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WA Democrats ask Buttigieg for $200M to plan B.C.-Seattle-Portland bullet train
(www.seattletimes.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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For complete engineering plans to include routes, cost to procure routes, actual cost of materials, etc. 500 million for a complete package - and then seek funding. Of course you're talking Seattle to San Diego... right? And an airtight contract. No change orders needed.
People keep wanting these long as fuck HSR routes and, well, that's really not the space HSR fills in transport infrastructure. HSR generally replaces short-haul airline trips, which is why it would be YUGE for LA-SF, the TX metros, etc. But it still tends to lose out to airlines on long-haul trips because, eventually, jets are just faster. China does do these crazy long routes, and I'm not really sure why, unless their air infrastructure is really whack or something. I THINK that their longest lines still fulfill the role of replacing short-haul flights, it's just that it didn't make sense to separate the alignments when it's all along the same line anyway.
Basically, HSR is a huge PITA to build right, a well worthwhile PITA, but a PITA nonetheless. That makes it really expensive on the frontend, on top of not being competitive with air over very long distances. What would be more realistic for long-haul rail transit would be something closer to Brightline, which isn't true HSR. They use a different FRA rail class than true HSR, and don't achieve the same speeds, but it's still reasonably fast (in the triple digits), doesn't requires extremely specialized stock, and it's a lot cheaper to build. Replacing Amtrak's long-haul lines, like the Coast Starlight, with dedicated class six or seven alignment would mean that they could reasonably sustain about 125 mph. It's currently a 36 hour trip (notably, 2x the time to drive from Seattle to LA), but that would bring it down to about (1,135 mi / 125 mph, mi cancels leaving us with) 9 hours. I can't really set aside two days to take a train to Seattle, but I could plausibly set aside 9 hours, especially given that it's a little over half the time to do the drive. Heck, you could even make it a sleeper train. I'd do that over an airline in a heartbeat. The California Zephyr runs from Sacramento to Chicago, IIRC, and takes about a week. On its own class 7 alignment, that would be (2045/125) just 16 hours. That's a hell of a lot better than a week, and half the time of driving.
So, HSR for long distances isn't really that good or valuable, IMO, but that doesn't mean that we can't do highER speed rail for long distance travel.
Rofl. For context to build light rail in the Seattle area the region is sending $50+ billion on st3. I want this but it's not gonna be cheap, and nor should it be. We should want it done right the first time.
The issue is that, despite spending more money than any other country by an order of magnitude (excepting maybe the UK) per mile of track, we don't get it done right the first time.
SF's Central Subway which was, at one point, the most expensive rail project (light or otherwise) per mile of track in the world had to get the contractor to go in and completely replace the rails because they had tried to sneak substandard steel past the city.
The megacontractors who build these projects do not deliver quality, they do not deliver when they say they will, and they do not deliver for the cost they bid at. They do make a killing though.