Passenger Rail Travel in California on the Wane? Ha! Time is Ripe for New Routes, More Trains

I wish to add on:
About costs: What critics fail to mention, or failed to consider is the extremely challenging topography of Japan makes for a "prohibitively expensive" cost per mile rail system. The Central Japan Railway makes about a 10% profit each year, regardless. There is more at play than demographics.

Japan is an extremely mountainous country, yet it has over 1,500 miles of Shinkansen double track. And, for a 300 km/h system (185 mph) to have high average speeds, the Japanese have had to resort to extensive tunneling. In spite of this extraordinary cost, they consider tunneling an absolute necessity for them to have a true high-speed rail system. The Seikan tunnel between Honshu (the main island) and Hokaido is deeper and longer (33.4 miles) than the Chunnel (31 miles).

Thus, how does one empirically "know," that a cross-country line would be "prohibitively expensive"? Compared to what? I think it is prohibitively expensive for America to prop up the airlines for 8 decades! They are putting about $100 billion, every 3 years (local, state, federal taxpayer) into the private business of aviation, while the business that the taxpayer owns, AMTRK, only gets about $1.5 billion annually.

I wish people would stop whining about why we can't do things and start looking for ways to rebuild our infrastructure in a sustainable fashion. There is no city in the U.S. that is further than 500 miles from the next largest city. High speed lines can be built and be very competitive with airline trips of 600 miles or less, which is half of all domestic flights. And, they could be built and operated in such a way that they were always on time, unlike the airlines. Why don't all these airline delays add up to "prohibitively expensive"?

From the studies I have read, HSR can be built at 1/3 the cost of expanding existing airports, while employing millions, (something that is needed in our depressed economy; I tend to think that we are in for the long haul now that the economic snowball has started downhill).

According to USDOT, flights of about 500-600 miles only average about 65MPH (door-to-door) and off loading those flights from operations of longer distances would relieve congestion and delay.
Most importantly, there is the sustainability issue: aviation is not sustainable for many reasons; however, there are 4 major reasons: noise, climate, toxics, fuel and the technology to fix these problems together, do not exist and actually is opposing technology.

Even if we had this miracle fix today, it would be about 30 years before even enough flights in the fleet were equipped. Quite frankly, that will be too late for thousands of people who die annually from “airport-poisoning”, and also, regarding our climate, the outcome could be catastrophic in a very short period of time, if left unchecked.

Before one starts dismissing what I am saying, I should give you a little background. The US federal government (and others) is fully aware of the sustainability problems; however, there is a mandate for unprecedented global flight expansion starting with the 2008 UN economic globalization treaties. I know these things because we have been advising them along with other governments; I was also picked by the USEPA and FAA to head the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) when it began (which I declined) to try to fix these problems.

I assure you, problems with air travel are only going to get much worse. It was our organizations that alerted the government and changed policy regarding the end of “cheap oil”; we also helped get aviation into the International Panel on Climate Control (IPCC) (thus, we are generally ahead of them on the curve on some issues). There is a lot more, but I am trying to keep this short, while still giving you a factual answer.

The sustainability problems are significant, specifically with fuel & climate and one affecting the other (however, it may not be necessarily carbon that causes climate change and I will give you an important example):

Aircraft are the only proven man-made cause of temperature change (climatic, regional, diurnal). What is significant is that it was proven by the actual removal of the source from the equation and the effects are immediate and dramatic (Travis, 2002).

When all planes (except 6 military) were grounded for 3-4 days after 9-11, the temperature over North America changed by almost 2 degrees C (huge). Basically, the temperature reverted back to the way it was pre-1950s, (before the jet age)!
The plan now, is to massively increase flights artificially (dating back to the deregulation promise) in the next few years. Obviously, with the above mentioned, the results could be very serious.

I wont get into all of the complexities… but just basically refer you to a Report to Congress by the U.S. General Accountability Office (independent research body of Congress), which studied our 4 solutions and came to the exact conclusion. They have also referred to that study ever since 2001; it is (GAO-02-185).

We have also run out of cheap oil; there will be attempts to stabilize it and the price will fluctuate for a while. But we are in trouble starting at about 2010-2013; we are too dependent on foreign oil now.

A white paper solution is available; if asked I will post (it is relatively short).
Now you may see somewhat why I am so adamant about needing a long-term, sustainable, reliable transportation solution that a world-class high-speed rail system will bring.

totally agree with this user's comment. Clearly we are unseasoned in high-speed rail, but there is no reason why the Shikansen and SNCF systems must be better than Amtrak. I will not stop pointing the finger at General Motors! Time to stop patching a broken air system and invest in sustainable, electrified, high-speed rail.

Just think how awesome it would be to see an Acela train barreling through the Mojave Desert at night.

totally agree with this user's comment. Clearly we are unseasoned in high-speed rail, but there is no reason why the Shinkansen and SNCF systems must be better than Amtrak. I will not stop pointing the finger at General Motors! Time to stop patching a broken air system and invest in sustainable, electrified, high-speed rail.

Just think how awesome it would be to see an Acela train barreling through the Mojave Desert at night.

Great to know that people do actually read the SJVRC minutes among other reports, plans and materials for distribution every quarter. Having served as staff to that Committee since 2000, I sometimes wondered if composing and revising those minutes was worth it. This article might be the first time anyone has 'blogged' about the group!

Great to know that people do actually read the SJVRC minutes among other reports, plans and materials for distribution every quarter. Having served as staff to that Committee since 2000, I sometimes wondered if composing and revising those minutes was worth it. This article might be the first time anyone has 'blogged' about the group!

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