
Could High-Speed Rail Ease California’s Housing Crisis? See Japan - pseudolus
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/01/high-speed-rail-california-affordable-housing-crisis-japan/581161/
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niftich
They'll do a study on this by studying Japan, but a better place to study is
France. Or even Europe altogether; the high-speed part here is a red herring,
what matters is seating-room, few-transfer commutes of tolerable duration to
outlying towns where road-bound price pressure doesn't currently extend. Many
countries in Europe accomplish this with trains of "conventional" speeds.

On the other hand, it's hard to argue that places like Tracy, Stockton,
Modesto, and Sacramento aren't already in the gravitational pull of the Bay,
or Lancaster and Palmdale aren't already in the commuter belt for LA.
Desirability in these places is likely to rise with the option to trade a long
car commute to a shorter P+R train commute.

The toss-ups are Bakersfield and especially Fresno. These are metros far
removed from others, can't significantly interface daily commuters with
others, so their housing and job markets stand on their own. But for the same
reasons, among California metros they're also the least subject to existing
affordability crises. If their access to the Bay and LA improves, this will
change -- and already-sprawling, already-transit-poor Fresno and Bakersfield
can hardly distribute this rise in demand evenly in their grid.

EDIT: 'Organic' affordable housing has always been greenfield, because it's
cheap to turn peripheral land to inexpensive dwellings. But HSR will serve
built-out city centers, where expensive redevelopment is required if one wants
to satisfy demand. And if the demand is there, the asking price will reflect
that.

~~~
bsder
> They'll do a study on this by studying Japan

And miss the point that the way real estate works in Japan is fundamentally
different from the US.

In Japan, land ownership doesn't really help build wealth, so people are happy
to densify.

~~~
einarvollset
Note that I'm not disagreeing with you, nor trying to be confrontational, but
I'm curious why land ownership in Japan does not build wealth?

~~~
Aeolun
One point is that most people do not want to live in an old house that someone
lived in (or worse, died in) before. There is a strong tendency towards
building new houses on old land.

I can only speak for Tokyo, but it basically means that if you buy land for
$400k and build a house for $200k, the value of the second will slowly
approach zero, while the price of the land does what it does.

In Tokyo this appreciates a bit, so your wealth remains more or less the same.

If you go outside of Tokyo though, where the ratio becomes more like $50k
land, $100k house, it’s easy to see that it’s not something you do as an
investment. Land won’t increase in value there either as everyone is leaving
for Tokyo.

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cpursley
I'm all for high speed rail, but the only thing that's going to "Ease
California’s Housing Crisis" is the legalization of housing. Everything else
is an expensive bandaid.

A better transit investment would not be high speed rail, but expanding city-
wide rail/metro combined with zoning that allows denser housing to be built
around stations.

~~~
hoaw
You can't build a lot in the bay area without affecting people who have a
large personal stake in the housing market. That is the core of the issue in
any major city with high housing prices. One of the few ways you can work
around that is by building high speed transit. Since building in those newly
connected locations will be in a different market or political region.

~~~
fipple
Another way is to take away power from the people who own housing and give it
to people who are struggling to live or move there. With state or federal
power.

~~~
sl1ck731
Why would anyone build family housing or buy it there then?

Renting sure. But purchasing house means a lot more than "this is my square".
Amenities, schools, the community are all directly tied to what your house is
worth and it is an investment.

If I'm putting down a million dollars on a house and you decide my local gov.
elected representatives are going to be superseded on local governance I'm not
going to be very happy.

~~~
fipple
Lol. Your vaunted local representatives are superseded on everything from
their airspace (FAA) to their property tax rate (California Prop 13). This
isn’t some unprecedented infringement of local control.

~~~
sl1ck731
Lol there is a precedent for the regulations in place that you are after to be
handled locally. Lets just take all the things and federalize it until I get
my way.

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dilap
My pessimistic view is no policy prescription will fix SF (perhaps the most
housing-crises-ed part of California) because the (1) govt is incompetent (or
maybe even actively malevolent), (2) we seem to have lost the ability to build
infrastructure effectively (e.g: new bay bridge span: possibly unsafe, over
budget, behind schedule; new bus terminal: possibly unsafe, extremely
expensive; new bus _lane_ down van ness: extremely expensive, behind schedule;
gg bridge access tunnel: extremely expensive...&c)

~~~
habosa
I sadly agree with this. I think SF is broken beyond repair.

I identify as a liberal democrat, it makes me sad that a city that has been
under the control of my preferred political ideology for decades is so
completely dysfunctional.

It makes me wonder if there just aren't enough people who share my values but
actually have skill in governance.

~~~
zozbot123
> I identify as a liberal democrat, it makes me sad that a city that has been
> under the control of my preferred political ideology for decades is so
> completely dysfunctional.

Some people say that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same
thing in the same way, while expecting different results.

~~~
habosa
I'm not sure either party can govern effectively when they are in a political
bubble. It seems that both ideas have good sides and the best governments are
the (rare) ones where multiple parties have power and compromise occurs.

However in America I only get to vote for one of two sides and I still think
mine is the lesser of two evils.

~~~
munk-a
It'd be really nice if America could crack the two party system that's so
heavily entrenched but... that'll only happen with the cooperation of those
parties which have no motivation to do so - other than silly things like
"democratic ideals" and "making a fair and open society"

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squirrelicus
In the Japanese model, you observe where people are going, and make that more
efficient.

In the Californian model, you decide in committee where people ought to go
(which is everywhere represented by committee members) and design something
too big and expensive to succeed.

~~~
the-pigeon
The high speed train in California has always been based on connecting the Bay
Area and the Los Angeles.

They are both the largest population centers in California by any metric. This
is not "decide in committee where people ought to go".

The particular station locations is much more complicated but still based on
population centers but a whole host of NIMBY action pushed a lot of those into
less favorable locations.

~~~
seiferteric
What is the goal though? Why do we need to connect SoCal and NorCal with high-
speed rail? It would make much more sense to me to connect towns in the
central valley to the bay area considering many people already do this "super
commute" already and I have to imagine it is miserable. Imagine being able to
get from Stockton to Oakland in an hour or less by train. Seems like you could
build high speed lines in every town in the central valley to the Bay, from
Sacremento down to Madera or something and it would be a way better value than
building a line from North to South.

~~~
8ytecoder
Exactly. At the very least it should be between Sacramento and San Francisco.
A few people I know do 2 hour commutes living in and around Tracy/Sacramento
area because it's the only way they can afford to own a house. But then
there's no real jobs there and they have to come to SF for that. There's no
solution in sight for the "larger" bay area.

(Don't get me wrong. I love Shinkansen. That made my Japan trip so much more
pleasant than anywhere else I have been. Not a single plane trip within the
country. No need to pre-plan. Just buy a ticket and hop on. In California
though, I know very few - they do exist - who regularly commute between LA ->
SF. Regularly ~ a few times a month for a few days at a time)

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kposehn
Basically, the answer is "Yes" as long as the routes and operations are
reassessed to make them much more usable for commuting. The current routing is
distinctly sub-ideal for Central Valley => Bay Area along with San
Diego/Irvine => LA

If you want commuters to use HSR, you have to make it easy for people to use.
This means the line from SF to Sac/Roseville being placed directly along the
80 corridor with frequent stops for locals as well as dedicated express
trains. This requires sidings at all tops in both directions to enable
passing, something not currently envisioned for 90% of the stops (iirc).

The biggest problem with CAHSR imho is that they started grading the RoW and
laying track in the central valley before they had started on crossing the
Tehachapi mountains. The highest long-term value to HSR is going to be the LA-
SF route. The one piece with the longest build and highest cost is the route
over the mountains (the existing route owned by the UP and with BNSF having
trackage rights is 2/3 single track and completely at capacity, with speeds of
less than 30MPH average).

There is _no way_ that HSR will be long term viable without that route in
place. Until they build that and rationalize the routes, it will be nothing
but a faster and vastly more costly replacement for the San Joaquin corridor
passenger trains.

I want it to be a success. I'm very pessimistic about that in the current
state of affairs.

~~~
alexhutcheson
> This means the line from SF to Sac/Roseville being placed directly along the
> 80 corridor with frequent stops for locals as well as dedicated express
> trains. This requires sidings at all tops in both directions to enable
> passing, something not currently envisioned for 90% of the stops (iirc).

This would require an additional crossing of the California Coast Ranges
(crossing the Diablo Range somewhere between Oakland and Fairfield), and a new
tunnel across the bay between SF and Oakland. Both would be $$$$$
megaprojects.

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porpoisely
Was this study funded by a pro-high speed train consortium by any chance? I've
become so skeptical of studies lately.

Isn't the easing of japan's housing prices due to japan population
stagnation/decline and nearly 30 years of economic stagnation?

Also, didn't japan's housing prices rise dramatically in the first 25 years of
their high speed rail's existence before crashing in the early 1990s?

Japan's population growth since 1990 has been pretty much 0%. California's
population has increase nearly 50% since 1990.

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alexhutcheson
The article doesn't mention the common Japanese practice where employers pay
the cost of their employee's rail passes. This subsidizes expensive, long-
distance commutes, and at least some employees would likely choose a cheaper
commute if they had to bear the cost directly.

Intercity trains will come with an intercity price tag, which is more than
most people are willing to pay for without a subsidy. There's a reason very
few people in Europe use ICE trains for their daily commute.

~~~
pixelcort
Not to mention most companies in Japan will only pay for rail passes that are
not Shinkansen, with limited exceptions. There are express trains that are not
Shinkansen that can be used, so I imagine most commuters use non-Shinkansen
everyday when compensated by their employers.

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Bucephalus355
I love trains and have taken Amtrak many times. I want to see rail well-
funded.

That being said, high-speed rail is often seen as a ploy for other things.

The best example I can think of is during the Obama administration the attempt
to build a High Speed rail link between Manhattan and Washington DC. Bringing
Wall Street closer to DC is the last thing the world needs, and shows how out
of touch the rail planners were at times.

As I remember they had some other great plans like in Florida that were sadly
rejected, but I never got a clear explanation for some of those real dumb
proposals that made everyone suspicious and tanked the project.

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Animats
Northern California's "housing crisis" is probably a transient. Remember 2008,
when there were vacancies everywhere? Or 2001, the first dot-com collapse.
We're headed there again. By the time any major infrastructure projects get
going, the housing crisis will be over.

Overall, California's population is leveling off. So is the US. The US hit
"peak baby" several years ago and population growth is below replacement rate.

~~~
kelp
Northern California housing costs have been rising much faster than inflation
for well over 30 years. Yes it corrected some in 2001 and 2008, but then
continued to march upward, always regaining previous highs within 2-3 years,
and then surpassing them.

Look at the charts here [https://www.bayareamarketreports.com/trend/bay-area-
real-est...](https://www.bayareamarketreports.com/trend/bay-area-real-estate-
cycles)

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jpatokal
In a word, no.

There are some 30 million people living in the greater Tokyo metro area,
depending on where you draw the line, of which 14 thousand have Shinkansen
commuter passes:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/6mfho3/of_the_14k_co...](https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/6mfho3/of_the_14k_commuters_using_shinkansen_daily_in/)

That's 0.047%, a negligible drop in the bucket, and that's despite Tokyo
having last-mile transit options infinitely better than California's.

Note for fairness: this does exclude the considerable numbers of salarymen who
effectively maintain two homes, namely a tiny bachelor pad in Tokyo and a
larger family household elsewhere, and "commute" by Shinkansen to return on
the weekends. This is common enough that there's a Japanese term for it, 夫婦別居
_fuufu bekkyo_ , literally "husband and wife living separately" but lacking
the separation-before-divorce connotation that carries in the West.

However, California is notably lacking in affordable bachelor pads and stay-
at-home moms financially able and psychologically willing to tolerate this.

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xvedejas
With the US's uncanny ability to spend several times more than other countries
on rail projects, I'm sure that building HSR will be a much costlier solution
to the housing crisis than just reforming zoning.

I think the global warming angle is a much more compelling reason for HSR.

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cbhl
A lot of the discussion around transit-oriented development in norcal is
around putting higher density around existing train stations, but BART and
Caltrain are already at capacity during rush hour.

I feel like San Francisco and Mountain View would get far bigger bang for
their buck if SFMTA and the Planning Commission could coordinate to build bus-
centric high-density transit developments around the existing freeway off-
ramps. Just add another pedestrian/bike/transit-friendly bus loop connected to
the freeway (like the Salesforce Transit Center, although maybe not on
stilts). Facebook, Google, Apple, etc already pay for operating the buses, and
would add more if the buses achieve high enough utilization.

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gumby
The under appreciated links are not SF/LA, though I'd prefer rail to flying
due to overall logistics (same reason I prefer Eurostar to discount airlines).

The real winners will be Fresno and Bakersfield to SF or LA. Lower living
costs, and tying those economies into the Bay Area. Having an office of your
startup out there becomes just as reasonable as doing one in Fremont or
Pleasanton.

The actual Fresno<->Bakersfield link itself (from one terminus to other) I
think will be less likely -- the drive is boring but most likely you're not
going from city center to city center and the local transport is limited. So
I'd probably still drive down 99.

------
max76
Aside from the benefits to daily commuters there is demonstrated demanded for
travel among the west coast that can be satisfied by this. How many people fly
between SF and LA every day? There are large number of short flights between
all of the west coast cities. A train would be cheaper. Current security
practices would make the train faster for short travel as well. Increasing
human bandwidth between our cities will be very valuable for the economy.

~~~
jmspring
Given the need to get to an airport early for security/etc, time of flight,
time to get bags/transport/etc upon landing -- unless it is a business trip
that is a day or two long, driving between the Bay Area and LA area isn't
really that much longer.

~~~
max76
Still, SFO and LAX is the most traveled route in the US, with 30,000 flights
in 2015 [0]. If HSR is viable anywhere in the US it’s this route.

[0] [https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/07/05/americans-fly-lax-
sfo...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/07/05/americans-fly-lax-sfo-more-
than-any-other-flight-path-in-the-u-s/)

~~~
wl
I wonder how many passengers on that route are on connecting flights. HSR is
likely to be an alternative for those who have LA or SF as destinations, but
not for people traveling onward.

~~~
Gibbon1
Granted this was 20 years ago, but I used to fly a fair amount out of the Bay
Area. I don't remember ever catching a connecting flight at LAX. Usually it
was one of Denver, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Atlanta[1] or Las Vegas.

One of the arguments I did read that was convincing is that Bay Area and LA
basin airports are near capacity. Diverting passengers from the LA to Bay Area
route would free up capacity for long distance flights. Thus alleviate the
need to expand those airports. In the discussions I've had it's come up that
expanding airports in built up areas is massively expensive. They want to add
a third runway to Heathrow at a cost of £14 billion. That's 25% of the
projected cost of CHSR.

[1] When you die, no matter if you go to heaven or hell you'll transfer
through Atlanta.

~~~
wl
The reason I was wondering is because I found I was transferring through LAX
more than leaving the airport. Atlanta, of course, is a stopover almost every
time I go to the South.

~~~
Gibbon1
I suspect it may depend strongly on where you are going.

However when I did fly I occasionally went to a client in LA. Would fly in the
morning and fly out same day usually. Back then from home in SJ to client in
LA was about 2-3 hours all things included. If I had to do it via high speed
rail probably would rent a hotel in Palmdale and ride the rest of the way in
the morning. Then straight back the next evening. Unless ticking made that $$$

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parshimers
It's pretty funny that we still talk about HSR in California as a
hypothetical, over 10 years after it was approved. Obama wasn't even in office
yet. There's not a single piece of it you can ride, anywhere, despite the $9
billion it got approved for from day 1. The first transcontinental railroad
only took 6 years to build, in the mid 1800's.

~~~
partiallypro
There are a number of problems that they didn't have in the 1800s, namely that
there weren't so many holders of land along the route but there were also a
lot fewer regulations, etc. Not to mention very cheap foreign laborers.

------
piezo
Yes, of course - very obvious findings. People in my home town in Italy
(Reggio Emilia) can now commute with Milan every day (50 minutes). Something
that was not possible before the high-speed train station in Reggio Emilia. I
sincerely do not understand why people in California is not running to build
this infrastructure as fast as they can!

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oliwarner
Improving commuter networks invariably helps _housing_ but it does further the
trend of allowing (from a planning perspective) the hyper-concentration of
industry. These centres inflate local property prices and top-end salaries,
forcing lower-end people away from where they work. As new commuter towns get
established, the lower classes and forced further and further away.

They've been trying variants on this for two hundred years in the UK. It's
always ultimately self defeating. The only way you fix it is dispersing
industry.

------
bleair
Americans hate hate hate public transit. If you are “successful”, you show it
by having a car. Transit stations are almost always in the worst location,
because a good location has such high land value it’s financially impossible
to justify just a public transit station.

Also, Unlike japan where stations can also be commercial spaces resulting in
both revenue and making the transit location super popular, in the us transit
locations of course have to be public land and government can’t be seen
profitable leasing out said land (unless it’s for a sports team :p)

~~~
rland
A big component is the class issue. Since dialogue about class is verboten, it
is never discussed.

We are building a trolley line in San Diego to alleviate car traffic along a
main freeway artery (Downtown -> UTC). There were several lawsuits along the
route from property owners. A complaint which surfaced again and again was:
"building a trolley station near my house will cause a decline in the
neighborhood because there are homeless people and druggies near the trolley
stations."

Never mind that a multi-million dollar train line is being built right in your
neighborhood. If you own property in San Diego, you will never take the train.
Because the train is for homeless people and drug addicts.

------
Fins
The answer seems to be (as per the law of headlines) No.

You'd think CHSR proponents would've noticed that comparison with Japan makes
little sense not even because of density, but because Japan already (and had
when they started building the Shinkansen) an extensive local rail and other
transit network -- you can actually get _to_ the train and get to where you
actually want to go from the train.

~~~
akeck
Exactly. It was the "extensive local rail and other transit network" that made
public transport magical when I visited. I was based in Kyoto, but we could
"pop into" Osaka. Blew my mind.

~~~
Fins
Yup. Only times I used taxi or ridesharing in Japan was when I flew in with
elderly relatives, and taking Uber to the hotel made far more sense than
trying to herd 6 people and their luggage through several train changes, and
when we were stuck on Mt. Fuji because the kid decided to try hiking to the
top, forgot to turn on his phone, and we missed the last bus back (pro-tip 1:
calling a taxi to the half-way station on Mt. Fuji and going to the nearest
train station is bloody expensive; pro-tip 2: even in a middle of summer, once
the sun sets it's bloody cold up there).

Other than that, getting anywhere using transit worked great; but the
Shinkansen is a very small piece of the puzzle.

------
bcheung
The HSR _might_ make jobs more viable for people living outside the bay area,
but it will make things worse for people living within the bay area.

The last proposed plan would have the HSR running over 100 MPH less than 100
feet from my bedroom window.

Another negative is that this will accelerate gentrification in the newly
expanded commute zones.

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fipple
Not comparable. The US can’t build infrastructure at a competitive cost, but
it can build products. Hence Tesla etc will succeed here while HSR will fail.

~~~
sneakernets
Oh yeah just, Hyperloops from sea to shining sea.

------
Apocryphon
It's great that people are considering the long-term for CA housing, for once,
but won't the HSR still take nearly fifteen years to complete?

------
acchow
Merced is not the economic hub of the region. Why are all the rail lines
running there?

~~~
raincom
UC Merced

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pstuart
I think that "nationalizing" the rail lines would be in the best interest of
the country. Passenger rail will otherwise always take a back seat to freight.

Imagine taking, say, $50B that gets dumped into the quagmire that is
Afghanistan and using that instead to modernize and expand the current rail
system so that it can handle even more freight as well as performant passenger
service.

~~~
sneakernets
I'd go a step further: Nationalize the oil and transportation companies and
re-tool them for High-Speed rail as reparations for the damage they willingly
inflicted to this country.

They deserve it for encouraging the urban sprawl that created this mess in the
first place.

~~~
fipple
Why not just nationalize everything? Lol.

~~~
sneakernets
That's the spirit!

