High-Speed Rail in our Time? (25 Feb 16 by gins)

Last week, the California High-Speed Rail Authority recommended that the initial leg run from San Jose to Bakersfield, with a target of 2025.   For once, logic prevailed, given the economic benefits of closer ties between the Central Valley and the coast.  Of course, there are those who still call the whole thing a boondoggle, but they’ve yet to propose a viable alternative to packed highways and airports, Hyperloop fantasies included.

Having spent over a decade in Germany, I remember the construction of the InterCity Express, or ICE, and in fact, for over two years it was my primary commute between Mannheim and Stuttgart.  Over a ten-year period beginning at the end of the 1980s, high-speed rail extended throughout Germany, in the same way that the TGV did so in France a decade earlier, and Italy and Spain a decade later. 

Europe High-Speed Rail

Given what is possible, I really don’t understand why a single line within California takes just as long, with the full system connecting Sacramento with Los Angeles an additional decade.  Closer to home, Caltrain should see electrification by 2020, and as someone who deals with the crush on a daily basis, it should bring some relief.  If not for me, then at least the next generation will have an easier commute.

The Bright Future of BART

Caltrain Today

A Tale of Two Passes and a Century of the Ridge Route (13 Jun 15 by gins)

A few years back, in the post ‘Broadband: Lifeblood, not Luxury,’ I wrote about the roles the Lincoln Highway and the Donner Pass played in connecting California to the rest of the nation.  Indians, traders, covered wagons, the railroad, the highway, not to mention cables and fibers all wound their way from east to west.   But there is another in California with an equally storied history, this time connecting the north and the south.

Separating the two parts of the state are the Tehachapi and San Emigdio Mountains, bisected by the Tejon Pass, and the role this pass plays today is possibly more important than the Donner.  Heading south from Bakersfield, the terrain rises thousands of feet before dropping into the San Fernando Valley.  Oil and gas pipelines, power lines, the California Aqueduct, fiber cables, and of course roads all traverse the pass.  It is the roads that are the most interesting, an open history book spanning the last century of the automobile.  The Lincoln Highway, then US 40, and now I-80 all lay claim to the Donner Pass.  In the same way, the Pacific Highway, US 99, and I-5 have all shared the Tejon at various times. 

The most interesting is the ‘Old’ Ridge Route, the first planned and paved link crossing the pass, completed a hundred years ago.  At the time it was considered an engineering marvel, but it was soon obsolete due to faster and better-designed cars.  Unfortunately, today it is no longer possible to follow it in its entirety due to washouts and abandonment, and we had to turn back after a few miles due to slides, even with an SUV.  No other cars were to be seen.  Another road built at about the same time, the Old Santa Cruz Highway, which was the first paved route across the Santa Cruz Mountains, suffers the same curves and narrow pavement.  And speaking of pavement, an interesting note - the Pacific Highway was once the longest paved auto road in the world.  This was probably a real improvement over the much older Siskiyou Trail, whose path it followed from Oregon to California.

History aside, one mode of transportation notably absent from the Tejon Pass is rail, due to the steepness of the terrain.  Here the two passes differ.   In ‘The Ties That Bind’ I wrote about high-speed rail.   Assuming all goes as planned, the train will in eventually link San Francisco with Los Angeles, but after Bakersfield the line will run east to Palmdale before heading into the LA Basin.   A tunnel, though technically feasible, just doesn’t make financial sense – we’re not the Swiss!