
What I learned today about SNCF and California HSR (2012) - nawre
http://marketurbanism.com/2012/07/10/what-i-learned-today-about-sncf-and-california-hsr/
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mschuster91
> Namely, they wanted to make a straight shot from LA to San Francisco by
> running along the flat, government-owned I-5 corridor with spurs out to the
> eastern Central Valley, whereas the California High Speed Rail Authority
> (CHSRA) and state politicians wanted the main line to go through every
> little town in the Central Valley, directly.

For Germans, this is nothing new. Local/regional politicians always want to
have the ICE (Intercity Express, our version of high-speed rail) stop in their
more or less tiny village.

The problem is almost always that the villages lack adequate rail connections
to the next hub, and I imagine that this problem is even more expressed in the
US, given the near total lack of passenger rail...

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rayiner
This is a classical example of American "worst of both worlds" governance.
People in Bakersfield aren't going to take the HSR to LA, at least not in
enough numbers to justify connecting Bakersfield to the HSR. It'd be better to
just build a straight-shot HSR and take all the money you save and give a tax
break to folks in Bakersfield, or _something_. But our political system isn't
able to achieve that result.

How do European countries deal with it? It's not like Germany and France don't
have rural areas versus urban areas (vast swaths of both countries are
farmland).

~~~
tehabe
In Germany the ICE train mostly runs on existing routes, for newly build
routes you have to make the trade off between connecting cities and travel
time.

But not connecting a city of almost 400,000 people is odd, it should get a
stop. I don't think the Deutsche Bahn oder SCNF would be allowed not
connecting those cities in their home markets.

~~~
mixmastamyk
I know quite a few folks living out there in the central valley, they are very
conservative. They _hate_ the idea of costly train being built with their tax
money.

That doesn't mean they wouldn't grow to like it eventually, but it wont help
ridership in its early and fragile years.

~~~
ubernostrum
Never underestimate the ability of "very conservative" people, who hate tax-
funded infrastructure, to nonetheless be heavy users of that infrastructure.

Remember, even Ayn Rand accepted payments from entitlement programs she hated.

~~~
rayiner
It's not a question of liberal versus conservative. The main value of HSR is
allowing people to rapidly move between city centers for business or pleasure.
How often do people in Bakersfield need to go to LA or SF?

~~~
mahyarm
If the HSR is fast enough, it might induce a long distance commuter community
in bakersfield as it induces demand. So it's hard to say.

It's kind of like the joke that it's cheaper to live in vegas and fly every
day to work in SF than to live in SF.

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akamaka
For those interested, here is a rebuttal article, also from 2012:
[http://www.cahsrblog.com/2012/07/new-evidence-shows-flaws-
in...](http://www.cahsrblog.com/2012/07/new-evidence-shows-flaws-in-sncf-plan-
for-california-hsr/)

~~~
powera
When the rebuttal letter literally says "I am aware that there was significant
controversy over SNCF in 2010, emanating from their role in deporting French
Jews to death camps during WW II", I suspect the reasoning is more political
bickering than anything else.

Even if the company did literally support the Nazis during the French
occupation over 70 years ago, that's no reason to boycott them now.

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scythe
I had guessed this would work myself:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13632763](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13632763)

Note that neither I nor SMCF had suggested the cities on SR-99 would be
excluded from the HSR service area, but that transportation "spurs" would be
created at some point in the future to connect those towns to the HSR
conveniently. This concurs with projected trip data (linked and discussed in
above thread) suggesting that most trips from the CV cities end north of the
Gilroy or south of Palmdale, i.e. Bakersfield to Fresno even with direct-to-
city HSR has difficulty competing with the convenience of cars (which are
going to get cheaper as battery technology improves). As such it's my opinion
that HSR on the I-5 corridor would not really underserve those towns, although
they would (correctly IMO) no longer be the first to get rail connectivity.

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r00fus
Does anyone know why using spurs (branch lines) is a bad thing?

For example, the BART runs a branch line to Dublin/Pleasanton (and possibly
Livermore) but it's not part of the "trunk" to Richmond.

~~~
tehabe
The route is branching, you have a route from LA to San Francisco but it is
branching to Merced and later this branch gets extended to Sacramento.

It is always a trade-off, you'll never get the perfect route.

~~~
Gibbon1
I also think that people get way too hung up on the SF to LA bit. Where the
California HSR is about a lot more than just that. The SF -> LA -> San Diego
part is actually mostly about freeing up airports to handle longer distance
national and international traffic.

The central valley part is to tie the central valley cities to the each other
and to the coastal cities. I think another part to is try to reduce future
sprawl of the central valley cities. Much as people in Bakersfield and Fresno
may hate that, it's the right thing to do going forward.

Other part that is totally ignored is that most of the riders will be
commuters similar to BART. They won't go from SF to LA, but from SF to San
Jose, or Morgan Hill to San Jose, etc.

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skybrian
It's interesting gossip, but someone talking about private financing in a
meeting seems quite far from having a deal lined up?

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powera
If this project makes financial sense, ideally an existing railroad company
would run it.

Berkshire Hathaway (as the owners of the BNSF railroad) is the only US-based
company that has the capital and railroad experience to even consider it.

In this situation, I'm not sure how or why the California government would
turn away any foreign company willing to do it.

~~~
khuey
The project can make sense for the State of California in ways that are
impossible for private investors. For example, providing fast convenient
transport to places people want to go generally increases the value of land.
The state can benefit from this passively via its taxing authority while a
private investor would have to purchase land outright with an enormous capital
outlay (if it were possible at all). HSR is also a substitute good for short-
haul air travel, which is typically provided with government subsidy (in the
form of airports).

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nolta
2012

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throwaway999d
HSR is a great example of what happens when a bunch of coastal elites look at
the countryside ("flyover country") and assume it's empty and worthless so
nobody will object if they run a bulldozer through it for a big government
project.

On the contrary, California's Central Valley is one of the most vibrant and
important areas of the state with property claims going back to the
homesteading period. So shocking that these people aren't happy with a bunch
of LA and SF people wanting to tear up their back yards for a boondoggle they
will never use or care about.

~~~
calichoochoo
The amount of land needed for HSR is much less than that needed to transport
current and future population by either air or road. Just look a how much
prime land SR-99 and of course many HSR opponents want to widen it.

~~~
throwaway999d
Nice talking point. Locals actually use roads. They will never use this
"bullet" train to go to cities hundreds of miles away from where they live and
work.

~~~
calichoochoo
Think how happy locals will be then that the people traveling farther aren't
clogging up the roads.

