The latest in the unending saga. Maybe they should shoot the bullet train and put it out of its misery.
According to a new report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office reviewing the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s Draft 2026 Business Plan, Gavin Newsom’s bullet train project may not even reach downtown Merced or downtown Bakersfield. The report says the northern end would stop roughly 3.5 miles south of downtown Merced, while the southern end would land about six miles north of the previously planned Bakersfield station…And remember, this is already the scaled-down version…
The station problem is only the beginning. The Legislative Analyst’s Office report says 144 of the planned 162 miles could now operate on a single track. In real-world terms, trains traveling in opposite directions may have to wait for one another at sidings rather than running continuously on dual tracks…
The report also notes that the stations themselves are being simplified into “at-grade stations with single-side platforms” — bureaucratic language for another downgrade. Why? Because the costs have gotten so absurd that Sacramento is now trying to cheapen the project enough to keep pretending it is still viable.
Different geography, different demography, different forms of government, and different gas prices. Completely understandable that HSR would have completely different prospects in those countries than here.
We’ve also allocated our rail mostly for freight (25-40% of total freight), while the EU uses very little for freight (only about 5% goes by rail). That actually might be the right choice - it’s more efficient to move freight by rail than by truck (both cost and pollution) and it’s a better fit in the U.S., while the EU’s more robust access to waterborne freight routes allows them to devote more of their rail resources to passenger use.
The state was warned repeatedly that its plans were too complex. SNCF, the French national railroad, was among bullet train operators from Europe and Japan that came to California in the early 2000s with hopes of getting a contract to help develop the system.
The company’s recommendations for a direct route out of Los Angeles and a focus on moving people between Los Angeles and San Francisco were cast aside, said Dan McNamara, a career project manager for SNCF. The company pulled out in 2011.
“There were so many things that went wrong,” Mr. McNamara said. “SNCF was very angry. They told the state they were leaving for North Africa, which was less politically dysfunctional. They went to Morocco and helped them build a rail system.”
Didn’t know that. I figured with their extensive rail, they moved freight that way also. Interesting.
I think passenger rail is an obvious solution in some corridors. Apparently, in the northeast it is much more common than here in the west. I’ve often said that a rail from PHX to LA would be great. I’d use it. Then once I get to LA, Uber around. It’s a 5-6 hr drive (assuming you don’t hit traffic after Ontario/Redlands), very boring (not much to look at), and for about half the year it’s very hot. Lots of wear and tear on your personal vehicle. But perhaps less useful to have one from PHX to Albuquerque. More useful from PHX to the Grand Canyon (since people fly into Sky Harbor -PHX-, and then rent a car to drive up to Tusayan or Grand Canyon Village about 3-3.5 hours). Etc.
That’s what I mean when I say that the U.S. has different geography and demography. Our major cities are further apart, and have lower population density, than European cities. Phoenix to LA are about 375 miles apart, which is pretty much at the outer edge of what HSR can manage and be competitive with air travel. And both have very low population densities, even in their urban centers, which makes them very hard to get around without having your own car. Just a little too far, and too low-density, to make an especially attractive HSR pairing. You won’t get enough ridership to cover the enormous capital costs.
I think you are greatly misinformed. The CA bullet train has been a wild success, even more successful than they could have dreamed at the outset. I suspect that the reason is because you think the CA bullet train is a program meant to create a new fast train line between various CA cities. But this isn’t really the case. The CA bullet train is more a new CA industry that was created and provides well-paying jobs, for years, even decades. It’s the fact that it will last decades that makes it a wild success. It employs tons of people that otherwise would not be employed. There are teams that study the effects of grading an area on a specific species of snail. There are teams that study the wind created by the fast trains. And plenty of other teams. The people on those teams would not be likely to find employment elsewhere. Not only that, but what makes it an even greater success is that the people chosen to lead these teams are politically favored ones, and it is a legal way to return political favors via directing large sums of money towards all the various research projects. And to make it even more successful, some of the money has come from the Federal government. What a great accomplishment - to get the entire country to help fund your political favors! It’s truly genius.
Similarly, the CA Homeless industry is also a great success. Once you realize that the primary goal of the CA Homeless industry is not to reduce homelessness, but rather to provide well-paying jobs to those who would find it difficult to impossible to find such well-paying jobs elsewhere, you would see that that industry is also a great success. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite, they would prefer to grow the numbers of homeless so that the industry can grow as well.
I get the lobbying for it to constantly stop along the way slowed things down, but then the explanation becomes Newsom is inept. This does us zero favors.
Not much, I imagine. Or no more so than the usual amount. The CA HSR project has been a longtime dream of urban planners, transportation engineers, and environmental groups in CA - and probably around the world, since they all want the U.S. to shift focus away from highways and towards mass transit. So the effort to get it in place and funded was certainly motivated in large part by folks’ better angels.
But it’s hard to make these things pencil out, even if everyone means well. At 380 miles apart, LA-SF are really at the far edge of where rail can be competitive with air travel. LA has exceedingly little transit use (it’s like a 5-7% mode split) and while SF is very much better (25%, among the better in the country), they both combine to make the rail connection a little less viable. Our governmental structure makes it really hard to finance these kinds of projects, and our permitting and bidding/construction processes present obstacles to doing it cost effectively.
Even without villains, these types of things often get bogged down. Hanlon’s law in action, slightly modified: Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by bureaucracy.
Though I suspect it won’t go anywhere. Except in very specific locales (like NY), people just don’t think “trains”. They think “cars”, whether or not trains are more practical.
I agree with you that many routes aren’t practical. LA to PHX might actually be when you consider the time. You have to arrive two hours early to the airport (and you have to get to the airport by some means), it’s about an hour flight time, then you -perhaps- have to await luggage and get out of the airport. You’re already at ~4 hours. Driving is 5+ (depending how you drive). A bullet train could probably do it in 3 or less. I suspect tickets would be cheaper, too.
I don’t know enough about LA-SF to comment. It’s about the same distance as LA-PHX, but I think it has a lot more “stuff” in the way (i.e. buildings and private lands). From what little I hear, they do seem to be having problems with it.
Having ridden the Shinkansen (Tokyo to various places, including Hiroshima -which was the longest trip-), and the high speed from Madrid to Barcelona, and the TGV from Geneva to Paris, I can say that those particular routes were definitely better than the alternatives (e.g. flying, driving, buses). I would expect that there are places in this country where the same would be true.
You just rent a car at your destination. You do that when you fly anyway.
I agree with all your points about the challenges of HSR in the US. But the issue here isn’t ridership or competition with air. The issue they botched the construction phase. None of that other stuff matters if you can’t build it in the first place.
Absolutely. Unless the destination has decent public transport.
One downside to HSR would be its vulnerability to terrorism. Airports are reasonably secure. The rails travel on terra-firma, in the open. Sabotage would be easier than in aircraft. Just mess up a bit of track, and the train flies off the rails.
There’s probably not much of a difference. It’s about 380 miles from LA to Phoenix. Very fast HSR typically averages about 150 mph (the Shinkansen is lower at 135 mph on average, but PHX-LA won’t have as many intermediate stops). You’re looking at around 2.5 hours just of actual travel time, compared to the single hour of flight time. Again, at the very edge of being competitive with air travel on time. Yes, you’re recommended to get to the airport two hours early - but then again, you’re going to have to get to the train station some time before actual departure as well (it takes time to park and get to your platform). And most people can (and do) shave that down to 90 minutes or so, especially with pre-check and the like.
On cost, one-way flights are only about $70, and it’s very unlikely that the train tickets would be cheaper than that.
Ah, but that’s where the lack of transit starts to kick in. Airports are typically outside of urban centers, out where there’s lots of land - so they usually have plenty of space for sizable rental car fleets. Train stations are typically in downtown urban cores, with comparatively less parking available for either patrons or rental car companies. Train stations work best if there’s a robust transit system on both trip ends; airports are more suitable for travelers where the car is the dominant mode on both ends.
Not dispositive, but at the margins it affects the financials of these systems.
True dat! When you start building at 15% design, without all of the land acquisition deals in place, costs are going to balloon. Stack on top of that a failure in planning the route to minimize utility and infrastructure relocations and…
In my -admittedly limited- experience, it’s a lot faster than airports. Many, you just walk through ticket-reading turnstiles and proceed. Also, anecdotally, the folks that I know who fly a lot arrive at least 2 hours before. Normally, it isn’t necessary. But occasionally 2 hours is barely enough. I, personally, have also experienced both walking up to the gate with 90 minutes to spare, and walking up to the gate with my “zone” already called for boarding. (And that’s without having to play the luggage shuffle of moving items between bags so they all fall under the limit, even though you weighed the bags before you left the house.)
Of course. The question isn’t whether it’s faster, but whether it’s enough faster to compensate for the travel time being 2.5x longer. It probably isn’t. Yes, train stations are fast - but you still have to roll up to the train station some 20-30 minutes before scheduled departure. You want to hit the platform a good ten minutes before departure, which will mean getting to the station itself ten minutes before that.
Your train ride from Phoenix to LA will take you about three hours - get to the station twenty minutes before departure and a 2.5 hour ride. Your plane trip will take about the same amount of time - arrive at the airport about two hours before departure for your 1.0 hour flight. That’s if the HSR can get to the top average speeds of some of the faster lines of the faster systems in the world - if it ends up at Shinkansen speeds, you’re looking at a trip length of closer to three hours.
That’s why 400 miles is the outer bound of where these systems are at all competitive with flight.
Because 1) we dont have any really high speed rail in the country and 2) we haven’t had a terrorist incident with it. If/when that happens, you can count on screening and luggage and all the other hassles that slow down airport loading to be replicated at the train station.
Indeed, I’d say trains are more vulnerable, since their tracks are in some way accessible for the duration of the journey. An aircraft trip has only two points of vulnerability: the airport at each end.
And if you think an airplane crash makes for a big news story, wait until a 10 car train goes flying off a trestle at 200 mph.
Right. That was my point above. One of the reasons we don’t have HSR is that our geography is different than that of other countries.
In Europe and Japan, the distance between the nation’s largest city and second largest city - for virtually every country - is materially less than 400 miles. In the U.S., it’s more than 2,000 miles.
In Europe and Japan, the proportion of people that lives in those two largest cities is well north of 20% of the national population - meaning that a huge chunk of voters directly benefits just from that first single leg of the rail. In the U.S., it’s less than 9% of the population - and that’s for NY and LA, as the top two cities, which aren’t practical to connect by HSR. The largest population in a city pair that’s actually practical to connect by HSR is either NY-Philly or Dallas- Houston - and those metro pairs each have only about 7% and 5% of the population, respectively.
IOW, we lack the geographic and demographic conditions that exist in other countries that allow a national government to deliver a tangible benefit to a very large proportion of the national electorate with a single initial rail line. Our cities are too far apart, and we have too many of them, of any single city-pair to make up more than a tiny portion of the population. You just don’t have a situation like Japan, where the two largest metros happen to sit 225 miles from each other and where just those two metros have half the national population living in them.
