California Bullet Train Breaks Ground

[maxparrish]

If one were to look at this project without romantic nostalgia for the 19th century's only form of mass transportation over land (other than the wagon train), the "updated" version of California HSR is clearly a boondoggle. Cold analysis and honest reflection can arrive at no other conclusion.

While Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown compared HSR to the building of the Great Cathedrals of Europe (a curious appeal to religion and faith based building) he ignores many pivotal facts - not the least of which is that California can’t afford to build it, and the new plan won’t really be high-speed rail from Los Angles to San Francisco.

In 2008 the project’s estimated cost was $36 billion in todays dollars. After voters approved it, it shot up to the cost quickly zoomed to $71 billion in today’s dollars. Then, to make it "affordable" the state downgraded the plan to "blend" the system over existing rail so that it wouldn't really go 220 mph. The new plan would no longer meet the mandated requirement of 2 hours and 40 minutes between SF and LA (currently a 6 hour drive). New estimates are 4 to 4 1/2 hours.

The new cost is 60 billion. To meet the original goals would require another 30 to 40 billion and extension to 2040.

And what does the state have? 9 billion in hand and hope for cap and trade revenue that will deliver a few billions.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I suppose many enjoy all the happy talk. Think of it, a grand state building project, ribbon cutted and praised by various grand poobahs, their campaign donors, and chortling special interests and land speculators! Romantics and choo-choo train enthusiasts gushing joy and wildly clapping at the prospect of whizzing trains, dirt cheap tickets, and relief from national progressive hive's embarrassment of not having a HSR, like those progressive Europeans, Japanese, and Chinese.

Why dampen the celebration with dour reminders that dreams are not reality, and air castles are not arguments? No, it is far better to pretend otherwise. That way, no matter how much it costs, how few use it, how corrupt it becomes it was THE INTENTION and THE DREAM that counted, so it will also be justified.

(For more great projects ribbon cutted on this basis see "The Big Dig", the NJ Tunnel, New London's "Redevelopment", the Missouri River's grand barge traffic scheme, and the entire history of urban renewal and western water projects).

(James Fallow quote)
1) America is direly short on infrastructure; the financial and political resistance to remedying that is powerful (for reason Mancur Olson once laid out) and usually prevails. ...

2) The counties of the Central Valley of California, where the first stages of the construction will begin, are not just the poorest part of a rich state but also, taken on their own, would constitute the poorest state in the entire country. ...

3) The state’s population is growing, and so is the demand for intra-state travel. Any other way of getting California’s 30+ million people from north to south, via cars on new (or more crowded) freeways or planes to new (or more crowded) airports, will be more destructive of the state’s finances, its farmland, and its environment than a rail system. ...

4) There is an established track record of over-estimating the problems of big infrastructure projects, and short-sightedly under-envisioning their benefits. Here’s the crucial contrast with big military construction projects I’ve written about recently. Repeatedly, big military projects have come in over budget, past schedule, and below performance promises.

Repeatedly the opposite has been true of big national or regional infrastructure projects. Their drawbacks have been exaggerated before they’ve been started, and their potential benefit has been grossly under-imagined. Here’s a few of the projects that seemed impractical, quixotic, ruinously expensive, or not worth the bother when proposed:

• The Louisiana Purchase
• The Erie Canal
• “Seward’s Folly” of buying Alaska
• The transcontinental railroad
• The Panama Canal
• The Golden Gate Bridge, and the Bay Bridge
• The TVA, REA, and WPA, plus Boulder / Hoover Dam
• The expansion of a continental airport system
• The GI Bill
• The Interstate Highway system
• Washington DC’s Metro and San Francisco’s BART

Details on some of these in the first post in the series.

All of these projects have had their problems. But without any one of them, the United States would be in far worse shape than it is today.

What a pinheaded list of reasons. Perhaps they read better in their complete form BUT apparently he is saying:


1. America needs more infrastructure, therefore ANY infrastructure is warranted regardless of specific needs, utility, benefits, or costs. Need a bridge? BUILD HSR!

2. America needs to take money for private investment to create jobs, and redirect it to build bad projects in poor areas (even if the poor areas don't want them).

3. The States population is growing, so rather than opposing more immigration and putting in the transportation choices most people prefer, let's make promises we cannot keep and put in my idea of a really neat choo-choo train.

4. Here is a list of claimed successful government expenditures on welfare, engineering, transportation - some of which were criticized. THEREFORE, anything criticized must be a good idea. Ergo, the environmentalist opposition to the Seattle Tunnel must be a good idea because lots of folk are criticizing it.

Compounding his lame and daffy stupidity, is his seeming ignorance that many of those "successes" were not, and that the many failures that were criticized WERE FAILURES.

Among them:

The Transcontinental Railroad
The TVA and REA
Bart
Scores of Urban Renewal Projects.
Hundreds of B. of Reclamation and Army Corp of Engineer Projects.

Its like the guy never heard of the Obamacare IT roll-out, blown up space shuttles, Boston's Urban Renewal gutting, the Tulsa-Red River canal system, bridges to nowhere, etc.

Shall we talk about all the failures of engineering and medicine too? Thereby proving that progress is impossible. Interesting how other places have managed high speed rail and here we are being told it simply isn't possible because... TVA. Much like how the Polio vaccine wasn't possible because... leaches.

 

[lpetrich]

I suppose many enjoy all the happy talk.

As opposed to grumpy talk?

... western water projects

Pork barrel that many Republican politicians *adore*.

(James Fallows's reasons)

What a pinheaded list of reasons. Perhaps they read better in their complete form BUT apparently he is saying:

1. America needs more infrastructure, therefore ANY infrastructure is warranted regardless of specific needs, utility, benefits, or costs. Need a bridge? BUILD HSR!

By what standard of accounting? Some impossibly high one that would have quashed many projects that many of us Americans now think VERY worthwhile? Let's see.

The Louisiana Purchase was criticized as constitutional overreach by President Thomas Jefferson. Without it, the US would only have extended to the Mississippi River and the territory may have been bought by Britain instead. So we'd be a small nation surrounded by a bigger Canada.

The Erie Canal helped connect the East Coast and the Great Lakes area. Otherwise, one war with Britain, and it would have taken over Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, making them part of Canada.

The Transcontinental Railroad helped connect the west coast and the rest of the US.

Alaska may not be the nicest real estate in the world, but would it have been better for Canada to buy it instead?

Etc.

So the US would be a much weaker and wimpier nation if it followed the vision of some grouch who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

2. America needs to take money for private investment to create jobs, and redirect it to build bad projects in poor areas (even if the poor areas don't want them).

Much of that "private investment" recently has gone into investment bubbles. Do these speculators deserve to be bailed out for free at taxpayers' expense?

3. The States population is growing, so rather than opposing more immigration and putting in the transportation choices most people prefer, let's make promises we cannot keep and put in my idea of a really neat choo-choo train.

If lots of people want trains, will you accept that and stop whining about how terrible it is?

Also, t won't be going choo-choo, it will be going whoosh-whoosh.

4. Here is a list of claimed successful government expenditures on welfare, engineering, transportation - some of which were criticized. THEREFORE, anything criticized must be a good idea. Ergo, the environmentalist opposition to the Seattle Tunnel must be a good idea because lots of folk are criticizing it.

max, that's a bit difficult for me to parse. I can't tell whether you like that project or dislike it.

Compounding his lame and daffy stupidity, is his seeming ignorance that many of those "successes" were not, and that the many failures that were criticized WERE FAILURES.

The Transcontinental Railroad
The TVA and REA
Bart
Scores of Urban Renewal Projects.
Hundreds of B. of Reclamation and Army Corp of Engineer Projects.

I don't see how they are necessarily all failures, even if some of them are little better than pork barrel.

Its like the guy never heard of the Obamacare IT roll-out, blown up space shuttles,

I don't see how that's much worse than crashed airplanes.

Boston's Urban Renewal gutting, the Tulsa-Red River canal system, bridges to nowhere, etc.

But those "bridges to nowhere" are bridges to Real Americans as opposed to the left-wing traitors of the cities. Right?

 

[Davka]

Does anyone know how they are planning to make this project earthquake-resistant? The thought of a 6.0 - 7.0 quake hitting while a train is roaring along at 200 MPH through Fresno is slightly less than comforting.

- - - Updated - - -

Tell the truth, Max - are you getting your opposition talking-points from FOX or Rush? Or maybe the Freepers?

 

[bilby]

It seems... interesting... that the arguments against this project seem to be entirely based on looking at other large projects which failed (while carefully ignoring any large projects that succeeded), rather than detailing the actual problems with this specific project. I have yet to see any evidence, in terms of actual costs weighed against projected benefits, estimated prices, expected passenger numbers, prices to the public for alternative transportation options in both financial and time/opportunity costs etc. etc.

Instead, all I am seeing is wailing about how 'big government projects' are fundamentally BAD (mm'kay?), and how trains are a 19th century technology (hint - cars are too), and how all this would be unnecessary if only we stopped those pesky illegal immigrants...

It's almost as if the opponents of this scheme didn't have any rational basis for their opposition at all, and that it was entirely ideological and emotion driven.

Has anybody, on either side, got estimates of the total capital cost of the project, and the projected operating costs? Can they then show how these costs cannot be recovered by a combination of ticket sales and savings in time - and hence reduced opportunity costs - for the users of the facility once built? Do they also have comparison cost benefit analyses for alternative transportation infrastructure of similar capacity?

Or is this just a political poo-flinging exercise?

 

[lpetrich]

It seems... interesting... that the arguments against this project seem to be entirely based on looking at other large projects which failed (while carefully ignoring any large projects that succeeded), rather than detailing the actual problems with this specific project. I have yet to see any evidence, in terms of actual costs weighed against projected benefits, estimated prices, expected passenger numbers, prices to the public for alternative transportation options in both financial and time/opportunity costs etc. etc. ...

Has anybody, on either side, got estimates of the total capital cost of the project, and the projected operating costs? Can they then show how these costs cannot be recovered by a combination of ticket sales and savings in time - and hence reduced opportunity costs - for the users of the facility once built? Do they also have comparison cost benefit analyses for alternative transportation infrastructure of similar capacity?

I'd have to dig up the numbers for that. But the impression I get is that high-speed trains often pay their operational costs. Capital costs for high-speed lines and the like are another story, however. But even there, they are no worse than roads and airports.


I've found a different sort of numbers, some numbers for air/rail relative market share as a function of time on the train. One finds an approximate straight line:

Nearly 100% rail: 1h 30m
50/50: 3h 30m
Nearly 100% air: 5h 30m

Airliners are faster than even the fastest high-speed trains, but they are much more awkward to access.

Microsoft Word - Final report FINAL.doc - 2006_08_study_air_rail_competition_en.pdf
AIR AND RAIL COMPETITION AND COMPLEMENTARITY, August 2006
by Steer Davies Gleave, a London consulting firm

and

Presentation from the US DOT Intercity Passenger Rail Forum | Federal Railroad Administration with Amtrak schedules.


The authors of the Steer Davis Gleave paper also prepared a time-penalty model for infrequent service. If trains run infrequently, passengers perceive them as being like frequent trains that take longer to run. Their model is

75m * (time interval / 180m)^(0.7)

3h -> 1h 15m
1h -> 35m
15m -> 13m

So making trains more frequent can be a good alternative to making them faster.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The authors of the Steer Davis Gleave paper also prepared a time-penalty model for infrequent service. If trains run infrequently, passengers perceive them as being like frequent trains that take longer to run. Their model is

75m * (time interval / 180m)^(0.7)

3h -> 1h 15m
1h -> 35m
15m -> 13m

So making trains more frequent can be a good alternative to making them faster.

I can attest to that. I remember, at about 6 or so in the morning heading to a race in Central Park, bolting for the 238th St station when I saw the train leaving the 242nd St Station because if I missed it, it'd be another 20 minutes or so before the next train started!

 

[TSwizzle]

Jerry Brown is a slavering buffoon. It was very disappointing that he was voted in again. This vanity project, the so called "HSR" is a waste of money and will end in tears if not for my children then their children. Hopefully the courts can put a stop to this madness.

 

[Jarhyn]

Honestly, I don't think either the high cost, or suspected low returns on investment are particularly important here. I don't think it's even particularly if the train lights on fire and leaves a crater in Fresno.

The thing is, bullet trains are a reality, and they are proven to be both time and fuel efficient in their well-implemented forms. They require an expensive initial investment, but after that, maintainance is pretty easy. The problem is that, yeah, this is gonna be a boondoggle. The first atomic power plant was a boondoggle too. So was the first atomic bomb, the first solar power plant, and so is the national ignition facility.from the perspective of the LHC, any smaller collider built on a university seems like a boondoggle.

But all these things have in common is that if we want to make a better, cheaper, more worthwhile one later, we have to be willing to Build a boondoggle or two first to know how to not waste a ton of money.

You need to be willing to do something less than perfect a few times if you want to ever learn how to do things right later on. And let's not forget that we're taking a few billion, when our budget this year provides 500 billion on 'defense' alone, never mind that a nationwide HSR would be better for national defense than dumping 25 billion on some shit-ass 'next-gen' fighter jet that was developed 15 years ago and still hasn't seen the outside of a hangar.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

You need to be willing to do something less than perfect a few times if you want to ever learn how to do things right later on. And let's not forget that we're taking a few billion, when our budget this year provides 500 billion on 'defense' alone, never mind that a nationwide HSR would be better for national defense than dumping 25 billion on some shit-ass 'next-gen' fighter jet that was developed 15 years ago and still hasn't seen the outside of a hangar.

But we need all those new reserve tanks the Army didn't order and states they don't need that sit out in the desert to replace the ones that will be easily destroyed by tank-killing drones in the next war.

 

[Davka]

Jerry Brown is a slavering buffoon. It was very disappointing that he was voted in again. This vanity project, the so called "HSR" is a waste of money and will end in tears if not for my children then their children. Hopefully the courts can put a stop to this madness.

Yeah, it's just awful the way Jerry Brown dug California out of crippling debt and stood up to the legislature. What a clown!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I don't see nationwide HSR as an option. There is little between Chicago and California (sorry Denver) and trying to build a rail through the mountains could be extremely expensive.

HSR would most likely be restricted to regional service. Hubs in Chicago (Midwest), NYC (NE Corridor), The West Coast. The SE and Texas could have one, but they are too red to be as imaginative as to understand that ease is transportation equates to ease in flow of capital. With Chicago, you can connect Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, maybe even Pittsburgh. NYC, connects the Acela line... Portland to DC... just on an actual high speed line that isn't limited to high speed on a 20 feet length of track near Providence. But building that will be incredibly hard. And of course ,the longer you wait, the harder it becomes.

I saw maxparrish complain about shared tracks in the city, but how else can it be done. Building new infrastructure in metropolitan areas is near impossible. So it will cut the speed locally down, but that is a reality that must be understood.

This is hardly an easy undertaking, but developing such a system would allow for people to move more freely, more quickly. Even up the price to $150 for one-way would make it cost competitive with the airline. And unlike airlines, the greatest advantage that the train would have is that it takes you into the city, not outside it. The biggest advantage Amtrak has in the NE Corridor, no Logan or LaGuardia, you are in downtown Boston or NYC.

 

[Davka]

Another huge advantage to trains is that you don't spend hours sitting around in airports. And you don't have to worry about losing your luggage.

I could see a cross-country line across the Southwest, San Antonio -> Las Cruces -> Tucson -> Phoenix -> L.A., basically following I-10 from Jacksonville. Spurs up to Denver, Louisville, Chicago. It would never be as convenient as flying for all routes, but for many trips it would beat the crap out of having your knees crammed up to your chest while waiting on the tarmac for hours.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

One thing we did find with our new light rail was that a shit ton people were using it, but not as many were traveling the entire way between the two downtown. I'm not sure if this would ever be the case for HSR. But one thing nice about rail is that it also has the ability to stop in smaller communities along the way. For example you have more opportunities for long-term parking lots away from population centers.

As far as hassles:
The assumption for the MSP-Chicago HSR link is that if you add in the 2-3 hours spent in airports and organizing carry-ons etc..it will be competitive with air travel. (Air 4-5 hours train 5-6 hours.)

 

[lpetrich]

One thing we did find with our new light rail was that a shit ton people were using it, but not as many were traveling the entire way between the two downtown. I'm not sure if this would ever be the case for HSR.

I'd have to get ridership numbers, but for the London - Paris Eurostar line, I would not be surprised if London - Paris gets the most passengers. Both cities are among the world's biggest, both of them are major business and tourist centers, and both of them have very well-developed urban-rail systems. The towns in between are not nearly as big, though Lille is a good transfer point.

The same is likely true of other lines between relatively near big cities.

But high-speed-line construction has gone far enough to produce some impressively long lines. There is now a nearly-continuous line nearly 2000 mi / 3000 km long between Amsterdam and Cadiz. It runs Amsterdam - Rotterdam - Antwerp - Brussels - Lille - Paris - Lyon - Avignon - Montpellier - Perpignan - Figueres - Barcelona - Zaragoza - Madrid - Cordoba - Cadiz. There is now a similar stretch of line between Harbin and Hong Kong, China.

Nice Squirrel, what you describe for the Minneapolis - St. Paul line is likely true here also, if the air/rail crossover statistics are any guide. I doubt that there are many Amsterdam - Cadiz passengers, for instance.

But one thing nice about rail is that it also has the ability to stop in smaller communities along the way. For example you have more opportunities for long-term parking lots away from population centers.

There has been some controversy over that in France, where the Haute-Picardie TGV station between Paris and Lille had been nicknamed the Gare des Betteraves, the Beetroot Station, because it's surrounded by beet fields and it's some distance from the nearest sizable towns, like Amiens. Some other TGV stations have also been built in outlying areas.

As far as hassles:
The assumption for the MSP-Chicago HSR link is that if you add in the 2-3 hours spent in airports and organizing carry-ons etc..it will be competitive with air travel. (Air 4-5 hours train 5-6 hours.)

It's about 409 mi / 658 km. I don't think that anyone's proposing anything like the Eurasian or Californian high-speed lines, but more like what they are doing for Chicago - St. Louis.

I could see a cross-country line across the Southwest, San Antonio -> Las Cruces -> Tucson -> Phoenix -> L.A., basically following I-10 from Jacksonville. Spurs up to Denver, Louisville, Chicago. It would never be as convenient as flying for all routes, but for many trips it would beat the crap out of having your knees crammed up to your chest while waiting on the tarmac for hours.

I agree.

 

[JC Denton]

I wish they would have put money into a feasibility study for the Hyperloop, which would have followed the existing highways, thus did not require obtaining additional rights of way, not to mention the LA-SF time was one hour as opposed to the three hours (which is probably still too optimistic), they are talking about now.

 

[lpetrich]

I don't see nationwide HSR as an option. There is little between Chicago and California (sorry Denver) and trying to build a rail through the mountains could be extremely expensive.

I agree. Consider a possible transcontinental line.

NYC - (Philadelphia - Pittsburgh, Albany - Buffalo) - Cleveland - Chicago - St. Louis - Kansas City - Denver - Salt Lake City - (Las Vegas - LA, Sacramento - SF)

The line is plausible from NYC to Kansas City, but west of there is lots of mountains and not many big cities until one comes to Sacramento or Las Vegas.

HSR would most likely be restricted to regional service. Hubs in Chicago (Midwest), NYC (NE Corridor), The West Coast. The SE and Texas could have one, but they are too red to be as imaginative as to understand that ease is transportation equates to ease in flow of capital. With Chicago, you can connect Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, maybe even Pittsburgh. NYC, connects the Acela line... Portland to DC...

The way I imagine it, the Northeast Corridor can be part of an Atlantic Axis:

Portland ME - Boston - Providence - New Haven - NYC - Trenton - Philly - Wilmington - Baltimore - DC - Richmond - Raleigh - Greensboro - Charlotte - Greenville - Atlanta - Savannah - Jacksonville - Orlando - Miami

The Atlantic Axis is roughly the length of the Amsterdam - Cadiz line that I'd earlier posted on.

Lines radiating out from Chicago can form Greater Chicagoland:
Detroit
Toledo - Cleveland
Indianapolis - (Cincinnati, Louisville)
St. Louis - Kansas City
Davenport - Des Moines - Omaha
Milwaukee - Madison - Twin Cities

A crossing line: Cincinnati - Columbus - Cleveland
A line starting across the border from Detroit: Windsor - Toronto - Ottawa - Montreal - Quebec City


United States population density, 2000 -- there is a north-south line that separates the contiguous US into two roughly equal parts. Most of that line is a little west of I-35. East of that line, the density seldom gets lower than 5 - 9 people/mi^2, and is usually much higher. East of that line, the density is usually 1 - 4 people/mi^2. So there is about a factor of 10 drop in density across that line. The average density does not increase westward until one gets close to the west coast: CA, west OR, west WA. Even there, there is a low-density patch that straddles the CA-OR border.


California HSR is a good system. Its SF - LA planned length is 463 mi / 746 km, the LA area has a population (13m) close to those of the London and Paris areas (14m, 12m), and the SF Bay Area a little less (7m). Sacramento and San Diego are both 3m. It has a proposed extension from LA to Las Vegas, XpressWest, an extension that will branch off around Palmdale.

But the population drops off north of Sacramento, and Redding, at the northern end of the Central Valley, has a population of about 90k people. Population does not pick up again until Eugene, OR, with about 400k people, and the next big city is Portland, OR at 2m. Redding - Eugene is about 315 mi / 507 km, and Sacramento - Portland about 580 mi / 934 km. So a Sacramento - Portland high-speed line would be rather difficult to justify.

Portland - Seattle is better. The two cities have populations 2.3m and 3.6m, and they are separated by 173 mi / 278 km. Good for a moderately high-speed train at least, like the CHI-STL speedup.

just on an actual high speed line that isn't limited to high speed on a 20 feet length of track near Providence.

More like 20 miles or thereabouts, but still very limited.

Getting from Trenton to New Brunswick at 160 mph: officials highlight high-speed rail project | NJ.com

Even at roughly $20 million per mile, federal officials say the overhaul of the 23-mile stretch of the Northeast Corridor linking Trenton and New Brunswick is well worth the investment because it will bring the first true high-speed rail to the United States.

Work that includes replacing signals and overhead wires installed more than 80 years ago by the Pennsylvania Railroad will allow Amtrak’s Acela trains to travel at 160 mph, 25 miles above the current top speed. The federally funded $450 million project began in October 2011 and is slated for completion in June 2017.

 

[arkirk]

If you watch Asian news services, it is apparent that their cultures are advancing very much faster than ours here in America. Even South American countries are contracting with Japan and China for bullet trains. It looks a lot like it is a matter of opportunity costs for war machines and the auto industry are proving to be run down old fashioned public transportation systems like AMTRACK, overloaded freeway systems, insufficient educational facilities that deny education to millions simply by their sparsity, and politicians that don't give a damn. You cannot continue to put all our eggs in the petroleum basket and prosper in the coming age. It is really about that simple.

The Republican candidate for Governor in the last election had a campaign add where he would take a model of "Jerry Brown's pet money burning machine" a high speed train, and smash it with the backside of an axe. Our national government is now in the hands of people like Kashkari. It is not encouraging on the national level. Brown does deserve some credit for pushing us into the 21st century and swimming against the nationwide stream of degeneration the Republicans have nurtured religiously since the '80's. Now if they would just get down to brass tacks with oil and mineral severance taxes, we might be able to educate our people like the rest of the world is pressing hard to do. We have been a nation marking time while other nations of the world are moving forward and will eventually eclipse our country. Our priorities are simply not aligned with our human needs by these do nothing politicians.

An Asian country was the first to market the hybrid synergy drive in an automobile and next year (again this week on NHK) we hear that they will also be the first to market a fuel cell automobile and already are projecting its future in the automobile market. What do we do...lower gas prices and GM and Ford go back to big SUV's. The thrust of our efforts are misguided. It appears it will continue that way as long as we retain this broken political system that rewards backward thinking. Americans have quite a tendency for looking down at the Arabs for being backwards...but our own government is placing all of us on the down escalator. Think about how the world is changing and we are no advancing abreast of it. At least Jerry is in favor of one good idea.

 

[lpetrich]

I wish they would have put money into a feasibility study for the Hyperloop, which would have followed the existing highways, thus did not require obtaining additional rights of way, not to mention the LA-SF time was one hour as opposed to the three hours (which is probably still too optimistic), they are talking about now.

The Hyperloop is a vactrain, a sort of system proposed every now and the for the last half century at least. It has daunting technical challenges, and it would take a LOT of R&D to get it working safely. For instance, its entire tube would have to be evacuated, and stay evacuated reliably. A leak anywhere would shut down the whole line. Also, crossovers would be awkward.

Let's see what it has to do.
SF - LA HSR distance: 463 mi / 746 km (detours into the Central Valley and Antelope Valley)
SF - LA highway distance: 386 mi / 622 km
SF - LA great-circle distance: 349 mi / 561 km

Will use 400 mph / 640 km/h / 180 m/s

Acceleration distance = (speed)² / (2* (acceleration))

For an acceleration of 0.1 g (1 m/s²), this is 16 km or 10 mi.

The acceleration time penalty is equal to the time to travel the acceleration distance at full speed, so it's not very great here.

Now for following highways. They usually have lots of curves in them, and I will use design standard to estimate the centrifugal acceleration for going around them. I'll use NJDOT Roadway Design Manual -- that's the New Jersey highway department. "The suggested minimum radius for a freeway is 3000 feet in rural areas and 1600 feet in urban areas." Also, "Every effort should be made to exceed the minimum values. Minimum radii should be used only when the cost or other adverse effects of realizing a higher standard are inconsistent with the benefits."

That's about 1 km for full cruising speed.

Centrifugal acceleration = (speed)² / (radius of curvature)

For a 1-km curve, the sideways acceleration is
Car (60 mph / 100 km/h / 28 m/s): 0.78 m/s²
High-speed train (186 mph / 300 km/h / 6.9 m/s): 6.9 m/s²
Hyperloop (400 mph / 640 km/h / 180 m/s): 32 m/s²

Minimum radius of curvature, to be consistent with car standards:
High-speed train: 9 km
Hyperloop: 41 km


So the Hyperloop line won't be able to follow highways.


It will likely be built on a viaduct or extended bridge, two tubes about 16 ft / 5 m across. Expect the NIMBY's to howl with outrage at the prospect of seeing that. The California HSR system has already gotten a lot of NIMBY objections, like between San Francisco and San Jose, and this system would be even worse.

 

[JC Denton]

I wish they would have put money into a feasibility study for the Hyperloop, which would have followed the existing highways, thus did not require obtaining additional rights of way, not to mention the LA-SF time was one hour as opposed to the three hours (which is probably still too optimistic), they are talking about now.

The Hyperloop is a vactrain, a sort of system proposed every now and the for the last half century at least. It has daunting technical challenges, and it would take a LOT of R&D to get it working safely. For instance, its entire tube would have to be evacuated, and stay evacuated reliably. A leak anywhere would shut down the whole line. Also, crossovers would be awkward.

The pressure is reduced but the tube isn't completely evacuated ...

Let's see what it has to do.
SF - LA HSR distance: 463 mi / 746 km (detours into the Central Valley and Antelope Valley)
SF - LA highway distance: 386 mi / 622 km
SF - LA great-circle distance: 349 mi / 561 km

Will use 400 mph / 640 km/h / 180 m/s

Acceleration distance = (speed)² / (2* (acceleration))

For an acceleration of 0.1 g (1 m/s²), this is 16 km or 10 mi.

The acceleration time penalty is equal to the time to travel the acceleration distance at full speed, so it's not very great here.

The proposed max speed is ~750 mph (for straight stretches of track), and the max acceleration they are proposing is actually 0.5g, which is still less than a commercial airliner.

Now for following highways. They usually have lots of curves in them, and I will use design standard to estimate the centrifugal acceleration for going around them. I'll use NJDOT Roadway Design Manual -- that's the New Jersey highway department. "The suggested minimum radius for a freeway is 3000 feet in rural areas and 1600 feet in urban areas." Also, "Every effort should be made to exceed the minimum values. Minimum radii should be used only when the cost or other adverse effects of realizing a higher standard are inconsistent with the benefits."

That's about 1 km for full cruising speed.

Centrifugal acceleration = (speed)² / (radius of curvature)

For a 1-km curve, the sideways acceleration is
Car (60 mph / 100 km/h / 28 m/s): 0.78 m/s²
High-speed train (186 mph / 300 km/h / 6.9 m/s): 6.9 m/s²
Hyperloop (400 mph / 640 km/h / 180 m/s): 32 m/s²

Minimum radius of curvature, to be consistent with car standards:
High-speed train: 9 km
Hyperloop: 41 km

So the Hyperloop line won't be able to follow highways.

This is simply wrong - see the article http://blogs.mathworks.com/seth/2013/11/22/hyperloop-not-so-fast/

It will likely be built on a viaduct or extended bridge, two tubes about 16 ft / 5 m across. Expect the NIMBY's to howl with outrage at the prospect of seeing that. The California HSR system has already gotten a lot of NIMBY objections, like between San Francisco and San Jose, and this system would be even worse.

I can't imagine the NIMBY issues to be any worse than the HSR - as no substantial additional rights of way will be required.