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?!

More Passengers Choose Trains Over Planes In Spain

For several decades, the world's busiest air route was the "Puente Aereo" (air bridge) between Madrid and Barcelona. At a distance of about 400 miles on the ground, it's also a perfect distance for high speed rail. Ever since the AVE line was completed to Barcelona's Sants station early last year, high speed rail has been winning a greater and greater share of the Spanish travel market - despite Spain being hit extremely hard by the global recession, with unemployment of around 20%.

Now the AVE line has surpassed the Puente Aereo in terms of travelers. More people are taking the train rather than the plane between the two largest cities of Spain:

Spain’s bullet train is beating the plane in the race to win passengers. For the first time, more passengers have chosen to travel on the high-speed AVE rail link between Madrid and Barcelona than have opted to fly — a switch that could influence British ambitions for a high-speed rail network and add impetus to the creation of a second high-speed line in the UK.

Between July and September, 651,498 passengers made the 314-mile journey between Spain’s biggest cities (slightly farther than London to Newcastle), a rise of 21 per cent compared with the same period last year.

In comparison, 643,512 travellers made the journey by aircraft during the same period, a fall of 7.5 per cent compared with the third quarter of last year.

Madrid-Barcelona is the fifth busiest air route in the world, with four airlines offering 116 flights a day, according to the Official Airline Guide in July. Since the rail link opened last year, Renfe, the Spanish state rail operator, and the airlines, led by Iberia, the national flag carrier, have fought a fierce battle to win passengers. The high-speed train, which takes 2hr 40min to travel between Madrid and Barcelona, at 236.3 kilometres per hour (146.8mph), has won over commuters with competitive fares, greater comfort and the absence of elaborate airport security. It also offers promotions to attract tourists, as well as business travellers.

Once again, it is worth reminding readers that Spain offers a very good comparison to California in terms of not just high speed rail - but population density and geography. SF Transbay to LA Union Station is 432 miles, and our trains are projected to have a higher operating speed.

Ultimately, the Spanish experience suggests the SNCF report and the Brookings Institution are both correct in suggesting the LA-SF route, the nation's second busiest, will support a high HSR ridership. As our airports already burst at the seams during flush economic times and with rising oil prices, it's clear that we need the HSR option in California. Spain's success story will soon be replicated here.

Sort of fitting given Spain's role in California history...

LA-SF Nation's Second Busiest Air Route - Shows Need For HSR

The Brookings Institution has released a report today showing that the nation's busiest air routes are growing more congested over time, a condition almost certain to worsen once the economy recovers. And the second busiest corridor in the entire nation is Los Angeles to San Francisco (second only two Miami/Ft. Lauderdale to New York), with one of the main airports in that corridor, SFO, experiencing "worse than average delays."

As even the Wall Street Journal realizes, this is a call for high speed rail:

The Brookings report recommends that these air-travel statistics be used to prioritize investment in high-speed rail. At 400 miles or less, high-speed rail can been air travel in time, typically with less pollution. That makes Los Angeles-San Francisco, Las Vegas-Los Angeles, Los Angeles-Phoenix and Dallas-Houston the most likely candidates for high-speed rail, in that order.

More than 6 million people fly between the Los Angeles basin and San Francisco Bay per year, the study said. In the northeast corridor, Amtrak carried 11.7 million people on Acela and Northeast Regional lines in fiscal 2008, hitting 14 metropolitan areas. The Amtrak ridership suggests high-speed rail would be viable in out busiest air corridors, the study concluded.

This study dovetails with numerous other studies, including not just that of the CHSRA's consultants, but that of SNCF as well, which show the LA-SF corridor as an ideal spot to build high speed rail. We've already seen HSR have stunning success on other busy air corridors: from the AVE on the Madrid-Barcelona corridor, long one of the world's busiest air corridors; to the Acela, which had 40% of the market share of the Northeast Corridor in March 2008. There is every reason to believe HSR will have similar success here in California, especially since it will link the city centers - i.e. the job and business centers - of the state, from SF's Financial District to San José's own growing downtown, to downtown LA and the hub of the city's growing mass transit system.

Every time we discuss HSR and air travel, we usually have to explain yet again the reasons why HSR almost always thrives in competition with airlines on busy corridors. Especially here in California, where people usually say "but I can get a ticket on Southwest to LA right now for $49! why would I take your stupid train?"

And as usual we explain patiently that when you combine total travel time - door to door, including getting to the non-centrally located airport, airport security, time on the runway, and getting from the non-centrally located airport to your final destination, you're about on par with the door to door travel time of HSR. We also explain that Southwest won't be able to offer those fares for much longer - they locked in their fuel costs at $55/bbl through the use of complex fuel hedges that will soon expire and leave them vulnerable to rising oil prices.

Which, we should add, must never be forgotten. Earlier this week Deutsche Bank predicted $175/bbl by 2016 (mark my words: it will happen well before that date) and that such a price rise will "put the final nail in oil's coffin." The key is what happens here in the USA:

US demand is the key. It is the last market-priced, oil inefficient, major oil consumer. We believe Obama’s environmental agenda, the bankruptcy of the US auto industry, the war in Iraq, and global oil supply challenges have dovetailed to spell the end of the oil era.

Deutsche Bank's analysis assumes that electric cars will radically change how we use oil in this country. I hope it does. But electric cars are no substitute for oil-fueled jets for getting people from LA to SF and vice versa. We need electric cars AND electric trains, both for local and statewide travel.

California is poised to lead the path forward. We will use high speed rail to unshackle ourselves from a failing and suicidal dependence on oil, and produce a sustainable economic prosperity, shared broadly, for the remainder of this century.

Taiwan HSR: Harbinger of Doom or Flawed Comparison?

We haven't yet seen this story appear as a talking point that widely in California or even among our HSR deniers in the comments, but we will soon. The Taiwanese government is going to have to bail out the private operator of the Taiwan HSR project. They have missed ridership projections and as a result the private consortium that designed, built, and is operating the system cannot meet its debt obligations.

Already our old friend Wendell Cox is is using the Taiwan HSR bailout to claim that California HSR will suffer the same fate. Cox, whose work is partly funded by bus and highway companies, is going to continue pushing this simplistic argument until the news media picks it up, which should happen any day now.

The problem is that the comparison is almost totally flawed and without merit. What happened to Taiwan HSR is unlikely to happen here. The true lesson of Taiwan HSR is that HSR runs into financial problems when you ask the private sector to fund most of its construction and operations, and therefore leave you unable to weather the 5-year long ramp-up period in ridership.

Yonah Freemark, who has established himself as one of the premier transportation writers in the country, gives us some further insight on the problem over at the Transport Politic:

The Taiwanese system, which cost more than $15 billion, was the first in the world built entirely with private funds — 80% of which were secured through bank loans at high interest rates. Though the line’s fare revenues, lower than projected, make up for operations, maintenance, and even most interest payments on the initial capital costs, elevated depreciation charges put the railroad into its misery. The recession, which decreased interest in travel, put the final stake in the company’s heart.

This financing system left Taiwan HSR facing massive up-front loan repayment costs. And that in turn left them stuck when the recession hit. To those who would say that if HSR needs a bailout to weather economic downturns then it's not worth doing, I would ask their opinion on the $15 billion airline bailout the US Congress enacted in the wake of September 11 and the 2001 recession.

Freemark points out that California HSR is funded through a fundamentally different process, minimizing the need to devote ridership revenue to paying banks and private investors:

Of course, California’s plans are different. While both the Taiwanese and British projects relied on bank loans that accounted for 80% of construction costs, the U.S. project will only be dependent on a 20% private investment....

The two experiences cited above indicate that a fully private project is very risky, and that makes sense; making up a huge initial capital cost like that of a rail line through loan back payments requires enormous revenues and limited operating needs. California’s estimates demonstrate annual fare revenues ($2.3-2.5 billion) that are about double operations costs ($1.1-1.3 billion); Taiwan’s system has similar financials, but paying back the bank has bankrupted the company.

Is a 20% private share acceptable? A $7 billion private investment would require roughly $560 million a year in payments at 5% interest over a short 20 year-period (totaling about $4.2 billion in interest). California’s system would provide a generous profit of $500 million for the operating company if revenues and operating costs are as expected; in bad years, or if ridership estimates are too high, the system could sustain revenues 20% lower than projected without going into the red. This seems reasonable. California’s interest in a limited private involvement, then, avoids the risk inherent in a fully private project like that in Taiwan.

In other words, because California is looking at only a 20% private investment share, we will avoid the crippling problems Taiwan HSR has experienced. This is especially important when we recall DoDo's Puente AVE article, which is required reading on the topic of HSR ridership and financing.

DoDo's point was that there is a five year curve for HSR routes - it takes about 5 years for ridership to achieve its full potential. What that means is in those first 5 years, HSR operators have to be careful to not panic and raise fares to cover costs at the expense of driving away riders. He looked at France, which under the direction of Socialist president François Mitterand maintained its fare structure, enticed people to the trains, and by the mid-1980s had runaway success with the TGV. And he took a look at Taiwan HSR, showing that bad decisions, made under political influence, led to cost overruns and a service whose quality was compromised from the start:

For the THSR, cost overruns were largely the consequence of a switch to Japanese suppliers after planning based on European high-speed technology was already well-advanced. The decision was widely rumoured to have been political (and led to an epic political, media and court battle ending in damage payments to Eurotrain), and the overseeing company THSRC did not go with the actual Japanese offer, but stuck to its guns on specifications. Thus f.e. a German maker had to be contracted to supply fixed-track high-speed switches (no need for those on Shinkansen lines with their strictly single-direction tracks).

Likewise, both lines were opened half-finished: one-third of the Seoul-Busan KTX line was delayed (until 2011, now thanks to those sleepers maybe even further), THSRC started with a reduced schedule, both started with some stations unfinished (for the THSR, including both downtown terminuses!) or without urban transit connections. Also, both lines started with hefty ticket prices that had to be reduced later.

And yet Taiwan HSR had started to overcome these problems:

The failure to meet expectations after the start was widely discussed as a national scandal in both countries. However, you can also see on the graphs that there was steady growth thereafter. And that at the expense of other modes of transport.

The modal shift was particularly spectacular in Taiwan. In just 20 months, all but one single daily flight between the cities served by THSRC was eliminated (last December, THSRC's share of the air/rail market was 99.95%...), leaving the highway as only competition. Total domestic air passenger transport fell almost by half(!). The steady uninterrupted annual growth of highway traffic was not only stopped but turned back.

In short, Taiwan HSR is a successful project in terms of ridership and achieving many of its goals of shifting transportation modes. The problem with Taiwan HSR is largely with the method used to finance it - heavy private sector borrowing. The 80% private funding method left Taiwan HSR financially vulnerable to poor construction decisions, cost overruns, and the global recession.

California not only can avoid all this - we are in a very good position to avoid it. As Bob Doty repeatedly emphasizes, the way you deliver an on-time and on-budget project is by getting all the planning and engineering details agreed to at the outset, and then rigorously sticking to that plan, resisting pressure to meddle and change the details midway through construction.

Freemark ended his article lamenting the political push for private involvement in infrastructure projects. That has been a particular hobby horse of mine ever since I started this blog. With regard to California HSR, the push for private involvement comes from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who along with his investment banker advisor (and CHSRA board member) David Crane are deeply enamored with public-private partnerships. They put the CHSRA on a starvation budget in 2007 in order to break resistance to greater private involvement in funding the train's operations. And it stems from their desire to use government to enrich the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

California is going to elect a new governor next year. We will need to pay close attention to how the candidates talk about HSR, public-private partnerships, and what their plans are for HSR. The next governor could serve until 2018 if elected to two terms, making it particularly important for us to get that choice right.

When I wrote about DoDo's article in March I laid out my thoughts on how to avoid a Taiwan-style meltdown in CA. They are as applicable today as they were then, so I'm going to repost them here:

First, we cannot expect ridership goals to be met immediately. DoDo's analysis shows they will be met but not until around five years have passed. This will produce hackles from the usual HSR deniers (who will still be with us in ten years' time) - the Wendell Coxes and Martin Engels who will say that "omg you haven't met ridership - the HSR train is a boondoggle! kill all remaining extension plans!" We must resist them patiently but firmly and let the project steadily attract riders.

Second, we need to oversee the financing process to ensure that the project's finances are not going to be imperiled by expectations of high ridership out the gate. This is a long-term project; its financing should be long-term as well. This is one reason I am skeptical of some of the more broad public-private proposals for how to fund the train. Government has the luxury of waiting for the system to mature and work properly; the private sector instead demands immediate profits at the expense of long-term planning (and we see how well THAT worked out).

Third, construction delays. I have always said that we are likely to see both delays and cost overruns, but that we can and should work to ensure the are minimal. Sometimes the two are linked - Peninsula NIMBYs are inherently arguing that it is OK to both make the HSR project more delayed and more expensive to suit their demands. We may well see similar problems on other sections of the route. We cannot let these delays compromise the overall system. The route has always been intended to be opened in stages, as was BART, but the finances, operation, and political support for the project cannot be made dependent on that staging. Further, the stages should be opened for practical reasons, and not in an effort to cut corners or costs. Again the long-term vision for the system must be kept in mind at all times.

Fourth, fares. Whether the $55 fare from SF-LA is possible even in 2018 dollars is an open question. But the system cannot raise ticket prices to try and cover financial shortfalls or cost overruns if they are to build a long-term ridership base.

It is entirely possible that ten years from now the short-sighted short-term political and economic worldview that helped create the present economic mess will have been replaced with a renewed emphasis on long-term planning and infrastructure, and that Californians will be willing to wait a few years for HSR ridership to rise to expectations.

But I wouldn't bet on it. Instead we are going to have to continue to fight to ensure that HSR is built the right way, the proper way, without compromising for people who put all sorts of petty and small concerns above the HSR project itself.

How The AVE Is Changing Spain

Today's Wall Street Journal offers a fascinating look at how Spain's AVE high speed trains are changing that country in some interesting and generally positive ways. As you know from our previous posts on the topic, not only do I have a personal affinity for the AVE, but their dramatic success in a nation whose pre-AVE travel habits, population densities and natural geography are very similar to those of California is a strong indicator of how HSR will be successful here in California.

To sell his vision of a high-speed train network to the American public, President Barack Obama this week cited Spain, a country most people don't associate with futuristic bullet trains.

Yet the country is on track to bypass France and Japan to have the world's biggest network of ultrafast trains by the end of next year, figures from the International Union of Railways and the Spanish government show.

Although the AVE was initiated by a Socialist government in the early 1990s, both the PSOE and the right-wing Partido Popular are strong backers of the AVE trains, and now Spain will have a large network of fast electric trains connecting its major cities. Already Sevilla, Málaga, and Barcelona are linked to Madrid - Valencia, Bilbao, and some of the northwestern cities are next in line. But they don't plan to stop there:

But the AVE-which means "bird" in Spanish- proved to be a popular and political success. Politicians now fight to secure stations in their districts. Political parties compete to offer ever-more ambitious expansion plans. Under the latest blueprint, nine out of ten Spaniards will live within 31 miles of a high speed rail station by 2020.

That's some amazing penetration of the HSR network that is planned for the next ten years. And it's even more fascinating considering that until the first AVE line opened in 1992, Spain's travel habits closely resembled those of California:







And although those numbers stem from the Madrid-Sevilla AVE line, they've been repeated in particular on the Madrid-Barcelona line, which has taken nearly 40% of the market on what was one of the world's busiest air routes.

The WSJ article suggests that the AVE has not only reshaped travel habits, but social and economic habits as well, maybe even cultural habits:

"We Spaniards didn't used to move around much," says José María Menéndez, who heads the civil engineering department at the University of Castilla-La Mancha. "Now I can't make my students sit still for one second. The AVE has radically changed this generation's attitude to travel."...

The AVE was originally designed to compete with the airplane for commutes between major cities around 300 miles apart. But the biggest, and least expected, effect of the AVE has been on the smaller places in between.

Perhaps the most striking example is Ciudad Real, a scrappy town 120 miles south of Madrid in Castilla-La Mancha which, Mr. Ureña says, "had completely vanished from the map." In medieval times, the town was a key stopover point on the route between the two of most important cities of the time, Córdoba and Toledo. But the railway and the highway south later bypassed the town, and Ciudad Real began to wither.

Now it has an AVE station that puts it just 50 minutes away from Madrid, and Ciudad Real has come alive. The city has attracted a breed of daily commuters that call themselves "Avelinos." The AVE helped attract a host of industries to Ciudad Real, and the train is full in both directions.

Ciudad Real is a town somewhat analogous to Merced, and one can imagine that the California HSR trains will make UC Merced a more attractive option to students in the Bay Area and in Southern California. You can be sure that Central Valley cities are looking to the experience of places like Ciudad Real as a possible model of how their towns can provide more stable and lasting economic growth built around the high speed train.

Of course, the article does mention some criticism of the high speed trains:

Not everyone is pleased. ETA, the militant Basque separatist group, has said it would target anyone involved in the construction of a high-speed train line that will connect the restive northern region with Madrid and France. In December, ETA killed the owner of a company working as a contractor on the project, and in February detonated a bomb at the headquarters of Ferrovial SA, another contractor working on the project.

This issue is not so relevant to California, for obvious reasons, and it's worth noting that ETA's concern is that the AVE will be so successful that it will erode the Basque Country's autonomy by linking it more closely with the rest of Spain. The other main criticism voiced is that Spain's HSR focus is leaving other transportation infrastructure less funded:

Other, nonviolent critics say the country's massive investment in high speed rail has come at the expense of other, less-glamorous forms of transportation. Starved of funds, Spain's antiquated freight-train network has fallen into disuse, forcing businesses to move their goods around by road. That means the Spanish economy is unusually sensitive to changes in the price of crude oil.

And yet that's not really an argument against the successful HSR project - instead it's an argument for the investment in freight rail. It doesn't have to be an either/or proposition.

Critics say the AVE will never stop losing money. Even its backers say high-speed rail can only be economical if the state bears much of the construction costs. But they say the train's benefits-lower greenhouse-gas emissions, less road congestion and, in Spain's case, greater social cohesion and economic mobility-make it an investment worth making.

Of course, Spain's roads were built with state money as well. Here in California our airports and freeways were built with state and federal money. Freeways are not expected to turn a profit. The whole notion that our transportation infrastructure should turn a profit is absurd, even if most HSR systems break even or generate surpluses, more than covering their operating expenses. And that's a sensible approach - the state makes the investment in the infrastructure, and the ongoing operations are self-sustaining.

Spain is like California in another way - it's getting extremely hard hit by the global recession. Like California, Spain experienced a significant property bubble and is now paying the price with high unemployment. I don't know how this will impact the ambitious AVE construction plans. But at least Spain spent the last 20 years investing in sustainable transportation - whereas California frittered away its economic boom on sprawl, roads, and tax cuts. Spain is in a better position to weather the economic storm and recover from it thanks to its investment in the AVE.

It's not too late for California, of course. With Prop 1A and President Obama's support we can start down the trail Spain blazed nearly 20 years ago. HSR will change California in interesting ways, and although we're already a far more mobile population than Spain apparently is, HSR will still provide economic and environmental benefits that so far we can only imagine.

The Five Year Curve

One of the best train bloggers out there is DoDo, and over at the European Tribune he offers one of his best pieces yet - an examination of the AVE system's ridership growth and a comparison to other HSR systems around the world. He draws two key conclusions, which I'll explore in some detail below (though you need to read his full post to get the full picture), the first of which is:

What should be striking is that traffic seems to reach its full potential in at least five years. (Air/rail market share data would have been more appropriate for this purpose, but it's harder to come by, and you get the picture.)...

The lesson from this: high-speed rail (and not just high-speed) is a long-term investment. Do not insist on instant success -- but do expect a permanent change in travel patterns.

In short, if the LA-SF route is fully opened around 2018, then we will not see the "full potential" reached until 2023. However, we WILL see a permanent long-term shift in how Californians get around this state, which is of course the core goal here.

DoDo uses as his model the AVE line from Madrid to Barcelona, which was finally completed about a year ago. It replaced the "Puente Aéreo" - the "air bridge" between Madrid-Barajas and Barcelona-El Prat that was the world's busiest air route by flights. The "Puente AVE" as DoDo calls it has eaten heavily into the Puente Aéreo, to the point where the AVE trains now take about 50% of the market share of Madrid-Barcelona travelers.

But as DoDo also notes, the Madrid-Barcelona AVE, despite those impressive gains in modal share, has yet to meet ridership expectations:

RENFE missed its own expectation for the entire line by almost 250,000 -- and that for the Madrid-Barcelona relation alone by 300,000. Only the last few months of Spanish intercity traffic were affected by the economic crisis, so there is something else at play here. I criticised high ticket prices a year ago, and I find that this has indeed become a theme in the Spanish media over the past year. Even at the anniversary press conference, where new airline-style last-minute discounts were announced.

What explains this? To DoDo the answer is obvious: "all potential customers won't try out a new offer instantly - you have to wait for people to discover that the new alternative is better."

This leads to DoDo's second key conclusion - that there are certain bad decisions that typically get made by HSR builders and governments in response to the slow start (though some of these bad decisions are made in the design and construction phase):

It happens actually quite often that a major new rail project gets off to a really bad start, generating bad publicity -- and then turns into a solid mainstay of the transport system a few years later (with less media coverage). To sum up the reasons:

1. an expectation that people will change travel patterns instantly;



2. financing (e.g. interest rates and period of maturity) and rosy projections themselves are tailored for short-term expectations on profitability;



3. after diverse construction delays, (especially high-speed) lines are often opened half-finished (missing sections, stations, local transit connections, trains, signalling), and thus can't realise their full potential instantly



4. when the builders become nervous about their ridership projections (be it due to cost overruns or 'half-finished' openings as per above), they tend to bet on passengers accepting higher ticket prices -- which usually doesn't work out.

I can all too easily envision some or all of these coming true in California. And though DoDo explains how SNCF successfully handled some of these issues in the early 1980s, under the Socialist leadership of François Mitterand (bringing down ticket prices to encourage long-term ridership growth), I think that at this stage in the process we have the opportunity to avoid some of these problems.

First, we cannot expect ridership goals to be met immediately. DoDo's analysis shows they will be met but not until around five years have passed. This will produce hackles from the usual HSR deniers (who will still be with us in ten years' time) - the Wendell Coxes and Martin Engels who will say that "omg you haven't met ridership - the HSR train is a boondoggle! kill all remaining extension plans!" We must resist them patiently but firmly and let the project steadily attract riders.

Second, we need to oversee the financing process to ensure that the project's finances are not going to be imperiled by expectations of high ridership out the gate. This is a long-term project; its financing should be long-term as well. This is one reason I am skeptical of some of the more broad public-private proposals for how to fund the train. Government has the luxury of waiting for the system to mature and work properly; the private sector instead demands immediate profits at the expense of long-term planning (and we see how well THAT worked out).

Third, construction delays. I have always said that we are likely to see both delays and cost overruns, but that we can and should work to ensure the are minimal. Sometimes the two are linked - Peninsula NIMBYs are inherently arguing that it is OK to both make the HSR project more delayed and more expensive to suit their demands. We may well see similar problems on other sections of the route. We cannot let these delays compromise the overall system. The route has always been intended to be opened in stages, as was BART, but the finances, operation, and political support for the project cannot be made dependent on that staging. Further, the stages should be opened for practical reasons, and not in an effort to cut corners or costs. Again the long-term vision for the system must be kept in mind at all times.

Fourth, fares. Whether the $55 fare from SF-LA is possible even in 2018 dollars is an open question. But the system cannot raise ticket prices to try and cover financial shortfalls or cost overruns if they are to build a long-term ridership base.

It is entirely possible that ten years from now the short-sighted short-term political and economic worldview that helped create the present economic mess will have been replaced with a renewed emphasis on long-term planning and infrastructure, and that Californians will be willing to wait a few years for HSR ridership to rise to expectations.

But I wouldn't bet on it. Instead we are going to have to continue to fight to ensure that HSR is built the right way, the proper way, without compromising for people who put all sorts of petty and small concerns above the HSR project itself.

The View From the Valley

I've spent two very interesting days here in Fresno organizing for another issue, but have had some time to talk to people about high speed rail (because really, what sort of HSR activist would I be if I didn't?!). I've found that the project actually has a fairly high profile here - most of the diverse group of people I've talked to actually know about it and support it. As there are at least 2.5 million people living along the HSR route between Merced and Bakersfield, their backing of the system is crucial - lest we forget, Merced, Fresno, and Kern Counties ALL voted FOR Prop 1A back in November.

What's behind the support? In my conversations there are some common reasons given:

1. Desire to connect to the rest of the state. Whether they love living in the Valley or not, most people here want to be able to get to and from the bigger parts of the state quickly. They may have family or friends going to school in LA, or want to see a show in SF. Typically they're going to drive, which is usually at least 3 hours in each direction. A rapid train will help make that easy.



2. Desire to cut pollution. Even though it's an early spring day, the air quality here in Fresno hasn't been so great this weekend. It reminds me of the 1980s in Southern California, where smog was commonplace. The San Joaquin Valley has some of the worst air pollution in the entire nation. Asthma and other respiratory diseases are extremely common, and given the frequent traffic on Highway 99 it's no surprise. People here WANT a method of travel that will not make their health problems worse.



3. Desire to stop sprawl. To hear some people tell it Valley residents love sprawl. That's always been a debatable point; in reality it's the Valley's political leaders who have promoted it, along with the inexorable logic of having built an entire national, even global economy on sprawl. With the housing bubble collapse, which has hit the Valley harder than probably any other place on the globe, there is a clearer desire for preserving farmland, stopping sprawl, and channeling growth inward. The people I talked to get this.



4. They're sick of being ignored. With at least 2.5 million people along the initial HSR route, and with over 5 million in the Valley as a whole (including Sacramento), Valley residents have watched state funds and projects go to the "cities" - SF Bay Area, Southern California, while Highway 99 has been ignored. And that enables opponents of mass transit, for example, to demagogue on the issue - "don't vote for this project, it's just going to help those Bay Area liberals who don't care about you." Which in turn emboldens those voices here that tell Valley voters "the cities will just take your tax money and give nothing in return" (if the Valley elected more Dems the 2/3 rule would no longer be an issue). San Joaquin Valley residents feel, quite reasonably in my view, that they deserve to be part of this system.
   
   And it makes practical sense in this case to include them. The flattest route between SF and LA involves the Central Valley. The 2.5 million people who live along the San Joaquin Valley portion of the LA-SF route are an important part of the potential ridership base of a financially viable HSR system. And it will play an essential role in achieving the kind of long-term shift in land use policy in California, a shift that cannot succeed unless the Valley is included. Otherwise the Valley plays the role of a kind of China, undercutting the efforts at higher labor and environmental standards elsewhere in the state.

I know that there have been some comments suggesting that we just bypass the Highway 99 corridor when building the LA-SF route, that the inclusion of Fresno and Bakersfield was just a political ploy, that it's just not necessary to build HSR in these places. I could not disagree more strongly. California High Speed Rail will not be successful unless it includes the Valley.

The Acelafication of California High Speed Rail

Today marks the one-year anniversary of this blog. I'd actually been trying to build out a much bigger pro-HSR site using a dedicated URL, a Joomla! installation, and with neat bells and whistles. But it was taking months, and by March 2008, I gave up and decided to just whip something up on Blogger to fill what I felt was a big gap in the online world, a lack of a site dedicated to both the discussion and support of the California High Speed Rail project.

It's been an eventful year, to say the least. The dramatic gas price spike that showed Californians passenger rail was an essential part of our future infrastructure. The long fight over AB 3034. The constant efforts of HSR deniers such as the Reason Foundation to sow misinformation about HSR to the public. The passage of Prop 1A. And now the fight over whether there will be high speed trains on the Peninsula. We've covered all of it here, sometimes contentiously. I think we've all achieved something fantastic here, and I thank all of my readers and especially the commenters for helping keep this blog going.

Looking back on that year, two things have stood out to me that define this project:

1. The public as a whole supports high speed rail and wants it to happen.

2. However, the political conditions that produced 40 years of passenger rail stagnation, as well as California's broad 21st century crisis (an economic, environmental, and energy crisis), are still there, and the necessary political leadership to overcome those conditions and solve those crises does not yet exist.

President Barack Obama may be the game-changer here, as he is in so many other aspects of American life. His support for high speed rail is genuine, as he played the central role in putting $8 billion in HSR funds into the stimulus. His budget proposal includes $5 billion more for HSR. He could provide the leadership that has been lacking, and could help bring groups to the table to hammer out differences.

Such leadership is desperately needed right now in California and on the Peninsula in particular, where concern over above-ground structures - concerns I believe to be overblown and misplaced - have given rise to a de facto willingness to weaken the HSR project unless it is built underground. Way too much of the NIMBY commentary on the situation implies that HSR isn't necessary, and some of the old HSR denier arguments from the 2008 campaign - that HSR can't turn a profit, that the ridership numbers aren't credible, that the Peninsula doesn't really have any need for this anyway - have unsurprisingly been mobilized to attack the project.

This is but one example of some of the underlying political conditions that have produced passenger rail stagnation and economic crisis. Parochial self-interests have spent the last 30 years constructing any number of methods to veto policies they don't like, whether it's the 2/3rds rule or systematic abuse of the environmental review process to accomplish inappropriate NIMBY objections.

And some of it stems from an ongoing unwillingness to admit the need to change. The NIMBY attack on HSR is grounded in the assumption that the status quo is perfectly acceptable - a state dependent on carbon emitting, pollution spewing, fossil fuel burning methods of travel that are not physically sustainable or economically viable. That the physical landscape of Menlo Park can remain that way for all time.

Nobody here wants to destroy communities. But when some in those communities define the way things look in 2009 as a perfect status quo that must not be changed, then ANY change, no matter how sensible or beneficial, becomes viewed as a threat.

Such attitudes have led to the economic crisis we face, where an unwillingness to confront basic realities, stemming from a desire to cling as tightly as possible to a status quo that is quite clearly failing, has prevented necessary action.

Unfortunately we've been here before. In the early 1990s the Northeast Corridor High Speed Rail project was announced with much fanfare, and was promised to finally bring true high speed rail travel to the United States.

15 years later, we have the Acela. It's a workable system, a train that has over 40% of the market share on the NEC and a generally positive reputation among travelers. But it's also not what was intended. The Acela only achieves its true top speed of 150 mph in a few places; in many others it's held to 79mph.

What happened? To put it simply, stakeholders weren't willing to accept some changes in order to build the Acela properly. Some didn't want to give up land to straighten the tracks. Others were concerned about noise and speed. Some didn't want to spend money upgrading the infrastructure. The FRA wouldn't relax its inane weight rules. And in the 1990s, cheap oil lulled people into complacency, believing that passenger rail was a toy that had little practical use, that filled little practical need.

To me it is self-evident that if we're going to build a project, we should build it the right way. That if we ask voters to approve something - especially if we ask them to help pay for it - then it seems self-evident to me that we should deliver exactly what they approved. The City of Palo Alto and many others on the Peninsula appear happy to gut the HSR project by forcing it to run unacceptably slowly along the SF-SJ route, or to force an unworkable transfer to Caltrain at SJ Diridon that will significantly reduce ridership, or to bypass the state's third largest city (San Jose) just to make a small handful of residents happy.

That's just not right. We must build HSR the right way. We can build it in a way that meets the needs of everyone in California, but when NIMBYs refuse to compromise, they're implicitly saying that a flawed system or no system is preferable to one they don't like. They're happy to Acelafy our project.

We see these problems anytime efforts are made to address our multifaceted crisis. Obama wants to restore higher tax rates on the wealthy to pay for his economic recovery plan? Oh god no, can't have that! Solar energy companies want to build a solar plant in a sunny desert spot, but need to build power transmission lines through open desert to get there? Oh god no, can't have that! We need to build a high speed train along an existing rail corridor? Oh god no, can't have that!

If the underlying political problems did not exist - a state government hamstrung by the 2/3rds rule, a small but vocal group of NIMBYs who are expert at hijacking planning processes, a lack of political leadership on passenger rail - then we wouldn't have these crises at all. HSR would have been built long ago, California's budget would be in the black, and the US would not be staring economic Depression and the massive effects of global warming in the face.

The reason I am such a strong advocate of California high speed rail is because I understand that things must change if our state is to survive this crisis. HSR is just one aspect of the changes that need to be made. And that requires fixing the underlying problems that have produced the crisis and threaten to strangle the HSR project.

The big picture has been lost. If people truly believe that an above-grade trackway is more of a problem than mass unemployment and global warming, then maybe we're in a bigger crisis than even I imagined. If a small group of NIMBYs can block HSR, what's going to happen when we try and build wind turbines or tidal energy projects?

One year later, I am encouraged that Californians as a whole understand the need for passenger rail. But I am concerned that even HSR supporters have lost sight of the big picture, and aren't sufficiently willing to challenge the failed assumptions, rules, procedures, and practices that have brought us to this crisis point. Palo Alto is a warning shot across our bow. Unless we find away to remind Californians of the stakes, of why HSR is such a vital part of the solution to our multifaceted crisis, it will be turned into another Acela, rendered less effective and less viable because we did not have the courage to face down those who created this crisis, and those who believe there's no urgent need to do anything at all to solve it.

Help Palo Alto Make the Right Choice

On Monday night the Palo Alto City Council will meet to consider the comments it wishes to submit to the California High Speed Rail Authority on the Peninsula portion of the HSR line. Although this seems like a small point, Palo Alto has become a major flashpoint in the attempt by a small but vocal group of HSR deniers to kill the high speed rail project outright. Unfortunately, a recommendation by Palo Alto city staff appears to bolster these NIMBYs. It is therefore extremely important that all HSR supporters around California mobilize to ensure that Palo Alto does not suddenly decide to undermine the project in order to satisfy a few ignorant claims.

If Palo Alto succumbs to the NIMBY HSR denier crowd it will be a severe blow to not just high speed rail, but to mass transit, action to mitigate and reverse global warming, smart growth, energy independence and economic recovery. It would deal a blow to President Barack Obama's plans and give a boost to conservative Republicans like Bobby Jindal and Sean Hannity who claim that high speed rail is bad for America.

The basic issue is this: a few people in Palo Alto, who are almost totally uninformed as to the details of the project (whether this is deliberate or not isn't clear and depends on the individual), have become convinced that high speed rail is going to "destroy their community." They are spreading numerous lies and falsehoods about what HSR will do for Palo Alto. And although the Palo Alto City Council unanimously endorsed Proposition 1A last year, they are coming under intense pressure to join the frivolous lawsuit filed by Menlo Park, Atherton, Stuart Flashman, and other opponents of high speed rail.

One of the core arguments is that somehow an above-grade set of HSR tracks will ruin the community - harm property values, bring "blight". Some are even taking to calling the HSR tracks a "Berlin Wall" - an offensive claim that cheapens the lives of those Germans who died trying to cross the Berlin Wall to freedom.

In fact, along most of the Peninsula there is already sufficient ROW to add two tracks to the existing Caltrain tracks. This is true for much of Palo Alto, despite claims to the contrary.

More importantly, the HSR grade separation project would vastly improve the quality of life in Palo Alto. Electrified tracks mean no more polluting and smelly diesel fumes. Grade separations mean no more loud train whistles. They also mean no more accidents, making it safer for families to cross the corridor. Far from "dividing" communities it actually unites them.

Still, the huge levels of support in Palo Alto for Prop 1A and HSR would normally suggest to me that these ignorant claims from NIMBYs wouldn't be worth worrying about. Unfortunately, the City of Palo Alto staff are making a series of recommendations that could fundamentally undermine the HSR project if the City Council approved them. It is imperative that we let the Palo Alto City Council know that some of these recommendations are not only inappropriate, but deeply flawed and ought to be rejected. Instead the council should support HSR, and submit comments to the CHSRA indicating a desire to produce a sensible solution that will implement the HSR system as approved by California voters in November.

The objectionable recommendations include:

• Reopen the Altamont vs. Pacheco debate
• Explore routing HSR down Highway 101 or Interstate 280
• Consider terminating the HSR route at San José Diridon and forcing intercity travelers to transfer to Caltrain to complete their journey to San Francisco

Each of these are problematic, but it is the last point that is especially heinous. Let me explain.

First, Altamont is dead. That option isn't coming back. Californians voted for Prop 1A knowing that Pacheco Pass was the choice. That ship has sailed. An Altamont alignment means cutting out San José from the system, one of the state's largest cities.

It also means dumping the problem in the laps of Fremont and Pleasanton. Who are Palo Alto residents to say "we're too good to accept some small improvements in a rail line - some other town has to deal with it?"

The recommendation to build HSR along 101 or 280 is also deeply flawed. That would be a very bad move that violates almost every rule regarding sound transportation planning principles. HSR along the Caltrain route means stations in city centers, instead of along freeways. It would reduce ridership and seriously retard efforts to make California less car-dependent. In fact, the Palo Alto staff report notes that according the the CHSRA:

Station locations must have the potential to promote higher density, mixed use, pedestrian accessible development

By moving the line to 101 or 280 - which will never happen but I'm humoring the staff here - it ensures that these goals are impossible to meet. Further, it would embolden Palo Alto resistance to items necessary to improve Caltrain service - including electrification and grade separation.

Palo Alto staff are implying that it may well oppose efforts to improve Caltrain service as well. The city's draft scoping comments include asking to eliminate overhead catenaries in Caltrain electrification and preventing "visual impacts" that above-grade crossings would present. How many people are killed along Caltrain tracks? How many accidents have there been at grade crossings? If the goal is to eliminate any grade separations short of a tunnel - as this report appears to imply - then what city staff are proposing is an attack on any and all efforts to move more Bay Area residents to trains, all because they feel it would make their community look less pleasant.

The staff report suggestion of terminating HSR at San José and forcing riders to transfer to Caltrain is perhaps the most damning and foolhardy proposal of them all. This would severely undermine the HSR system as it would cause ridership numbers to plummet below the levels needed for the system to be financially viable. Caltrain is a commuter rail system and is not designed to handle intercity travelers. It does not have luggage facilities. It does not have spacious seats or a cafe car. Transfers reduce ridership, and cutting off the line at San José therefore constitutes a mortal threat to the entire system.

The staff recommendation is an implicit attack on California's strategy to finally build a 21st century model of transportation, and a de facto embrace of inaction on the multiple crises we face - a desire to maintain a failed status quo that is harming the environment, increasing dependence on fossil fuels, and blocking the development of sensible and sustainable alternatives.

Palo Alto's city council voted to endorse Prop 1A and the construction of HSR. They should reject this staff recommendation as both unrealistic and inappropriate, ask staff to strip those elements that constitute an attack on passenger rail and sustainable transportation, and instead submit more constructive comments, that would reflect the following realities:

• Very little if any eminent domain will be needed as much of the necessary ROW already is in Caltrain's hands

• Grade separations improve the community by making crossing the corridor far safer

• Most of the breathless "Berlin Wall!" comments are deliberate lies that ignore the landscaping and other design elements that will ensure an above-grade line will not look unappealing.

It must also be noted that the CHSRA has been a very good partner with the Peninsula on discussing this project, extending the comment period by a month (to April 6) in order to allow cities to have more time to produce their comments and feedback.

Palo Alto has previously shown support for both HSR and passenger rail. It is time for the cooler heads in that city to prevail. Palo Alto residents who both support HSR and who want to build this the right way need to speak up in support of a more constructive approach and against this staff report. Otherwise their city may wind up with nothing but a significant backlash that will cost the city more than it gains.

The 20th century is over. Palo Alto, which was built around an existing rail line, cannot reasonably expect that the conditions of the 1980s or 1990s will continue indefinitely. The HSR project calls for modest changes to the rail corridor and will leave most of Palo Alto untouched and leave the rest improved. Palo Alto should not join Bobby Jindal, John Boehner, and Sean Hannity in attacking the kind of mass transit solutions that we all need to meet the crisis of the 21st century and come through that crisis with better, more prosperous, and more sustainable communities.

And this is where you come in.

I have started an online petition that asks the Palo Alto City Council to endorse HSR and reject the inappropriate and anti-HSR staff recommendations. Please sign it, and make sure your friends sign it too. I am going to post this petition on major websites like Calitics and Daily Kos to help increase the number of signers, and to show Palo Alto that HSR has widespread public support that they should not ignore in order to keep a few fools happy.

As I said right after our election victory, the passage of Proposition 1A was just a first step. It is time to mobilize the network of HSR supporters to win another battle - a battle for mass transit, economic recovery, and environmental action, a battle against those who would sustain a failed status quo because of their selfish and ignorant beliefs.

This is not the equivalent of the Century Freeway, and Quentin Kopp is not Robert Moses. Palo Alto must do its part in helping California and America escape the failed policies of the 20th century. They can do so by endorsing HSR and rejecting the inappropriate staff recommendations that are designed to attack the project itself.

Help Palo Alto make the right choice. Sign the petition. And let's show Palo Alto that we want to work together, in a spirit of cooperation, to ensure HSR works for their community - and that none of us, Palo Alto residents or otherwise, will allow a small group of people to destroy our future.

Thinking Methodically About Interstate Rail

Over at The Transport Politic Yonah Freemark has a very comprehensive proposal for an interstate rail network that goes beyond merely figuring out which corridors should have HSR, and weighting these corridors using a specific methodology that prioritizes their funding and construction. Freemark's goal is to bring some order and sense to the growing nationwide movement for improved intercity rail, and provide a reasoned way of determining what ought to be built when:

In order to evaluate the different lines, the transport politic developed a system by which it could examine the cost effectiveness of each line both in terms of travel within the corridor alone (the Corridor Score) and within the system as a whole (the Overall Score). Travel between every city pair in the system between 50 and 500 miles apart was evaluated, and the results were compiled by corridor, whereupon they were divided by route mile to appraise potential ridership by mile of new construction. The results provide the basis for prioritizing routes and suggest a method by which the federal government could begin to imagine how such a high-speed rail system might be developed. (PDF with description of methodology, evaluation of every city pair, and scores for each corridor or here)

According to this methodology the California HSR proposal scores less than some of the Northeastern and Midwestern corridors, and within the California HSR corridor Fresno-Sacramento and LA-San Diego score higher than the LA-SF corridor prioritized by Prop 1A. The analysis also shows that, while popular with some, the LA-Vegas corridor is relatively "marginal" in importance though still worth building.

As a thought exercise in how to plan implementation of an HSR network without resorting to which state has the most pull in Congress, it's a very good discussion starter. But I have to question some of the assumptions that went into this. From the source data:

The equation is designed to allow for a simple comparison between different routes; while it does not calculate ridership, it provides a good estimate for which routes would be more or less used. It should not be taken as an exact formula or one that has been heavily researched, but it provides a good jumping-off point for more research on where to place new high-speed rail routes.

The calculation is based on the following assumptions:
•People are less likely to take a journey as the distance of the journey increases;
•Given a choice, more people would choose to travel to a bigger city than a smaller one;
•Travel choices are based entirely on city size and distance between cities;
•Density of metropolitan areas does not affect travel;
•There are no regional differences in travel preferences;
•No two city pairs compete with one another - as new routes open, new ridership is generated.

These assumptions are of course quite untrue in many ways. However, given time and data limitations, this formula provides a quick method of comparison.

I think the first assumption is questionable at best. LA-SF has a further distance than some other pairs, but compares well to Madrid-Barcelona, two cities with some similarity to LA and SF and with a similar distance. The new AVE line between the two cities has eaten deeply into air travel on what was one of Europe's busiest air corridors, just as LA-SF is one of North America's busiest air corridors. HSR compares well with door to door times using air travel on the corridor, and because it offers particular amenities that airplanes do not, it is likely that LA-SF HSR has some of the best growth potential in the country.

I know this site is inherently biased, but of all the corridors in America, there are few better suited to HSR than LA-SF. The Northeast Corridor surely outranks ours in most criteria, which is why it has a successful quasi-HSR system already in the Acela (and that deserves to be upgraded to full and true HSR). But I am hard pressed to think of many other corridors that make a more compelling case than our own.

The Transport Politic plan is a concept and a starting point of course, not a final plan, and so my comments are offered in a constructive and not critical or defensive manner. (Besides, CA is the only corridor that brings non-federal money to the table, guaranteeing us a privileged spot in terms of federal HSR funding - I don't think we have much to worry about on that front.) We need to begin treating HSR like a national network, to be built in phases according to objective criteria. Measuring that criteria becomes key, and it will necessarily involve a complex set of factors.

So, go over to The Transport Politic and read the plan. What do you all think about it?

"A Revolution In Travel Habits"

That's how the Guardian describes the dramatic success of Spanish high speed trains (h/t to lydik in the comments to the last post):

Spain's sleek new high-speed trains have stolen hundreds of thousands of passengers from airlines over the last year, slashing carbon emissions and marking a radical change in the way Spaniards travel.

Passenger numbers on fuel-guzzling domestic flights fell 20% in the year to November as commuters and tourists swapped cramped airline seats for the space and convenience of the train, according to figures released yesterday.

High-speed rail travel - boosted by the opening of a line that slashed the journey time from Madrid to Barcelona to 2 hours 35 minutes in February - grew 28% over the same period. About 400,000 travellers shunned airports and opted for the 220mph AVE trains.

Last year's drop in air travel, which was also helped by new high-speed lines from Madrid to Valladolid, Segovia and Malaga, marks the beginning of what experts say is a revolution in Spanish travel habits.

lydik is right, I have a huge soft spot for the AVE trains, which were my first HSR experience - and also because I love Iberia (my wife and I are going to Portugal later this spring). It's also because while many Americans have a stereotype that Europeans are all a bunch of train-riding sophisticates, in fact air and auto travel in Europe is still a major form of transportation.

That was particularly true of Spain - but no longer:

In a country where big cities are often more than 500km (300 miles) apart, air travel has ruled supreme for more than 10 years. A year ago aircraft carried 72% of the 4.8 million long-distance passengers who travelled by air or rail. The figure is now down to 60%.

"The numbers will be equal within two years," said Josep Valls, a professor at the ESADE business school in Barcelona.

This is worth noting since Spain and California are very comparable in terms of travel habits and population densities. As with Spain, California's big cities are often more than 300 miles apart (379 miles from downtown SF to downtown LA). Like California, Spain experienced a property-fueled economic boom during this decade. But unlike California, Spain has devoted a significant portion of the tax proceeds from that boom to building sustainable high speed rail, particularly under the PSOE government of José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Lines to Barcelona and Málaga have opened within the last year, along with a Madrid bypass enabling faster travel from Barcelona to destinations in Andalusia. Connections from Madrid to Valencia, Galicia, and the Basque Y are also under construction.

Spain has also had success at lowering carbon emissions via HSR:

The high-speed train network is also helping Spain control carbon emissions.Straight tracks and few stops mean AVE trains use 19% less energy than conventional trains. Alberto García, of the Spanish Railways Foundation, has calculated that a passenger on the Madrid-Barcelona line accounts for one-sixth of the carbon emissions of an aeroplane passenger.

All of this is something we can look forward to here in California - and further reason to ensure that the state gets its act together, passes a budget, and gets back to economic stimulus via infrastructure projects like HSR.

PS: On that note, the Obama Transition Team has a "Citizens Briefing Book" where users rate up projects and ideas they feel are most important. "Bullet Trains and Light Rail" are currently the #1 most popular idea. Login and be sure to vote for this to further communicate to the Obama Administration our conviction that HSR is a vital part of this nation's future.

Thanksgiving Open Thread

According to the San Francisco Chronicle holiday travel was unusually light at SFO yesterday - the economic crisis keeping more folks at home? Perhaps people chose to drive to their in-state destinations but as anyone who has tried Interstate 5 around a holiday knows, the two lanes get backed up very fast. It once took me 10 hours to make it back to Berkeley from Santa Ana the day after Christmas on I-5 - nearly twice the usual travel time.

Obviously you know where I'm going with this. Ten years from now travelers won't have to choose between expensive airfares, costly and time-consuming car trips, or staying home for the holidays. High speed rail will provide a fast and affordable way to visit your family or friends. I can only imagine the TV reports from November 2018 - busy scenes at the Transbay Terminal, Diridon Station, LA Union Station.

Ten years from now high speed rail will become part of the fabric of everyday life in California. We'll wonder - rightly - how we ever got along without it.

And what am I thankful for? The 6,512,189 Californians who voted to make HSR a reality by passing Proposition 1A earlier this month.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving, everyone.

Weekend Open Thread

On the Coast Starlight #14 yesterday one of the old California Zephyr Dome Cars from the 1950s was attached at the back of the consist. On board were a bunch of Cal alumni headed up to the Bay Area for the 111th Big Game this afternoon. (Go Bears!) There are a bunch of Cal alums living down in Southern California, many of whom like to travel up to watch the annual Big Game whether it's in Berkeley or Palo Alto.

In addition, there are plenty of sports fans that often travel between north and south following their teams - Dodgers fans going to SF for a game, Raider fans going to San Diego, Trojan and Bruin fans going to the Bay Area, Kings and Ducks fans going to the Shark Tank, and of course the intense rivalry between the Lakers and Sacramento Kings (and I'm sure Warriors fans travel too).

Those trips are all made much, much easier with high speed rail. Most of the stadiums for these teams are very easily reached by transit, and many are close to proposed HSR stations. The Shark Tank is literally across the street from Diridon Station. Just as BART gets heavy ridership on game days, I am sure that California sports fans will find HSR to be a godsend. Leave work an hour early in LA and be in SF to watch the Giants and Dodgers that night. How awesome will that be?

Anyhow, this is an open thread. A few items that might be of interest:

• Campus Progress published a much better HSR article, by Eliza Krigman of the Center for Responsive Politics' blog Capital Eye. Unfortunately the American Prospect's TAPPED blog linked approvingly to that moronic Ben Adler piece. Dana Goldstein of TAPPED mislabeled HSR as "California's Light Rail line." The blind leading the blind...



• BART to San José looks to have passed for good - will that make Diridon Station the Grand Central Station of the West? Or does the Transbay Terminal deserve that accolade? Let's not forget LA Union Station, which on the four times I used it over the last few days was packed to the rafters as usual. Still, with the ACE trains, Caltrain, Capitol Corridor, VTA, BART, and HSR, Diridon Station is poised to become one of the great nodes of passenger rail travel on the West Coast, if not the nation.

And did I mention, Go Bears?!

The Transbay Terminal Tempest

In the comments on the last post there has been quite a lot of discussion about this SF Examiner article with the hyperbolic and overly dramatic headline "Transbay Transit Center Going Off Track":

However, that would necessitate a $2 billion, 1.3-mile extension of Caltrain’s tracks from their current terminus at Fourth and King streets in Mission Bay to downtown’s Transbay Transit Center at First and Mission streets, as well as a “train box” — a massive space underneath the bus terminal big enough to hold six rail platforms and tracks — that could later be tunneled into and developed into a station for Caltrain and high-speed trains.

Transbay Joint Powers Authority spokesman Adam Alberti said the authority began lobbying for funds from the high-speed rail bond in a letter issued last month.

But at least one authority has eschewed the possibility that high-speed rail will pay for the extension.

“We do not need First and Mission. I am satisfied with Fourth and Townsend,” said Judge Quentin Kopp, chairman of the High Speed Rail Authority. “We are not going to pay an extra billion-plus dollars to take the high-speed rail an extra 1.4 miles.”

Kopp is not wrong, but neither is he right. The HSR project can survive without the Transbay Terminal. However, the project is much better off with it included. That 1.3 miles is quite a distance in San Francisco, the difference between the edge of the urban center and the center itself, the core of California's most densely urbanized place. The Transbay Terminal will be located within easy walking distance of a BART station and all Muni Metro lines, as well as the Ferry Terminal. The HSR line ought to go there.

Kopp is likely posturing here to let all parties know that Prop 1A money isn't a free for all. That has value. And it's likely Kopp has been quoted out of context here. Still, he could dial it down a bit. His strong style has value at times but misses the mark here. The Authority doesn't necessarily have to pay all or even any of the cost of the extension. But Kopp ought to work to build consensus to ensure that the HSR line gets completed all the way to the Transbay Terminal. I don't think these comments get us in that direction.

Especially since everyone else appears to be busy playing "pass the buck":

The extension will have to be resolved — and funded — by The City and Caltrain, he said.

But spokeswoman Christine Dunn said Caltrain has not considered devoting any funds to the project, and it would have to be funded by The City and the Transbay project.

Jerry Hill, a member of Transbay’s board of directors and state Assembly member-elect, said that though Transbay hopes to secure some funding for the extension from the high-speed rail, they are not seeing the project as a “cash cow,” and the success of neither high-speed rail nor the Transbay Transit Center depends on the extension.

Hill's comments are especially important here, as they suggest this is not the "omg crisis!" that the Examiner would have us believe. There is a money dispute here, which should surprise nobody. We're going to have to deal with these kinds of issues for at least the next ten years. The political need for multiple funding sources virtually guarantees it. But that doesn't mean these issues can't be resolved.

HSR and the Transbay Terminal are better off with each other. The city of San Francisco and Caltrain ought to be expected to kick in some money as well. So should the feds. Perhaps this is a more important project than the Central Subway that Nancy Pelosi has been pushing for years. And it really is an either/or - if the Central Subway is built then that would enable BART riders to get to the Fourth and King station more easily, if not exactly conveniently; but if the Caltrain and HSR extension gets built then the Central Subway becomes a less necessary piece of infrastructure.

In any event, leadership is needed here to ensure that the Transbay Terminal project and the HSR project both meet their full potential - which means the trains reach the terminal. The CHSRA ought to negotiate in good faith with the Transbay Terminal Authority and all other parties. The extension to the Terminal is an important part of the overall project that ought to be maintained, although fair and equitable cost arrangements should certainly be made.

UPDATE: It is worth noting that the CHSRA board unanimously selected the Transbay Terminal as the preferred terminus in San Francisco for the route when they approved the Final EIR in July. Specifically, Chapter 8 explains the rationale, repeating much of what I said above:

The Transbay Transit Center site is the preferred station location option for the San Francisco HST Terminal. The Transbay Transit Center would offer greater connectivity to San Francisco and the Bay Area than the 4th and King site (about a mile from the financial district) because of its location in the heart of downtown San Francisco and since it would serve as the regional transit hub for San Francisco. The Transbay Transit Center is located in the financial district where many potential HST passengers could walk to the station. The Transbay Transit Center is also expected to emerge as the transit hub for all major services to downtown San Francisco, with the advantage of direct connections to BART (1 block from the terminus), Muni, and regional bus transit (SamTrans, AC Transit, and Golden Gate Transit). Moreover, the Transbay Transit Center is compatible with existing and planned development and is the focal point of the Transbay redevelopment plan that includes extensive high-density residential, office, and commercial/retail development. Sensitivity analysis on the Pacheco Pass “Base” forecasts (low-end forecasts) concluded that the Transbay Transit Center would attract about 1 million more annual passengers a year by 2030 than the 4th and King station location option.

The capital costs needed for the HST component of the Transbay Transit Center (including the 1.3-mile extension) is estimated to be similar to the estimated costs for the 4th and King option. (Page 8-18)

So that strikes me as a pretty clear indication that Kopp was likely quoted out of context and that the Examiner is trying to stir up controversy where it doesn't legitimately exist. The CHSRA is still committed to the Transbay Terminal, and Kopp probably meant to say that if something were to happen and the Transbay Terminal project fell through, HSR could manage.

Obviously there will be things that need to be resolved as detailed plans get made, especially with the Transbay Terminal. How many trains? Where exactly will the "train box" go and how big will it be? What will the specific funding arrangements be? Such issues are ones we're going to have to deal with up and down the route as the plans near completion.

I do still believe that it is in the interest of all the various transit agencies to continue working together on this. The desire to build all the way to the Transbay is there. Let's not allow a one-off article to distract us from that.

2008 A Record Setting Year for Ridership

At least here in California, according to Caltrans and Amtrak, who partner to operate the Amtrak California intercity routes:

Californians are leaving their cars, SUVs, vans, and trucks at home and riding trains instead in unprecedented numbers. Today, Caltrans and Amtrak reported a record-setting 5.5 million passengers rode California's state-supported intercity passenger trains in federal fiscal year 2008....

In 2007-08, the Pacific Surliner carried more than 2.89 million passengers, a seven percent increase from the preceding year.

In Northern California, Capitol Corridor (Auburn to San Jose) trains carried 1.69 million riders, an impressive 16.8 percent jump from the previous 12 months. Meanwhile nearly one million passengers (949,611) rode the San Joaquins service (Bakersfield to Sacramento/Oakland). This past July, ridership shot up a whopping 32 percent over July 2007, rising above 100,000 for the first time. The Capitol Corridor and the San Joaquins ranked as the nation's third busiest and sixth busiest lines, respectively.

Amtrak ridership in federal fiscal year 2008 increased to 28,716,407, marking the sixth straight year of gains and setting a record for the most passengers using Amtrak trains since the National Railroad Passenger Corporation started operations in 1971.

Some might cluck that this is just the product of the dramatic spike in gas prices that took place earlier this year and won't last. While that did fuel some of this ridership growth, ridership on Amtrak California routes has been steadily growing since 2002. Amtrak itself has set ridership records every year since 2002. There is every reason to believe ridership will continue to rise.

That growing ridership reflects a growing awareness among Californians of the value of passenger rail, and that was reflected in last week's election where most passenger rail proposals were approved by voters (Measure B in Santa Clara County, the BART funding plan, is still too close to call). In the article Eugene Skoropowski, managing director of the Capitol Corridor, noted that Prop 1B (passed in 2006) also intended money to be spent on rail expansion. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Department of Finance delayed this, using a flawed audit to claim new cars weren't necessary, but that has been reversed and new cars have been ordered.

We need to accelerate Prop 1A and Prop 1B rail funding. While we wait on federal matching funds for HSR - which we will press for in 2009 - California needs to wait for nobody to release the bond money for the other passenger rail projects that are awaiting funds. California legislators should make it a priority to spend that money as an infrastructure stimulus, as well as part of a long-term plan to grow rail in this state.

Record ridership is an opportunity to take passenger rail to the next level. Let's make sure our legislators follow through on it.

Just How Useful is HSR, Really?

That's the question being pondered by one Kent Amberson in a letter to the Merced Sun-Star this morning. While one LTE in a smallish newspaper might not normally be worth talking about, I do believe that our work to promote the usefulness, value, and need for high speed rail continues after Prop 1A's passage. It's likely that many Californians have the same questions as Kent, considering how unfamiliar most Californians are with passenger rail. Here's his question:

How do you get from your house to the train station, and how do you get from the station to where you are going? In Merced you can call Dial A Ride, I suppose, but anybody that has to be in a particular place at a particular time knows that the Dial A Ride is not a solution...

Besides, not every community on the line has a Dial A Ride system. To have somebody drive you to the station is one solution or drive your own car, but where do you park if you need to for several days or even month?...

Then there is the question of when you get where you are going, what do you do?

Imagine getting to Los Angeles by train and your destination is Huntington Beach, Irvine or West Covina to mention a few. How do you get there from here? Perhaps you start looking for a Greyhound bus but again, how do you get to the bus station? Or are you going to try to figure out the local transit system?...

In planning a system like this, there has to be a way of getting to and from the station if it is going to be of any benefit to the paying public....

This is probably the reason most people prefer traveling by their own car.

Some of this is due to unfamiliarity with mass transit options in California - you can get to Irvine from Anaheim via the Pacific Surfliners, for example - and some of it is based on skepticism that other forms of transit will materialize to serve the HSR stations. By 2018 it is likely that the Expo Line will be open from LA Union Station to Santa Monica, and Metrolink service, which reaches numerous communities in Southern California, will be boosted. It's true that Orange County has a lot of work to do in building transit capacity, but a direct bus from Huntington Beach to the Anaheim HSR station (ARTIC) would be a sensible move for the OCTA.

The main problem with Kent's argument, though, is assuming that HSR service is analogous to automobile service. It isn't. The high speed train simply cannot bring you door to door. Neither can an airplane. Driving may solve the door to door issue, but at a very high cost - time, gas, wear and tear on the vehicle. The fuel costs of driving in particular are likely to rise dramatically between now and 2018.

Nor is HSR analogous with airplanes. Instead HSR provides the same travel need - getting from, say, Merced to Irvine - using a third method that provides the speed and convenience of airplanes and some of the flexibility of driving. HSR stations are not going to be located on the edge of town as airports are, but in the middle of the urban area, in places that are already the nodes of local transit systems. It's simply easier to provide transit connections to and from the HSR station than to and from an airport on the edge of town. LAX still lacks a true mass transit link, but LA Union Station is the hub of the entire mass transit system in Southern California.

And HSR will spur better transit connections, just as airports do today. It will bring more people into the city centers, making it easier to get from house to station. Certainly there will be journeys that require a car to complete, but HSR makes that easier and cheaper - you can rent a car at your destination, have a family or friend pick you up, etc, just as is done today.

HSR provides a different option for intrastate travel, matching the quickness of air travel with much of the flexibility of driving (through connections to other transit systems) at a lower price. Certainly California has work to do in expanding its non-HSR transit offerings and this blog strongly supports those projects, such as LA County's Measure R. HSR will never be and isn't intended to be the solution to everyone's point A to point B trip. But it will make those trips across the state much cheaper and much easier.

UPDATE: Matt Yglesias reminds us that significant improvements in bus service can be made with a relatively affordable investment. For our own HSR system to be successful that means we need to push back hard against Sacramento's own efforts to further gut bus funding, which has already taken a significant hit over the last two years.