The Case for Portland-to-Vancouver High-Speed Rail

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/12/cascadia-high-speed-rail-train-seattle-portland-vancouver/602926/

by pseudolus • 7 years ago

70 96 7 years ago

ericmay4• 7 years ago

The choices here are to spend $100bn adding a lane to I-5 or a $50bn high speed rail between the cities. Adding a lane doesn’t reduce traffic in the long term, and doesn’t reduce drive time even in the best of traffic conditions. (You still can’t go as fast as the bullet train). I think even at double the price it would still be the superior choice. But how will the highway construction companies lobby to get the work for the extra lane?

Car-centric lifestyle has to go. It is maddeningly stupid and wasteful.

abcpassword2• 7 years ago

It would cost far more than 50B. If you think that cost is accurate, I have a boat to sell you.

ericmay4• 7 years ago

In my comment I noted that I think that even at double the price I still think it would be worth it.

markus_zhang• 7 years ago

That's pretty much true for everything related to construction...

maccard• 7 years ago

Do you think the 100B number for the highway is aaccurate?

Mountain_Skies• 7 years ago

Interstate 5 goes many places other than just Portland and Vancouver. Of course the train can add in additional stops, reducing its speed advantage but will never be able to compete with a road in terms of destination count or the network effect. Which doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad idea, just that there needs to be enough people going between just the destinations served to compare to the number that would the additional road lane. Induced demand exists but is a sign of success of utility of the road. The comparisons even when everyone is being honest aren't all that clear cut and involve a huge number of variables. Also consider most companies that build roads can also build rail infrastructure or at least parts of it. A rail line isn't starvation for them and they would likely get a piece of that pie.

ericmay4• 7 years ago

“ Induced demand exists but is a sign of success of utility of the road. ”

Oh boy. That’s one way of putting it. I’d argue, however, that it’s a dangerous perversion of what induced demand is because it doesn’t respect the negative externalities of the action.

bitxbit3• 7 years ago

The US, especially the NW, is not that dense which means the infrastructure must accommodate automobiles. The country is simply way too spread out to implement something that resembles rail systems in EU and Japan. While I would like to see high speed rails in the states, I believe the focus is rather myopic considering that it doesn't necessarily solve the underlying transportation problems.

ericmay4• 7 years ago

I-5 will still be there. They are talking about adding a $100bn lane to the highway vs a stated cost $50bn bullet train.

zip12343• 7 years ago

Adding lanes to freeways only encourages and perpetuates such lack of density. Cars will do just as well with the current number of lanes. Induced demand is a real thing.

CalRobert• 7 years ago

The infrastructure in the US, especially the NW, is built to accommodate automobiles, which means it is not that dense.

claudeganon4• 7 years ago

The country is simply way too spread out to implement something that resembles rail systems in EU and Japan

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China

The only thing that’s lacking is political will to invest in public infrastructure.

Shivetya• 7 years ago

because like any of these proposals supporting high speed rail the numbers are always bullshit. first they don't even have their route down and even when they do it will be years in courts as every little concerned group gets a word in edgewise and their payout. the road costs are pretty much safer and likely cheaper as right of way is already secured and unlike rail you don't need to complete it all at once to have service nor complete it in connected stages. plus you have all those wonderful exits which will always be in greater frequency than train depots and they all have industry or other features using them

then comes the one aspect of rail they always love to leave out, maintenance and ongoing costs. part of the reason the rail transit systems used by Amtrak and even those in cities have nearly a hundred billion dollar deficit. rail is always cheaper when you don't maintain it.

then of course passenger numbers are always dream state numbers. Oh its quite fun to dream up stuff, rail always has this odd romanticism about it, but in the end who does it serve?

hourislate• 7 years ago

Actually the reason Amtrak runs a huge deficit is their long haul routes (cross country). Their local routes like the eastern corridor and even the ones on the west coast are profitable. Even their regional routes either break even or are very close.

I would point you to the following Wendover Productions video that gives a great analysis.

Amtrak’s Grand Plan for Profitability

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSw7fWCrDk0

notJim• 7 years ago

Worth noting that Seattle, Portland and Vancouver all have made significant investments in public transit, so once you're in the city, you also can do pretty well without a car.

jeffnappi2• 7 years ago

You certainly can - I have. We moved to downtown Seattle and sold both of our cars. Almost everything is available within a few blocks of walking, I bike commute to the office and can take bus/light rail to most places we need to go. About once a month we rent a car for a day to do further out errands - there are many options for this downtown - ShareNow, Zipcar, Avis etc. It typically costs < $200/mo including insurance etc.

throwawaysea• 7 years ago

The chance that this train will cost just $50b? None. Look at CA HSR. The price started out with a $40B cost and now it’s trending towards over $100B, with reduced coverage and service compared to what voters expected. It will probably end up being 4-5x its original cost in the end, if the original promise is delivered. I have higher confidence that the road will be significantly closer to its original cost estimate.

ehnto6• 7 years ago

When "Sea Plane" seems like a good alternative to commuting between two metros you have to chuckle.

High speed passenger rail has so many benefits past commute time alone. It's fast and easy to get tickets, board and depart. It's consistent, predictable and you can reliably plan around travel times. Done well, you can be at the platform 5 minutes before you depart and be moving 5 minutes later. You can bring luggage with no fuss, just pop it in the overhead. They are generally well equipped, with full bathrooms.

It's nearly the speed of air travel, with none of the major downsides of air travel. I would happily take rail over planes and spend an extra hour underway than spend that extra hour dealing with airports either side of the flight.

criddell5• 7 years ago

Done well, you can be at the platform 5 minutes before you depart and be moving 5 minutes later.

All it would take to change that would be one terrorist incident and we would have TSA lines at the train station. I sure wouldn't count on quick to board being a lasting feature.

ehnto6• 7 years ago

You might be right, but I don't think it would be the right choice. There's a point where you trade off total security for usability. America is no stranger to trains and metros, yet the majority of those run without TSA like security.

I noted while in Japan, that they have no bins. If I'm not mistaken, they were removed due to a terror attack in the 90s. However, Japan train stations all have coin lockers. Now in NYC, you've got no coin lockers, due to a terrorist attack, but you do have bins. I don't believe either measure actually reduces the likelihood of a terror attack, it's just security theater.

ShteiLoups2• 7 years ago

At the risk of being put on even more watchlists than the average person-

I wonder if it would be quite as easy to wreck similar havoc on a commuter rail as on an airplane. It seems that it is easier to induce catastrophic failure to a plane than it is to a train.

Interestingly, there have been attempts[1], specifically in North America, with no major addition of security checks to train boarding. I suppose it would take a full scale, 9/11 style event to induce the same sort of worry about travel. I'd say that trains have a pretty good safeguard built in: they're stuck on tracks. That makes them significantly harder to ram into buildings, by my reckoning.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Via_Rail_Canada_terrorism...

ttul2• 7 years ago

US CBP officers pre-clear travelers in Vancouver on the existing Amtrak route; however, the train is stopped anyway just across the border to give those agents a reason to exist as well. The existing Amtrak experience is terribly slow - like five hours from Vancouver to Seattle.

A high speed rail service would conceivably use pre-clearing as well.

joshvm• 7 years ago

It's worth mentioning that this exists in Beijing down to the subway station level. Every station (at least the ones I passed through) had a security booth with an xray machine. It felt distinctly dystopian, but it was a fairly quick affair - bag in, bag out.

International rail from the UK to the Schengen area also requires an airport style security check, though it's much more laid back.

DataWorker4• 7 years ago

The government can’t afford it because it can’t afford basic healthcare or social-security. Trains are great but not financially viable, so the money comes from somewhere else. Trains are not worth turning our backs on the poor, the old and the sick.

ehnto6• 7 years ago

Trains benefit the poor a lot more than a road ever could. Trains enable cheaper mobility, opening up way more job opportunities and access to services in the process.

The article alludes to the enterprise being state/private partnership anyway, the federal government doesn't need to pay for it. Many high speed rail systems are public/private partnerships.

The rail network in the article is proposed at 50billion. There are individuals worth more than the US. The US spent 55 billion developing a single fighter jet platform, and that was just the R&D. If the US needs to cut from anywhere, it's definitely not infrastructure initiatives that should be cut. Infrastructure creates jobs, and increases economic opportunities for everyone.

organsnyder2• 7 years ago

We can afford those things perfectly well—we just choose not to.

bitminer• 7 years ago

Japan's high-speed trains are very impressive, departing some stations on a 12-minute interval, going 275 km/h and stopping only occasionally. Kyoto to Tokyo is what, 3 hours and there are 4 stops iirc.

But the trains go in all directions and are back-stopped by many local trains including express trains with inter-city service as well.

By contrast, a single dual-track system with only cars or nothing as a back-stop is not going to be reliable enough. What happens when a few days of repairs are needed on tunnels or bridges?

The other issue is political: does anyone think that Washington State is going to spend $50 billion on a transportation system in Boeing's back yard that is not made of airplanes?

ehnto6• 7 years ago

On maintenance, the rail companies work very hard to not interrupt the service, pulling off some incredible feats of planning and engineering in overnight operations. I think America is plagued a bit by the same issue we have in Australia, where we are frankly just not willing to solve hard problems if there is an available status quo. Also because long distance high speed rail is generally about replacing short distance air and long distance road travel those methods would still be options. But the reliability is still going to be higher than plane or road could ever offer.

The other issue is political: does anyone think that Washington State is going to spend $50 billion on a transportation system in Boeing's back yard that is not made of airplanes?

The article addresses this, saying there is currently a unique political climate that is in support of rail projects. But I hear you, it will take some persistence.

chroem-2• 7 years ago

The Link light rail project won't even reach Everett until 2036. That's about 40 miles of track in the 40 years since the project was approved. How is this supposed to work?

abcpassword2• 7 years ago

It’s not. This is a pork project for anyone paying attention. If approved, this would be another disastrous boondoggle.

jeltz• 7 years ago

Isn't that worrying? That your country cannot do large infrastructure projects anymore. The US mamaged to build the interstates in the past and other poorer countries like Spain have successfully built extensive high speed railway networks.

Mvhsz3• 7 years ago

High speed rail could share track with commuter lines in some cases, as acela does in the northeast corridor. And building through the rural parts of the state is generally easier, California essentially decided to only build the rural segment of their high speed rail due to cost.

But in general you're correct that projects requiring new right of way are very challenging and expensive. Especially high speed rail with limited turn radius. Since the article mentioned a low-usage rail link between the cities, I would prefer to see a campaign to increase ridership. Maybe you could incrementally upgrade segments of that route that could support high speed rail.

joking• 7 years ago

it's not one of the problems with the us rail system, that the infrastructure is owned by private transport companies?

how could you improve those railways if they are not yours to modify on first place?

ken2• 7 years ago

Does sharing track ever work? Amtrak already has to share track with freight, and that's why Seattle to Portland is officially "3.5 hours" but the margin of error on that is +hours.

chroem-2• 7 years ago

High speed rail could share track with commuter lines in some cases

Having ridden those very commuter lines, I can say that is not an option here. They are limited to 40mph along those routes because they follow a very windy path along the shoreline. There have been derailments from trains going too fast.

ttul2• 7 years ago

You cannot share track. Take a look at the ICE lines in Germany. The high speed sections are dedicated, with no level crossings and fencing the entire way to eliminate collision risk.

When a train is going 400kph, you can’t share track.

supernova87a2• 7 years ago

Sigh. While I'm a huge fan of high speed rail, and in fact Portland-Seattle-Vancouver is close to the ideal distance for it to compete with air travel, two things make this really hard to justify in cost-benefit, at least for the near-term:

1. Low density of population in this area, low absolute demand

2. High cost of rail development in the US

These 2 factors just structurally disadvantage any such venture to create a high speed rail line between these cities, as sexy an idea as it may sound at first.

Speaking only of present demand, there is not really a huge enough sustained daily ridership between even Portland and Seattle. There are approx. 2600 daily airplane seats one-way between the cities between the hours of 6am and 12 midnight, or 150 passengers per hour. There are very frequent (sub-hourly) departures on very small planes, because people value frequency for such a short trip.

For a top of the line rail service they're talking about (and to most utilize the high fixed cost of the infrastructure), you would expect there to be at least hourly (or even be generous, 2-hourly) service to call it a true frequent high speed rail solution. You don't build a high speed rail to have it run only every 3 hours.

The 150-300 people taking planes now just doesn't fill a 700-900 seat train, and hope as you may to say that you can displace car vehicle passengers onto the train, it seems like a big stretch to think you'll stimulate 700 people per hour to take the train, especially at probably >$100 per ticket.

This is not to say that having such a service couldn't start to stimulate demand over several years between the 2 cities. But would the public be willing to foot the bill to make that bet, and for how long?

Secondly, the cost to acquire rights of way and get the expertise to built such a high speed rail line is just way too high in the US. There have been good articles wondering why this is, and that deserves a thread of its own, it's so complex. We don't have a good track (hah) record of being able to source the talent and the property rights and engineering leverage / cost efficiency to do this affordably. Other countries have 1000s of rail planning engineers who work on this stuff every day. It would be hard for us to fill a single train car with such expertise.

Much as I wish such a thing could be possible, the cost-benefits of high speed rail in the US really point you to spending your transportation $ elsewhere for more positive impact. If it could be built at 1/10 the cost, it would be a no-brainer, and for sure I would say take that bet. But that's not the reality we've created for ourselves in this country.

9nGQluzmnq3M• 7 years ago

High-speed train would displace not just flights, but also buses, private cars and the existing (admittedly pathetic) rail service, plus it would also induce new demand since it would make currently awkward trips (eg. flying from Seattle to Vancouver for a single meeting and flying back) much more feasible.

Studies of other new HSRs over similar distances indicate quite consistently that they take about equal shares (~30%) from planes and buses/cars, with the remaining ~40% passengers from replaced rail service and induced demand.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222774085_High-spee...

supernova87a2• 7 years ago

The cost / time savings isn't what's the important factor in determining whether the service is sustainable, once you are in the competitive territory. It's how many people will take the service. Even if you assume that you'll double the ridership from my numbers above, that doesn't fill a train reliably.

SEA-YVR is even worse. There are 1350 passengers per day one way air between those cities. Even if you think that there's hidden demand traveling by car that you could convert, the volume just isn't there.

Nasrudith2• 7 years ago

Interesting I wonder about the displacement and induced demand in other scenarios like say adding another highway lane when there already is a high speed railway.

zip12343• 7 years ago

How many car trips are there between the two cities per day? It could also compete with cars if it is faster.

peterwoerner• 7 years ago

Additionally when you are at your destination, you are most likely going to be needing your car too. Most American cities require a car to get anywhere you want to go.

E.g. I can technically take the bus to get to work where I live, but it would take 2 hours one way. It is a 20 minutes in my car.

zip12343• 7 years ago

Cities and towns need to start changing. The argument I always hear is that because things are unwalkable now that they have to be forever.

noodlesUK• 7 years ago

Please please please can we have this? I would be willing to pay so much more for a service like this than any number of new lanes added to I5. I would love to see the US have a decent rail network

criddell5• 7 years ago

All Americans have been in a car before and could potentially see themselves using that road. Conversely, there are a lot of Americans that have never been on a high speed train or train of any type. It's a lot easier to convince the population of voters to build roads than rail.

downerending• 7 years ago

...or they've taken Amtrak out of NYC. :-P

irrational• 7 years ago

Vancouver is just over the Columbia. I don't think we need a high-speed rail. What we need is a new I-5 bridge that includes a light rail line and many more lanes. It's such a bottleneck between Portland and Vancouver.

Frondo• 7 years ago

Vancouver, British Columbia.

leggomylibro2• 7 years ago

People have been saying the same thing about a route between DC, Philadelphia, NYC, and Boston for as long as high-speed rail has existed. Great population density, and the distances look good.

But it never seems to pan out. My pet theory is that frequent air travel is not nearly as miserable for people who are wealthy enough to be decision-makers as it is for most of us, so the political will never reaches a breaking point.

Plus, the existing rail transport options are already viable options for people who have time. It takes about 9-12 times longer to go across the whole country (72 vs 6-8 hours), but rail is already competitive between major East Coast cities on both time and price. And it's worlds ahead in comfort.

So you'd wind up spending a ton of money for...what? Trimming 45 minutes off of a trip which is already fairly pleasant?

How about a case for three high-speed rail lines belting the North, Center, and South of the nation? Maybe connections between them could pass through Denver or St. Louis.

serbrech• 7 years ago

Trim 45 min? That would barely account for the commute to the airport in most cities. Most train stations are right in the city, as opposed to airports.

in France high speed rail between Paris and other cities has pretty much killed the local plane routes.

leggomylibro2• 7 years ago

Yes, exactly. Amtrak is already an option that gets you between city centers, and it's fairly quick and cheap between nearby coastal cities. It's not "high-speed", but passenger trains do exist in the US, and any proposed high-speed rail project will have to compete with them. "We get you there an hour quicker, but still slightly slower than an airplane" is not necessarily a hugely appealing differentiator which would justify charging much more.

LargoLasskhyfv2• 7 years ago

Funny caption beneath the title picture. Like this, but in Seattle.

Further down: But Roger Millar, Washington State’s secretary of transportation, sees a better way: a trans-national, ultra-high-speed rail line that can hit 250 mph and put the three booming cities within super-commuting range.

While THIS [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadler_EC250 is new in rail development time frames, it tops out at 160 mph and is permitted to only 125mph so far.

Anyways, why choose a picture of of something like THIS [1] when it can't reach the goal?

specialp• 7 years ago

A recent development that went under the radar a bit is the rule change to allow for light weight train cars on the tracks in the USA. The Acela line in the Northeast has been plagued with problems even going 125 MPH due to the large increase in weight needed for US crash standards that dictate they basically need to come out pretty intact colliding with a freight train.

This made for very expensive, and heavy cars. And it also meant that using other high speed rail stock in the world could not be done without significant modification. The Acela train had problems with the brakes cracking from the weight. With increasing urbanization, some areas with close cities could very well be served by high speed rail. Even in Europe, larger distances are covered by low cost airlines now. But with increasing airport crowding and the fact that most train station are in city centers vs the fringes like most airports it could be very useful.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/11/23/u-s-finally-legalizes...

mnm1• 7 years ago

This might work in Europe or Japan but what are these people thinking? They can't get a train between Portland and Vancouver Washington going, have wasted hundreds of millions on it already with nothing to show for it multiple times, and now they want to build this? So let's waste a few tens of billions of dollars, get nowhere like California, and then give up? Fuck that. It's impossible. This is America. We should try to live up to our own potential and our own potential is not much these days. No one seems to have told these idiots. I'd bet money right now this doesn't happen in my lifetime (I'm late thirties). So let's stop with the fantasy cause the mere fantasy of a replacement or new bridge over the Columbia (which this project would absolutely require) is fantasy enough for me.

crooked-v2• 7 years ago

The Vancouver, WA thing is especially ridiculous given the whole Columbia River Crossing fiasco, where the Washington legislature wasted a ton of money by shutting it all down out of fear that Vancouver might have to pay to operate a single rail stop on their side of the river.

jeffnappi2• 7 years ago

I hope this becomes a reality. Driving over the border can be a nightmare without a NEXUS pass for all car occupants. During high traffic periods it's common to get stuck at the border for 2+ hours.

Also, Vancouver is beautiful - if you've never been, do yourself a favor and check it out!

8bitsrule• 7 years ago

$100 billion? Maybe it's in there somewhere, but I didn't see the projected ridership for this. At 10,000 riders each day for 10,000 days, ($10^11/10^8) that's $1000 per rider-trip.

Even neglecting interest, maintenance and fueling, and the optimism, that's pricey.

How, for example, does that $100B compare to taking one lane of existing pavement to move a 'train' of CPU-coupled, road-powered electric vehicles at half that (250mph) speed?

The Case for Portland-to-Vancouver High-Speed Rail

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