High Speed Trains Coming to Midwest.

[Bill in Utah]

Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Frickin' awesome. I think this is a great idea.

...but where is he getting the money?


From my 9 year old's grand children...

We NEED to do this, but reduce spending in other places to make up for this.

IMO, this is much more important than a LOT of stuff we spend $$ for...

 

[buster]

I don't have too much of a problem with this type of spending. The real issues are not being addressed though. Things like this are only worth it when your country has a savings rate and can pay for it. Spending others money can not go on forever. Our phony credit driven economy is on the verge of collapsing. May not be this year, but it's coming. We went from being the world's largest creditor to debtor in a very short period of time.

 

[TylerL]

Originally Posted By: Pablo
Why should the entire country pay for a regional or local train line that will not be profitable and probably will end up graffiti sprayed and crime ridden?

According the the man it's important to have what the Europeans and Japanese have.
That's not a good reason to spend other people's money.

 

[Kruse]

Originally Posted By: buster
I don't have too much of a problem with this type of spending. The real issues are not being addressed though. Things like this are only worth it when your country has a savings rate and can pay for it. Spending others money can not go on forever. Our phony credit driven economy is on the verge of collapsing. May not be this year, but it's coming. We went from being the world's largest creditor to debtor in a very short period of time.



Exactly. I'm not doing a Democrat bashing or a Republican bashing. They are both guilty. IMO, the dollar is getting shakey enough that all it would take is one country to say that the dollar is worthless and all the other countries could follow. Once you figure how much of each dollar goes to SS, medicare, medicaid and paying off the interest on the debt and you realize that there is not much left. And if the interest on the debt continues to go up......
The solution is guess is to print up more dollars, at least according to our government. And when the dollar is about as worthless as the Zimbabwe currency, they just point the finger at the opposite party.
No wonder that so many people are investing in gold. And also copper, bronze and brass.

 

[eljefino]

Better to have some usable infrastructure in a few years than another bank bailout that goes nowhere...

The funny thing about public transportation is it only takes one failed leg to [censored] the deal. Example: I take Amtrak Downeaster to Boston for a Red Sox evening game. Transfer to MBTA subway. Game goes into extra innings. Last guaranteed Downeaster leaves around midnight. ????

Someone looking at commuter traffic between timbleduk and fumblefoo might only see 500 people a day... but if that serves as a throughpoint, backup plan or connection, naysayers would put it down and block its ever getting built. Let's say there's a bus that goes later than the downeaster in my above ball game example, it may rarely turn a profit but its presence as a back up plan allows me to leave the car behind and take the downeaster. A good reason to run as a nonprofit/ subsidized by gas taxes.

Nevermind if I want to connect to the rest of the country, I have to go to North Station, take a bus over 2 miles of never planned/missing track to South Station, and onward...

 

[oilyriser]

Mass transit is a problem because people only really need it for a few hours total out of every day, and dedicated hardware would be wasted in the off hours. Freight is where the real fuel savings will be, since it can move 24h, but if you put freight on your commuter tracks they won't be any good for 300 km/h trains after a few years of abuse.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: oilyriser
Mass transit is a problem because people only really need it for a few hours total out of every day, and dedicated hardware would be wasted in the off hours.


Car is an even bigger waste that is being used less than 2 hours a day, for the cost of at least $50k over 10 years (car purchase, tax, insurance, fuel, and not yet including parking, tickets, repairs, etc). You can multiply that by 1000 and tell me how much it cost compare to mass transit (a semi-efficient mass transit system can easily support at least 1000 non-driver that doesn't own a car.

Quote:
Freight is where the real fuel savings will be, since it can move 24h, but if you put freight on your commuter tracks they won't be any good for 300 km/h trains after a few years of abuse.


You also need to know that freight cannot run at sleeping hour through residential neighborhood. Also reduction in commute time is as attractive as low cost. I frequently take public transit to avoid parking and traffic, even when I have a car and can get from my former home in SF to downtown SF in 1/3 of the time. The parking alone is going to cost more than my fare.

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
So with only $8 billion on offer and tens of billions likely needed to upgrade all 10 corridors, which ones are the most likely to receive the grants first?

Quote:
The example of California is instructive: In 2008, California voters approved almost $10 billion for a high-speed rail line stretching from Sacramento through the Bay Area and Los Angeles to San Diego.

The total cost of the 800-mile line is estimated to be around $45 billion, leaving a yawning funding gap. But Diridon noted that the President promised that the funding was only a “down payment” on America’s commitment to its train system and that more matching funds from state and local governments would be used to obtain the federal cash.

In the interim, money from the federal government can be used to push the process in California forward and actually get construction started while the rest of the funding is put in place.

http://www.petergreenberg.com/2009/04/16/all-aboard-for-american-high-speed-rail/
Just this ONE line will cost $45 Billion. That's $56,250,000 PER MILE.

Think of the road work that could be done for that money, that carries FAR more people.
The $8 billion is a drop in the bucket on system that few will use. Proof?

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9958

http://www.reason.org/news/show/122768.html

Light rail carries no more than 1% of commuters, where ever it is used. The LA and Bay area lines are complete boondoggles.

Also:
Quote:
A new report by the Government Accountability Office confirms those concerns, noting that expected costs and benefits differ greatly between densely populated regions and areas eager for rail development, but not necessarily able to support it.

"Research on rider and cost forecasts has shown they are often optimistic," the report states, adding that it's also difficult to forecast potential commercial interest in rail development.

Highlighting a point raised by high speed rail plan skeptics during The Eye's original reporting on the topic the GAO notes that "sustaining public and political support for project development will also be a challenge."

Uncertainties regarding rider forecasts and cost estimates can undermine confidence in whether projects will actually produce claimed benefits. Project sponsors must also sustain political support over several electoral cycles and coordinate project decisions among numerous stakeholders in different jurisdictions, typically without the benefit of an established institutional framework.
The economic stimulus package does provide $8 billion to fund high speed rail projects across the country, but experts say "That money will not be enough to pay for a single bullet train."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2009/03/the_possible_perils_of_high-sp.html

 

[oilyriser]

What's to stop you from designing high speed freight trains? Forget taking cars off the road; take airplanes out of the sky. The special rails could take passengers during commute hours, but be used for high speed courier use in the off hours.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: oilyriser
What's to stop you from designing high speed freight trains? Forget taking cars off the road; take airplanes out of the sky. The special rails could take passengers during commute hours, but be used for high speed courier use in the off hours.


Politics from Freight liner, airlines, and unions.

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
What's to stop you from designing high speed freight trains?

Little need for high speed freight trains. Cost goes way up. People want to get some place quicker than inanimate objects, so a few are willing to pay the extra price. Of course aircraft already do that well.

 

[Kruse]

Originally Posted By: oilyriser
What's to stop you from designing high speed freight trains? Forget taking cars off the road; take airplanes out of the sky. The special rails could take passengers during commute hours, but be used for high speed courier use in the off hours.


The high speed would scare a hobo.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: Tempest

Just this ONE line will cost $45 Billion. That's $56,250,000 PER MILE.

Think of the road work that could be done for that money, that carries FAR more people.
The $8 billion is a drop in the bucket on system that few will use. Proof?


You are picking the worst setup in the system. Light rail fail because it wasn't connected to BART and it goes through area without much density.

Why don't you look at BART and Caltrain, and how many people it moves every day from the Dublin, Livermore, etc to the rest of the bay area?

There is a reason we are trying to get votes to connect the light rail into the BART system, the bottleneck is between Fremont and Milpitas. No rail of any sort and you have to go a whole loop up north into Oakland on BART, cross the bay into San Francisco, then down into Milbrae and switch into a Caltrain, then down to Santa Clara and swith into light rail into the rest of the Silicon Valley. All just because of a short extension of a few extra miles of rail.

Now back to the high speed rail system. The "very conservative cost" of not building it and upgrade the airport and highway for future need is .... $82 billion, much more than the $45 billion it is estimated to cost. This hasn't factor in the traffic congestion for commuters on the relatively local routes.

(if it ever build due to all the environmental, union, airline, taxi, oil companies, tire companies, fiscal conservative, communist liberal's that are against everything that cost money up front)

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear

You also need to know that freight cannot run at sleeping hour through residential neighborhood.


It sure as [censored] can. I hear that train horn every night because the local city council is too incompetent to figure out how to file the forms for a train whistle ban.

 

[Tempest]

As one of the articles that I already posted stated:
Quote:
In the Bay area, San Jose is home to one of the nation's least productive and most expensive light-rail systems. Ridership numbers have plummeted in recent years. As those numbers dwindle, the city has raised fees, cut service and is now looking into a transportation tax to help prop up the ailing system.

One high-ranking transit official admits the San Jose system still has "a long way to go." He hopes that in 40 years the city's light-rail system will be seen as a success. Apparently, residents should just sit tight till 2044.

40 years to MAYBE work out, eh?

Also:
Quote:

BART is a one-off system that requires custom-made trains that are incompatible with the worldwide standard that Caltrain electrification will follow. This decreases competition to build BART trains and increases BART’s cost. Caltrain, on the other hand, can operate off-the-shelf equipment produced by a variety of manufacturers worldwide. In fact, some of the nicest amenity-filled high-speed trains in Europe cost less to build than a BART train does.


Because it's powered by a third rail in the ground that will electrocute anyone who walks on it, BART requires the entire line to be grade-separated before a single train can run. Caltrain evolved with the historical conditions on the Peninsula and has a number of at-grade crossings. Converting these to grade-separated crossings would indeed be costly, usually in the range of $100 - $300 million per crossing, as it would have to be constructed in a manner that existing service is not disrupted. Grade separations are often controversial within communities, because some people do not want the noise and disruption created by construction, and some object to the aesthetics of building a "great wall" that visually divides the community. Others feel that it is an important safety and traffic issue and worth the cost. Regardless, the point is that with an electrified Caltrain each community can decide for itself whether or not to build a grade separation, and as money becomes available without stopping the existing service from running.

Recent BART extensions are estimated to cost over $200 million per mile. By contrast, the total costs for electrifying the existing Caltrain line, enabling it to provide service both faster and more luxurious than BART's, is between $4 million and $5 million per mile, or about one-fortieth the cost! In contrast, an upgraded Caltrain could provide as good or better level of service, be ready to run in just in three years, cost a tiny fraction of BART, and happen while existing diesel Caltrains continued to carry more and more passengers.

http://www.bayrailalliance.org/q_why_not_replace_caltrain_bart_wont_cost_same_ele

Quote:
Although the State Treasurer’s Office estimates that
California will need to invest $82 billion over the next
decade to maintain current structures and build new ones,
projected state and local revenue sources will meet only half
of this need.

http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/rb/RB_600DDRB.pdf

So Cali doesn't even have half the money it needs to maintain CURRENT needed infrastructure much less a new high speed train...

 

[buster]

Quote:
Not All Economists Agree


In a speech this week summarizing his administration’s economic policies, President Obama grossly overstated the support these policies enjoy by claiming, “economists on the left and right agree that the last thing the government should do during a recession is cut back on spending.” There are a great many economists who were surprised to learn that, apparently, they now agree with the President.

Reading straight from the Keynesian playbook, Obama justified the creation of multi-trillion dollar deficits by asserting that the government must fill the spending void left by the contraction of consumer and business spending. As one of those mythical economists who do not agree with the President, I argue that it is precisely this type of boneheaded thinking that got us into this mess, and it’s the reason we are now headed for an inflationary depression.

We do not need, nor should we attempt, to replace lost demand. As Obama himself pointed out in the same speech, Americans have been borrowing and spending too much money. These actions created artificial demand, underpinned by the illusion of real wealth in overvalued stock and real estate markets. Given his intelligence and rhetorical training, it is hard to fathom how President Obama cannot notice the inherent contradiction in his argument.

While Obama commended millions of American families for making the hard choices to reduce spending, pay down debt and replenish savings, he later outlined the government’s intention to spend every American household deeper into debt, thereby undermining all the good that personal austerity would have otherwise produced.

Obama also made the clear-eyed observation that the foundation of our economy was unsound and that a sturdier one needed to be laid. To do this, he even asserted that we need to import less and export more. This has been one of my fundamental points. Our economy is unsound precisely because it is built on a foundation of consumer debt. Instead of spending for today, we need to invest for tomorrow. However, we cannot save more unless we spend less. Production requires capital, which only comes into existence when resources are not consumed.

However, by interfering with this process, Obama prevents the very transformation he acknowledges must take place. When the government spends what individuals save, private investment is crowded out. Society is deprived of the benefits such savings would otherwise have brought about. How can we lay a solid foundation if the government takes away all our cement?

This brings up an oft-repeated, but oft-forgotten, point: government does not have any money of its own. It only has what it takes from the rest of us. If individuals repay their debts, but their government takes on additional debt, we are all simply swimming against the tide. All forward progress is lost as private debt is replaced by public debt, which must be repaid by private individuals. Whatever gains individuals hope to achieve are negated by the higher taxes or increased inflation necessary to repay their share of a larger national debt.

Obama claims that much of the additional debt is not going to finance consumption, but rather “critical investment”. This is a vain hope. In the first place, much of what he categorizes as investment, such as additional spending on education, is not investment at all. Yes, an educated workforce is important, but throwing more government money at education will do nothing to achieve this goal. Spending money on education and calling it an investment squanders resources that otherwise would have financed real investments. In the second place, to the extent some government money is invested, those investments will likely be less efficient than those the private sector might otherwise have financed. There is absolutely no evidence that governments have the foresight or incentives to make investments that facilitate real economic growth. “Five year plans” didn’t work in the Soviet Union and they won’t work here. If the government simply builds bridges to nowhere, society gains nothing.

If we are going to rebuild our economy on a solid foundation, the market, not the government, needs to draw the plans. When private citizens invest their own capital, those who invest wisely are rewarded with profits, while those who do not are punished with losses. Bad investments are therefore abandoned, with capital reallocated to more successful ventures. Conversely, when governments invest money, these checks and balances do not exist. There is nothing to correct bad investments, as losses are endlessly subsidized by taxpayers. In fact, the more a government plan fails, the more it tends to be funded in the hope that additional resources will finally achieve success. Obama himself proves this by allocating still more funds to government-run schools and student loan subsidies. Other examples, such as Amtrak, the New York MTA, the U.S. Postal Service, Fannie/Freddie, and countless others, prove this process is never-ending – until perhaps the bureaucracy collapses under its own weight.

When it comes to government making tough choices, Obama talks a good game, but refuses to actually make any. However, once the dollar finally begins its collapse, he will have no choice but to match his rhetoric with action. It’s unfortunate that we cannot make these tough choices on our own terms, rather than waiting for our creditors to force our hand.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: Tempest

40 years to MAYBE work out, eh?


Not if they extend BART to Milpitas and connect it to the light rail. The traffic on this 5 miles stretch is right now about 30-40 mins depends on traffic condition.

Quote:
BART is a one-off system that requires custom-made trains that are incompatible with the worldwide standard


Mr. Armchair Quarter back, you need to know that BART extending to Milpitas or even San Jose have nothing to do with Caltrain, because they do not support the same route or service the same area. Also, BART moves 320k riders per day, and 150k through a tunnel underwater. Having a more expensive car to reduce the tunnel cost seems like a wise move.

http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:eet...lient=firefox-a

"BART supports an estimated 320,000 riders every day. Nearly half of those riders, 150,000 people, travel through the Transbay Tube, which opened to the public 30 years ago."

The study comes days before the 15th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake. The magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit the Bay Area on Oct. 17, 1989, killing at least 63 people and injuring more than 3,750 others, destroying the Cypress freeway in Oakland and causing an estimated $5.9 billion in property damage.

"We found that the peak morning rush hour will go from two hours starting at 7 a.m. to a staggering seven hours, so half the workday would be gone by the time drivers step out of their cars," said Michael Cassidy, UC Berkeley professor of civil engineering and co-author of the report. "We didn't analyze the impacts on labor, but it's hard to imagine how such a serious traffic mess would not put a dent into worker productivity."

Quote:
Quote:
Although the State Treasurer’s Office estimates that
California will need to invest $82 billion over the next
decade to maintain current structures and build new ones,
projected state and local revenue sources will meet only half
of this need.


So Cali doesn't even have half the money it needs to maintain CURRENT needed infrastructure much less a new high speed train...


That's what happen when you did not spend enough in infrastructure. We had the same gasoline tax per gallon for a couple decades when gasoline rise from 99c to $4.5 then come back down to $2.3, at about 17c per gallon. The population grow from 19,971,071 in 1970 to 36,553,215 in 2007, when the majority of the infrastructure remains the same.

http://recenter.tamu.edu/data/pops/pops06.htm

Transportation budget

$1,111M in 2007, $30.39 per person. And you think we should spend even less?

 

[Bill in Utah]

Originally Posted By: buster
However, once the dollar finally begins its collapse, he will have no choice but to match his rhetoric with action. It’s unfortunate that we cannot make these tough choices on our own terms, rather than waiting for our creditors to force our hand.


Sad but TRUE....

 

[oilyriser]

They could add courier/postal cars during off-peak hours. People might have to walk a few steps more to get to the middle cars, but that'll help reduce lardazziness, which is a good thing.

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
Not if they extend BART to Milpitas and connect it to the light rail.

$4.7 billion for ~16 miles of track = $294 MILLION dollars per mile...
http://www.examiner.com/a-545112~San_Jose_BART_funds_irk_some.html

Also:

Quote:
We simply cannot afford to build a BART line to San Jose. We also cannot afford to operate it. There are many more cost-effective ways to improve public transportation in the South Bay.

Lack of transportation, as the failure to evacuate thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims who didn't have access to cars demonstrated, can having devastating effects in extraordinary circumstances. It can also make day-to-day life, doing things like getting to jobs, doctor appointments, the grocery store, the post office and the like grindingly difficult, as Campeau's column described.

South County lacks adequate public transportation services right now. Extending BART to San Jose will not change that. Extending BART to San Jose will create a financial drain on the VTA that will likely result in reduced public transportation services for South County.

Why the gloomy prediction? Take a look at the disappointing results of the BART extension to the San Francisco Airport.

Ridership has been dramatically below projections since the line opened. The San Francisco Examiner reported in March that officials resorted to sending 122,000 free BART passes to San Mateo County residents to get them to use the new stations.

The San Mateo County Times reported in August that the BART board of directors hiked Peninsula fares by $1.14 and dramatically cut the number of trains on the Peninsula, "the fourth service tweak since the line opened two years ago." These moves were made in an attempt to avoid closing some Peninsula BART stations on weekends, which had been proposed and seriously considered.

The woefully low ridership has sparked legal battles between BART and SamTrans officials over the unexpected, multimillion-dollar operating cost shortfall.

If BART to SFO is such a disappointment, why should anyone believe that extending BART from Fremont to San Jose would be a roaring success?

http://www.gilroydispatch.com/opinion/168521-look-at-barts-ridership-history-and-just-say-no-way