tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post8623977352806993415..comments2023-10-30T09:03:07.163-07:00Comments on California High Speed Rail Blog: Orange County Takes Over The CHSRA BoardRobert Cruickshankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06906581839066570472noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-88595557649231145652009-07-07T00:11:50.806-07:002009-07-07T00:11:50.806-07:00@anon - correct we in sf, do not care about menlo ...@anon - correct we in sf, do not care about menlo park. The train will come here and you won't stop it.<br /> and how we do things here has nothing to do with any place else. San Francisco is important to the state and Menlo park just isn't. And the bigger reason is this, the intelligent non hysterical people who are designed the project know the same thing I know - that caltrain row and everything adjacent to it, is a dump. Ive ridden the train, ive seen whats there - theres a handful of homes in a couple of short spots and the rest is a shithole. Anything that was done to ti would be an improvement. Some people will be inconvenienced, but not enough to worry about. Sory that's just the way it is. Is the governor gonna stick up for you? pelosi? boxer? feinstein? Obama? the cali legislature? snowballs chance in hell. see, as much as you all try to paint the area as some bucolic pristine ancient redwood forest with spotted owls and endangered butterlfys , people who are familiar with the peninsula know what it actually consists of. its just not all that. and the most people aren't even remotely impressed with anything between sf and sj. of all the places one could live int he bar area, the peninsula is not that high on the list. I think the bigwigs know this and any trouble makers can be bought off fairly easily.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-73234983751813032372009-07-06T20:43:12.388-07:002009-07-06T20:43:12.388-07:00The difference between SF complaining about an ele...The difference between SF complaining about an elevated monster and Menlo Park / Atherton / Palo Alto, is that it wouldn't happen if San Francisco was complaining. They could care less of a damn about what will happen along the peninsula, as long as they get the train and the TBT. Their attitude is Robert's attitude.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-44267119462437546332009-07-06T12:45:29.467-07:002009-07-06T12:45:29.467-07:00If San Francisco wants the hsr so much then let Ne...If San Francisco wants the hsr so much then let Newsom lean on the CHSRA and Caltrans to relocate to 101. Quit bugging the Peninsula burgs with threats of a a 4-track elevated monstrosity. San Francisco would have a hissy fit if something like that were tried in the City, especially after the experience of tearing down the Embarcadero and Central Freeways. Property values skyocketed. Elevateds are blighting. Residents in Seattle are already bitching about the noise of the Sound Transit elevated and the line hasn't even opened yet.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-43249116218495552702009-07-06T07:11:31.580-07:002009-07-06T07:11:31.580-07:00That tune is going to change in a hurry when they ...<i> That tune is going to change in a hurry when they find out that high speed tracks through downtown are about as pleasant to listen to as an airport. The chamber of commerce and developers may like it, but residents may not. What do you think, will those people demand tunnels too? </i><br /><br /><br><br /><br />They do it that way in Japan. Straight through residential areas and into downtown. And noise (much more than visuals) is the big concern there.Al2000https://www.blogger.com/profile/02147066053393736309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-65562705022255078312009-07-06T06:17:45.275-07:002009-07-06T06:17:45.275-07:00The job of heading up CHSRA shoudl nto be somethin...The job of heading up CHSRA shoudl nto be something with appointed "terms" of a fixed duration. It should be a full-time *job*, appointed like the head of a company. I don't want someone who also has to run a city in charge.TomWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13453251490705724225noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-69167822810544918742009-07-06T01:09:21.106-07:002009-07-06T01:09:21.106-07:00@clem
that statement was just to stir up shit. y...@clem<br /> that statement was just to stir up shit. you see how right way SF said no way to the idea. and really, do they think Sf will let PA cut SF out of the deal? fat chance. I for one am going to start ticketing sf homeless people to PA and tell them there's a really good shelter there.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-6680967429835090912009-07-06T01:03:01.061-07:002009-07-06T01:03:01.061-07:00Alon - you are correct in what I meant - sorry bo...Alon - you are correct in what I meant - sorry bout the typos - ( my english grammar and spelling are very good but I have zero patience for typing and proofreading)<br /><br />my point was indeed, that if one is going to say "avoid the city centers and just use a spur connection, then one may as well say term at sjc and use caltrain because its essentially the same thing....and that thing is "a bad idea."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-58351917949585441882009-07-05T21:21:18.423-07:002009-07-05T21:21:18.423-07:00Did anybody pick up this article?
Morshed said th...Did anybody pick up this <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BATN/message/42051" rel="nofollow">article</a>?<br /><br /><i>Morshed said the board will have to consider terminating high-speed trains in San Jose if environmental obstacles and public opposition are too daunting.</i><br /><br />That's an amazing and unusual thing for him to say!Clemhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01374282217135682245noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-22754353401828412312009-07-05T21:09:56.162-07:002009-07-05T21:09:56.162-07:00Of course San Jose could serve as an interim termi...Of course San Jose could serve as an interim terminus, just as the 99 corridor could be incrementally upgraded after the I-5 line is completed expeditiously. But of course that's not the plan. Drill the Techachapis first thing so as to lock in Palmdale. That's what will happen.<br /><br />I am happy to see Socal piling on to this thing as the hsr needs a total rethink. Since Palmdale has become the obvious linchpin just dump all the money on the CV. The Bay Area would be better off to be left out of it entirely since who needs to go to Fresno to get to LA.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-53715732502294991332009-07-05T15:32:11.544-07:002009-07-05T15:32:11.544-07:00Anon, I'm 95% positive Jim meant, "If ser...Anon, I'm 95% positive Jim meant, "If serving city centers isn't htat important then we may as well use san jose as a terminus." FI is a typo for If, not FYI. This is in line with Jim's general views and with the sentence's grammatical structure.<br /><br />Richard, the costs of the bypasses in Italy are in the billions. On EuroTrib the HSR posters reamed TAV for choosing such a costly option. It's easy to romanticize Continental Europe's rail choices from far away, but the commentators within that region seem to think some of those choices are stupid.Alon Levyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12195377309045184452noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-49263014524000426362009-07-05T14:43:56.609-07:002009-07-05T14:43:56.609-07:00FI serving city centers isn't htat important t...<i><br /><br />FI serving city centers isn't htat important then we may as well use san jose as a terminus with a connection to caltrain, its no different then having people use local connection to get out to the beet field station.<br /><br /></i><br /> <br />This from an HSR supporter and zealot. Robert is likely to kick you off his blog.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-5173543286817252522009-07-05T13:25:51.188-07:002009-07-05T13:25:51.188-07:00FI serving city centers isn't htat important ...FI serving city centers isn't htat important then we may as well use san jose as a terminus with a connection to caltrain, its no different then having people use local connection to get out to the beet field station.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-38769256397500475472009-07-05T13:23:27.505-07:002009-07-05T13:23:27.505-07:00I don't think it was as sinister as all that. ...I don't think it was as sinister as all that. But the current design does make the most sense for the most californians. These cities do want to revitalize their downtowns using an hsr component. The current design works well for intermediate city pairs which will be the bulk of ridership anyway. and using express trains for the longer distance city pairs will still result in adequate travel times. Its the biggest win for the most people for the investment.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-51613714059924727102009-07-05T13:16:43.066-07:002009-07-05T13:16:43.066-07:00Re routing through Central Valley cities:
Shockin...Re routing through Central Valley cities:<br /><br />Shockingly enough, the Italians -- yes, Italians! -- pretty much have it right with a number of their LAV <a href="http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrovia_Firenze-Roma_%28direttissima%29#Percorso.2C_stazioni_e_fermate" rel="nofollow">routes</a>.<br /><br />The <i>direttissima</i> line often takes the fast, direct, lower-impact, lower-cost route past some urban centres, meanwhile <b>junctions connect to lines that loop into and back out of existing urban rail ROWs</b>.<br /><br />It's the best of all worlds, given comparable circumstances: the loop tracks can be built less expensively because they don't need to be engineered for 350kmh, existing train station sites central to existing towns are still <b>served</b> by exactly those trains that will in fact do so, as opposed to those that just <i>invade them and blast through</i> to negative local benefit, and the engineering of the direct route isn't compromised and its cost isn't made stratospheric by the need to wedge stopping HSR, through HSR and existing not-going-away-guaranteed freight tracks into constrained urban/suburban rights of ways.<br /><br />The downsides are the costs of constructing the junctions and of building the extra connecting tracks. In practice, these can be more than mitigated by the huge cost savings of not having to ram the tracks through where they shouldn't all go. You're still building four tracks (or whatever), it's just that engineering economics can make it less expensive and more operationally advantageous to build them along two routes than to try to cram them into one. (See also: Altamont Pass.)<br /><br />This scheme doesn't always work, but it almost certainly have in the most of the Central Valley.<br /><br />Of course CHSRA rejected this alternative. (See also: Altamont Pass.)<br /><br />As usual, it was a toxic combination of:<br />* cost maximization (doing things the wrong way costs more, and that's very much in the interest of those conducting the alternatives "analysis", who, surprise surprise, end up being those doing subsequent expensive design and construction);<br />* mush-brained so-called "environmentalists" who fasten on slogans like "use existing transportation corridors" and "activate the community via transit oriented development in vibrant stations" without <i>thinking</i> about what they might mean in particular instances;<br />* a political cave in to a farm lobby (hey, they're NIMBYs!!!) that had worked out, unlike the blind-sided cities up and down the state, that the line might have some effect upon it and got their backs up early.<br /><br />Basically, this was a simple "gimme" for our CHSRA friends. They got some potential opposition to evaporate (agricultural lobby, possibility of environmental agency objections), they threw a completely meaningless bone to some dim-witted "environmentalists", and they got the very most expensive project.<br /><br />It's not too unlike the Bay Area all-trains-via-Los-Banos disaster, except in the latter case they outright said "screw you" to the environmental agencies and the environmental lobby, nakedly placing <b>cost maximization</b> ahead of any other consideration of any sort. Just like the Los Banos route, there will be lots of unnecessary impacts on conurbations, whose political representatives have or will only work out what's happened too late, and a massive amount of unnecessary and very lucrative engineering to make those impacts.<br /><br />And to top it off, the result, of course, will have the worst operating characteristics (permanent speed restrictions, longer route, compromised station designs, etc) -- the Gifts That Keep On Giving. (See also: Altamont Pass; see also: Quentin Kopp's BART line to Millbrae.)<br /><br />It's just the way we <i>like</i> doing things around here. It works well very nicely for some parties, and it isn't about to change.Richard Mlynarikhttp://www.pobox.com/users/mly/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-49280160198637732812009-07-05T11:20:59.090-07:002009-07-05T11:20:59.090-07:00@andrew-
I realize that, I'm just saying to so...@andrew-<br />I realize that, I'm just saying to some extent I understand where they are coming from. In Sf we are also very protective of things. I generally support local people who are protecting certain things, a way of life, natural beauty, keep developers at bay and so forth, provided the position is a legitimate one. In some cases such as the peninsula nimbys, I went there myself to see the row and 99 percent of it is already ugly as hell and there isn't anything of significance to protect, and there aren't any downtrodden souls who will be put out. So their argument is simply one of "we don't need it so screw everyone else" So i do not support that kind of nimbyism.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-55227065733227237412009-07-05T04:48:02.102-07:002009-07-05T04:48:02.102-07:00@Jim
Their side of the story is really one-sided. ...@Jim<br />Their side of the story is really one-sided. These valley people want things to remain as they were 100 years ago, but what happens when they are snowbound and power lines are broken? They probably expect helicopters to bring them electric generators, fuel and food.<br />The way this sort of people often use photographs is very dishonest. They generally publish photos of work in progress, with a lot of rubble and cut-down trees but never show what the landscape looks like after a few years when trees have been replanted and grass has grown again on the embankments. It's like photographing a patient on an operating table, with his belly ripped open, and screaming "look what they have done to him!"<br />What these people don't mention is that other villages want this line because it will be the end of a nightmare: thousands of noisy fume-spewing trucks crossing their villages night and day.<br />As for the radical remedy some of them propose: stop carrying freight between France and Italy, use local products, this is a return to the middle ages.Andre Perettinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-80238777203897995142009-07-04T20:50:49.058-07:002009-07-04T20:50:49.058-07:00BTW, add into the equation of Orange Co. taking ov...BTW, add into the equation of Orange Co. taking over, Will Kempton taking over the Transportation Authority down there. Talk about a guy who knows everybody in DC, he is it. Guess where what area he is going to be pushing for Fed funds....looking onnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-81415747661045933272009-07-04T20:29:37.948-07:002009-07-04T20:29:37.948-07:00heres a blog where they talk about how they don&#...heres a <a href="http://pietrobrosio.blogspot.com/2009/03/no-tav.html" rel="nofollow">blog</a> where they talk about how they don't want the landscaped ruined and a flood of outsiders - you have to see there side of it to some extent..Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-22881599426428499162009-07-04T20:23:54.926-07:002009-07-04T20:23:54.926-07:00The cost argument is valid, but the alternative ro...The cost argument is valid, but the alternative route that was rejected, following A8, would take 3:40, versus 3:50 on the currently chosen option.Alon Levyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12195377309045184452noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-63525563241449456812009-07-04T18:25:28.515-07:002009-07-04T18:25:28.515-07:00@Alon Levy
What has been approved is not the spur ...@Alon Levy<br />What has been approved is not the spur the SNCF and the Nice region wanted. The new route is longer as it will follow the densely buit-up coastline instead of cutting straight through unbuilt land. Lots of tunneling and bridging will be necessary. The cost has been estimated at €18bn instead of €8bn for the original project. The government will have to foot the bill as neither the SNCF nor the cities who lobbied for the route want to pay the extra cost.<br />For the SNCF and the Nice region this government-dictated route is clearly a defeat: Paris-Nice in 4 hours won't beat Air France and Easyjet.Andre Perettinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-7313272463727201122009-07-04T15:15:52.630-07:002009-07-04T15:15:52.630-07:00New Nimby term..Transparency..ie our self centered...New Nimby term..Transparency..ie our self centered way..right Niada?<br />one of the 50 Nimby/whinersNONIMBYSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-69988729807309759632009-07-04T15:08:22.803-07:002009-07-04T15:08:22.803-07:00Andre, how is the Nice spur buried? I thought the ...Andre, how is the Nice spur buried? I thought the French government just approved a route from Marseille to Nice, with an expected completion time of 2025.Alon Levyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12195377309045184452noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-4592626856949096942009-07-04T15:06:35.337-07:002009-07-04T15:06:35.337-07:00Im happy that there is a new chair/vice chair.Its ...Im happy that there is a new chair/vice chair.Its not that I disliked Kopp/Diridon its all the unfair dislike from old school people here in the BayArea that was<br />a possible roadblock to getting the project moving. The naysayers down the pensiula have 2 of their boogymen removed from the "They are ruining our town" whinningNONIMBYSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-70398710970597406532009-07-04T12:32:48.021-07:002009-07-04T12:32:48.021-07:00"It was killed by an unhealthy combination of..."It was killed by an unhealthy combination of local politicians"<br /><br />Yes, this is exactly the example California should follow.Spokkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03244298044953214810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4263762637946594105.post-89839159502700130322009-07-04T12:00:12.422-07:002009-07-04T12:00:12.422-07:00Taking examples from the French TGV is pointless b...Taking examples from the French TGV is pointless because the two systems are basically different. CHSRA is a political project whereas the SNCF do not have a single politician on their board. The TGV is run like an airline, with all the + and - it involves. Having stations in town centres would be counterproductive. Most cities are linked by express trains (Corail, TER) running at 110mph and people seem to be happy with them. Why would the SNCF spend more money and make TGVs slower with the only result of having its other lines cannibalised?<br />When intense lobbying from NIMBYs and local politicians threatens to make a project unprofitable, the SNCF prefer to abandon it. This is what happened 2 weeks ago for the direct spur to Nice. It is now definitively buried. It was killed by an unhealthy combination of local politicians, who did not want their towns to be by-passed, and hard-core environmentalists, who depicted the project as the train to sin-city disfiguring pristine landscapes. <br />The big loser is the Nice region (which includes Cannes and Monaco. They were counting on the TGV to replace short-haul flights and reallocate the slots to fewer but more profitable international flights.<br />So, the environmentalists have succeeded in perpetuating the most insane transit solution: short-haul flights.Andre Perettinoreply@blogger.com