With SB 350 and the new High-Speed Rail....

"Jym Dyer" wrote in message
...
Matt Casey writes:
=v= Your vision is an appealing one, but it's not reality yet
by a long stretch. Perhaps you and Joey Jolley could go on an
envisioneering seminar.
_Jym_

FYI - Matt Casey IS Joey Jolley. He's baaaaaaaaaaacccccck.

On 11/5/2008 11:39 PM Jym Dyer spake thus:

Matt Casey writes:

Cities in the Bay Area are already doing TOD projects and
Berkeley is banning cars and replacing them with busses.

=1= First of all, Berkeley is doing no such thing.

=2= Second, TOD (transit-oriented development) is supposed to
mean that live/work amenities are within walking distance of
transit stops, with car parking taking less priority. But in
the Bay Area everything labelled "TOD" is built the other way
around, with car accommodations getting top priority. Clearly
there is much room for improvement.

Uh, =Jym=, do you realize who you're talking back to here? Do you also
attempt to carry on serious conversations with crank callers?

Anyone who responds to this idiot is an idiot as well.


--
Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.

- Paulo Freire

On Nov 5, 11:25*pm, Matt Casey wrote:
*California will become a car-free and aircraft-free state where all
travel is by
walking, biking, mass transit, airline travel will cease to exist,
and
the freeways and suburbs will be demolished and replaced with
farmland, open space, wilderness, orchards, and wildlife habitat.

* * *Cities in the Bay Area are already doing TOD projects and
Berkeley is banning cars and replacing them with busses.

Hi, Joey! You've assumed a new name. Congratulations!

"Stephen Sprunk" wrote in message
...
Calif Bill wrote:
Stupid people of this state. We are bankrupt and they pass a $2 Billion
bond issue for a train.

Actually, the bond election was for $9.95B.

They do not use Amtrak now, or buses.

They are, in record numbers.

How do they expect a high speed train to pay for itself?

The same way HSR service does everywhere else on the planet. Even the
relatively slow Amtrak Acela pays for operations and its share of the
infrastructure, and CAHSR would be significantly faster and thus able to
attract more riders at lower costs and higher fares.

BART pays it's drivers and station agents in excess of $80k a year. Good
union that goes on strike when they do not get the excess salaries
they want.

If you're unhappy with standard union activity in your state, pass Right
To Work legislation.

How much do you think a ticket on the high speed rail will need to cost
if it is to cover the $2 Billion plus operating costs?

First of all, it is not claimed that fares will cover the initial
infrastructure costs, just operations and maintenance plus a small profit.

Second, if you care so much about this, try reading the published
financial plan, which answers this specific question.

Probably more than the $80 airplane ticket.

No. See above.

And the airplane ticket is on a taxpaying entity.

Barely. The airline is losing money and they're operating from airports
and terminals that cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

S

Airports are paid for by fees on airplanes that the fed's collect. Unions
are OK until they over reach. And that is what the "Public Service" unions
do. Private company unions have to base their demands on what the company
can pay and stay in business. "Public Service" unions just force the
highest wages possible. $80 for a station attendant or driver. GED
education required. Maybe we should pay them the same as teachers aids.
Most of the highspeed trains are in areas with lots of people and not real
far distances. Europe is not real big, and the TGV from Avignon is still
3.5 hours and there is good public transport on the other end. How much is
Amtraks subsidy a year?

"Stephen Sprunk" wrote in message
news
Calif Bill wrote:
I realise that is just a design drop in the bucket. Be cheaper to give
free airline tickets.

Assuming you didn't have to spend the tens of billions of dollars needed
to expand (or even maintain) airports and highways to handle the same
volume of passengers.

Yes, CAHSR will be expensive. It's cheaper than the alternatives, though.

Maybe if you could drive your car on to the train and go to LA cheaper
and quicker than driving, they might have something.

Nobody in the world has ever built high-speed auto trains, nor are the
economics promising. Lots of places have profitable high-speed passenger
trains, though. Better to build what we _know_ works.

Are you going to suggest that the only way air service will be effective
is if people can drive their cars onto the plane? That is the primary
market that HSR competes with.

S

Other places have compact, public transit friendly destinations. If you
could load the car on the train and then have you vehicle available, would
be a big selling point. 4 hours and you are there and can sit and read or
relax and not spend the time driving.

Calif Bill wrote:
"Stephen Sprunk" wrote in message
news
Calif Bill wrote:
Maybe if you could drive your car on to the train and go to LA cheaper
and quicker than driving, they might have something.

Nobody in the world has ever built high-speed auto trains, nor are the
economics promising. Lots of places have profitable high-speed passenger
trains, though. Better to build what we _know_ works.

Are you going to suggest that the only way air service will be effective
is if people can drive their cars onto the plane? That is the primary
market that HSR competes with.

Other places have compact, public transit friendly destinations.

Indeed; that is a problem with most US cities. However, it does not
deter people from flying; in fact, LA to SJ/SF is one of the busiest air
routes in the country. Those cities _do_ have transit, and there are
novel inventions such as rental cars and taxis for folks who refuse to
use it or find it unhelpful for their trips. HSR would have less of a
problem in this are than air, in fact, since the "suburban express" stop
patterns would stop several times at each end, getting passengers closer
to their destination than air and making transit and taxis more useful.

If you could load the car on the train and then have you vehicle
available, would be a big selling point. 4 hours and you are there and
can sit and read or relax and not spend the time driving.

I agree that would be wonderful. However, as I said, nobody in the
world has ever built high-speed auto trains. The closest are the
shuttles through the Chunnel, and that is at low speed, with the loading
and unloading taking longer than the trip. Notice that those shuttles
do _not_ run from Paris to London but only from one end of the Chunnel
to the other. Oh, and it's crazy expensive, too. Moving autos requires
a lot more space and fuel than just moving bodies.

It is an interesting idea, perhaps one to test out once the system is
built, but such an unproven and untried concept cannot be the basis for
building the entire system. Start with what is known to work.

S

On Sat, 08 Nov 2008 23:13:55 -0600, Stephen Sprunk
wrote:

Calif Bill wrote:
"Stephen Sprunk" wrote in message
news
Calif Bill wrote:
Maybe if you could drive your car on to the train and go to LA cheaper
and quicker than driving, they might have something.

Nobody in the world has ever built high-speed auto trains, nor are the
economics promising. Lots of places have profitable high-speed passenger
trains, though. Better to build what we _know_ works.

Are you going to suggest that the only way air service will be effective
is if people can drive their cars onto the plane? That is the primary
market that HSR competes with.

Other places have compact, public transit friendly destinations.

Indeed; that is a problem with most US cities. However, it does not
deter people from flying; in fact, LA to SJ/SF is one of the busiest air
routes in the country. Those cities _do_ have transit, and there are
novel inventions such as rental cars and taxis for folks who refuse to
use it or find it unhelpful for their trips. HSR would have less of a
problem in this are than air, in fact, since the "suburban express" stop
patterns would stop several times at each end, getting passengers closer
to their destination than air and making transit and taxis more useful.

If you could load the car on the train and then have you vehicle
available, would be a big selling point. 4 hours and you are there and
can sit and read or relax and not spend the time driving.

I agree that would be wonderful. However, as I said, nobody in the
world has ever built high-speed auto trains. The closest are the
shuttles through the Chunnel, and that is at low speed, with the loading
and unloading taking longer than the trip. Notice that those shuttles
do _not_ run from Paris to London but only from one end of the Chunnel
to the other. Oh, and it's crazy expensive, too. Moving autos requires
a lot more space and fuel than just moving bodies.

It is an interesting idea, perhaps one to test out once the system is
built, but such an unproven and untried concept cannot be the basis for
building the entire system. Start with what is known to work.

S

On which side of the San Andreas fault-line will those railroad folks
be laying the rails? East or West?

DCI

Calif Bill wrote:
"Stephen Sprunk" wrote in message
...
Calif Bill wrote:
Stupid people of this state. We are bankrupt and they pass a $2 Billion
bond issue for a train.
Actually, the bond election was for $9.95B.

They do not use Amtrak now, or buses.
They are, in record numbers.

How do they expect a high speed train to pay for itself?
The same way HSR service does everywhere else on the planet. Even the
relatively slow Amtrak Acela pays for operations and its share of the
infrastructure, and CAHSR would be significantly faster and thus able to
attract more riders at lower costs and higher fares.

BART pays it's drivers and station agents in excess of $80k a year. Good
union that goes on strike when they do not get the excess salaries
they want.
If you're unhappy with standard union activity in your state, pass Right
To Work legislation.

How much do you think a ticket on the high speed rail will need to cost
if it is to cover the $2 Billion plus operating costs?
First of all, it is not claimed that fares will cover the initial
infrastructure costs, just operations and maintenance plus a small profit.

Second, if you care so much about this, try reading the published
financial plan, which answers this specific question.

Probably more than the $80 airplane ticket.

No. See above.

And the airplane ticket is on a taxpaying entity.

Barely. The airline is losing money and they're operating from airports
and terminals that cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

Airports are paid for by fees on airplanes that the fed's collect.

Airports are mostly paid for by local property taxes and parking
revenues; the fees on tickets and fuel are a minor contribution. And
there are no federal taxes on airplanes.

Unions are OK until they over reach. And that is what the "Public
Service" unions do. Private company unions have to base their demands
on what the company can pay and stay in business.

Hardly. There are hundreds of examples of industry unions demanding
more than the company can pay, forcing it either into bankruptcy or
off-shoring all the jobs -- either way leaving all those union workers
on unemployment.

Most of the highspeed trains are in areas with lots of people and not
real far distances. Europe is not real big, and the TGV from Avignon
is still 3.5 hours and there is good public transport on the other end.

It is well-known from experience that HSR is competitive with air for
trips of up to four hours, and Paris-Marseilles shows that the limit may
actually be five hours. LA-SF/SJ will be under three hours.

Lack of good transit at the other end may cut that down a bit, but that
hurts air _more_ than it hurts rail. Either way, at the other end, the
passenger must use a rental car or taxi if there is no transit
available. However, since rail can more easily stop in more places than
air, that improves access. In practice, most US airports are reluctant
to connect to the rail transit that _does_ exist because it cuts down on
their profits from parking structures, whereas intercity rail is almost
always connected to the local rail transit infrastructure (if any exists).

How much is Amtraks subsidy a year?

For HSR? Zero. First of all, Amtrak doesn't operate any HSR trains.
Second, the fastest train they operate, Acela, turns a profit, including
its share of the NEC capital expenses.

S

wrote:
On which side of the San Andreas fault-line will those railroad folks
be laying the rails? East or West?

I'm not all that familiar with the exact locations of various faults,
but I know that the proposed HSR system, by miles, will be mostly
constructed in the Central Valley, which I presume is east of any major
faults. The segment from the Central Valley into LA will cross one
major fault zone, and I presume the segment from the Central Valley into
SJ/SF will cross at least one as well. Worse, the SJ-to-SF segment
travels right up the SF Peninsula, which IIRC is parallel to or even on
top of a fault line.

That's not great, but many freeways have the same problems that CAHSR
will have, and for the same reason: Californians seem to prefer living
on top of active faults rather than somewhere safe, so there's no other
option.

S

In article ,
wrote:
On which side of the San Andreas fault-line will those railroad folks
be laying the rails? East or West?

DCI

East, at least for SFO-San Jose.

Steve

--
steve at w0x0f dot com
"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of
arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to
skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, chip shot in the other, body thoroughly
used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"