China Wants to Go Fast

Tell me again why Maglev is still an option? From Reuters:

"We have mastered core technologies in terms of manufacturing high-speed trains and made innovative achievements in the process," he said.

"It is possible that we can start to manufacture 380-kph trains in two years' time, and put them into service on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway," Zhang added.

That's 236 miles per hour and the technology is still progressing.

Update: Frequent commenter NJH has the following analysis on top speed for HSR.

Beijing Car Bans Swamp Subway Lines

I can't imagine what would happen to transit systems here if gas were to go to $10 a gallon. In Beijing today, the loop subway line was shut off from entries when it got dangerously full. A reported 1.8 million cars were ordered off the road to cut pollution for the olympics causing people to use the transit alternative.

Listen to a short story from Marketplace on the Olympic Air Cleaning.

Slow Boat to China

Another day, another China HSR expansion post somewhere in the blogosphere. When are we going to learn? Why are we sitting around doing nothing? What are we waiting for? I got an email from a reader a few weeks ago about our sloooow timeline for projects in this country. So here are some of his thoughts: J.M. Carter and the Slow Boat to China (Slightly edited for continuity and links to projects included)

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I would like to comment on the sad state of affairs that exists in this country re: the time it takes to get things done. There was a time when we could rebuild a battered and bloodied aircraft carrier in a matter of days and send it back into battle. Now, with the light rail "industry" generally we seem to be falling farther and farther behind other nations when it comes to constructing anything to do with rail transit.

Couple of examples right now:

Phoenix, Valley Metro light rail. The line running north on 19th Av. is to be extended an additional 3 1/2 miles with 3 new stations. This is less than 20,000 feet of wire and rail and maybe a substation. How long to do it? From mid '08 to sometime in '12 or as much as 4 1/2 years!

Salt Lake City, UTA Trax light rail. Just announced the start of construction on the 5 mile line to West Valley City with 4 stations. This is less than 30,000 feet in length. How long? This is maybe a joke from John Inglish, the top guy, but would you believe he actually says by '15? That's 7 1/2 years, depending on how far into '15 they go with it.

I would seriously consider applying for a job as timekeeper on both of these projects. Almost any other country could do either in less than 2 years, using the standards now applicable in the trade. The problem in public transit today is not just the knuckleheads in the FTA but rather the lack of funding and slow construction timelines in cities that already have plans for expansion. China is building heavy rail subways all over the place while India is doing the same as a close second to them. Any doubt as to where the wave of the future is now?

This really is something both the "industry" and the nation should feel frightened about. In an area where the feds -with their total overview of things-( as well as having the moneybags as leverage) really should be demanding and setting some standards, nothing is being done about absurd costs and time spans. Again and again you hear the refrain "local conditions" and "prevailing supply and demand." Have you ever heard of any US project taking a look offshore to see how others do some of these things that we are so slow with? Hell no. We just laugh at "the French" and ignore any and all innovations others have made and used successfully.

Take the proposed extension of Charlotte's new light rail line. Won't be ready until 2014 or even later (the date keeps changing) but it is at least 5-6 years away. 300 miles to the northeast in Norfolk, one of the very few bright spots in the current light rail scene, they are building a new line that- while a bit shorter than Charlotte's- is very similar to it in many ways and will even use the same S70 LRVs. Scheduled to be completed in 2010 at a cost only about a quarter of the Charlotte's Line.

If the FTA had any brains at all they would be waving this one around and demanding that it become a kind of standard for other systems. Norfolk shows it can be done quickly and right and some of these other buffoons should pay attention and maybe pay a visit.

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PT: Seems to me that we should be allowed to put light rail and streetcar lines back into streets that had them before. Why we need all these crazy huge environmental impact statements to put streetcars back in the streets many of them created is beyond me.

Thanks again J.M.

Beijing Opens Three Rail Lines in Time for Olympics

Two subways and an airport rail link are now open for business while China starts trying to cut pollution before the games. I hope that they can clear the air, at least for the Marathoner's sake.

The new links, built at a total cost of 22.3 billion yuan ($3.2 billion), increased the number of metro lines in the Chinese capital to eight and the total length of track to 200 kilometers from the current 142 km.

China Has Same Issues

I was talking to my friend Julie who lives in China and she seemed a bit worried about the American economy. She's seen a significant downtrend in orders to her business (computer parts tech etc) due to the slowdown. She's also been driving less because of gas prices. Apparently they are having similar problems which points to a coming economic dive. But its not just anecdotal, its in the news:

A computer engineer in Beijing, who goes by the surname Zhu, is one of them. He said he recently gave up driving and switched to taking the subway to escape from the fuel price increases. He estimated he would have to pay about 200 yuan more at the pump if he continued to drive.

He has also found it's very convenient for him to commute between home and work through the north-south subway Line 5.

It's getting bad out there. And by out there I mean around the world. There are options...

Two Types of Impact: Planning and Development on the Rails

While China seeks to sprawl and pursue what they think is the American Dream, the other world population giant India is looking to Japan for its thoughts on urbanization. This is a good sign for those who worry that energy will only get worse if China and India continue down the path of consumption.

Indo-Japan working group on urban development identified many areas including GIS based utility mapping, disaster management, emerging technologies in water and sanitation and clean development mechanism for further cooperation in the day long session today.

The group also agreed to explore on capacity building in urban transport, rail-based transit system, comprehensive mobility planning and management using intelligent transport systems.

Back in the United States, Phoenix is seeing a market shift around its soon to be open light rail line. In fact $6 Billion dollars has been spent on development along the line and now that gas prices are higher, land has become even more expensive and coveted.

Light rail is not the sole reason why projects in the transit system's vicinity have developed, real-estate analysts note. But the future system has definitely been a catalyst prompting developers to pay higher prices for property adjacent to the line for condominiums, office buildings and retail centers. Economic factors, including soaring fuel prices, have caused developers like Eugene Marchese to focus attention on transit-oriented projects.

I expect to see more of these stories about the direct benefits of investing in transit as well as these on the more high profile blogs. Maybe the pols would do well by starting to pay attention.

China Subway Expansion

Wired Autopia has been really up on transit and transportation news. Well recently they've had a lot of news on China's huge subway expansion including a crazy map of the built out system. As they say, it looks like a bowl of chow mein.

China: 270 KM of Subway Under Construction Simultaneously

This just makes me feel ridiculous. We're fighting over 10 or 11 miles at a time of surface rail and they are building 270 km (167 miles) of subway!

Six New Subway Lines to Start Construction By End of Year

Some of you might have thought 'awesome!' when you saw the title but I'm sorry to be a downer because no its not LA or San Francisco but rather Beijing which has the luck. From China View via Live from the Third Rail.

Beijing's urban planning authorities have approved planning permission for six new subway lines on which work is scheduled to begin by the end of the year.

The six new lines - the No. 6, 8 and 9 lines, the second phase of the No. 10 line, and the Yizhuang and Daxing lines, have a total length of 152 kilometers, according to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning. They will be completed in 2012.

Beijing currently has five subway lines in operation, with a total length of 142 kilometers.

"The city aims to raise the proportion of citizens choosing public transport from the current 30 percent to 45 percent by 2015,and the subway passenger volume will increase to eight million a day from the current 2.2 million," said the commission's Zhou Nansen.

8 million a day is huge. New York City gets about 6.2 million a day. But what is interesting is that they set a goal to reach in terms of percentage of total and figure out what they need to do to reach it. It certainly would be exciting if a major city in the United States was building 6 new lines and LA comes to mind as a city that might want to do that.