and mass storage units should help bring that down.

Of course, all of the conservation measures described above relate to stationary devices. Small mobile devices like cell phones and laptops, even bicycles, can easily be powered using grid electricity stored in batteries. The same is not true of large vehicles - the high cost, limited range and safety aspects of large battery banks are the reasons why virtually all cars and trucks on the market use internal combustion engines that rely on oil distillates. Commercial airliners rely on kerosene-guzzling jet engines, though when they are fully booked, the newest long-distance aircraft do consume less per passenger-mile than single-occupant cars do on the highway. By contrast, short-hop flights are among the least energy-efficient modes of transportation. That means aggressive conservation and/or switching to electricity is especially important for the transportation sector.

While some bus systems have been electrified using overhead catenaries, it is far more typical of rail transit: streetcars, light rail and subways. In the US, regular heavy rail has been electrified in the NEC but virtually nowhere else. The California bullet train system will be electrified, if only because it's the only way to achieve 220mph. At full capacity, the fully built out network is epxected to require around 480MW of electrical power, roughly 1% of the total installed generating capacity in the state today.

In keeping with the spirit of Earth Day, CHSRA wants it to run entirely on renewable electricity, something that will be easier with energy conservation in stationary applications. In this context, 100% renewable means that for each kWh consumed during a given time period (e.g. 1 year), there must be a corresponding kWh produced at a wind farm or other renewable source. In terms of global warming impact, it isn't strictly necessary that there be sufficient active renewable electricity generating capacity to power all of the trains at any given instant. This arbitrage is exactly where President Obama's smart grid concept comes in, something German scientists have already been working on for a while. For political reasons, that country wants to phase out both nuclear and coal-fired generating capacity.



In the context of a busy rail system, brake energy recuperation from one train to others on the same segment further improves overall energy efficiency, especially if the grid operator gets 20-30 seconds advance warning of a train braking. That information is readily available to the rail infrastructure operator, except in emergency situations.

For all these reasons, I couldn't agree more with this article in today's Des Moines Register, entitled simply:

To push clean energy, back high-speed rail

Even diesel-based "emerging HSR" is a lot more efficient than cars are at comparable occupancy rates. Considering that most cars have just one occupant, that's a low hurdle. Electrification just makes trains an even more strategic element of the passenger transportation mix going forward.

Update by Robert: This seems like a good occasion to remind folks of the CHSRA renewable energy study that we discussed last September. The report goes into detail on just what is necessary for the CHSRA to achieve 100% renewable energy for their system, a goal the Authority's board adopted last fall.

A Statement From Harry Reid's Office

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UPDATE: MSNBC reports that both houses of Congress have now passed the conference version of the stimulus bill, it is now on its way to the President's desk. The Senate extended its voting hours to allow Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to return from his mother's funeral. His was the deciding 60th vote since Sen. Kennedy (D-MA), who is battling brain cancer, was too frail to risk a second trip to Washington.

Republican support came from Sen. Collins (R-ME), Sen. Snowe (R-ME) and Sen. Specter (R-PA) who broke ranks rather than drown the global economy in a bathtub. Fortunately, the brouhaha surrounding the $8 billion for HSR did not change their minds. Check out Rachel Maddow's interview with Ray LaHood on this topic.

Still, it would be nice if the courts in Minnesota finally confirmed Al Franken (D) as the winner of that extremely close Senate race. At least the court case is now turning in his favor.

---

The ink is not yet dry on the compromise version of the stimulus bill that was hashed out in conference. The House and Senate still have to give their final approval before the President can sign it on Monday. As we discussed yesterday, this final version boosted Amtrak and HSR capital projects funding while cutting that for brand-new transit systems.

Yesterday, an Associated Press report on the conference result included a paragraph that has sent the blogosphere into a tizzy:

"In late-stage talks, Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pressed for $8 billion to construct high-speed rail lines, quadrupling the amount in the bill that passed the Senate on Tuesday.

Reid's office issued a statement noting that a proposed Los Angeles-to-Las Vegas rail might get a big chunk of the money."

Predictably enough, the right wingnut faction of the Interwebs (e.g. Michelle Malkin) immediately decried this as a last-minute earmark. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't pay any attention to such partisan diatribes. However, the fate of the entire stimulus bill rests on the votes of just three Republican Senators. If any two of them were to get cold feet on Monday, using this fake controversy as an excuse, HSR funding could get cut just to save the rest of the bill.

Unfortunately, perception is reality, so we need to fix this misperception:

a) I was unable to find a copy of this alleged statement on Sen. Reid's official website. Perhaps it was just a verbal comment, but everyone else is simply referring to the wire service as their source.

b) The full text of the conference report on the bill contains the final passage related to High Speed Rail. Please refer to pp237 of the full text of Division A and p82 of the Joint Explanatory Statement for Division A.

The latter refers to HR 2095 (110th) as the basis of the High Speed Passenger Rail program. That bill was passed last November and included $1.5 billion for capital projects in corridors where passenger trains could reasonably be expected to reach speeds of at least 110mph (see Title V). It also specifically enumerated the eleven officially designated HSR corridors:


(click to expand image)

Evidently, Las Vegas to Southern California is currently not a designated corridor and therefore not eligible for any of the $8 billion reserved for HSR in the stimulus bill. However, existing laws give the Secretary of Transportation the authority to modify existing and designate new corridors.

c) Neither HR2095 (110th) nor the stimulus bill explicitly allocates HSR funding to any one corridor, whether designated or not. Instead, the bills spell out a process for DOT to make a decision based on competitive tenders. There is no earmark here.

d) The compromise version of the stimulus bill, formally "The American Recovery and Re-Investment Act of 2009", does raise the amount available for HSR projects to $8 billion, available through Sep 30, 2012. The generous timeframe reflects the fact that HSR is part of the re-investment aspect of the bill. It will have a stimulative effect right away in terms of planning, environmental reviews and preliminary engineering work. The California project involves the construction of brand-new tracks that will support true non-compliant bullet trains at speeds of up to 220mph. Certain other corridors, notably the NEC, may be able to break ground earlier if the officials responsible for them decide to make do with upgrades of existing alignments.

Nevertheless, it is quite incorrect to insinuate that any extra money for HSR was snuck into the bill at the last moment as part of some shady deal between Sen. Reid and Speaker Pelosi. Rather, the $8 billion figure came about as follows:

• $2 billion allocated to "Fixed Guideway Infrastructure" in the House version were targeted more narrowly at HSR in the Senate version.
  
• $2.5 billion at the discretion of the Secr. of Transportation was increased to $5.5 billion in the Senate version and targeted more narrowly at HSR in conference.
  
• $0.5 bilion was added for each of Amtrak and HSR in conference, but the amount allocated to brand-new transit systems was cut by a greater amount.
  

Ergo, the bulk of the increase for HSR between the Senate and conference versions of the bill is a result of Congress making a policy decision rather than giving the administration a lot of leeway, given that there was too little time to spell out a fair arbitration process between highway, aviation and rail spending. Some may disagree with the preference for HSR, but there's nothing sinister about the process that led to this result.

Conclusion: the statement allegedly issued by Sen. Reid's office reflects a political ambition rather than legal reality.

Personally, I think HSR from Las Vegas to Southern California is an idea worth pursuing in the context of a broader, national review of the designated HSR corridors. The last one occurred in 2002 and FRA's map is out of date. However, any actual award of federal funds from any bill should IMHO come with the following strings attached:

1. Rather than create a brand-new one, Las Vegas should be added as a new destination within the existing California corridor. This would then be renamed e.g. the Cal-Nev corridor. In practice, that would boil down to operating steel wheels electric bullet trains instead of incompatible magnetic levitation technology. There is no need for any part of California to be served by more than one HSR system.
   
   
2. The simplest option would be a spur to Las Vegas via Barstow, originating near the town of Mojave. There would be no stops between Palmdale (or Bakersfield) and Las Vegas.
   
   A more complex alternative would be a line from LA Union Station to Las Vegas via Ontario airport and Cajon Pass, with a future spur to San Diego originating near Colton. In that case, it might make sense to modify the route from Bakersfield to Los Angeles to the I-5 corridor at Grapevine, bypassing Palmdale airport. However, that would require revisiting the geological and environmental reasons that led to a decision in favor of crossing the Garlock fault near Tehachapi.
   
   
3. Since roughly 1/3 of all flights into McCurran airport in Las Vegas originate in cities with or near stations on the future California HSR system, plans for the new Ivanpah Valley relief airport near Primm on the California-Nevada border would have to be shelved. If any relief is needed, either Palmdale or Ontario airport can provide it.
   
   
4. The investors behind the diesel-based DesertXpress project (the official website was down) should be invited to instead participate in a public-private partnership to build a cleaner and much faster electrified system. Parts of the environmental impact study already conducted may still be valid.
   
   
5. If either state requires it, the environmental impact study for any HSR service to Las Vegas should include a feasibility study for also constructing a high-voltage DC power distribution line above or else next to the section between Barstow and the Nevada border. West of Barstow, it should run through Cajon Pass irrespective of the HSR alignment. This infrastructure would be electrically separate from the HSR catenaries except at designated feeder substations. Its purpose would be to transport CO2-neutral electricity (e.g. wind, solar, geothermal, hydro) to population centers in both states.
   

Bullet trains carrying passengers and/or high-value cargo to and from Las Vegas would relieve traffic on I-15, but any such project would face stiff opposition from anti-gambling advocates as well as Indian gaming interests in California.