HSR Should Go Where the People Are

(Rafael helped with some of the research for this post. The words and interpretations are mine, so don't blame him for any errors or controversial statements.)

In some ways, the California High Speed Rail project has been a bit too successful in selling itself to voters. The project's emphasis - and, at times, my own - has been on getting people from the SF Bay Area to Southern California in just over 2 1/2 hours. Although this blog has frequently discussed the other areas served by the trains, we haven't always given them equal weight in the basic framing of the project. HSR is and has always intended to be more than just connecting two endpoints. It also connects some of California's fastest-growing cities, particularly those in the San Joaquin Valley.

Not surprisingly, when some people want to find a place to criticize the CHSRA and the HSR project, they point to the route choice between San José and Los Angeles. Some argue that HSR should follow I-5 through the Valley and over the Grapevine. And many of those commenters argue that the CHSRA's failure to pick such a route is either a sign of their incompetence or their complicity with big bad sprawl developers.

These comments crop up often enough that it seemed worth devoting a post to debunking such nonsense.

The basic flaw with the "use I-5" claims, whether they refer to the San Joaquin Valley, the Grapevine, or both, is that they argue for bypassing between 2.5 and 3 million people. There is no good reason to do so. Given that the system needs all the riders it can get to pencil out financially, it is absurd to send the route through completely empty land along Interstate 5 and ignore the populations along the CA-99 or CA-14 corridors.

Especially when those corridors desperately need an intercity alternative. The Highway 99 corridor is notoriously congested throughout much of the Valley, as it is the region's primary transportation route. An increasing number of both trucks and cars use the route, and more will do so if and when economic recovery comes to the Valley. A 2005 estimate showed it would cost $25 billion to bring Highway 99 up to Interstate standards and handle the projected traffic loads. HSR can be built through the Valley for a lower cost but can provide for the movement of people (and improve the movement of goods, especially through projects like Fresno rail consolidation) in a way that can make the widening and upgrading of Highway 99 less necessary.

There's also an environmental reason: the San Joaquin Valley has some of the worst air quality in the nation. HSR will play a major role in addressing that.

The Central Valley is going to see increased population growth during this century. The question whether it'll be sprawl or whether it'll be dense urban infill. HSR can help support infill development by providing opportunities for transit-oriented development. City center stations would help pull growth inward instead of push it outward.

The CHSRA's route FAQ has some more good info on the CA-99 route:

The I-5 corridor has very little existing or projected population between the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. In contrast, according to the California Department of Finance, well over 3 million residents are projected to live between Fresno and Bakersfield along the SR-99 corridor by 2015, which directly serves all the major Central Valley cities. Residents along the SR-99 corridor lack a competitive transportation alternative to the automobile, and detailed ridership analysis shows that they would be ideal candidates to use a high-speed train system. The I-5 corridor would not be compatible with current land use planning in the Central Valley that accommodates growth in the communities along the SR-99 corridor.

Express trains in the SR-99 corridor would connect San Francisco to Fresno in just 1 hr and 20 min, and Fresno to Los Angeles in 1 hr and 24 min. This corridor would link San Francisco to Bakersfield in about 1 hr and 50 min, and Bakersfield to Los Angeles in 54 min. The SR-99 corridor was estimated to have 3.3 million more intermediate-market ridership (passengers to or from the Central Valley) per year than the highest I-5 corridor projections (CRA 1999). Therefore, while SR-99 corridor travel times would be 11 to 16 min longer than the I-5 alternatives between Los Angeles and San Francisco, overall ridership and revenue for the SR-99 corridor would be higher.

Similarly, the case for Palmdale and against the I-5/Grapevine alignment is compelling. In addition to the fact that Palmdale/Lancaster has just under 500,000 people right now, whereas hardly any live along I-5 north of Castaic, there is the inescapable geological fact that the Tehachapi Pass is flatter, less seismically risky, and cheaper to construct than the extremely hilly I-5 corridor. The I-5/Grapevine route would require individual tunnels of 6 miles in length, more overall miles of tunneling, and would come closer to the seismically unstable junction of the Garlock and San Andreas Faults, one of the more dangerous of California's numerous faults. Typically, you want to cross faults at-grade and not in a tunnel, which is very difficult on the Grapevine route. See more in the CHSRA Tunneling Report.

The time difference is estimated at 12 minutes between Grapevine and Tehachapi, which isn't nothing, but neither is it a huge sacrifice, given the fact that Tehachapi is cheaper, more seismically stable, and serves more people.

Combine all this with the fact that there are forecast to be 1 million people in the Antelope Valley by 2020 (even if that isn't reached, there will be more growth here, as in the San Joaquin Valley), and it makes it clear that here as well, HSR should go where the people are. Even if the Tejon Ranch housing development is actually built, there still won't be as many people as in the Palmdale/Lancaster area.

Quoting again from the CHSRA route FAQ:

The most significant difference in regards to potential environmental impacts between the Antelope Valley option and I-5 alignments is in regards to major parklands. The Antelope Valley alignment would not go through major parks. In contrast, the I-5 options would potentially impact Fort Tejon Historic Park, Angeles and Los Padres National Forests, Hungry Valley State Vehicular Recreation Area, Pyramid Lake and other local parks. The Antelope Valley alignment would also have a lower overall potential for water-related impacts, less potential impacts to wetlands and non-wetland waters, and was forecast to have less impacts on urbanized land and farmland conversion than the I-5 options (because the I-5 options would result in more growth in the Central Valley).

The Antelope Valley alignment traverses less challenging terrain than the I-5 options, which would result considerably less tunneling overall (13 miles 21 km of tunneling for the Antelope Valley option versus 23 37 km miles for I-5 options), and considerably shorter tunnels (maximum length of 3.4 miles 5.5 km for the Antelope Valley option versus two tunnels greater than 5 miles 8 km for the I-5 options) which would result in fewer constructability issues. Although the Antelope Valley option is about 35 miles longer than the I-5 alignment options, it is estimated to be slightly less expensive to construct as a result of less tunneling through the Tehachapi Mountains. In addition, due to its more gentle gradient, geology, topology and other features, the SR-58/Soledad Canyon Corridor offers greater opportunities for using potential high-speed train alignment variations, particularly through the mountainous areas of the corridor, to avoid impacts to environmental resources. In contrast, the more challenging terrain of the I-5 Corridor greatly limits the ability to avoid sensitive resources and seismic constraints. The alignment optimization system (Quantm) that was utilized to identify and evaluate approximately 12 million alignment options for each mountain crossing could only find one practicable alignment option through the Tehachapi Mountains for the I-5 Corridor.

For practical, financial, ridership, planning, and any number of other reasons, HSR should be built along the proposed route.

As we noted in the San Diego post last week, the purpose of HSR isn't to connect two points with a straight line. It's to move people. HSR serves people, not geometry. We need to find the balance between serving the most people possible and a sensible, non-circuitous route. I strongly believe the current CHSRA plan strikes that balance.

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Reminder by Rafael:

Altamont Corridor Rail Project - Public Scoping Meeting
Today, Tuesday, Nov 17 3:00p to 8:00p
at Fremont Central Park Teen Center, Fremont, CA
39770 Paseo Padre Parkway, Fremont, CA, 94539
(510) 790-5541‎

If you attend and learn something new you feel would be worth sharing with readers of this blog, please email a summary to cruickshank at gmail dot com.

Tehachapi Residents Excited About HSR

Last week the California High Speed Rail Authority took its scoping meeting roadshow to Tehachapi, and judging by this report in the Tehachapi news the locals are excited and supportive - but they'd also like a stop:

“I believe in alternative transportation,” said architect Alex Kosich at the Sept. 16 meeting at the Stallion Springs Community Center. “I rode my bike six miles to this meeting.

“I think it's great. I think it's wonderful. It's a big engineering task. We have to start somewhere.”

Kosich said he and his wife Laila, who is French, are accustomed to riding the high-speed trains from Paris to Lyon.

“Why isn't there one here?” Kosich said. “What are we waiting for?”

The article includes some critical voices, including one guy who voted against the train out of financial concerns.

One of the main concerns raised was the possible impact of the train on a new hospital being built in Tehachapi, though project managers said that the tracks would be sited in such a way to avoid negative impacts. And this being Tehachapi, the article included a brief discussion of the famous Tehachapi Loop, one of the reasons there is currently no passenger rail service between Bakersfield and Los Angeles:

While the rail line in the Tehachapi Pass will follow the BNSF line, there will be no loop similar to the famous Tehachapi Loop at Keene that has been in use since it was built in 1876 and draws railfans from around the world.

With better technology, railroads do not need to adhere to the 2.2 percent grade restriction dictated by Abraham Lincoln's Pacific Railway Act of 1864.

“We can go steeper, to 3 and one-half percent,” said Roworth, the engineer.

In any case, he said after a moment of calculation, at 220 miles an hour, the train would need a circle 16 miles in diameter to make a loop.

Of course, whenever the Tehachapi Pass/Palmdale alignment comes up, we get commenters coming out of the woodwork to argue that this alignment is flawed, too costly, a sop to developers, etc. Never mind the fact that 500,000 people live in the area, a number projected to rise to 1 million by 2020 with or without HSR. The key factor in picking the Tehachapi alignment over I-5 is that, as anyone who has actually driven I-5 through the Grapevine knows, the I-5 route is very mountainous, whereas the Tehachapi Pass is much less so. The CHSRA reached that conclusion over 5 years ago when it eliminated the I-5 route as too challenging and costly for the significant amount of tunneling that would be required to serve that route - a route that wouldn't include any new riders.

Bakersfield Gets A Look At the High Speed Train

The CHSRA is taking their scoping meetings to the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley this week, including a stop in Bakersfield:

As a structural engineer, longtime Bakersfield resident Ed Creswell is thrilled that America's first bullet trains will fly right through his city's downtown district.

"It's a great project," he said. "And I'm excited for our community."

But for Ed, his wife Judy and some of their neighbors there's also a downside: The 220-mph electric rail line is being routed right through his Rosedale-area neighborhood on an elevated track 30- to 40-feet off the ground. And that will affect property values and the quality of life in their horse-friendly tract.

"A lot of families have been out there 35 to 40 years or more," Creswell said. "They're not really anxious to move."

The article doesn't tell us what the Creswells came away from the meeting thinking about the HSR project. Obviously there are residents in Bakersfield who, as in Santa Fe Springs and Palo Alto, to name just a few cities, are wondering how to strike a balance between their desire for HSR and their concerns about how it will impact their communities. I am sure there will be some NIMBYs reading this saying "HA! See, it's not just us folks that are upset about this" - but that would be missing the point of a Bakersfield newspaper's anecdote of ONE homeowner who doesn't seem to be espousing any NIMBY ideas at all.

The rest of the article does a pretty poor job of informing readers about the route and the outstanding decisions left to be made. It does include this colorful quote from CHSRA regional director Carrie Bowen:

While there will be some noise associated with these rolling bullets, there will be no rattling, no clackety-clack of rail noise -- and the on-board ride will be so smooth, you won't spill your beer while walking back to your seat, Bowen said.

All I know is that on the first SF to Anaheim trip circa 2020 - and I fully intend to be on that first train - I'm going to have so much champagne I don't know if I will even be able to stand.

The Bakersfield Californian also had an interesting op-ed from Danny Gilmore, a Republican member of the CA Assembly (who won his seat last November in an extremely close and contentious race). Gilmore expresses strong support for HSR:

Moreover, as California and the state both grapple with a struggling economy, it is important to respond to the areas of greatest need when opportunities for employing our workforce exist. The Central Valley has the highest unemployment rates in the state with areas experiencing a staggering 40 percent of people without jobs. These are not the unwilling or unfit to work, these are former farm workers, mechanics, construction workers and others who have the skills, ability and desire to work.

The Depression-era reality for many rural communities of the Central Valley showcases the greatest need for new jobs that will help buttress the state and local economy as well as put people back to work.

The Central Valley has experienced hardships unlike anywhere else in the state. Restrictions on water to our farms, a crippled dairy economy and the ripple effect of high unemployment and businesses closing their doors have made the Central Valley the epicenter of this recession. When you pair the logic of starting this project, with the Bakersfield to Merced corridor, and the great need for such a project in these areas, the choice to do so in the Central Valley is a clear win-win.

I urge the Federal Rail Authority to award funding to the Bakersfield to Merced corridor as the best option for bringing high-speed rail to fruition in California. I hope that they also see that the intent of this funding is to address the need for good jobs in areas that are struggling to survive.

Kudos to Gilmore for understanding what too few of his fellow Republicans grasp: that federal spending is absolutely necessary to deal with this severe recession, and that HSR is as good a project as any to deliver those jobs.

CHSRA is hosting two more scoping meetings for the Bakersfield-Palmdale segment:

Tehachapi
September 16, 3:00-7:00 p.m.
Stallion Springs Community Center
27850 Stallion Springs Dr.
Tehachapi, CA 93561

Palmdale
September 17, 3:00-7:00 p.m.
Chimbole Cultural Center
38350 Sierra Highway
Palmdale, CA 93550

The Palmdale (Airport) HSR Station

by Rafael

The route CHSRA has chosen for the Bakersfield-Sylmar section runs through the Tehachapis, the Antelope Valley and Soledad Canyon. This is substantially longer than the direct route via Tejon Pass. The primary factors in favor of the longer route were total length of the tunnel system (21 vs. 34 miles), the ease of crossing major faults at grade and geology risk. A secondary goal was HSR service for the half-million people who live in the Antelope Valley.

However, this post will focus on the potential for leveraging HSR to finally turn Los Angeles World Airports' (LAWA) vast Palmdale airport (PMD) property into a viable commercial proposition. It is the only location in all of southern California at which additional runways could fairly easily be added in the future, east of the existing ones.

While it is absolutely not CHSRA's job to also take on regional planning on how best to relieve LAX, there is a need for interface planning if LAWA, an LA county agency, and the city of Palmdale want to at least preserve the option of using PMD for that purpose. As discussed below, simply siting an HSR station in the general vicinity of the airport, several miles removed from it, will not be good enough.

The following map shows current plans for the starter line and station plus alternatives discussed below.


View Palmdale Airport HSR station in a larger map

Right of Way for HSR

First, though, there is the non-trivial issue of securing ROW for laying HSR tracks between the Tehachapis and Soledad Canyon at all. CHSRA's current plans assume a dedicated ROW for HSR in the UPRR/Sierra Hwy corridor (red line).

Palmdale-Mojave is part of UPRR's core ROW from the LA/LB harbors up the west coast. This rail freight corridor is much busier than the one up the central coast. At first glance, it looks plenty wide but UPRR's has in fact already quad-tracked some sections. The Sierra Hwy frontage road runs about 50 feet west of the tracks north of Palmdale Metrolink, where it cuts over to the east. There's a linear park and also businesses to either side of UPRR ROW in Palmdale itself. There are also several freight spurs and the turnoff to Hesperia to contend with.

If UPRR hasn't already informed CHSRA that its own ROW is not available for HSR, expect that it will. This is going to be a recurring theme. The area isn't as densely built up as south San Jose or Gilroy, but actually securing a greenfield ROW in the UPRR/Sierra Hwy corridor could still prove surprisingly difficult. CHSRA's Google Map of the route (pls zoom in) shows the alignment in the Lancaster-Palmdale section as dead straight and entirely at-grade, with no flyovers for the Sierra Hwy nor the UPRR tracks that cross the planned alignment. These are relatively small details, but their omission is noteworthy.

However, given that the Tehachapis route has been identified as the one with the shorter tunnel system and lower tunneling risk, I expect that CHSRA will in the end be able to obtain a ROW, even though speeds will need to be high to compensate for the extra 40 miles the High Desert route entails. Worst case, there's always plan B: the extra-wide hwy 14 median (pink line). That would be longer, limit feasible speed, preclude the desired intermodal with Metrolink and require future detour tracks to connect to the airport at all. However, as we shall see, a wye off the main line might not be a bad idea in any event.

Relief for LAX: Palmdale, Ontario or both?

Palmdale airport began life in 1940 and has always been used by the US Air Force and defense contractors. Between 1966 and 1995, LA county acquired a total 17,750 acres of land east and south of the Air Force property via eminent domain, for the specific purpose of developing a civilian "Palmdale Intercontinental Airport". However, that never came to fruition, precisely because there was no high speed ground transportation link into the Los Angeles basin. In December 2008, United Airlines canceled the only remaining route to SFO in December after subsidies ran out.

LAWA has even surrendered its commercial aviation license for PMD to the FAA, at least for the time being. It is considering using part of the facility for a solar power farm. That's great for the environment, but perhaps not the best location for that technology. As reported in Future So Bright, that could potentially blind pilots. As long as the city of Palmdale remains the only cheerleader for PMD, it is likely to remain a ghost airport, much like SBD.

For now at least, LAWA appears to have given up on ever making PMD a successful proposition and is concentrating on the active Ontario airport to relieve LAX. It is slated for inclusion in the phase 2 spur, but it's not yet clear which ROW will be used to run the tracks. UPRR is not interested in sharing its primary ROW out to Arizona and points east. The alternative, getting to from LA Union Station to I-10/Archibald, is also non-trivial. Among other considerations, the I-10 median is where the Anaheim - Las Vegas maglev line was supposed to run. Using it for steel wheels tracks would officially kill that project, though IMHO that might not be a bad idea. There is absolutely no need nor ROW for two mutually incompatible HSR lines through the San Gabriel valley.

On the face of it, LAWA's preference for Ontario appears sensible enough: there may be not be a need for two relief airports for LAX. That said, perhaps the agency is taking a bit of a gamble in abandoning PMD quite so soon now that the phase 1 HSR starter line is going to run so close to it. More to the point, LA county isn't thinking beyond its borders, given that HSR could mean a fast single-seat connection to Anaheim, Bakersfield and even Fresno. The southern Central Valley is poorly served by airlines and, there are currently no plans for a shuttle train between the Fresno HSR station and FYI airport.

Moreover, if both California HSR and DesertXPress tracks are built and then connected via the existing SR-58 transportation corridor, PMD could even relieve McCarran airport in Las Vegas and eliminate the need for a brand-new airport between Jean and Primm. The potential catchment area for PMD isn't so much a circle based on driving distance as a (set of) very long high speed rail line(s) connecting it to multiple large population centers. That the Antelope Valley has a sizable underserved population in its own right is almost gravy on top, at least if Palmdale is smart enough to prevent encroachment on the airport in the future. The whole point of PMD would be to get away from noise ordinances etc. and run the airport 24/7 for passenger and cargo flights.

LAWA's position illustrates what happens when you allow a single county - albeit a huge one - to make decisions that anywhere but California would be the business of many counties, the state or even multiple states.

HSR is a potential game changer for PMD

With HSR, non-stop line haul time to Palmdale is estimated at 27 minutes from LA and 46 from Anaheim. Those sorts of times are needed to give PMD a fighting chance of ever relieving LAX, but keep in mind they are for non-stop trains and station-to-station. In terms of connecting transit, LA Union Station is already a busy and growing regional transit hub. Anaheim ARTIC is supposed to serve a similar function, but Orange county has no subway, light rail or BRT service. The Disneyland monorail will be extended and OCTA bus service improved.

In Palmdale, the current plan of record is to build the HSR station at the "Palmdale Transportation Center", i.e. the local Metrolink station/bus stop (see map at the top of this post). The city's modest plans for transit-oriented development considered only Metrolink, not high speed rail as that was still a very uncertain prospect at the time. They also did not consider that HSR would need a dedicated ROW to run in. Unfortunately, the Metrolink station and PMD's existing small passenger terminal at 41000 20th St E are separated by a 3.1 mile drive. With zero flights out of PMD, there is of course no shuttle bus to the passenger terminal.

For now at least, the Antelope Valley evidently doesn't have a sufficiently large and/or affluent regional population to sustain any commercial air service at all on its own. The US government forces airlines to offer its employees deeply discounted fares. Therefore, if it wants to revive its airport, the city of Palmdale needs to leverage the HSR project to bring in additional airline passengers for the LA basin and the southern Central Valley. Given that HSR will serve the major population centers within the state and possibly even connect to Las Vegas on day via co-operation with DesertXPress, the whole notion of a strictly regional airport just for LA county needs to go out of the window. Either there is a strategic decision to develop Palmdale into an HSR-centric "LAX East" or, CHSRA has to stop talking about Palmdale as an airport. It takes a lot more than idle runways three miles down the road.

Trips by plane + HSR are still a foreign concept in Southern California. If it is to catch on, the end-to-end experience in Palmdale and/or Ontario must receive high marks from passengers.

Focus on big birds

A well-run and frequent shuttle bus service to and from the existing terminal might seem like a useful loss leader to get the ball rolling, but very quickly further growth would depend on much closer integration with the primary feeder service, i.e. high speed rail. More to the point, it will require a strategic decision to aggressively relieve LAX of certain types of traffic, e.g. the A380 that it simply wasn't built to handle. LAX gets by, but only with special measures that reduce its throughput.

That class of aircraft is intended for transcontinental and transoceanic hub-to-hub traffic, so a large fraction of passengers will transfer to connecting service at one or both ends. Typically, that means connecting short-hop flights, exactly the kind HSR is supposed to replace in California, perhaps - one day - out to Las Vegas. However, connecting flights to other states are also needed, so PMD has a very deep hole to climb out of. In practice, that would mean certain airlines or airline consortia would have to switch from LAX to PMD, at least for part of their long-distance operations in Southern California. Relative to the status quo, that implies low airport taxes, unrestricted night flights, a cargo forwarding facility plus a major leap of faith in the California HSR project. The risk will be much lower once the first trains are up and running.

No airline will fly big birds into PMD solely to serve passengers who want to catch connecting flights. The airport has to be perceived as a destination in its own right as well, there has to be a large "local" catchment area. What HSR could do is redefine "local" to well beyond the Antelope Valley and even beyond LA county.

Note that the upcoming Boeing Dreamliner and Airbus A350 aircraft are intended to provide affordable, direct long-distance flights between secondary destinations, precisely to avoid having to connect to another flight. However, since connecting ground transportation is always necessary for any airport, it's possible airlines would prefer to use PMD - or ONT, for that matter - for flights based on these planes, in conjunction with onward travel by HSR.

New passenger terminal with HSR tracks

Around the world, several airports have heavy rail train stations integrated into their terminal buildings, e.g. Atlanta Hartsfield, London Heathrow, Paris CDG, Frankfurt and Amsterdam, no doubt others as well. Some have standard-speed, some also high-speed train connections.

There is a chance LAX might get a standard-speed heavy rail shuttle along the Harbor Subdivision Transit Corridor, but that will do nothing to relieve air traffic congestion there. Note that in Vienna (Austria), there is a special point-to-point shuttle train service that let airline passengers check in and even drop off baggage at a downtown location. Security screening and baggage pick-up is still at the airport, at least for now. I'm not aware of other examples of integrated baggage handling, though IIRC the Dutch railways used to offer it at selected train stations at one point in time.

Some airports, e.g. Birmingham (UK), have people movers that shuttle passengers between the terminals and a separate but nearby train station on a main railway line. Similar solutions are planned for OAK and SJC, one already exists for SFO though not out to the multimodal station at Millbrae. ONT may also get a people mover but the very remoteness of PMD means nothing less than an HSR station physically inside a new passenger terminal may work there.

In terms of timing, the HSR starter line may well be completed before there's any commitment to invest in any new integrated terminal at PMD. If the HSR connection at ONT pans out, there may never be. To at least keep the option open at this stage of HSR planning, the city of Palmdale could decide to go for broke and move its HSR station to a site further north, where a new terminal could be built right next to it at some indeterminate point in the future.

If CHSRA manages to secure a ROW in the UPRR/Sierra Hwy corridor, the preferred location for such a new terminal is already occupied by the huge USAF plant 42, shown in red on the map. Since that's a major cluster of employers in the area, it's very unlikely it could be moved. Any plan for the airport will have to work around that constraint. There is room for a modest terminal with ~15 JB gates just north of the plant, shown in green on the map. However, its future growth would be constrained on all four sides, since the end of the runway must remain clear for safety reasons. Also, this terminal would be far removed from the airport's other, longer runway, so we'd be back to shuttle buses or people movers for future expansion.

Besides, the north runway is actually part of the USAF property and may not even be available for restarting/expanding civilian aviation. Even the south runway is technically only leased in an effort to kick-start commercial aviation. Future expansion would definitely have to occur east of the existing runways.

Wye for detour tracks

An alternate approach would be for the LAWA/the city of Palmdale to at least reserve land for a future wye off the starter line to an integrated terminal at a site that best serves the needs of airlines, i.e. one with more room for JB gates and shorter taxiways to the longer of the two runway. That would mean either expanding or replacing the existing terminal south of it or else, a new one east of it. The detour would be used only by trains that actually stop at the putative integrated terminal instead of the downtown Palmdale station. This could include High Speed Cargo trains, if CHSRA decides to allow those on its network and plans for appropriate transshipment terminals. All through trains would stay on the main line, bypassing the airport.

Note that this wye would have to be fully grade separated and feature fairly large curve radii on account of the high speeds on the main line. Suggested alignments are shown in yellow for the case of a ROW in the UPRR/Sierra Hwy corridor for the HSR starter line and in orange in a hwy 14 scenario. Where the tracks would run east of the wye depends on where the terminal building would go.

If this concept is selected, grade separation structures need to be designed and built to support such a future wye. The actual rails and switches for it could be but would not have to be laid just yet, they can be spliced in at a later date.

The HSR station on the starter line should be modest and sited at the location best suited to serve the people who live in Palmdale/Lancaster. Where exactly that will be depends on the ROW CHSRA ends up with. If and when a new airport terminal is actually planned, it will be an entirely separate project and need to include the construction of the wye and detour tracks to a second HSR station in the area, located directly at that terminal. Funding for that track work would be outside the scope of the California HSR project as such.

Conclusion

Billing the Palmdale HSR station as "Palmdale Airport" is highly aspirational at this point. Without a strategic decision to invest in a new terminal building with an integrated HSR station, a sufficient number of JB gates and room to grow, the fact that the HSR starter line will run past the airport's runways means exactly squat diddley. Since Ontario is in many ways a more promising candidate for the job of "LAX East" on the back of HSR, LAWA's decision to focus on that is understandable. However, it is also risky, since it's not yet 100% certain that an HSR station close to the ONT terminals will actually be feasible.

The city of Palmdale has a chance to revive PMD, but only if it dares to think big and formulate a bold, credible plan for integrating its airport more tightly with HSR than any other in California (with the possible exception of Lindbergh Field). It needs to sell this not just LAWA but also to the state of California and the cities of Bakersfield, Fresno and Anaheim. CHSRA could be a partner in this effort by giving the city of Palmdale some leeway on where its station on the starter line should go.

If current plans are changed to anticipate a future wye and detour tracks, the siting of any new integrated passenger terminal for PMD would not depend on CHSRA securing a ROW in the UPRR/Sierra Hwy corridor. This option would be minimally more expensive up front and limit CHSRA's involvement with regional/statewide airport planning to creating just an interface point.

If, after a careful integrated planning effort, the decision to abandon PMD is upheld in spite of the HSR project, so be it - go ahead and repurpose the land for a solar power plant. But perhaps, that should not be up to LAWA alone. While the good people of Palmdale would no doubt disagree, the hassle with UPRR plus losing the airport would make many voters around the state wonder if the additional tunneling cost and risk through Tejon Pass isn't worth it, after all. Shaving twelve minutes off the SF-LA line haul time or, creating breathing room for CHSRA to avoid UPRR statewide, would be no small prize.

Upcoming CHSRA scoping meetings for Bakersfield-Palmdale

• Bakersfield
  • Where: Red Lion Hotel, 2400 Camino Del Rio Court, Bakersfield, CA 93308
  • When: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 3:00-7:00pm
• Tehachapi
  • Where: Stallion Springs Community Center, 27850 Stallion Springs Drive, Tehachapi, CA 93561
  • When: Wednesday, September 16, 2009, 3:00-7:00pm
• Palmdale
  • Where: Chimbole Cultural Center, 38350 Sierra Highway, Palmdale, CA 93550
  • When: Thursday, September 17, 2009, 3:00-7:00pm

Scoping meetings for the Los Angeles - Palmdale section were held in April and quite rightly focused primarily on the sections up to Sylmar and through Soledad Canyon. The discussion of if and how HSR could help southern California leverage Palmdale airport is better suited to the upcoming Palmdale - Bakersfield project-level EIS/EIR process.

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BTW: I'll be traveling during the week of Sep 7 and may not be able to contribute to the discussions on this blog much.

Tough Decisions Loom for Vegas HSR

In the wake of the recent scoping meetings for the DesertXpress plan, the Las Vegas Sun has offered a interesting overview of the status of Vegas HSR plans. Despite the silly "train wreck!" framing (really? are LV Sun editors the first people to ever think of that for a story on passenger rail?!) the article actually does a decent job of laying out some of the issues the scoping process has revealed.

Although the skeptics have good reason to question whether passengers would make the drive to Victorville to board a train, it is the best place to put a train station when you’re on a budget as DesertXpress is.

The developers are no dummies. They know it would make more sense to take the train line into the Los Angeles Basin. But the cost of taking the line down Cajon Pass is as steep as the highway grade and the company is content to finance the route to Victorville and expand to L.A. later.

The draft environmental impact statement has independent ridership studies that say Southern Californians would drive to Victorville to board a train to Las Vegas. The independent analysis was ordered because they, too, were skeptical about that.

I can't say I am terribly familiar with this independent analysis. Given the long travel times that can be experienced on Interstate 15 during the weekends, a high speed train would be a compelling option even if you had to park at Victorville. DesertXpress's logic that once the train is open and ridership grows, there'll be money and interest to connect it to the LA basin strikes me as sound. The article didn't mention the possibility of a cheap and easy extension of the DesertXpress route westward to the California HSR station at Palmdale, but that would pretty easily solve the problem of how to get people to the DesertXpress trains.

Meanwhile, there’s the maglev. The technology is in use in China and American Magline Group, a Los Angeles-based company, wants to introduce it to Americans between two of the nation’s greatest tourism destinations, Las Vegas and Disneyland in Anaheim.

Because millions of people visit Las Vegas and Disneyland every year, they would be able to see tomorrow’s train transportation today.

That’s one of the reasons there’s even a conversation about using federal stimulus money to move the project forward.

Because there’s possible government money involved, maglev developers aren’t as concerned about costs and are making plans to take the line all the way to Los Angeles.

But the maglev environmental impact statement is running behind the DesertXpress proposal. A meeting similar to the one that took place last week probably won’t occur for at least a year. By then, DesertXpress could have permission to move ahead with design and construction.

The maglev and DesertXpress technologies aren’t compatible, but they both want to use the same right-of-way.

I will go out on a limb - a low, thick, sturdy limb - and predict that the maglev proposal will be dead as a doornail by summer 2010. The costs are absurd. The federal government will not be in a mood to fund it, especially since no maglev project has ever been successful on this scale. If there's any chance that spending on the maglev could negatively impact federal funds for the SF-LA train, maglev will be tossed out the window quicker than you can blink. Further, DesertXpress will be closer to a shovel-ready position. Not even Harry Reid, one of the most incompetent majority leaders in the history of the Senate, will be able to save maglev by that time.

At which point another competitor to DesertXpress will make its voice heard: the airlines:

Count on the airline lobby to oppose federal funding for high-speed train transportation. Funding for a next-generation air traffic control system is so far behind that some wags are calling it a “now-gen” instead of a “next-gen” system. Airline lobbyists resent that tax money is being considered for trains when a satellite-based air traffic control system that would make air travel safer and more efficient languishes.

A US Airways executive recently asked me about the public sentiment for high-speed trains between Southern California and Las Vegas and when I told him there seemed to be some renewed interest, he told me the airlines would probably put up a fight.

He added that US Airways in particular would fight a Las Vegas-Los Angeles train because his company flies that route. The company wouldn’t mind so much if high-speed rail were considered between Dallas and Houston (where rival Southwest carries most of the air traffic) or Chicago and New York (where competitors American, Delta and JetBlue battle for market share).

I would caution taking this statement too broadly. Southwest no longer opposes a Texas HSR project, and no airline has raised an objection to the SF-LA project. In fact, as we chronicled extensively here last year, the big airlines are looking to get out of some of the short-haul routes. US Airways could fight a Vegas HSR line, but they're not exactly one of the most beloved or profitable airlines, so I'm not sure that their opposition alone is going to sink this.

If DesertXpress does become the primary candidate for Vegas HSR, which I think it will, then it would be a positive development for the SF-LA HSR project. It would create demand in Southern California for getting the SF-LA project done, especially to Palmdale, in order to link up with DesertXpress.

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.

HiSpeed Services and Branding

by Rafael

Conventional wisdom has it that HSR in California equals long-distance trains from Northern to Southern California. However, just because trains can cross mountains doesn't mean that passengers will always want to. More often than not, their origin and destination will lie in the same region, i.e. Bay Area, Central Valley or Southern California. Over time, HSR may change that, but it would be prudent to study service models that accommodate a combination of intra-regional and inter-regional trains on the same timetable.

Keep in mind that CHSRA is not a railroad, it is only responsible for planning and constructing the HSR infrastructure. That will be owned by a separate, yet-to-be-created entity in which the various investors, including the state of California, will have equity stakes. This entity will also fund any extensions. If European trends are any indication, a long-term (e.g. 20 year) contract for day-to-day operations and maintenance of the infrastructure will be awarded via open tender. Train operations governed by a timetable defined by the infrastructure operator may or may not be delivered by separate companies that bid for slots at regular auctions, e.g. every 4 years. Note that CHSRA has yet to announce the gory details of all this, so the above is just my personal educated guess.

NS HiSpeed

A useful example from overseas is NS HiSpeed, a relatively new joint venture between the Dutch national railways (NS, 90%) and KLM (10%). On the one hand, this is an umbrella brand and online portal for all high speed trains to and from destinations in Holland, including those that cross borders. On the other, in terms of passenger volume, the most important segments of the HiSpeed network will likely be Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport-the Hague-Rotterdam-Breda, to be served by AnsaldoBreda V250 trainsets.

In part because of teething troubles with ETCS level 2, this Italian manufacturer is late in delivering the equipment to NS HiSpeed and SNCB, the Belgian national railways who will deploy them on the Brussels-Antwerp-Rotterdam-Amsterdam route. In addition, the faster but also more expensive Thalys service featuring WiFi on board will remain operational. This somewhat confusing proliferation is a result of the planned liberalization for cross-border rail traffic in the EU in 2010.

This eye candy promo video features text in Dutch, but should be self-explanatory:



A key objective of the expensive HSL Zuid high speed line and the new NS HiSpeed services on it is to decongest the extremely busy motorways linking the dense randstad conurbation, home to about 10 million people. Most Dutch motorways have just four lanes total, though some have been widened to six.

The Dutch railways have long offered deeply discounted traintaxi service at 36 stations throughout the country, provided only that you buy the requisite coupon together with the train ticket. The service operates as a jitney, conceptually similar to airport shuttles in California but typically based on smaller vehicles. The driver selects the route ad hoc, rather than plying a fixed route (cp. dolmush in Turkey).

Caltrain HiSpeed?

The construction of dedicated HSR tracks in the SF peninsula will mean the end of Caltrain's existing "baby bullet" service. However, electrification plus an expected FRA waiver to operate lightweight non-compliant EMU equipment plus a top speed of up to 90mph means that future Caltrain locals will have the same SF-San Jose line haul time (p2) as baby bullet do today.

This is in keeping with Caltrain's traditional role as a standard-speed commuter railroad and also the only service being planned today. However, if there is sufficient demand, there is no reason why there could not be a Caltrain HiSpeed service in addition to the upgraded locals. After all, the PCJPB does own the right of way in the SF peninsula and could easily negotiate the right to run a certain number of Caltrain-branded trains on the HSR tracks there. It will be many years before long-distance trains will saturate the capacity of the new tracks, so why not use the empty slots for a new genuine bullet Caltrain service, running at top speeds of 125mph in the peninsula? CHSRA has yet to define a speed limit between San Jose and Gilroy, it could be higher in that stretch but nowhere near the 220mph expected through Pacheco Pass and in the Central Valley.

That means Caltrain could deliver a HiSpeed service using cheaper, previous-generation equipment. Note, however, that combining relatively frequent HiSpeed with long-distance express trains only works well if the headways are long enough and the HiSpeed trainsets have superior acceleration and braking performance. One option would be embedded asynchronous linear electric motors in the track infrastructure for a certain distance on either side of the stations. Aluminum plates integrated into the underbody design of the HiSpeed trainsets would be used to leverage this supplemental propulsion without adding significant axle load or drawing excessive amounts of power from the catenaries. During acceleration and recuperative braking, HiSpeed trains would then be hybrid electric/electric vehicles.

The primary purpose of any putative HiSpeed service would be to leverage the HSR tracks in the peninsula and especially, the HSR platforms at the new Transbay Terminal in SF. The downside is that there will only be five HSR station on the route: SF Transbay Terminal, Millbrae/SFO, mid-peninsula (RC, PA or MV), SJ Diridon and Gilroy.

An extension to Hollister would be relatively cheap but require San Benito county to join the PCJPB. That might well entail restricting further residential development to transit villages, ostensibly to protect agricultural acreage but really to protect residential real estate values in Silicon Valley. Given the proximity to the San Andreas fault, buildings in such transit villages would need to feature steel frames and at least 7-8 stories. Earthquakes tend to generate ground excitation at frequencies of around 1Hz, close to the typical base harmonic in bending of buildings in the 4-5 story range.

Running HSR tracks out to Monterey county would be much more expensive due to the interceding coastal mountain range. FRA and CPUC rules plus opposition from UPRR prevent non-compliant equipment from using existing track at standard speeds and stopping at existing stations.

Note that AnsaldoBreda already has a production facility in Pittsburg (Contra Costa county) and is planning to open another in Los Angeles. Siemens has a light rail assembly plant in Sacramento.

Metrolink HiSpeed?

In much the same vein, SCRRA, which operates Metrolink, owns the right of way between Palmdale and Redondo Junction plus the one between Fullerton and Irvine. Therefore, if it wanted to, it could negotiate the right to run a certain number of Metrolink-branded HiSpeed trains. The stations served in phase I would be Palmdale, Sylmar, Burbank, LA Union Station, Norwalk and Anaheim. In this case, the primary purpose would be to create a sufficiently large catchment area for Palmdale airport, including visitors to both Los Angeles and Disneyland.

CHSRA has already mentioned the possibility of local HSR service between LA Union Station and San Diego once the phase II spur is built. It's not yet clear where such a service would park its trains, given that no HSR yard appears to be planned between LAUS and Burbank. The train parking situation in San Diego is also unclear, it might make sense to run tracks all the way down to a terminus/yard in the Southland via the ROW west of I-5.

Amtrak San Joaquin HiSpeed?

A third possible HiSpeed service could be Amtrak California-branded and connect Palmdale airport, Bakersfield, Fresno and Merced in phase I, with an extension up to Sacramento in phase II. If CHSRA's arm is twisted enough to build a station in Hanford, at least some of these particular bullet trains would stop there as well. However, considering the rather small populations near the stations served and the need to run at 220mph to avoid impeding long-distance express trains between SF and LA/Anaheim, the Central Valley presents arguably the least compelling HiSpeed proposition, at least in phase I.

It might make sense if the Merced county station were at Castle Airport, directly inside a new passenger terminal (same as Palmdale) and Fresno Yosemite plus the blighted land beyond its runways were converted into a new mixed used district with excellent transit connections to the HSR station and downtown area. That, however, would be a huge step for Fresno to take and is not currently contemplated.

Moreover, given CHSRA's preference for Pacheco Pass, it might make more sense to defer any development of Castle Airport into a commercial airport to phase II. By that time, HSR will have had a chance to establish itself as a mode of travel and, both Fresno and San Jose might be ready to close their airports to accommodate population growth and eliminate runway blight. Already, e-ticketing and mobile boarding passes mean that check-in at the airport can boil down to dropping off any bags you may have. For passengers hailing from or headed to Silicon Valley, a comfortable 45 minute train trip to Castle Airport with broadband internet access may be preferable to the risk of fog-related delay and a clunky transfer at SFO.

The arrangement would hinge on making Castle Airport the only HSR station in Merced county, such that all trains to and from Sacramento would pass through it. Note that Sacramento's own airport is somewhat constrained by its location smack in the Pacific Flyway, which means it experiences a lot of bird strikes. In addition, it is nowhere near the future HSR station on top of the new STIF. Plans for a light rail line out to SMF call for 13 stops, none of which would be right at the STIF or either of the airport terminals. An HSR trip to Castle Airport would take about 40 minutes.

How Exactly Will HSR Connect To Airports?

by Rafael

One of the objectives of the California HSR project is to provide effective connections to existing airports. This should allow airlines to offer connecting train journeys for their long-distance flights. It is also supposed to make secondary airports more attractive to air travelers, but success will depend heavily on getting the last mile transfer between platforms and terminal and other details right.

CHSRA claims the chosen route will achieve this for SFO, Palmdale and Ontario airports. Lindbergh Field (SAN) could now be added to that list, but the purpose of the multimodal transit terminal there is a different one: making it convenient for those arriving by car to take the train rather than fly to other California destinations. Freeing up slots for long-distance flights by displacing short-hop shuttles is another objective for California HSR, but other cities perceive downtown stations as more effective in that context. That is part of the reason why HSR trains will be not be tightly linked to Oakland, San Jose, Fresno, Bakersfield, Burbank, LAX or Sacramento airports.

So let's focus on SFO, Palmdale and Ontario: how exactly will long-distance flights and short-to-medium-distance HSR trips be combined into an attractive value proposition for the traveler? To answer this, we need to look at the following aspects:

1. How many long-distance flights will be offered out of each airport?
   
   In the aviation business, there is no formal definition of "long haul". In the US domestic market, it appears to refer to flights of at least 6 hours, e.g. coast-to-coast and transoceanic. California-Hawaii is borderline. Of course, some HSR customers will take a short train trip to connect to a much shorter flight, e.g. to the Pacific Northwest or the interior west. Unfortunately, airports don't publish their statistics down to that level of granularity - at least not free of charge.
   
   SFO statistics reveal the airport handles 20,000-25,000 air carrier movements a month, 2.5-3.5 million passengers, of which 550,000-850,000 are international. The airport experienced robust growth in 2008 and now ranks among the nation's top 10, though passenger numbers still have not recovered to pre-9/11 volume. Note that in 2006/7, SFO commanded much higher fare premiums for long-distance flights than e.g. LAX. About 25% of all passengers flying in or out of SFO hail from or are headed to other California destinations. Factoring in aircraft size, this probably translates to ~1/3 of all aircraft movements.
   
   Ontario is a much smaller airport, with just 7-8 million passengers a year. Most of the long-distance flights appear to be to domestic destinations, with just a few flights to Mexico and other Latin American countries out of the small international terminal.
   
   Palmdale is another of LA's "world" airports, but it recently lost its one and only commercial service (United to SFO) when the subsidy ran out. There is now talk of converting part of the huge area to a solar thermal power plant, though it's unclear if that would prevent the resumption of commercial operations once HSR puts this airport within ~30 minutes of downtown LA. Note that the combination of elevation and high summer temperatures mean that air density at PMD is lower than at LAX, so any fully laden 747s or A380s would need an extra-long runway and a gentle ascent slope to take off.
   
   
2. How many HSR trains will be offered to these airport stations?
   
   In general, this is still very much up in the air. A great deal depends on how easy it will be to find attractive fares, get to the nearest HSR station and, transfer between HSR and flights at the airports. The number and ease of transfers is especially critical for passengers with more than just carry-on baggage.
   
   In spite of the large volume of traffic at SFO, only a subset of HSR trains serving the Bay Area will stop at Millbrae. Expect fares between downtown SF and Millbrae to be artificially elevated to avoid low seat capacity utilization on long-distance trains and cannibalization of Caltrain and BART ridership. The purpose of the station is to provide connectivity for passengers hailing from or headed to destinations well south of SFO, e.g. Silicon Valley, the Central Coast and the Central Valley. Note that CHSRA expects just 3,000 boardings/alightings per day at Millbrae.
   
   Ontario airport is supposed to be on the phase II extension between LA and San Diego via Riverside. HSR trips to and from LA Union Station are expected to take 25 minutes and, CHSRA expects 10,000 boardings/alightings per day. For reference, the FlyAway bus between LAUS and LAX currently takes 30-50 minutes, depending on traffic. However, a new light or heavy rail link via the Harbor Subdivision Transit Corridor could easily cut the budgeted transfer time in half.
   
   It's too early to say what fraction of HSR trains will stop at Ontario, except that CHSRA is planning to use LAUS as a through station, with most trains continuing on to San Diego because of track capacity constraints between Fullerton and Anaheim. San Diegans may well decide to use HSR - possibly including Amtrak Pacific Surfliner at 110mph top speed - rather than fly within California, just so more long-haul flights can be offered out of Lindbergh Field. Taking HSR to catch a plane at Ontario would be an inferior solution for them, though perhaps not for residents of the Murrieta-Escondido area.
   
   Palmdale will be included in phase I. In addition to passengers that would otherwise have used LAX or Burbank, there will be some from the Central Valley. Commercial services to Fresno Yosemite and Bakersfield do still exist, but they are expensive. Even so, it will take some aggressive lobbying of airlines and sweet flight/train bundle deals to build enough ridership, which CHSRA optimistically (?) estimates at 12,000 boardings/alightings per day.
   
   Note that IFF a spur out to Las Vegas ever does materialize, Palmdale would be roughly 75min from Sin City, possibly close enough to serve as a relief airport for McCarran during crunch periods such as major conventions. Ontario via Cajon Pass would be a little further. The bulk of the relief would come from the gradual elimination of flights to California cities on the same bullet train network, comprising almost 1/3 of aircraft movements at Las Vegas.
   
   
3. How will customers discover plane/train combo fares?
   
   If it has not yet done so, CHSRA will presumably request IATA codes for all of its stations so they show up as destinations in airline flight reservations systems. Systems like SABRE are also used as the back-ends to many internet travel portals. It is far more likely that a passenger would discover an HSR trip as a connecting service for a flight than vice versa.
   
   At many airports around the world (e.g. Atlanta, London Heathrow, Paris CDG, Frankfurt/Main, Amsterdam, Vienna, Oslo, Copenhagen, Geneva, Cologne, Leipzig, Kansai (Osaka)), the train platforms are within easy walking distance of the airport terminals. At others, there are frequent people mover connections (e.g. Birmingham UK) to those terminals that are beyond walking distance. However, IATA appears to permit code-sharing even if the train station is many miles away. This is disingenuous as it causes the reservation system to show the plane/train combo journey as having just two legs when it's really three. Many IATA codes for train stations not co-located with airports begin with a Q, X or Z, but this is also not enforced. The use of just three letters also means the most obvious combination may already be in use for an airport somewhere else in the world.
   
   For a sense of how long-haul customers would book a connecting train journey, consider United's GroundLink service to most of France via Paris CDG and SNCF TGV. An enterprising airline could just as easily offer transoceanic service to e.g. Palmdale plus connecting service to any destination on the California HSR network.
   
   In California, it would be desirable to use SFO for the Millbrae, PMD for the Palmdale and ONT for the Ontario HSR station. SAN could arguably be used for Lindbergh Field and BUR for Burbank IFF there's a courtesy shuttle bus. MER for Castle Airport would only be appropriate if CHSRA acquires part of the BNSF row for that segment and a terminal for commercial passenger and/or cargo flights is constructed.
   
   
4. How will these be priced relative to connecting short-hop flights?
   
   The question may not be all that relevant as most passengers will use HSR to connect to final destinations that are too close to be served by connecting flights. The exception will be those in the Central Valley, e.g. SFO - FYI (Fresno Yosemite, previously called FAT). However, those are far more expensive than HSR will be, so expect them to disappear from airline schedules quite quickly to free up slots for long-haul flights that can achieve high seat capacity utilization (aka "load factor"). Passengers will also prefer the trains because they will run more frequently, more than offsetting the longer trip time by cutting the layover interval.
   
   
5. How will passengers get from the train platforms to their gates?
   
   In SFO's case, BART really does run into the airport. However, anyone arriving at Millbrae by Caltrain currently needs to transfer to BART, execute a cross-platform timed transfer at San Bruno and then a third transfer to the Air Train to reach the check-in counters. See here and here for the gory details.
   
   One of the reasons the BART shuttle between SFO and Millbrae was discontinued is that the unions insisted that it constituted a line in its own right, so drivers should be permitted to take a 15-minute break at the end of each journey. Alternatively, each train would have to be operated by two drivers, each twiddling their thumbs more than 50% of the time.
   
   Running the AirTrain out to Millbrae would be very expensive, so either a BART shuttle or a SamTrans (?) bus would have to be paid out of airport taxes if that station is to share the IATA code with the airport.
   
   At Ontario, the last mile transfer depends entirely on the right of way CHSRA can obtain through the San Gabriel Valley. The plan of record is to leverage the UPRR Colton alignment that runs right past the gigantic car park in front of the three terminals on S Moore Way and E Terminal Way, respectively. Given how spread out the terminals are, the most likely solution would be a shuttle bus or people mover that also serves long-term parking. This approach is still viable if HSR ends up in the I-10 median. However, if HSR were forced even further from this secondary airport, e.g. to the CA-60 median, it could not act as an effective feeder. In that case, it would make more sense to extend the starter line from Fullerton to Riverside and San Bernardino, with a view to one day reaching Las Vegas. Any money saved should then be put toward upgrading the Pacific Surfliner route to higher speeds or else, on a spur down to San Diego at Corona.
   
   In Palmdale, the existing terminal is located almost 3.5 miles from the Metrolink station. The most likely connection would be a shuttle bus. Of course, now that commercial operation has anyhow ceased, it might make sense to build a brand-new terminal near Sierra Hwy/Ave N with detour tracks for HSR trains at grade and check-in/baggage retrieval on a concourse level. Note that Palmdale could also serve as a high speed cargo transshipment point, as the northern terminus for HSR trains serving only Southern California and as a maintenance facility.
   
   In essence, much the same logic would apply for Castle Airport in Merced county - right now, there's a long runway and a nearby rail line but not much else.
   
   Remote secondary airports have little or no chance of commercial success without a high speed train station within walking distance of the airport concourse. Even then, some caution is in order: the spectacular Satolas station was built right next to the airport in Lyon, France, in the 1980s. The hope was that the TGV would attract additional passengers from south of Lyon to the airport such that airlines would offer more international flights.
   
   However, in one of France's worst transportation planning failures, SNCF/RFF never constructed the turn-off that would have permitted regional TGV service between downtown Lyon (Part-Dieu), the airport, the Rhône Valley and beyond. As a result, Lyon was never able to emerge from Paris' long shadow. In 2010, a new express light rail service will finally provide a 20-minute transit link between downtown and the airport but that's no more than a consolation prize.
   
   The lesson from Satolas is that a secondary airport without a substantial local catchment area will struggle to attract the flights that would prompt passengers to ride a train to the airport in the first place. It's a chicken-and-egg situation that can only be overcome with a plan for integrated service. This has to be driven by one or more innovative airlines collaborating closely with one or more rail operators to offer a combined service that is hassle-free, fast, punctual and competitively priced. The notion that a government agency like CHSRA or LAWA can "build it and they will come" is false.
   
   
6. Where will check-in and security screening happen?
   
   Some operators in Europe (e.g. Deutsche Bahn) do provide flight check-in facilities at selected train stations, but all security screening still happens at the airport. In 2010, the European rail networks will be opened to international competition. At that point, Air France and others intend to compete directly with Eurostar on the London-Paris route, where baggage and passenger screening is already performed at the train stations because the UK is not a signatory to the Schengen agreement. However, the rail and airport security zones are currently not equally strict nor integrated, so passengers will still probably have to submit to screening twice.
   
   Afaik, no rail operator anywhere allows passengers to take care of flight check-in formalities on board the train to save time. Reliable wireless internet connections are still a new phenomenon and there are also logistical issues, e.g. with weighing bags.
   
   However, consider this scenario: you go online and book a train/flight combo ticket with XYZ airline, which has decided to operate out of a secondary airport with an integrated HSR station. You print out your ticket/write down your confirmation code. At the appropriate time, you board the train with your baggage. Once you're underway, you head to the cafe car, which features a courtesy desk where you can check in for your flight. In addition to your boarding pass(es), you receive self-adhesive baggage tags that you need to attach yourself. Upon arrival at the airport, you need only drop off your bags. The person there will check that your bags are in order (size, weight, condition) and scan the bar code before letting you proceed. The airline would not be responsible for lost bags prior to this point.
   
   
7. Will baggage be checked through to the final destination?
   
   Train stations that permit combined train/plane check-in on the outbound leg also provide the boarding passes and baggage labels for the flight. However, in most cases passengers still have to take their bags onto the train themselves. One exception is Vienna, Austria, where you can check your bags the night before or, up to 75 minutes before the shuttle train leaves for the nearby airport. Baggage is forwarded automatically to the airport's handling facility. Returning passengers do have to pick up their bags at the baggage carousels as usual, though.
   

Future's So Bright ...

we gotta wear shades. The city of Palmdale is stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, it is home to an enormous airport that has never lived up to its 1968 billing of a destination for supersonic passenger jets. Indeed, Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) reportedly gave up altogether on commercial operations when United recently canceled the last remaining commercial service to SFO because it had become unprofitable.

Although LA County voters seem to have narrowly rejected Measure B on March 3, it is still possible that the LA City Council may implement its conditions anyway and create a legal obligation to install 400MW of renewable electricity generation capacity in the county. LAWA is therefore proposing that a fraction of the 17,750 acres of land occupied by its Palmdale airport be used for a 100MW solar thermal power plant. For reference, LAX occupies around 3,500-4,500 acres (estimates vary by source).

On the face of it, this is excellent news for high speed rail, which is supposed to run entirely on renewable electricity. At full capacity - which won't be reached until 2030 at the very earliest - the fully built-out HSR network would require around 480MW or, approx. 1% of total installed generating capacity in California today (the vast majority based on fossil fuels).

However, the primary reason for the long detour via Palmdale and the Tehachapis was excellent access to a fully operational Palmdale airport to relieve LAX. Palmdale is the only existing airport in all of Southern California that could easily accommodate an additional long runway. Metrolink and the FlyAway bus evidently aren't fast enough to make it commercial viable, but HSR would take just 27 minutes to LA Union Station - a game changer. Ergo, HSR ought to be a huge shot in the arm for this struggling regional airport as well as maxed-out LAX.

The flip side is that HSR's short travel time also implies the risk of further population growth in the High Desert, already home to hundreds of thousands. Ever more growth would be problematic even if it were of the transit-oriented variety rather than traditional car-centric low-rise sprawl. That's because there is very little natural rainfall in the area, so any new residents would have to be supported at great expense to the state by pumping water up the San Joaquin Valley and uphill to the High Desert. The elevation data tells the story: Tracy ~400ft, downtown LA ~400ft, Palmdale ~2900ft. The High Desert is arguably the wrong place for California to grow in.

So, we now have three issues coming to a head - renewable power generation vs. high speed transportation vs. population growth - simply because LAWA happens to own a patch of temporarily unproductive land. It's not as if solar power plants could not be built anywhere else in the state. Complicating the issue is that LA took the airport land by eminent domain decades ago for the express purpose of commercial aviation, so it's not clear that the legal authority to re-purpose the land even exists at this time. Officials from the city of Palmdale complain they were not even consulted about plans to build a solar thermal power plant. From a practical point of view, the questions are if solar power generation would be temporary and/or have any impact on the resumption of commercial passenger flights a decade from now.

For that, we need to consider what a solar thermal power plant actually looks like. One indication is BrightSource's 400MW Ivanpah plant, located deep in the Mojave desert near I-15 and the Nevada border.



Covering 5 square miles, its ~200,000 heliostat mirrors will be computer-controlled to accurately track the path of the sun during the day and year. The reflected sunlight is concentrated in a small area, heating water (or other working fluid) flowing through pipes there to 550 degC (~1000 degF). The resulting steam is converted to electricity using a regular steam turbine and generator. The water is condensed by forced air convection to achieve closed-loop operation. Another emerging technology uses water-cooled high-temperature photovoltaic semiconductor panels that convert the power of sunlight concentrated 500 times directly into electricity. Either way, concentrated solar power plants are not the the sort of installations you can easily move to an alternate location after just a decade of operations.

In terms of airport operations, the risk inherent in a permitting a nearby solar thermal power plant is blinding glare for the pilots. The mirrors are not perfect reflectors and the boiler tower not a perfect absorber of sunlight. A significant amount of light scatters and could prove a threat to aviation safety. So far, FAA has not taken a position because there has been no formal submission to review. Considering that unhindered airport operations are the very reason for running HSR past Palmdale, I would argue that CHSRA should be treated as a stakeholder in any environmental review of siting a solar thermal power plant so close to the airport.

It's possible that glare turns out to be a non-issue and that a solar power plant and unfettered airport operations could coexist quite happily. My point is that no-one has actually verified that to date, so this potential problem should be nipped in the bud before too much effort is wasted on trying to secure ROW and viable tunneling solution for the planned HSR route. If a solar power plant is built and it permanently restricts commercial aviation at Palmdale airport, there's a good case for switching the HSR route to the I-5 Grapevine, cutting 12 minutes off the SF-LA line haul time. Those time savings might be sorely needed if CHSRA's preferred route through Pacheco Pass in Northern California proves impossible to implement for any reason.

The solar plant idea for Palmdale proves that once again, co-ordinated inter-agency planning appears to be in very short supply in the state of California.