Sunday, September 28, 2008
Trade Ya a Rail Line for a Runway
Friday, September 26, 2008
Going Underground
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Guess Who!
But on to the report. Here's the first zinger.
It is possible that HSR can serve legitimate public and environmental purposes and be a financial success in California. However, the current CHSRA proposal cannot achieve such objectives.I'm not sure what other CHSRA proposal they were referring to, like they were proposing another one? Perhaps we should wait 20 years right? Because it will be so much cheaper. Why do they even say this when they don't even believe it.
Here's another favorite:
It should give pause that previous HSR projects have been halted in three states—California (for Los Angeles–San Diego), Texas and Florida. The federally sponsored HSR program for Boston– New York–Washington serves only a fraction of its projected ridership and carries a fraction of the passengers that European and Japanese lines carry.Because you can compare real high speed rail with a line that barely gets over 100 miles per hour. Apples to Apples right? And how about the Texas comparison, where HSR was stopped by airline lobbiests for Southwest Airlines, because they were so scared of what it would do to thier business.
I could go on but you really don't want to read my rant. If so inclined you can read the report for yourself. It's pretty gross and has a lot of generalizations.
And yes...they play the fear card.
Terrorism against rail targets is a concern considering the extent of attacks that continue to occur on rail systems around the world.Typical of current culture warrior thinking. When you can't win with the facts, try to scare people.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
When is the Time Ever Right for Everyone?
This is related to decisions we make in the United States to invest in future infrastructure. Just as my old coach decided it was a good decision for his future to take a head coaching job, it is a good decision to build high speed rail for the future. My point in the comparison is that there will never be a good time to make such a decision for some people. There will always be concern trolls that say well it's a good idea but we have other obligations. Decisions aren't easy. I learned long ago with the help of my parents that at some point you have to make them. And putting them off sometimes makes things worse in the long run.
Comments like this from assembly candidate Danny Gilmore will always be made: "I am in favor of high speed rail, but I don’t think this is the time for high speed rail" For him and others who oppose the project, there will never be a good time, which is why we need to make this decision now, to support investment that will help us in the long run, because as I said, putting off a decision now, will create more problems in the future. As some of you might have found out in college, procrastination is always the strategy of last resort. As Robert always says, the Cost of doing nothing is not zero.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Air France Gets into HSR
Monday, September 8, 2008
California HSR Could Go Green
A leading energy specialist has reported to the California High-Speed Rail Authority that the state's proposed high-speed train system can run with zero greenhouse gas emissions. The zero emissions strategy report was presented by Navigant Consulting Inc, a leading consultant on the energy, electric power and natural gas industries at the Authority's most recent board meeting held in San Diego. At the meeting, the Board adopted a renewable energy/zero emissions strategy for the high-speed train project.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
China Wants to Go Fast
"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.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Pulling Together Land Use & Transportation
Senate Bill 375 – commonly referred to in the popular press as the “climate change smart growth bill” – is going to become a law. The newspapers have been calling the legislation “precedent setting,” but it’s got nary a new idea in it. If you peel back the layers, you’ve got what old-timers like me call a “growth management law” – one that ties transportation funding to growth patterns.It'll be interesting to see how this works if it works. According to Bill Fulton, Contra Costa County has adopted similar measures, but that hasn't stopped the sprawl in Brentwood and other places or moved transit funding away from roads there. Much of the transportation funding is going to a 4th bore in the Caldecott tunnel.
In somewhat related news, the Governor changed his mind and decided that he will sign bills that will go to the voters, not wanting to withhold them from a public vote. This means HSR prop 1a will be on the ballot.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
A National Expansion Strategy
The idea is that if you hop on a plane and go to Columbus, you can get to the major destinations within Columbus and then hop on a train to Pittsburgh or Cleveland and get around in those places without a car. It seems to me that if you made it easy for people from outside of the city to operate without a car, it would make it easier to operate inside of the city.
There are two components, good metro networks and good city high/moderate speed networks. The larger network should connect cities together that are larger but probably don't get as good of airplane service and major cities that generate a lot of short flight trips. The smaller networks should connect, as said before, the major destinations in a region. For example, Denver's transit network is connecting the Federal Center, the Tech Center, Downtown, and Boulder together with transit. To me, making all of these connections should make it easier for creating transit villages where people can walk or bike for many of their trips and make intercity travel easier as well.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Weekend Homework: HSR Action
Friday, July 11, 2008
$1.6 Billion Profit for French Railway Agency
Pepy, SNCF chairman and chief executive (PDG) since February, says that, unlike his predecessors who had to manage a railway recession, he is presiding over an accelerating boom. The state-owned SNCF delivered a net €1.1bn (£875m) profit last year and first-half figures, due next week, are said to be sparkling. Pepy envisages up to 80m extra passenger trips this year or an increase of around 8%.I think we need to look ourselves in the mirror and think hard about what we're in for, although the folks that need a reality check most, probably like what they already see.
"This change will speed up because we are facing a twin energy and environment crisis," he says, pointing to surging fuel costs and growing personal worries about carbon footprints. "People want sustainable mobility and, in France, more trains and more SNCF."
H/T Americablog
Sunday, July 6, 2008
AirFrance Getting into HSR Business
“More than half of all flights are connections, and in effect long-haul is where the value is. Short haul is just way for Air France to get passengers to Charles de Gaulle” airport in Paris, Van den Brul said.
Shifting passengers onto trains from planes would result in “significant” cost savings, a particular concern for airlines struggling to cope with record high oil prices.
Energy accounts for about 40 percent of an airline’s total costs, against only around 10-15 percent for rail.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Metrobama
Ezra Klein -
It's worth noting that Obama's promise to fill the coffers of the Federal Highway Fund comes before his promise to build a "a world-class transit system." He does, however, say, "I don’t want to see the fastest train in the world built halfway around the world in Shanghai, I want to see it built right here in the United States of America." I'd sort of like to see that too, so Gobama!Yglesias -
Here's obviously this is my favorite part:To seize the possibility of this moment, we need to promote strong cities as the backbone of regional growth. And yet, Washington remains trapped in an earlier era, wedded to an outdated “urban” agenda that focuses exclusively on the problems in our cities, and ignores our growing metro areas; an agenda that confuses anti-poverty policy with a metropolitan strategy, and ends up hurting both.This is a point that urban policy people have been trying to push into the mainstream for a while. The fact that Obama's saying this means, among other things, that his team is paying attention to the right people. But we have poor people who don't live in cities, and cities are facing issues besides poverty -- among other things, we have the question of how to make it affordable for non-rich people to live in nice urban areas. Other highlights:
It’s time to stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq and start investing that money in Phoenix, Nashville, Seattle, and metro areas across this country. Let’s invest that money in a world-class transit system. Let’s re-commit federal dollars to strengthen mass transit and reform our tax code to give folks a reason to take the bus instead of driving to work – because investing in mass transit helps make metro areas more livable and can help our regional economies grow.As many of you know I don't think Maglev is really worth it. You can go almost as fast with HSR which is proven technology. But I like the fighting spirit.
And while we’re at it, we’ll partner with our mayors to invest in green energy technology and ensure that your buses and buildings are energy efficient. And we’ll also invest in our ports, roads, and high-speed rails – because I don’t want to see the fastest train in the world built halfway around the world in Shanghai, I want to see it built right here in the United States of America.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Want Legroom?
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
WiFi on the Thalys
Thalys, the train service operated by both the French national railway company SNCF and the Belgium national railway company SNCB inaugurated May 14, 2008 its new on-board service: Wi-Fi internet is now available while running at 320 kph between Paris, Brussels, Köln, and Amsterdam. At the same time, Thalys inaugurated the portal associated to the Wi-Fi access: Thalysnet.Man what I wouldn't give for some sweet WiFi on a 2 hour train to Bakersfield for Thanksgiving.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Dragging Them Kicking and Screaming
Rep. John Mica is from Florida and the ranking Republican on the house transportation and infrastructure committee. He has been fighting for local commuter rail recently but took a time out to gave a speech at the Dow Jones Infrastructure Conference. He discussed Semi HSR on the Northeast Corridor and improvements to Amtrak. When asked about the airline lobby, he had this to say:
"We'll drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st century."
There was also news from the Ranking Democrat from the same committee, James Oberstar. He stated in a discussion with Minnesota Public Radio that new starts rules would be changing. This would perhaps allow a tunnel under the university and cut down the importance of our favorite cost effectiveness measure.
Oberstar, who chairs the influential House Transportation Committee, supports the Central Corridor project linking St. Paul and Minneapolis. The DFLer said a recently passed bill changes how the Federal Transit Administration evaluates transportation projects that are seeking federal money.Hopefully this means that cities start planning lines based on ridership, rather than saying, what can we build for this small amount of money.
Under the old system, Oberstar said the FTA focused on what's known as the cost-effectiveness index. The CEI is a complicated formula that looks at travel times, ridership and construction costs.
But Oberstar said the index means the agency essentially ignores other factors, such as environmental benefits and the potential for economic development. He pushed for the recent changes, which will require the FTA to also give comparable weight to five other criteria.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Arnold on HSR
"I could not believe we were going at 350km an hour"
Believe it Governor, and make it happen here.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Obama on HSR
Grist has the money quote:
The irony is with the gas prices what they are, we should be expanding rail service. One of the things I have been talking bout for awhile is high speed rail connecting all of these Midwest cities -- Indianapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, St. Louis. They are not that far away from each other. Because of how big of a hassle airlines are now. There are a lot of people if they had the choice, it takes you just about as much time if you had high speed rail to go the airport, park, take your shoes off.
This is something that we should be talking about a lot more. We are going to be having a lot of conversations this summer about gas prices. And it is a perfect time to start talk about why we don't have better rail service. We are the only advanced country in the world that doesn't have high speed rail. We just don't have it. And it works on the Northeast corridor. They would rather go from New York to Washington by train than they would by plane. It is a lot more reliable and it is a good way for us to start reducing how much gas we are using. It is a good story to tell.