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?!

DiFi: HSR Should Use Transbay Terminal

We've been calling for federal representatives to speak up and help resolve some of the key HSR disputes in California, and it looks like that's exactly what they're starting to do. Senator Dianne Feinstein wrote a letter to Ray LaHood calling for the feds to fund the construction of an HSR train box at Transbay Terminal, as is currently called for in the plans:

The California High Speed Rail Authority may be looking at possible alternatives to a new Transbay Terminal to bring bullet trains into San Francisco, but our former mayor and California's senior senator says the choice is clear.

Go with the proposed Transbay Transit Center.

That's the message Sen. Dianne Feinstein sent in a letter Wednesday to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in advance of the Obama administration's decision on federal stimulus funding for high speed rail projects across the country.

A new Transbay Terminal at First and Mission Streets is "an ideal destination for high speed rail" and a project where construction could begin in the first three months of next year, Feinstein wrote.

"The project represents a real downtown station in one of America's great cities, assuring that high speed rail delivers travelers to the city center without the traffic or delays that afflict other modes of travel," the senator wrote. "This project will not only put thousands of Californians back to work, but will also move the state's plans for high speed rail one step closer to reality."

Feinstein joins fellow Sen. Barbara Boxer and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in calling for federal funds to build San Francisco's high-speed rail terminus at the site of the old bus station.

"Transbay will become the 'Grand Central of the West,'" Boxer wrote to LaHood.

Feinstein and Boxer's comments come along reports I have heard that Speaker Nancy Pelosi not only prefers the Transbay Terminal to be the SF terminus, but that she has said the $400 million for the train box is all ready to go, except for CHSRA's objections.

Let's also not forget, of course, that voters approved TBT as the SF terminus when Prop 1A passed last November.

CHSRA continues to argue they are mandated to explore other alternatives, a position the California Attorney General's office supported. However, California's leading federal representatives are clearly uniting behind the Transbay Terminal project.

Deputy AG Letter Supports CHSRA's Transbay Position

Yesterday the California Attorney General's office responded to an August 21 letter from the Transbay Joint Powers Authority. The TJPA letter argued that it is "legally improper" for the CHSRA to study any alternatives to the Transbay Terminal as the San Francisco terminus. Deputy AG Christine Sproul, writing on behalf of AG Jerry Brown, explained the AG office's position that CHSRA is entirely correct to study other alternatives. The letter is reproduced below:

Deputy AG Transbay Letter to CHSRA ED 91709

I have to run and catch a train here in Sacramento, but I wanted to get this up there for everyone on the blog to read and react to. Obviously this means the dispute between CHSRA and TJPA is not going away anytime soon. I continue to believe that political leadership, particularly from San Francisco's powerful federal representatives, is desperately needed to bring CHSRA and TJPA to the table to develop a workable solution.

What's Up With the Transbay Terminal?

Been meaning to write about this for a few days now, as those that I talked to at the Palo Alto teach-in can attest. As you've probably noticed if you've followed some of the blogs and even local news outlets, there's quite a dispute emerging over the Transbay Terminal project, with Quentin Kopp making moves in recent weeks to push for major changes to HSR's interface with it. One of the best overviews of the matter is over at Eric's Transbay Blog:

So what’s the beef now? Rather than employ the downtown extension alignment and station location previously adopted by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, the CHSRA would instead like to override the TJPA’s previous efforts and study alternative locations for the San Francisco terminus in its project-level EIR/EIS for the San Francisco-San Jose segment. In particular, the CHSRA has set its sight on another terminal to accommodate its exaggerated capacity requirements — the Beale Street terminal, situated parallel to Beale Street, and stretching roughly from Mission Street to Harrison Street. But this is an alternative that was resurrected from the dead. In the 1990s, a handful of potential Caltrain downtown extension alignments were considered. Most of those, including alignments leading to a Beale Street terminal, were rejected as undesirable or infeasible.

What happened was this: CHSRA obtained a legal opinion from lawyer Duane Morris that claims TJPA is obligated to review the Beale Street alternative under both CEQA and NEPA, under the argument that the existing EIR/EIS was approved on the basis of Caltrain being the primary user of the downtown tunnel extension (DTX). Since HSR's use requirements are different, the opinion goes, a new EIR/EIS is needed that would include the Beale alignment.

As Rafael has charted before, there are legitimate concerns with the design of the train box at Transbay, including the curvature of the "throat." But Eric at Transbay Blog suggests CHSRA is actually motivated by financial concerns:

But it does not seem coincidental that the agency’s temper — presumably largely fueled by, or embodied in, its ever-colorful former chairman, Quentin Kopp — flares up at the exact points in time when the TJPA competes with the CHSRA for access to new pots of funding that are being made available for high-speed rail....California has submitted project requests to the U.S. Department of Transportation, including a $400 million request that, if granted, would allow the Transbay Transit Center’s train box to be excavated sooner rather than later, using a “bottom up” construction approach. Transbay, by virtue of its completed environmental documents, is classified as a “ready-to-go” project, eligible for a Track 1 high-speed rail stimulus grant. In just a few weeks, the Federal Railroad Administration will announce the Track 1 projects that it has selected for grants.

It is this issue that has caused tempers to flare over this dispute. The Federal Railroad Administration is going to decide soon on whether Transbay and the train box will get federal HSR stimulus money. TJPA and the Bay Area transit community are concerned - rightly - that CHSRA's actions will jeopardize that money.

To that end Brian Stanke, Executive Director of Californians for High Speed Rail, has authored the following letter to Joseph Szabo, Administrator of the FRA. It is a detailed argument as to why Transbay Terminal deserves the $400 million, and why CHSRA's claims are invalid and should not be used to withhold that money:

CA4HSR FRA Letter

CHSRA has not offered any official comment on this subject for this post, despite my inquiries. Based on other published reports, including things we have discussed at this blog, we do know that CHSRA has raised concerns about the platform capacity at Transbay. We also know that the relationship between TJPA and CHSRA is very sour. Last December Kopp blasted TJPA's Maria Ayerdi-Kaplan for trying to keep Kopp and CHSRA out of the planning and discussion process. For their part, as Eric noted above, TJPA believes CHSRA has been trying to undermine the Transbay project at almost every turn.

Although the CHSRA may believe any problems with the HSR/DTX project lie with TJPA, it should be quite clear to them they have lost this particular battle in the court of public opinion. Bay Area transit advocates are outraged at the prospect of the Transbay trainbox losing out on badly needed federal funding. The use of development rights - specifically, selling the air rights to build skyscrapers to help pay for the Transbay project - is correctly seen as an innovative model for funding urban transit infrastructure. The DTX and train box are considered vital for bringing more mass transit commuters to the SF urban core - particularly for Caltrain. Proposition H passed by a significant margin in 1999 by SF voters to approve the project, and the project remains popular with San Francisco residents.

We don't yet know if it is too late, but my strong advice to CHSRA is to make peace with the Transbay Terminal project. If the federal funding is denied, it will do nothing to help CHSRA's relationships around the state and could cause a reaction from SF's influential political leadership. If there were enormous flaws with the design then that would be good reason to oppose the funding and redesign the project, but even those who have criticized the design of the "throat" haven't suggested the project be scrapped or that the "throat" design is unworkable (although it is not an ideal design).

I also renew my call for federal intervention. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Dianne Feinstein are extremely well positioned to play a role as mediator between TJPA and CHSRA. We called for this to occur last December when the CHSRA/TJPA dispute first emerged. It hasn't happened and both the Transbay Terminal and the HSR project are worse off for it.

Comparing Fares for Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Over at The Transport Politic Yonah Freemark has offered two insightful posts this week on the question of HSR fares as compared to those for air and automobile travel (including buses). The first, Getting the Price Right: How Much Should High-Speed Fares Cost? argued that Amtrak has set fares on the Acela too high, though faster speeds and higher-capacity trainsets would enable the operating costs and thus the fares to drop. Freemark compared the Acela to European and Asian HSR systems and found that those systems not only offer better fares than the Acela - they also offer better fares than airline flights on the same route. However, Freemark's analysis suggests that California HSR is poised to replicate the European experience, and not that of Amtrak and the Acela (at least in terms of fares):

The California High-Speed Rail Authority, which is planning the nation’s most ambitious new rail project, has considered the effect of pricing on ridership. It predicts strikingly varying ridership outcomes depending on the cost of its future services; in 2030, with the full system operating, the agency estimates 93.1 million yearly trips if fares are set at 50% of air travel levels and 74 million if fares are set at 77% of air travel levels. Though final fares have not yet been established, one thing is for certain: California will not copy Amtrak and charge customers exorbitant rates to ride the train....

If American high-speed services offered similar prices for time traveled as Amtrak does today — at $45 per hour of running time for standard fares and $15 at reduced prices — on faster trains, U.S. commuters would switch to rail in droves. The San Francisco-Los Angeles route being planned by the State of California, with a travel time of 2h40, would cost $40 for reduced-price tickets and $120 for standard fares; those costs seem perfectly acceptable for just about everyone. A renewed Northeast Corridor, offering travel between New York and Washington in 1h40 (at an average of 220 km/h), would cost $25 for customers buying reduced-price fares. People currently driving their own cars or riding buses between the cities would take a second look at those prices.

Previous statements from the CHSRA have indicated that the fares would be around $55. I have repeatedly said we should not get attached to that number, and Freemark's conclusion that the fares will range from $40 to $120 is much more sensible.

Of course, anytime we have this discussion, you get people arguing that airfares are already cheap, nobody would pick a train over a $49 fare on Southwest or JetBlue. So some remedial discussion of this matter is valuable before plowing ahead.

Those fares are advance purchase and are almost never available on the eve of travel. And Freemark's suggestion is that CA HSR fares will work pretty much the same way. $40 or so for advance purchase, higher once you get closer to the travel date or for a "regular fare." In exchange you get a smoother boarding and deboarding experience, no TSA to deal with, a comfortable ride, and most crucially of all, city center to city center travel. The proposed HSR stations are all in much more centralized locations than the airports in the metro areas they'll serve.

More crucially, the ability of airlines to continue to offer those low fares is very much in jeopardy. Airlines received massive bailouts in 2001, but just a few years later began implementing fees for baggage and other previously standard, complimentary services. That's the mark of an industry in trouble, of an airline crisis that threatens the future not of air travel but of cheap air travel.

Southwest Airlines, which is frequently pointed to as evidence that we don't need HSR (including by someone at the Menlo Park Town Hall), has avoided this fate only through the use of complex fuel hedges. They locked in their price at $51/bbl several years ago. We're at $72/bbl, and virtually every observer expects that price to rise, if not soar, once global economic recovery finally happens. Southwest's fuel hedges expire between 2010 and 2013. There's no way they'll be able to lock in those rates again. And either LUV is going to have to raise fares or cut services.

Freemark's second post on the topic, Reframing the Fare Debate, focuses on what he sees as a more pressing topic: "attracting people away from cars and buses."

There are two ways to encourage people currently relying on road-based transportation to travel by trains: one, lower ticket prices; two, increase speeds. Both actions would provide a substantial motivation for highway users to reconsider their options. The first would put train travel back into the sphere of the economical. Plenty of bus companies market service at less than $20 between New York and Washington. At $2/gallon, a 26 mpg car could be driven between the cities for less than $20 in gas. That number doesn’t account for maintenance and ownership costs, but drivers rarely consider those factors when making decisions about how to get from one place to the next.

By increasing speeds, train travel’s time benefit multiplies significantly. While buses get into traffic, they can still make the trip from the capital to Gotham in five hours — versus the three hours required by rail. This is an advantage for train users, but increasing speeds to allow for a 1h40 trip would make it nearly impossible to justify riding the bus or driving, even at a lower cost.

Freemark's analysis is based on the Acela, but it applies even more strongly to California. Whereas buses play an important role on the Northeast Corridor, they play hardly any role in the SF-LA corridor, especially since Megabus dropped its experiment to provide their cheap service on that route last year. (Intercity buses do play a bigger role on other corridors in California, particularly Central Valley-SoCal-Mexico.)

So we're looking primarily at driving. And a lot of Californians drive from the Bay Area to LA, or from either of those regions to the Central Valley. This is especially true at the holiday season, as I discovered on one 10-hour trip back to Berkeley on I-5 around New Year's 2001.

Let's assume a trip from SF Transbay Terminal to LA Union Station in a relatively fuel efficient non-hybrid car: my 2007 Honda Fit. By car that's a 381 mile trip. I usually get about 300 miles to the tank on the open road, or about 36-39 mpg depending on conditions. That means two fillups - one at the trip's outset, another somewhere along I-5. The first fillup is going to be at least $3/gal, likely around $24 if I'm nearly empty (usually 8 gallons). The second will be about the same. So that's $42 for a one-way trip, and another fillup somewhere on the way back, depending on how much driving I do in SoCal, is going to bring the total in gas to at least $66.

True, that's for the car. I can add several passengers at essentially no extra cost, whereas they'd have to pay their own tickets on an HSR train. Even when you add in wear and tear, which on a newish Honda vehicle isn't all that much, driving is likely going to be cheaper, at least until oil prices rise dramatically again.

But when you add in time, the train becomes a compelling alternative. Google Maps gives a driving time of 5 hours, 51 minutes from SF Transbay to LAUS. If you hit no traffic at all and have lead foot you could do 5:30, maybe even 5:15. But for most people it's at least a 6-hour drive.

Whereas the train is going to take 2 hours 40 minutes. That's about half the time of driving. A lot of Californians will pay a bit extra to take the train in order to get the time savings - that's what "competitive" means. For people looking at a weekend trip, that 6 hours saved is a huge deal - the difference between a Friday evening and a Saturday midday arrival, extra time at the grandparents' or at the beach or at the ballgame.

For others it may not be enough of a compelling alternative. They may want the flexibility the car offers them, or they may have lots of stuff to carry that can't be easily checked onto a train, or they may have other reasons to prefer to take a specific trip in the car. That's fine. HSR isn't about forcing people out of cars.

It's about providing options and choices. Expanding transportation capacity in a sustainable, environmentally and climate-friendly method, giving our freeways and airports a chance to breathe. Giving people a fast way to get between cities without the higher fares or inconveniences of air travel, without the long travel times and other uncomfortable aspects of sitting in a car on I-5.

HSR isn't meant to put the airlines out of business or to eliminate vehicle traffic on I-5. It's intended to give Californians the choice of traveling at a fast speed for a reasonable price, thus fueling economic growth in the 21st century in a way that fossil-fuel based methods of travel are already proving incapable of providing. Californians instinctively understand this - it's why Prop 1A passed last fall.

I'll close this post by letting Freemark explain the reasons why this matters:

There are significant advantages to lowering ticket prices to the lowest level possible while keeping operational finances in the black. California predicts a higher revenue stream for its rail system if it charges customers fares that are at 77% of airline levels: $4.3 billion annually versus $3.6 billion with tickets at 50%, even though the latter would attract 25% more riders. But opening services to a greater percentage of the population has a number of benefits beyond those affecting the bottom line, and American policy should be to encourage low-cost rail travel. It reduces carbon emissions as people choose to drive fewer cars. It encourages the sense that trains are an engine for universal mobility, rather than a limousine on tracks for the rich. It will, most importantly, smash the conception that Americans won’t take advantage of rail services, and encourage the creation of a train-riding society.

And that's why California's HSR matters - as well as why it will be a financial success.

California Applies for $1.1 Billion in HSR Stimulus Funds

Applications for Phase I of federal HSR stimulus funds were due yesterday, and California's request totaled $1.1 billion, focused on the Transbay Terminal train box:

$400 million of the application sent Monday would go toward a “box” to be built 100 feet below the redeveloped Transbay Terminal that would contain a future station for high-speed rail and Caltrain service connecting San Jose and San Francisco. Proposals for spending the remaining $700 million are scattered around the state for various intercity rail projects, Diridon said.

Note that this is just for one specific, narrowly-focused pot of HSR stimulus - applications for another pot of money with more flexibility what qualifies for funds are due in October. Diridon still believes CHSRA, through the state of California and Caltrans in particular, should apply for $4 to $6 billion in that Phase II round of requests.

It is highly likely that CA will get its $1.1 billion request, and we are still in a very good position to get some of the larger request that will be made in October and decided in early 2010.

UPDATE: The Business Insider says "give all the money to California" (h/t to Streetsblog LA):

One of the biggest problem with building a high speed rail system in the United States, is all the unknowns. That's why we get highly questionable, back of the envelop guess work done by Harvard's Ed Glaeser.

If we built the train system proposed for California, we would get real, measurable, results. If the train is a flop, at least we'll know for sure. If it's a raging success, then we can choose the next part of the country in which to build a better train system....

California is ready to go. It has a plan in place for high speed rail system. California voters approved a $9.95 billion bond sale to fund the rail line. Add in $13 billion from the federal government, and the project is more than half way funded....

We can get a big shiny play thing out of our stimulus. It's the type of project--whether it's successful, or a boondoggle--that we can say came about because of the Great Recession....

Spread the wealth around, and it's just going to look like more of the same.

Were it not for the Congressional politics of funding anything - where people want to ensure their states and districts get a little something - I'd call this not only a very good idea, but a politically sensible approach. Congress and the Obama Administration ought to split the difference and help seed other HSR projects, even if they're not true bullet trains - but ensure that our flagship project here in CA gets the money it needs to be built and built the right way.

Atrios makes this point as well.

SJ, SF Mayors Push Transbay, Diridon, Caltrain Upgrades

Yesterday, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom issued a joint press release announcing the Bay Area region's preference for stimulus and other HSR spending the Bay Area to be directed towards upgrades to the Caltrain corridor, the expansion of SJ Diridon Station, and the establishment of the new SF Transbay Terminal as the SF terminus.

Newsom had already come out in support of Transbay. Enhancing Diridon was a foregone conclusion. But the announcement apparently portends a broader regional agreement.

We should learn more about this announcement of regional aspirations at this morning's meeting of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which is brokering the agreement. More details from the Chronicle:

The proposal would turn the Diridon Station in downtown San Jose and the planned new Transbay Terminal in downtown San Francisco into major regional transit hubs.

In addition, the Caltrain Station at Fourth and King streets in San Francisco's South of Market would be expanded to accommodate high-speed rail.

The proposed package also seeks funding to electrify Caltrain and to equip its rail cars with automated train-control equipment that senses impending danger on the tracks. The train tracks in San Bruno would be separated from truck and auto traffic.

Together the projects would cost $3.4 billion, said Randy Rentschler, government affairs manager for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The region will ask for $1.6 billion in new federal stimulus money to help pay for the improvements. Additional funds would come from the nearly $10 billion funding pot backed by California voters for high-speed rail.

The Bay Area will seek additional funding later to pay for other projects.

One could argue that the explicit advocacy of Caltrain upgrades is a rebuke to NIMBY calls for taking HSR off the Caltrain corridor altogether, but I'm not sure the powers that be would bother to dignify such fringe proposals. This could turn out to merely be formalizing exactly which upgrade projects should come first. (Incidentally, Caltrain was awarded $9 million in stimulus funding for unrelated projects this week.)

It's encouraging to see a regional consensus emerging around Transbay, which should hopefully end the public political squabbles. What do you think? Will this announcement put an end to the issue, or merely galvanize opposing forces and bring the funding and technical challenges of Transbay further into the fore?

HSR Phase One Yards

8 May 2009: In response to a complaint regarding slow downloads of the home page, I've modified this post such that previously embedded videos and maps are now hyperlinks. My apologies for any inconvenience this causes.

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by Rafael

While there has been a lot of debate about the route CHSRA prefers and the throughput issues of San Francisco's new Transbay Terminal Center, the issue of maintenance and overnight storage of high speed trains has not received as much attention. However, given the distance between the end points of the starter line for the California network, the success of the service absolutely depends on having enough trains on hand to support operations in the first hours of each day, until the first trains from the other end arrive and are turned around.

Castle Airport: Primary Maintenance Hub

The starter line will be between San Francisco, Los Angeles and Anaheim. AB3034 doesn't explicitly mention San Jose, but the primary reason Pacheco Pass was selected was to ensure that all trains would pass through South City's Diridon station. In addition, phase I will include the wye at Chowchilla and spur up to Merced.

There's been talk of siting the primary maintenance hub at the nearby but underutilized Castle Airport (formerly Castle AFB), which is adjacent to the BNSF right of way. CHSRA wants to prioritize the construction of a test track in the Central Valley, both to help FRA draw up a "rule of special applicability" to enable operations of non-compliant equipment at 220mph and, to help narrow down the list of track and train technology vendors.

So far, CHSRA is holding out for UPRR to cede part of its ROW along CA-99 through Fresno and up to Sacramento to obtain a straight alignment and access to downtown areas, but it's an open secret that rival BNSF has been much more receptive to overtures from the Authority. If CHSRA ends up sticking with BNSF from Bakersfield all the way to Modesto, it would be possible to site the Merced county HSR station at Castle Airport and implement a bypass around the town.

HSR Phase One Yards: Castle Airport

Unfortunately, Merced county lacks a major population center. Without any commercial flights (high speed cargo and/or passenger), an HSR station at the airport would struggle to attract enough ridership to justify running more than a a small number of trains per day to SF or LA/Anaheim in phase 1. That means early construction of a spur up to Castle Airport would primarily be for testing and maintenance. A secondary objective would be a show of good faith that the planned extension to downtown Sacramento really will be built in phase 2.

Here are a couple of videos showing SNCF's and JR's maintenance yards in Villeneuve (near Paris) and Tokyo, respectively. The equipment required depends on the train technology selected. Note that JR has special "Dr. Yellow" trains that measure track geometry, the condition of the overhead catenary system and verify signaling performance while running at 270km/h (approx. 170mph).

• SNCF's Villeneuve maintenance yard
  
  
• JR's Tokyo maintenance yard
  
  
• JR's Dr. Yellow series 923 shinkansen

Overnight Parking: Northern California

In addition, it's common for railroads to operate yards for overnight storage and at least minor maintenance (incl. thorough cleaning and provisioning) near both ends of major lines because that where trains naturally end up at the end of the day. In the specific case of the starter line for California's system, that means San Francisco and Anaheim, but throughput constraints on the Fullerton-Anaheim section mean that many trains will have to terminate in Los Angeles instead.

Considering that non-stop express runs between SF and LA are expected to take 2h38m, it seems reasonable to say that the first three hours of operation on weekdays have to be supported by trainsets that were parked overnight. Businessmen and tourists looking to make day trips between these cities will likely generate above-average demand for express service in the early morning (departure 6-9am) and afternoon (departure 3-6pm), with additional demand for red-eye service in the evening (departure 8-9pm). CHSRA's target is to build an infrastructure with sufficient capacity to last for 50, perhaps 100 years. Inevitably, that means planning for ridership levels well beyond anything that can be achieved in the first decade of operations.

In particular, CHSRA insisted that it needs capacity to run 12 trains per hour (tph) each way through the new Transbay Terminal (TBT) in San Francisco. The issue was discussed extensively on this blog, leading to these general conclusions:

• SF wants to stick with the current, imperfect design to secure a slice of the HSR funds in the ARRA (aka H.R. 1-111th aka the stimulus bill).
  
  
• HSR trains can be actually turned around in less than 10 minutes, provided the TBT is considered a terminal station on a route that nominally begins and ends in Southern California, rather than an old-fashioned "Grand Central of the West" terminus station. Unlike steam and diesel locomotives, EMU trains do not need to be reprovisioned with fuel and water, nor do they need to be brought up to operating temperature before departure.
  
  
• the station throat and tunnel can be improved with relatively minor modifications, there is no need for a radically different solution. Given that Caltrain will also heavily use the TBT, headways inside the tunnel for both services combined could be as short as 3 minutes during peak periods such as morning rush hour. That implies a combined total of 20tph, though such a schedule would leave little room for recovering from a delay caused by an off-design condition.
  
  
• given the long walk to the nearest BART station, there is considerable doubt that the TBT could attract enough HSR ridership to justify operating 12tph. For long-term capacity planning purposes, a target of 8-10 HSR trains per hour (each way) was suggested, especially in light of the fact that HSR trains are up to 1320 feet (400m) long and that bi-level rolling stock officially rated at 200mph has been in commercial operation in France since 1996. Each full-length TGV Duplex offers 1090 seats, about 8-9 times the number on the Boeing 737s operated by Southwest Airlines. It will be a while before duplex HSR trains are needed in California.
  
  
• if need be, some northbound trains could terminate in Millbrae or else in San Jose and return south the next morning, without ever having reached the TBT.

The TBT itself will feature six full-length platforms, of which four are supposed to be reserved for HSR trains. This hard allocation relates primarily to differences in platform height, an issue the two operators ought to resolve by seeking the requisite waiver from CPUC. As things stand, this would imply the ability to store four full-length trains overnight at the downtown station.

Assuming a frequency of 10tph for the first 3 hours of each weekday and, that each train could one day be a full-length assembly of two trainsets, that implies a need for a yard near SF with space for at least 26 full-length trains - preferably 28 so one can be a spare while another undergoes maintenance. Caltrain's 4th & King station does not have enough capacity and anyhow none to spare.

There simply aren't that many locations where so many full-length trains could possibly be stored and secured near SF, so it makes sense to buy the land now to avoid a capacity bottleneck down the road. One obvious option is the huge old SP yard at Bayshore (h/t to Clem), which is undeveloped but part of a development project (h/t to DaveO) that does not yet account for HSR. The location is still being decontaminated but actually has space for at least 50 full-length trains. Part of the area could be used to store Caltrain equipment or, as a transshipment facility for High Speed Cargo. All this is assuming the City of Brisbane is interested in once again hosting a rail yard, perhaps with development of the airspace above.

A big issue is that CHSRA currently intends to switch from the inside tracks south of Bayshore to the outside tracks north of it because of the four Caltrain tunnels. However, accommodating UPRR may yet force CHSRA to switch to the two western tracks instead - the issue of track assignments along the Caltrain ROW is fundamental but not yet resolved.

HSR Phase One Yards: Bayshore yard

A second-best alternative to a Bayshore yard might be found in the relatively undeveloped southern part of Mission Bay.

Either way, HSR trains could make the short run from the yard to the TBT in the morning (and vice versa at night) or else, some trains could make Millbrae/SFO their first stop of the day. While CHSRA is pessimistic about boardings/alightings at that station, a number of commenters have pointed out that it would be cheaper to build and use multi-story car parks there than in downtown SF once the area around the TBT is converted into a transit-oriented district. In addition to customers hailing from the north peninsula and central East Bay, residents of western SF may well prefer to ride BART out to Millbrae rather than board at the TBT.

If San Jose Diridon is expanded to two levels, there should be space for an additional 4-6 full-length trains there. The Merced county maintenance facility could easily contribute another 12. All in all, Northern California would have more than enough overnight parking, maintenance and HSC capacity if CHSRA acquires the Bayshore yard. It should not matter that BART will usurp the entire Newhall yard in Santa Clara.

Overnight Parking: Southern California

The number of trains traveling north between 6 and 9am need not be the same as the number traveling south. Over the course of a staggered 15-hour day, any train can comfortably travel twice in each direction, such that it would always be parked overnight in the same yard. That means the division of trainsets between northern and southern California can be based on passenger demand during the peak periods. It also means crews can be operated in two shifts of 7.5 hours each. Depending on the contract, weekend and holiday service could be implemented via a scheduled 45-hour six-day work week and a total of six weeks paid vacation per year.

In the absence of directional ridership data, I will assume a requirement to operate 10 tph out of LA and Anaheim combined to SF during the morning peak period, which spans 3 hours in LA but 3h30m in Anaheim, incl. a 10 min layover at Union Station. LA Union Station will feature a second level with perhaps six full-length platform tracks for HSR plus run-through tracks on aerials. Anaheim ARTIC will have room for perhaps four full-length platform tracks. That means one or more yards for an additional 21+2 full-length parking spaces may be needed.

One option would be a new yard just west of ARTIC in a utility ROW between I-5 and South Claudina Way, sufficient for 13 tracks in addition to the electricity pylons and telephone poles already present. Normally, trains would only use the turnoff toward ARTIC. Note the brown line representing a potential extension of the Metrolink network in Orange County, linking LA US, Long Beach airport, Disneyland, ARTIC and John Wayne Airport (zoom out to see the route). Some tunnel sections would be involved, in those the locomotives should switch to third rail electric power (e.g. 1500VDC).

HSR Phase One Yards: Anaheim

However, note that the Fullerton-Anaheim section will be dual track and limited to about 3 HSR trains per hour. That means only 7+2=9 slots will actually be needed, leaving plenty of room for the utility poles and pylons plus two potential Metrolink tracks.

That implies a further 14 spaces would be needed in Los Angeles. One option would be a second level above the Metrolink yard at South Santa Fe, just south of Union Station. This could actually accommodate up to 16 full-length trains.

HSR Phase One Yards: South Santa Fe

The snag is that an elevated yard would be very expensive to construct. A better option may be an at-grade yard north of LA Union Station, next to North San Fernando Rd. It may be possible to park 14 full-length trains in that triangular patch of land.

HSR Phase One Yards: North San Fernando

An additional issue is that there will be local HSR trains within Southern California once the phase 2 spur to San Diego is built, so additional yard space will be needed. Palmdale airport would be a good candidate, especially if a new passenger terminal with an integrated HSR station is constructed approximately half-way in-between Palmdale and Lancaster. It should be easy enough to design platform + storage tracks for e.g. 20 full-length trains at this new transportation hub. In practice, fewer may be needed, this depends in part on if and how CHSRA and DesertXPress choose to integrate their services.

HSR Phase One Yards: Palmdale

Conclusions

Finding adequate yard space for Phase 1 looks feasible, though there are constraints in both Los Angeles and Anaheim. However, CHSRA doesn't have a whole lot of viable options if it wants to keep the total number of yards manageable. That means it should purchase the Bayshore yard near San Francisco plus land for a new North San Fernando yard and a third near South Claudina Way in Anaheim sooner rather than later.

Yard space at Castle and Palmdale airports should be cheap and plentiful, but its unclear how useful that would be early on. There are currently no firm plans to build a new passenger terminal with integrated HSR station at either one, though LAWA is on the hook to some extent because it used its influence to ensure the route would run past Palmdale rather than across the geologically more challenging Grapevine. Developing the currently-defunct Palmdale airport into a facility that attracts large numbers of passengers and airlines depends critically on a sound development plan. Right now, LAWA is looking at using part of the land for a solar thermal power plant, which could potentially cause glare problems. There are also plans to develop the Antelope Valley, i.e. north-east LA county, via conventional low-rise sprawl rather than transit-oriented high rise towers that are more easily cooled and supplied with non-potable recycled water in addition to a constrained supply of potable water.

New Transbay Terminal Renderings

by Robert Cruickshank



Thanks to Andy at Curbed SF for pointing me to the new design renderings for the Transbay Terminal. Here's how he described it:

[It] shows in more detail in the immediate surroundings of the 1,500-foot-long building, one of whose principal concerns is to not be the dank, enclosed transit station most of us are used to. To that end, large skylights called "light columns" puncture the building from the 5.4-acre urban park on the roof, and penetrate deep into the building— underpasses, notes the architect, also get the airiness treatment. LEED Gold certification is a distinct possibility for the building, whose "urban room" will be similar in scale to Grand Central Station's. The building will almost entirely be naturally ventilated, and there's even talk of tapping into geothermal energy. The park, designed by landscape architect Peter Walker, may also feature a water thing running its length, with fountains spurting whenever a bus passes by underneath. There's room for sky bridges to the park from surrounding buildings, and there'll be a funicular (see: tourist attraction) to take people from ground level to the top.

Ambitious, to be sure, but it's also the right move. A 21st century transit terminal should be an open and inviting place, to suit the renewed interest in mass transit and passenger rail in particular. The folks that redesigned the Ferry Building did a good job with it, but the Transbay Terminal requires a more open design - something that is easy to use and familiarizes San Franciscans and Californians generally speaking with transit as a centerpiece of the city.

Worth keeping in mind the big picture here even as we continue to debate the implementation of the train box and HSR connectivity.

Gavin Newsom on HSR

by Robert Cruickshank

In a meeting with bloggers yesterday at the California Democratic Convention here in Sacramento, Gavin Newsom answered questions on a wide range of topics, including one from Becks who writes at Living in the O on restoring transit funding.


(I'm the one sitting next to Gavin)

Newsom's answer was that California is a wealthy state, and that we should be able to find the means to support transit. He pointed out the absurdity of the federal stimulus supporting spending on infrastructure and rolling stock but not on operating expenses - "we can buy buses but can't pay people to drive them." Newsom specifically mentioned high speed rail in his answer - that when he was younger he took a trip to Europe and rode their high speed trains, but when he came back "all we had was Caltrain." Newsom was a strong supporter of last fall's Proposition 1A, and has been one of the leading forces behind getting the Transbay Terminal done. Newsom wants to build HSR as governor of California - if he won two terms he might be able to preside over the opening of the LA-SF route in 2018.

Of course, his leading rival for the Democratic nomination for governor, Jerry Brown, is also a longtime supporter of HSR, having created the state's first HSR project back in the early 1980s when he was governor. Both men, if they became governor, would presumably be strong supporters of HSR.

I'm headed back to Monterey on the Capitol Corridor this afternoon - use this as an open thread.

The Vexed DTX Tunnel

Just a techie tidbit note today regarding the DTX tunnel that is at the heart of the engineering side of the dispute between CHSRA and TJPA on whether the current design meets CHSRA's future needs. I know we've been over this too many times already, but somehow the issue needs to be put to bed such that everyone can save face and focus on maximizing California's share of the $9.5 billion in federal dollars already on the table. Protracted tiffs don't do much for the confidence of the general public, let alone potential private investors, in either TJPA or CHSRA.

My objective for this post is to suggest a tunnel sharing and operations timetable strategy that might help bridge the gap. First, a quick recap of the saga so far.

Issues Related to Planning and Funding

TJPA has been planning the entire Transbay Terminal since SF voters approved prop H in 1999, with the objective of bringing not just Caltrain but eventually also HSR under the same roof as a large number of bus services. The old building dates to 1939, has seen better days and is anyhow no longer up to seismic code. The only part that will be re-used are the bus ramps that once allowed electric trolley cars to run across the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. The underutilized neighborhood south of the new building will also be redeveloped.

The DTX tunnel is the bit between Caltrain's existing terminus at 4th & King Street and the basement of the new terminal building. As designed, it features three tracks under Townsend and 2nd Streets and widens into a curved throat section to reach six platforms tracks accessed via an underground concourse level and three full-length wide island platforms. Of these, two will feature the level boarding height to be chosen by CHSRA and the other the one chosen by Caltrain. The outside tunnel tracks are to be shared by both services and are permanent as inbound and outbound tracks, respectively. The center track will apparently alternate between inbound and outbound traffic.

CHSRA has recently raised a red flag regarding the design, claiming it couldn't support the 12 HSR trains per hour (tph, meaning that number each way) during peak periods claimed in the most recent ridership forecast for 2030. There seems to be fairly broad agreement among the readership of this blog that this is a new and excessive demand made public only after TJPA decided to bypass CHSRA in seeking a slice of the HSR dollars in the recent stimulus bill. Quentin Kopp is concerned this would set a precedent and cause CHSRA to lose control of project cost.

TJPA claims its plans are based on a previous estimate of just 4tph and a minimum dwell time of a full hour. The latter is itself a highly questionable requirement, given that terminal stations in Europe manage to turn HSR trains around in 6-10 minutes. They are treated as through stations that happen to require trains to reverse direction, generally with a change of driver. Old-fashioned terminus stations are grand buildings providing small town folk with access to a metropolis, reached after many hours or even days on the move. Thanks to high speed, even San Diego-SF-San Diego will amount to just a single eight-hour shift for employees, so in that sense SF could indeed be considered a through station along out-and-back routes originating in SoCal and Sacramento.

The Authority would be on much firmer ground if it stuck to AB3034, which point blank requires that the entire network must support headways of no less than 5 minutes. This refers to the time interval between the nose of one train and the next one running in the same direction on the same track. The technically required minimum is a function of speed and emergency braking distance at that speed. For moderate speeds, experienced operators of modern train control infrastructure can make do with as little as 2.5 minutes, so the legal target set by the bill is conservative. As will become evident shortly, the link between short headway capability and system throughput is not always straightforward.

Technical Issues and Solution Concepts

The beef that Clem/Richard Mlynarik, BruceMcF and yours truly have with the current design of the DTX tunnel is twofold:

a) at just 500 feet, the two curves in the tunnel will prevent at least the HSR trains from running them at much more than bicycle speed. In addition, we expect screeching noises as the long wheelbase trucks needed for high speed stability are dragged kicking and screaming around the corner. Passengers on board and especially, anyone present on the platforms would hear a sound reminiscent of fingernails on a blackboard, just much louder. Special lubricants might help keep both the noise and the wear and tear down, but no brand-new design should need them. The radii are also too tight for off-the-shelf Japanese shinkansen designs, which need ~925 feet. Even for European designs, 500 is the number the marketing department made the engineers sign up to, not one they'd recommend for brand-new track.

b) the slow speeds combined with the tunnel layout combined with train lengths of 660-1320 feet mean that during peak periods, inbound and outbound trains of both operators will block each others' paths to such an extent that the "throat" between the tunnel proper and the platform tracks becomes the throughput bottleneck. It's highly unlikely that HSR could achieve 5 minute headways during Caltrain's rush hour with that design.

Both post authors and commenters have propsed a wide range of solution concepts on both this blog and Clem's. Here's a recap:

• terminating some or all HSR trains at 4th & King
  
• a central rail station at Market & 7th instead of the Transbay Terminal
  
• redefining the Transbay Terminal to include a narrow two-level heavy rail station under Mission Street, reached via a short underground pedestrian passage and featuring moving walkways along the 1/2 mile concourse level
  
• keeping the tracks in the basement, but redesigning the DTX tunnel as a one-way single-track loop through the building from east to west; any future second transbay link would then be BART down Mission Street
  
• redesigning it to run up 3rd Street to increase curve radius for just two - possibly individual track - tunnels
  
• minimally, some tweaking of the curve radii and the use of curved switches in the throat of the official three-track tunnel design
  

Dedicated Single Tunnel Tracks

In the vein of this last concept, I'd like to add one more suggestion to the list. Since HSR and Caltrain are supposed to get dedicated platforms and platform tracks anyhow, I figured why not give each of them a single, dedicated track in the DTX tunnel as well. That would at least get the operators out of each others' hair. A third track should be avoided to keep the tunnel engineering as straightforward as possible so the curve radii can be increased without breaking the bank.

The idea is really quite simple: each operator sets the signals in the tunnel track to outbound and runs a group trains out in quick succession. The timetable is arranged such that an equal number of inbound trains arrives at the mouth of the tunnel just as the last of the outbound trains clears it. The operator sets the signals in the opposite direction, the platforms tracks fill up again and the process repeats.

The advantage is that as long as traffic is guaranteed to be one-way, headways as small as three minutes are quite realistic. No outbound trains blocks any inbound one, no HSR train any Caltrain and vice versa. In other words, there is no throat in the classic sense, just two independent tunnel tracks that fan out to two resp. four platform tracks that are alternately used in one direction or the other for a well-defined period of time.

The disadvantage is that each operator's timetable would feature a number of trains in quick succession, followed by a period without service in that direction. Note that in each of these groups of trains, the fastest service classes (e.g. express) come first, followed by the slower ones (e.g. semi-express). This ensures headways do not decrease below three minutes in nominal operations. For two consecutive trains of a slower class, it may go back and forth from the minimum value to a higher one.

Spreadsheet Model

To get a better sense of the kind of timetable this would produce, I made a number of assumptions and plugged them into a spreadsheet. In addition to the three-minute headways, I assumed that the cumulative delay for an outbound group of trains would be no more than one minute. For inbound groups, I allowed a three-minute buffer and assumed a two-minute dwell time for trains making a stop between San Jose and SF. Finally, I assumed Caltrain's commuter EMU equipment would traverse the 1.3mi tunnel in two minutes (39mph average speed thanks to high acceleration and short wheelbase trucks), whereas HSR trains would take three (26mph average).

For service patterns based on half-length trains (660ft or less), the first inbound train would proceed to the end of the platform track. The second would stop before colliding with the first. However, since it's a terminal station, the later arrival would have to be the first one to leave, resulting in uneven dwell times. Also, I assumed a platform track would be cleared entirely before trains from the next inbound batch are admitted. This is how an operator would use the facility during rush hour. At off-peak periods, the ends of the platform tracks can be used for parking.

The results were as follows:

• For HSR service based entirely on single trainsets, I assumed a group size of four trains occupying one track on each island platform. The first two were express, the second two semi-express trains on the SJ-SF segment. This affects the length of time the track needs to be reserved for inbound traffic. Note that I did not consider service class impacts south of San Jose for this preliminary analysis. Instead, I assumed appropriate service groups would be created via wait states in San Jose.
  
  After allowing four trains to leave, four new inbound ones would be admitted, followed by the other four trains still in the station and four inbound ones to replace them. The period for this pattern of 8 trains each way works out to exactly 60 minutes, i.e. 8 tph. The minimum dwell times for the trains in each group worked out to 38, 44, 36 and 42 minutes, respectively. Because of the buffers built into the schedule, they could be up to four minutes longer.
  
  
• I also looked at HSR service based exclusively on full-length trains. With a group size of four, this also works out to 8 tph - but each of train would now have twice as many seats! The snag is that the minimum dwell times are down to just 11, 11, 9 and 9 minutes, respectively. As discussed above, that is considered enough for a terminal in Europe. However, if a large fraction of seats is actually occupied in SF, seat reservations and some pedestrian flow control would be highly advisable to avoid delays. Evidently, trainset utilization rates are much higher if full-length trains are used. Note that it's very easy to couple and uncouple HSR trainsets at stations, so operators could transparently switch to single trainsets during off-peak hours.
  
  
• HSR service based on full-length trains and a group size of just two yielded a throughput capacity of 7.06 tph, with minimum dwell times of 21 minutes.
  
  
• Separately, I looked at Caltrain local service based on 8-car trains that would be used during rush hour. With a train group size of four, throughput worked out to a very respectable 9.23 tph. Minimum dwell times were 6, 12, 6 and 12 minutes, respectively.
  

Fiddling with the parameters, it quickly became apparent that the minimum headway had the greatest effect on throughput, followed by the time required to traverse the DTX tunnel, dwell time at through stations down the line. Doubling the cumulative buffer period allowed for inbound Caltrain groups from 3 to 6 minutes resulted in a loss of only 1 tph in throughput.

Overnight Parking

Note that CHSRA still needs a solution for overnight parking of additional trainsets, as the first ones of the day will take some time to arrive from Merced and LA. The old Brisbane yard near Bayshore Caltrain would do nicely and could double as a transshipment center for High Speed Cargo trainsets that ride piggyback on single passenger trainsets during off-peak hours. Toward the end of the day, selected passenger trains would terminate at Millbrae/SFO.

Conclusion

Provided that inbound trains are grouped neatly and operators are willing to accept that consecutive trains in the same direction may run anywhere from 3 minutes to 13, 17 or even 21 minutes apart, aggregate throughput of over 17 tph is possible with this concept. For reference, a single loop track serving all six platforms with a minimum headway of 3 minutes would support 20 tph and provide more flexibility if CHSRA and Caltrain decide on a common platform height after all.

Cost Containment Opportunity

Just for kicks, I also looked at the possibility of saving some money in phase I by extending the dedicated single track for HSR beyond 4th & King to Bayshore. Caltrain already has four short tunnels in that stretch, CHSRA intends to bore new single track tunnels to either side of that. The CHSRA web site gives a time of 13 minutes for Transbay Terminal to Millbrae/SFO, so I figured it would take about 9 out to Bayshore. This longer single-track section caused HSR throughput to decrease from from 8 to 5.71 tph (4.14 tph for full-length trains with a group size of two but minimum dwell times of 33 minutes). For the single-trainset scenario with a group size of 4, minimum dwell times went up by 12 minutes. For full-length trains with the same group size and throughput number, they were unchanged.

In other words, it would be possible to shift some tunneling overheads south of 4th & King from phase I to phase II of the overall bullet train project, given that 4.14-5.71 tph will be enough for HSR operations for a while. Note that running northbound HSR trains east of Caltrain in that section would currently force UPRR trains to cross the HSR track. By the time HSR needs dual tracks between Bayshore and 4th & King, it's entirely possible the mighty Port of SF will no longer be served by UPRR's South City Switcher - a freight train running in streetcar mode.

Quentin Kopp On Transbay Terminal

In response to yesterday morning's post on the Transbay Terminal Quentin Kopp, chairman of the California High Speed Rail Authority, called me up to chat about the project and to give his side of the story.

First, he said that there is no agreement yet on the Transbay Terminal capacity issue. The Steven T. Jones article in the Guardian shouldn't be taken to imply that any solutions have been reached. The notion of 8 trains an hour at TBT and 4 at 4th and King came from a meeting with MTC engineers, but again it's just a proposal. I asked Kopp what he thought the right solution should be and he said he needed to hear back from his engineers, and that might take up to 6 more months.

Second, Kopp explained from the CHSRA's perspective the debate over the Transbay Terminal solution. Two months ago engineers from the Transbay Joint Powers Agency, the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (Caltrain) and the CHSRA met to discuss the Transbay project. It was there that the engineers, without dissension, agreed that the existing design was inadequate to accommodate the 12 trains per hour that CHSRA requested.

And where did that 12 trains per hour figure come from? According to Kopp, it's based on the 2035 ridership projections in the 2008 study done by Cambridge Systematics.

Third, Kopp emphasized that the Transbay Terminal remains the CHSRA's preferred SF terminal, has been since 2006, and is of course written into Proposition 1A. Kopp does have financial concerns about the project - he quoted a cost figure of $2.8 billion. He believes that TJPA is moving too quickly on this and that CHSRA will be forced to commit some of its $9 billion HSR bond money to the project sooner than he'd prefer.

This is problematic for Kopp because of the possibility of precedent-setting. As he explained it to me, if SF gets a $2.8 billion tunnel and train station, then many other stations and cities along the route will point to that and demand that similar amounts of money be spent on their own preferred station designs and grade separation solutions. Kopp is determined to bring the project in on-time and on-budget, and doesn't want the Transbay Terminal project to suck up an undue amount of the available money at the expense of the rest of the line.

Kopp also expressed dissatisfaction with the track layout, specifically the curves of the track from 4th and King to TBT, but the above issues seem to be at the heart of his and the CHSRA's concerns.

Transbay Terminal Compromise In The Works?

That's what Steven T. Jones of the San Francisco Bay Guardian reported Friday night:

TJPA spokesperson Adam Alberti tells the Guardian that involved agencies are hoping operational adjustments can be made to handle up to eight trains per hour at Transbay, and that the additional four trains per hour that the California High-Speed Rail Authority says it wants might have to stop at the existing 4th and Townsend station.

Several commenters have floated this idea in our various Transbay posts, of having some trains go all the way to SF Transbay and others terminate at 4th and King. I'm curious which trains would stop where - won't most riders want to go all the way to the Financial District? Do we believe the typical Southern Californian* will understand the difference between SF 4th and King and SF Transbay Terminal on an HSR map, timetable, or website? Perhaps they will, and a 4th and King solution is dependent on the Central Subway - but this is probably the best solution given the politics of the matter.

Operationally, I can live with it, but as you all know by now I tend to take the big picture view of all this - I'm curious what those of you who are skilled in the details of the Transbay Terminal issue think.

Jones's article continues, still paraphrasing Adam Alberti:

He said there is a growing consensus against building a second floor of train platforms, which could add $1 billion to the price of the project. The TJPA board needs to land on a plan by May so current contracts can be issued and so regional agencies can come together on a request for about $1 billion in federal stimulus money when the state makes its formal request for federal high-speed rail funding in June.

That says to me that SF city and Caltrain officials, who have many of the TJPA seats, and the MTC are part of this "growing consensus" against the second floor concept that CHSRA has been pushing. They want to move quickly to get the contracts out and to show the feds that we really are moving on the shovel-ready aspects of the HSR project in order to get some stimulus money. I think that is exactly the right approach to take.

Of course, Quentin Kopp still isn't happy:

CHSRA Chair Quentin Kopp continues to question the Transbay Terminal project, saying its schedule and location have been dictated by its bus component and noting that its costs have been creeping ever higher. “This has all the earmarks of San Francisco’s Big Dig.”

I don't really understand what is up with Kopp's opposition to the Transbay Terminal project, but this does not reflect very well on him. It will only cause more people to think that his whole "we need a second floor for unspecified operational reasons" was in fact an effort to kill the train box idea entirely and terminate the line at 4th and King. And that may well be exactly what is going on here. But Kopp isn't doing himself or the Authority or the project any favors by his stance on this. And his use of the "Big Dig" canard is really not a good idea at all. The HSR deniers have been using that frame against us for months, and although we've done well in beating it back, the last thing we need is for an official of the CHSRA to start using it themselves. There is in fact NO indication whatsoever, at this point, that the Transbay Terminal project will be plagued by the kind of massive cost overruns that hit the Big Dig - and as many have noted, one of the reasons for those overruns was constant meddling in the design process by various authorities.

At a time when Kopp has a much bigger problem on his hands - the unrealistic demand of mid-Peninsula cities for a tunnel - he should not be going around pissing off and alienating potential allies with attacks on the Transbay Terminal project. Let's hope that this compromise is workable, that it holds, and that we can move on with the overall HSR project.

* - I was born and raised in Southern California and while I love that place dearly, not everyone there is skilled at grasping these kinds of details.

East Bay Blues

No, that's not Bob Dylan on the left, but it might as well be. Of all the major population centers in California, the eastern portion of the San Francisco Bay - Alameda and Contra Costa counties - arguably drew the shortest lot. True, East Bay residents will be closer to HSR stations on the starter line than anyone in San Diego or Sacramento, but there are currently no firm plans for an HSR station in either Oakland or Union City - ever.

Moreover, the new Transbay Terminal in San Francisco will be ~1/3 mile from the nearest BART station, Embarcadero, which gets overcrowded during rush hour. TJPA's plans for a pedestrian passage under Fremont Street are still "optional" at this point and, BART has made no commitment to use any of its $241 million share of the prop 1A bonds for additional side platforms at Embarcadero plus ramps featuring moving walkways connecting to such a passage. Unless that changes, BART passengers would have to hoof it across SF city streets to the HSR station, in any kind of weather, with baggage and perhaps children in tow. AC Transit will operate buses into the building, but its unclear how many HSR passengers will take advantage of that option.

Millbrae will hopefully offer a more convenient transfer, but BART takes it's sweet time getting out to there. Worse, on any given day of the week, only one line runs out to Millbrae, so many HSR passengers will have to transfer twice. Either way, the time lost just getting to and from the nearest HSR station will mean Oakland Airport will continue to offer flights to Southern California for many years to come.

HST/Commuter Overlay

Recently, CHSRA did award a $70 million contract to AECOM, for project-level EIR/EIS work on the awkwardly named "HST/commuter overlay" that is "under consideration" (see the pink bit here). The overlay concept was introduced toward the end of the whole Altamont vs. Pacheco debate as a punt ahead of the November election. The idea is to recycle the work done on the Altamont options studied for HSR into an ill-defined regional adjunct to the core HSR network. The overlay would link Stockton and Modesto to Oakland and San Jose via Tracy, Pleasanton and Union City. There is, however, no money at all for building this overlay in either phase I (starter line) or phase II (spurs to San Diego, Sacramento and Irvine).

Moreover, the originally selected route between Pleasanton and San Jose would have trains emerging from a curved tunnel in Niles and then proceeding south via the UPRR and WPML rights of way, CA-262 and the I-880 median. Now that Santa Clara county voters have voted to add another 1/8th of a percent to their sales tax to actually bring BART to San Jose, the short but vital WPML section is no longer available. Co-operation from UPRR was always an iffy proposition anyhow, especially in Fremont. Note that Parsons Brinkerhoff are the lead consultants on both HSR and the BART extension to SantaClara/SJC. That obvious conflict of interest alone ought to speak volumes about how major transit infrastructure projects are run in Northern California.

Realistically, nothing will come of the overlay concept anytime soon. And by soon, I mean before 2030. The only exception would be if CHSRA were unable to obtain a ROW out of San Jose and down to Gilroy, e.g. because of environmental justice issues or opposition from UPRR in principle. Some observers have characterized that railroad's stance as a negotiating ploy and that may yet turn out to be true: as a for-profit enterprise, money talks even for UPRR. On the other hand, it is a long-standing, profitable enterprise that just might walk away even from a juicy deal if it thinks it could be detrimental to its core business. Time will tell.

Existing East Bay Passenger Rail Services

Meanwhile, there are already several passenger rail services in the East Bay, in addition to BART. First, there's Amtrak Capitol Corridor, which is operated by Amtrak but managed by BART (h/t to anon @ 12:50pm). It connects San Jose to Oakland to Sacramento and Auburn. The core segment between Oakland Jack London Square is served by 16 trains each way on weekdays and 11 on weekends/holidays. San Jose is served by 7 trains.

Second, there are the four daily Amtrak San Joaquins (each way) between Oakland Jack London Square (OKJ) and Bakersfield. There are also two daily Amtrak long-distance trains serving the area: the Coast Starlight between Seattle and LA and the California Zephyr from Chicago to Emeryville, with a bus connection to San Francisco.

Third, there is the Altamont Commuter Express between Stockton and San Jose, also offering four trains each way but only on weekdays.

However, this isn't quite the transit smorgasbord it may seem to some: Amtrak Capitol Corridor only connects to BART at the OaklandColiseum/OAK and Richmond stations. San Joaquins connect only at Richmond and the other standard gauge services don't connect at all. With some track work, the San Joaquins could have an intermodal station with BART in North Concord now that the Navy has returned the inland portion of the old Naval Weapons Station to the city. However, planners there appear to see no value in an intermodal station and appear to have settled on a TOD concept served by BART alone. That means the questionable eBART project to extend service to Antioch - using new DMU equipment rather than regular BART rolling stock - remains alive and kicking.

Amtrak via new Nelson Mandela Station

In particular, the OKJ station is served by a grand total of just two AC Transit bus lines, with a few more stopping 1/4 mile further west. For a city of 400,000 that is also at the geographic heart of the BART system, OKJ isn't an effective Central Station for standard gauge rail. Unfortunately, running tracks right into downtown (near 12th/Broadway) would require many miles of expensive tunneling.

Fortunately, there may be a more affordable compromise: a shortcut between Emeryville and Jack London Square via Nelson Mandela Parkway. That is a city street, so the alignment would have to run in a mostly covered trench. It has also been lovingly landscaped, something that might have to be re-done at the end of construction. The prize, however, may well be worth it: an intermodal station with West Oakland BART, just one stop from downtown Oakland and downtown SF. In addition better connections into Oakland, the point of the exercise would be to reduce line haul time between SFO, downtown SF, Sacramento and Truckee (in Winter), thus relieving pressure on I-80.


View Larger Map

While not exactly a Central Station in the traditional sense, the West Oakland location could act as a regional transfer hub. The station is currently served by three AC Transit bus lines, more could conceivably be added. There are also plenty of empty lots in the area that could support parking or taxi service if there is demand.

The biggest obstacle to construction, other than funding, would be the UPRR yard next to I-880 and 3rd Street. Passenger trains are not permitted in freight rail yards, so the alignment would have to skirt the terrain while rising back up to grade level. A couple of industrial businesses, one of which looks like a cardboard recycling center, might be affected by eminent domain as a result. Note the single track connector hugging I-880: it would only be used by southbound trains that need to return to Emeryville. There is not enough room for a dual-track loop, nor is one needed. Note that a new "Nelson Mandela" station might prompt Amtrak to reduce service to Jack London Square.

Amtrak CC: WiFi on Board

Like Caltrain before it, Amtrak Capitol Corridor recently conducted a WiFi on Board trial based on terrestrial WiMAX connections to the fixed infrastructure. The service proved much more popular than Amtrak California had bargained for. Nevertheless, the plan is to upgrade bandwidth capacity and still offer it at no charge - something that would be easy enough to do: just print a one-time password good for 2 hours on the ticket. The rationale is evidently that courtesy internet access will help boost seat capacity utilization. Stay tuned.

ACE via Union City BART

Further south, there is scope for an intermodal station with BART in Union City. There is a little-used single-track freight spur running from Industrial Parkway to Niles via Van Euw Common, right alongside the elevated BART tracks. SMCTA had already identified this possibility in the context of plans for limited commuter service across the 100-year old Dumbarton rail bridge, but this has been postponed by the suspicious 1998 fire that destroyed the western trestle and, by the need to repay a $145 million loan from the BART extension to Fremont Warm Springs that San Mateo county had to take out to pay for cost overruns related to the extension to Millbrae/SFO. Some $54 million is still outstanding, the project time line keeps slipping.

However, one opportunity appears to have been overlooked in this context: with some additional track work and trackage rights, the existing ACE service could in theory make a detour via this anyhow planned intermodal station with BART in Union City, cut over to Union Landing (I-880/Whipple Rd) and back down to Newark, as shown in green on on the map below. In addition to the BART intermodal, there would be two new stations to improve transit options for the army of Silicon Valley worker bees that sleeps in the East Bay. Like the Amtrak Capitol Corridor trains, this modified ACE route would still include a stop at Great America in the heart of the "Golden Triangle" bordered by CA-237, I-880 and US-101. BART does not and will not reach that destination.


View Larger Map

ACE to SF via Niles Canyon north slope

Shown in red on the map is the option of a new ACE service direct to additional Silicon Valley employers, Millbrae/SFO and SF 4th & King. In addition to a little bit of access track work north of Sunol and in San Jose, this would involve trackage rights from UPRR or NCRY (whichever now owns the old SP ROW along the north slope of Niles Canyon) plus trackage rights from UPRR along the Milpitas line. At the wye in San Jose, trains would head north up to San Francisco via the Caltrain ROW, in baby bullet mode. That would require trackage rights from PCJPB plus permission from UPRR, which still owns the rights to intercity passenger service on the SF peninsula. One option would be for ACE to accept Caltrain tickets on the peninsula and deduct their value from the trackage fees.

The Milpitas Line is little-used south of 101 but represents a valuable back-up route in case the Alviso line through the salt marshes ever becomes unavailable, e.g. because of an earthquake. However, any passenger rail service on this line south of 101 should implement FRA quiet zone regulations first. Of course, if and when the Dumbarton rail bridge re-opens, there could be scope for further improvements to ACE.

The bigger issues may be in Pleasanton, Livermore and especially, in Altamont Pass itself. Single tracking and slow freight trains mean ACE is at the mercy of UPRR as it tries to stick to its schedule, though it has earned high marks for punctuality recently. That said, the service does take 2h10m to cover 86 miles - not exactly a high speed train.