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Examining Costs and Prices For California's High-Speed Rail Project
The L.A. Times features a look at the contentious issue of a publicly funded high-speed rail system for travel within the state of California, which focuses especially on an obvious question: how much would it cost for passengers to ride? This isn't a straightforward answer, though, partly because the system isn't expected to be operational for another 13 years, and the estimates vary wildly for what would be a trip of more than 400 miles that touches on some of the U.S.'s most expensive real estate. From the Times' article:
"The current $86 fare [for an L.A. to San Francisco ticket] is calculated in 2013 dollars based on a formula that prices tickets at 83% of average airline fares to help attract riders. The rail fare is an average that includes economy and premium seats, nonstop and multi-stop trains, as well as last-minute and advance purchase tickets. A premium, same-day nonstop bullet train trip would cost more than $86.
But compared with current average prices on several high-speed rail systems in Asia and Europe, $86 would be a bargain, equating to about 20 cents a mile or less, the Times review found. The analysis was based on a 438-mile route in the mid-range of what state officials expect the final alignment to measure."
How much would you be willing to pay to take a fast train between L.A. and San Francisco?
That may be true, but there is something to be said for not having to be behind the wheel for those 6 hours. Train accommodations tend to be roomier than plane or bus, as well. People on business trips could take care of emails and preparations and arrive well-rested rather than restless and sore. Assuming this line has track priority, you would also get there in half the time or less.
Track priority will probably not be an issue since current tracks that Amtrak shares it the freight rail are not "high speed". But not driving, being able to nap or work, that's worth the price. High speed in Europe is comfortable, and reasonably priced.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
No, this isn't good math.
Eurostar train tickets between London and Paris are usually more expensive than flying low-cost airline. People splurge on train in preference over air, not the other way round.
True, train take s 2.5 hours of moving and fligth 45 minutes of flying. But I can get to Kings X in 10 minutes on tube and be there 20 minutes before departure and on the other end I am at Gare du Nord, smack in the centre.
When flying, it takes me 1 hour min to each airport, then I need to pay the terrorist task by queing for another hour. Then we fly and then it is again 1hour min from Orly or CDG to get where I want.
Flying is a pain in the ass. You need to go to an airport, get groped, wait an hour until you can board, sit in an uncomfortable seat, get fed a tiny drink if you're lucky when they want to feed it to you, use a bathroom that's tiny and uncomfortable, and wait for another 40 minutes for your luggage afterwards.
A train is just a much better experience. You can show up 2 minutes before departure, get on without a strip search, get a nice big seat, have a dining car, can get up and walk around at will, and just grab your luggage on the way out.
For a short (say 200 mile distance) its actually just as fast as flying when you figure in airport waits. For 400 its slower than an a plane, but a much less stressful experience. And with 180 mph bullet trains you can actually get to same coast cities in a reasonable time. I'd take one any day of the week over a plane for anything under 600 miles.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I just drove the I-5 all of the way from LA to San Francisco yesterday as I'd brought a carful of test equipment to an engineer there. I didn't fly because of the freight I had, but in general train transport is better for carrying a lot of baggage. Less handling, less fees for freight.
Also, planes can't compete when there's a good high-speed rail, because of their logistical complications. Airports are usually far from town and require their own train to get to. Nobody takes a plane instead of Eurostar. While Southwest will survive on its many other routes, their SFO to LAX route is doomed.
Having traveled extensively in Europe, and having enjoyed never having to use a car and rarely needing a plane because their trains are so fast, cheap, and efficient, I marvel at the idiocy of our citizens, it's not the government's fault, in not having insisted on keeping and improving rail since the 40's. Americans are total retards about this, they can't ever have any excuse.
Bruce Perens.
I think the issue is more that the US turns HSR into a political point, so it gets mired in a nightmare of red tape. Whereas in other areas of the world, more or less, it gets built faster and without quite as much largesse.
Seriously, this is a joke that it is being built. It is a jobs bill similar to SLS for Space.
Hyperloop is where America should focus and push. It is obvious that we can go not only 500 MPH in the tubes, but even higher speeds should be possible.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Voters were told in 2008 that the project would cost $39 billion. Now Gov. Brown says it will cost $69 billion. And it's still over a decade away. Under the bond measure the state isn't allowed to subsidize the operation of the project. It must be covered by the fares. Since there is so much uncertainty about the cost of the project it makes no sense to try to guess the cost of a ticket.
DreadPirate, you are really not calculating correctly. I know it sounds cheap, but it isn't. If you can get there for $30 in gas, that's 40 miles per gallon -- not bad. Still, that's 7.5 cents/mile.
Say you bought a used car for $10,000, and can drive it for 100,000 miles. That's 10 cents a mile. More than gas.
Oil changes every 5,000 miles at $40? That's another penny a mile.
Tires at $300 every 30,000 miles? Another penny a mile.
Let's not talk about what your time is worth (you might really enjoy the drive), or insurance (not too dependent on miles driven) -- but still, that's about 20 cents a mile, or $80.
Most people don't really like to think how expensive driving is, but it isn't cheap. We have been taught that it's all about the gas, but it just isn't.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
High speed rail in Europe usually costs a premium or is heavily subsidized.
As opposed to roads which are subsidized and air travel which is subsidized. Even walking is subsidized. That's the thing about infrastructure...
And usually it isn't "high speed" unless you live in some of the most expensive zip codes on the continent, because everybody else needs to use slow feeder trains and leave a lot of time for connections.
Huh? You use high speed rail to travel between cities. I know this because I actually did it the other day.
15 minute walk to station with a wheely case. 15 minutes on suburban rail to St Pancras. 1 minute walk to Kings-X (same station really), then up to Newcastle at 125MPH. Then I rented a car.
I could have driven all the way and rented from London and it would have been cheaper. Would have sucked though and taken much longer. In fact some friends of mine did drive from fairly near london an arrived 2 hours late due to heavy traffic.
That includes the half hour I left for a connection on the way out. Since the suburban trains are regular, I didn't leave any time for a connection on the return. I had to wait for about 7 minutes on the platform for the train.
Either way even without traffic it was much faster and much more pleasant to take the train. With traffic, the difference is greater still. If you live in a country with ACTUAL hugh speed trains (200mph, not 125) then the difference is greater still again.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Either you're one of those super-privileged people who live close to the center of London and Paris, or you need to add 1-2h at either end to get from your suburb to the high speed rail station.
Kings-X St Pancras has truly huge suburban, urban, intercity and tube connections. I don't think Stevenage counts as super-privileged, but you know, tastes vary. From Stevenage, which isn't event he same city the difference isn't much more. Leave a train in hand ( + 30 minutes), 40 minutes to Kings-X, then hop on the eurostar and off you go.
Or from anywhere in south London served on the thameslink route.
Or you know, you can keep on denying reality and insist that flying from somewhere near London to Paris on a low cost airline doesn't suck compared to the train. Or you can take the word of people who have done both multiple times.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
American rail is made more expensive by urban sprawl, but not quite in the way most people think. If you compare somewhere like South Florida to Germany or Italy and look at how many people are likely to be within 5 miles of a given station, we really DON'T look all that different. Well, except Miami has a lot more skyscrapers sprawled across the entire metro area (even Broward has gotten into the act... witness "Tao" -- two 30-story towers built next to Sawgrass Mills mall whose balconies literally overlook the Everglades).
Anyway, the BIG difference between Florida or California and Europe is that in Europe, once you get out of the city... it tends to become rural & stay that way for a while. In contrast, if you were to build brand new tracks from Miami to West Palm Beach within 5 miles of I-95, you'd LITERALLY be plowing through a hundred miles of solid low & medium-density suburbia almost every inch of the way. In contrast, a comparable route in Europe would pass through at most a half-dozen cities, and run mostly through areas that were farmland or forest.
The reason that rail is subsidised is because the benefits of their operation, to the governments, are not restricted to their fare price. Every passenger is a passenger not taking an alternative mode of transport. Given the level of congestion on the highways this can be the difference between moving traffic and grid lock. If you can get 15% of the traffic on that corridor travelling by train you are potentially looking at saving vastly more money because you don't have to upgrade the highways. This is especially true where the highways are running through heavily developed areas.
If that is what they build then you have a whole set of other problems.
Go and clone the Japanese Shinkansen though and none of what you say if true. FFS all the shinkansens I have been on in recent years even have standard powerpoints for you to plug your laptop / other charger in.
What you need to compare when justifying subsidizing HSR is not whether HSR reduces congestion on highways, but whether it is the best way of reducing congestion for that amount of money.
Most of the long haul stretches are not particularly congested; it's going through major cities that causes the congestion. A series of bypasses of major cities along the major highways would be much more effective in reducing congestion than spending the same amount of money on HSR.
You're (apparently) a computer scientist living within commute distance of central London; of course you are privileged relative to most Brits.
You seem to revel in your ignorance. Go live in Elephant. It's a total shithole and pretty cheap. It's closer than I live. Among the many busses, trains and tube you can even walk into central London from there pretty quickly. Contrary to what you believe, London is a complete city and contains people working in all sorts of jobs. Fun fact: pretty much everyone in London commutes to their jobs including all the low paid cleaners, office temps, and even golf sign holders. Are you really going to claim they're among the privilidged few?
You're absolutely right that trains are the most pleasant way to travel around Europe (and I have likely been doing it a lot longer than you). What you have failed to explain is why large numbers of taxpayers who do not benefit from HSR should subsidize it.
Because they do benefit from it. Infrastructure leads to a functional country which improves the GDP. It's the same reason I benefit from living in a functional country which means I'm happy to have my tax fund motorways around Liverpool even though I've never been and I'm not likely to go there in forseeable future. Hell, I'm happy to have my tax money fund roads on Orkney. And guess what? I've never used the Millwall tunnel. Should I bitch and moan about how my tax is funding drivers in some place I never drive?
And before you climb of your awfully high horse, you may wish to consider how the net flow of money is out of London to the rest of the country which means I do (and am in fact happy to) effectively subsidise the rest of the country.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Depending on country, high speed trains run every hour, or every second, splitting direction after certain distance to either A or B. .A is on even hours and everything that goes to
So everything before the split is every hour, and every thing that goes to
b on odd hours. To still reach A on odd hours you change train at the split point.
Even not so popular routes like mine from Karlsruhe to Paris go every second hour, with a short change to 3 hour gaps around 12:00, and back to 2:00 later.
There are no checkpoints.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Finance charges means interest on debt. Most people buy automobiles on credit. You either get artificially low interest from an auto company, which means you paid too much for the car and the interest is hidden, or you get it from a credit union, a bank, or one of those non-bank debtors. It's a significant amount.
The rate of depreciation is connected with the resale price of the automobile rather than its service life. That is the book value of the property - what you would get for it if you sold it. You might keep it for 24 years and drive it 250K miles, but most of its resale value is gone long before then, and thus the depreciation schedule should be relatively short.
This illustrates a problem. Most people don't fully apprehend what their real costs are concerning something like an automobile. Most people are bored by accounting, after all. They would not, without a long walk through numbers and principles, make a well informed decision about something like rail vs. car.
Bruce Perens.