Hacker News Reader

Comment by cjensen | Hacker News Reader

HSR makes a lot of sense to me in general, but...

LA->SF is a terrible route because of geography. SF is northwest of LA, but the first thing the train does is head 50 miles East.

The quoted fares were laughable. The proponents were claiming the fare would be somewhere around $50 when existing San Jose->Sacramento service (a much shorter route) cost $40.

The insistence on running HSR all the way into SF is a bad idea as part of the initial plan. San Jose makes a better terminus: San Jose is served by Caltrain, Amtrak Capitol Corridor, and ACE, which provide connections to most of the Bay Area.

The plan should have started with an MVP and gone from there. "Merced to Bakersfield" is not useful. I would have gone with Los Baños to San Jose which could have served commuters. Then extend it to Merced and the rest of the Eastern Central Valley to help solve the Bay Area housing price problem.

View on HN

The route is a pretty poor outcome of special interests. I recall reading that the best engineering firms in the world said that we should essentially have a hub and spoke approach (i.e. you have a very straight high-speed line from LA to SF and then you have spurs that connect all of the small towns to that main pipe). Instead, the route curves around to get to every small town that wanted a whistle-stop.

I would personally love to see high-speed rail. SF->LA feels better to me but your observation that San Jose is connected to the bay area already and makes a great terminus is really good. Plus, I live in Oakland so I'd like it even more if it came right into my backyard :)

This is mostly inaccurate. The final route chosen is mostly a straight-line path (as in no undue detours) through the Central Valley, and in fact attempts by the city of Visalia to get a station were rebuked [1][2][3], as it was out of the way. Instead, it was routed through neighboring Kings county which opposed HSR from the beginning.

Other strange 'curves' in the path are for cost reasons: it's cheaper to crest the Tehachapi mountains southeast of Bakersfield than to follow I-5 up the Grapevine through Tejon Pass and through difficult terrain down to Santa Clarita. Similarly, both the Altamont and Pacheco passes were considered to cross from the Central Valley into the greater Bay Area, with the Pacheco Pass (Gilroy - Los Banos) having won out because it was a more direct path between LA and SF.

[1] http://hanfordsentinel.com/news/local/kings-tulare-counties-... [2] http://www.mercurynews.com/california-high-speed-rail/ci_248... [3] http://www.cahsrblog.com/tag/visalia/

This is the proposed route map, from the official HSR website:

http://www.hsr.ca.gov/Newsroom/Multimedia/maps.html

and this is a badly-shaded topographic map that shows the geography of the route in context:

http://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/newsroom/maps/Statewide_Topo_2016...

How much more would it cost to build it in a very straight line from Burbank to Gilroy, roughly parallel to Highway 101, right through the coastal mountains?

> The insistence on running HSR all the way into SF is a bad idea as part of the initial plan.

The "initial plan" covers a lot beyond what is planned for the first operational segments. Notably, neither of the proposed initial operation segments extend to SF.

> San Jose makes a better terminus

San Jose is the proposed northern terminus of one of the two proposed Initial Operating Segments for CalHSR (IOS-North, San Jose to Bakersfield -- the other is IOS-South, Merced to Burbank.)

> "Merced to Bakersfield" is not useful.

Merced to Bakersfield isn't an operating segment, it (well, not-quite-Merced on the North end) is the initial construction segment and test track, its also the overlap between the proposed IOS-North and IOS-South segments, so that the track laid for that is used for either Initial Operating Segment.

Agreed. MVP would have definitely been the way to go.

However, getting anywhere from San Jose to the rest of the Bay Area is pretty slow. Yes, a considerable number of jobs do exist in the San Jose & Santa Clara valley area, but commuting to the peninsula, city, or east bay is slow.

Frankly, it is insane that the Caltrain takes more than an hour to go from San Jose to San Francisco in 2016 and only runs a handful of times during the day.

I wonder how the HSR MVP would have looked local to the Bay Area travel from Stockton/Tracy to either SF or SJ would be in less than 30 minutes, opening up San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties for housing.

Also worth noting: I believe Caltrain was counting on some of the HSR money helping with its modernization project, bringing its section of the line up to spec for high-speed operation.

Which is a pressing issue, since Caltrain needs to replace its equipment at the very least, and probably straight-up needs to electrify its entire line.

There is a plan to electrify the Caltrain line, which will increase the frequency of service. According to the plan, the first electric trains will start running in 2020 or 2021.

http://www.caltrain.com/projectsplans/CaltrainModernization/...

Yeah, they plan to do it, but:

On May 5, 2016, the Caltrain Board of Directors adopted an agreement that invests an additional $211 million in the Caltrain Modernization Program. The seven-party agreement increases funding commitments from Caltrain’s state and local partners, including an additional $113 million commitment from the California High Speed Rail Authority.

(from http://www.caltrain.com/projectsplans/CaltrainModernization/...)

That's a significant chunk of change to be relying on from the HSR.

Indeed. There are other challenges as well. I think Caltrain electrification will happen, but the 2020 timeline is optimistic.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com