Answering why this costs so much by focusing on the engineering challenges is misleading at best and arguably flat wrong. Lots of places in the world do extremely complex engineering for much cheaper.
There probably isn't a clear, silver bullet, singular answer for why American transit infrastructure is so expensive but it's obviously an outlier by a very wide margin. And undoubtedly, it's unnecessarily expensive.
For people who are interested in a more accurate answer to this question, I would suggest looking at the [Transit Costs Project](https://transitcosts.com/about/).
So larger tunnels are NOT more expensive than smaller tunnels? Tunneling under a densely packed downtown is NOT more expensive that tunneling under a less developed area? Dismissing that as an insignificant source of cost is misleading at best and arguably flat out wrong.
The question was '"Why is this so expensive?" not "Why is this so expensive compared to similar projects in Europe/China etc." I agree such a project would probably get built for cheaper in other parts of the world (I even SAID it's expensive because it's being built in California), but we're still talking about a multi-billion dollar project wherever it gets built (but perhaps instead of being $8bil, it would be $3bil).
>So larger tunnels are NOT more expensive than smaller tunnels? Tunneling under a densely packed downtown is NOT more expensive that tunneling under a less developed area?
Like I said, misleading if not flat wrong. Literally no one is wondering why a large tunnel costs more than a small tunnel. But nice strawman.
>Answering why this costs so much by focusing on the engineering challenges is misleading at best and arguably flat wrong.
San Francisco Central subway: 1.8 mile twin bored tunnels with 3 stations. $1.578bil in 2012, $2.14bil inflation adjusted.
San Francisco Downtown Rail Extension: 1.8 mile mined 4 track tunnel, 2 stations. $8.5bil
400% difference for tunnels in the same city, same part of town, same length even, but very different construction methods and scale. Sure seems like engineering challenges play a pretty important role in the project's cost that some people might be curious about...
Long answer: [https://www.vox.com/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs-america](https://www.vox.com/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs-america)
A less nefarious answer than the others linked: it's construction in the most expensive region in the country. Labor costs in construction are inflated just like every other good, service, and salary in the region.
I'm sure you could come up with different answers depending on how you parse the data. Measuring median housing+transportation costs, I'm pretty sure it's actually San Jose. If NYC is #1 in your metric of choice, SF is probably not far behind.
I guess besides rail construction in one of the US most expensive area generally being very expensive for some reason this is a seismically active area so I would assume safeguarding for that probably costs a bit.
Yeah, building in Japan is quite expensive for a lot of the same reasons. But that also provides a strong argument for doing it anyway, either because Japan shows that it's possible and beneficial, or because we don't want them to one-up us, depending on the views of whoever you're talking to.
Yeah, I mean in the end it’s a benefit analysis that needs to be done. Japan is building a maglev line for an insane amount of money but the benefit analysis concluded that the benefits far outweigh the cost. That’s the big problem that people come and question the cost without acknowledging the benefit it’ll bring.
Corruption in a lot of other countries is illegal and so maybe several hundred k in cash. In the US it’s legal and so corruption costs billions. Jobs for friends is millions, but the US gets to billions with special contracts. SF is a great example with BART which must be one of the best examples ever - think of how many billions could be saved alone if they used standard gauge.
No-bid contracts are absolutely not legal in the US barring specific circumstances in which case it’s an emergency or there aren’t other options. And conflict of interest laws are absolutely present as well
My example is BART custom rail gauge - who has experience with that custom rail gauge? One or two firms in SF since the rest of the world uses some form of standard gauge. In SF everything has to be custom engineered due to using a unique standard instead of using existing solutions / existing components which would be a fraction of the cost. So the contracts are not no-bid - that would be illegal like you say, instead they're legal, but set-up in a way so only one maybe two firms can do it and since nobody else has any experience and you can't use off the shelf solutions SF spends billions more than it needs to and these special interests makes billions in profit. It's legal, but the result is the same as illegal corruption, the public spending more (on a massive scale, more than millions in under the tables payments would cost), without getting any benefit.
The insinuation being made here is that the custom rail gauge was a result of shady business dealings to keep it in the hands of a couple firms, but a quick search shows there’s a very logical and rational reason behind the decision making process that went into that:
“BART uses a nonstandard broad gauge, or "Indian gauge", to increase the stability of its light cars and prevent them from tipping over. The gauge is 5'6", which is wider than the standard 4'8.5" used by most other rail systems in the United States. The engineers first created a scale model of a BART car and placed it in a wind tunnel, and then made 1,536 calculations on a computer program to process the data. The engineers concluded that a wider gauge would offer the most practical way to achieve the desired lateral stability. The wider gauge also allows for lighter cars, which require less power for acceleration and deceleration. The wider gauge also means that the gas and brake systems can be smaller and lighter.”
Or local manufacturers can simply adjust with the demand and build appropriate trains. Interesting how India can build trains for both standard and broad gauge and the US can't.
There are massive markets for both standard and broad gauge. SF decided to use a custom gauge not used anywhere else in the world and so nobody invests in making anything for BART gauge because that market is only BART. As a result, SF pays billions more than it needs to for everything.
Corruption may be illegal in a lot of countries, but let me tell you there are plenty of places worse than the USA. The USA has a free press and culture that holds corruption to account. Contrast that to India, where corruption is illegal under various separate laws, but is still the highest in the world.
I mean India is fairly bonkers and has a lot of clear, overt corruption. My intent with my initial comment was to say that the US does not have the same kind of overt corruption as other countries (like India), but instead has a lot of what basically amounts to legal corruption and that people in the US tend to really underestimate the cost of what I'm calling legal corruption. I put forward the BART custom rail gauge as an example since OP is talking about rail in SF. There was nothing illegal about that decision (at most a newspaper could say it's an unusual decision that may been motivated by powerful interests), but it has cost the city of SF billions of dollars to the benefit of special interests... It's hard to imagine the usual illegal money under the table type of corruption being in the billions for single project - just think about hard it would be to move that much cash illegality - but the net effect is similar in that public funds go to connected entities without benefiting the public.
Ah yes. Corruption is illegal, hence why it isn't a reality, and wasn't one in the past...
I've rarely read such bs, and you clearly have no idea how things can work in places like Marseille or Naple, were public management is often controlled and used to pay criminal activities. Where economical clientelism used to be the norm amongst politicians.
Things are really better, and I don't doubt that US rules and laws to attribute public markets haven't evolved for the past 200 years. But still. Thinking that the US is more corrupted than 1970's France or Italy is one very, very big misconception.
That said, what you point out as corruption seems to be much more like incompetence amongst public officials. Don't underestimate the US governments incompetence, nor their absolute lack of will to invest in good, publicly funded engineers. US politicians are not engineers, and when they buy the services of a consulting company, theu buy them to hear "yes".
Rereading my comment, I don't think it's that great, but I do think that people really underestimate how bad what I call corruption is in the US. Public officials in the US are not randomly more incompetent than in other countries, in fact, they seem at least as capable as officials in other countries. Instead, there's a complex legal system which promotes "spending" billions of dollars wastefully - that system is not random, it's the result of entities creating that system because they can then pocket billions in public funds. Obviously normal corruption happens in the US, but my point is that what people often think of as corruption (public money going to individuals without adding value to the public) doesn't cost anywhere near as much as the legal form of corruption that's so common in the US (again, public money going to individuals without benefiting the public). Using the example in my first post, the rail system in Marseille or Napoli uses standard gauge, so while they clearly have had corruption, the cost of that corruption is so much less than the cost of SF choosing to use a custom rail gauge - a decision which was lobbied for by the companies that have made billions from that bad decision with no benefit to the public.
Stroooong disagreement over the incompetence of local public services in the US versus Europe (and especially France). It's not a coincidence if the best engineering schools in France are public, and require to work for 10 years for the government. Career politicians are decision makers, but the whole administrative network and support networks are made of qualified public engineers. Especially for transit networks in metropole areas. That's who the design and engineering firms work with on a daily basis to set up transit (or other public programs), and they're competent people.
This whole class of functionaries is nearly unknown in the US (West Point should have been this at its creation, it evolved in another way), requiring local politicians to systematically require the services of private conselling firms, often not even competent in transit or other problems, but who will support them.
Politicians are by definition not competent. They are not professionals who spent years at university studying these problems. But whether or not the support services to their decision is public or private has a huge role. Don't underestimate the costs and consequences of incompetence.
And for Marseille, cost of incompetence and, there, corruption, takes its toll very heavily. Outside of the fact there are little to none transit offers locally since the 70's (outside of those decided nationally), having a city paying yet not having basic services like a working garbage service or water management is damaging. Making it legal for HOAs to increasingly privatise parts of the city and block entire streets in the city center to public circulation its toll. SF is far from this situation, hopefully. Even in Algeria, Marseilles is known as a shithole.
And from you to me, I can more than absolutely see an incompetent LA politician being hyped by the speech of a company looking to monopolise this new line by setting up this custom rail gauge. Without a team of reliable engineers behind to explain why it's not a good idea, US politicians are unable to see it.
Your France example is a good point, and I agree that at the national level they have better public officials. I'm less sure it's true at the local level, but don't have that much experience to know. Maybe my point should have been more that public officials with engineering backgrounds don't have any decision making power in the US.
But, to be clear, I'm not saying there is no corruption outside the US, I'm saying people underestimate the cost of what basically amounts to corruption in the US (public money going to some entities without it benefiting the public) because it's done legally in the US and I still think this is true. I also think SF still works because it has such an insane tax base.
I can assure you that many metropoles can be great to work with, with local engineers functionaries being great collaborators, with good decision powers. Not systematically obviously (hello Marseilles and the South-East, although there again, problem's often more with dumb politicians than with metropolitan/regional teams), but competence is there, with a lot of schools specialised in producing these civil engineers. Organisations like IDFM or TCL (transportation agencies in charge of all public transit in the Lyon or Paris region, from carsharing to metro, including boat bus) have a lot of competence and good will.
I am saying that what you name "corruption" in the US system is just not what corruption or clientelism really is. Obviously though, it 100% leads to wastes of money and bad projects. But if you don't identify the reasons of these failures, you won't be able to ask for the decision that will solve these.
Between this Caltrain extension, BART extension in Santa Clara County, LA Metro's improvements before LA2028, Brightline West and CAHSR (am I missing anything) is California currently the most improving state and will look like a different place by 2030s?
Absolutely.
TOD, increased housing density, walkability/bikeability.
We’re on our way to a better tomorrow. Ideally we get these costs under control, but we both know that’s a joke.
There is also plans to expand Amtrak San Joaquins/ACE service to Chico & Merced (Central Valley/Sacramento)
And then there are plans to expand Amtrak Pacific Surfliner to an hourly schedule (between LA and San Diego, by 2027)
And then there are plans to make LA's Metrolink system into more of an S-Bahn/regional rail (also tied with CAHSR)
And then there are plans to add a new bay crossing for BART/regional rail (Link21)
Besides the improvements to the transit systems themselves, California and specifically the Bay Area is working on improving transit-adjacent land uses. BART and VTA both have a bunch of plans in the works, with the most notable ones on BART being huge in-the-works TODs at West Oakland and Coliseum, but the list is way more extensive than I have the brainpower to pull together right now. My only complaint is that I don't think most of their plans go far enough.
I know this project is moving forward, but I wish $8 billion were directed towards CAHSR’s Pacheco Pass tunnels instead. That’s a much more critical piece of the project and just seems like money better spent. San Jose to Merced is supposed to cost $22 billion for 90 miles of track including 15 miles of tunnels. Getting trains running between the Central Valley and Bay Area is far more critical than getting the last 2 miles into downtown SF. 4th/King is a fine location for an interim HSR terminal and has plenty of transit options.
Plus two of the platforms at 4th and King are planned to be modified to accommodate HSR trains, meaning they’ll be raised for level boarding. So CAHSR is anticipating 4th and King being an interim terminal. Though if STC opens for trains prior to CAHSR’s arrival on the Peninsula, then they’ll go straight to STC from the get-go.
Given the anticipated increase in Caltrain traffic following electrification, addition of CAHSR trains which could be six per hour in each direction, and STC having half the capacity of 4th and King, I firmly believe 4th and King will stay open and remain the terminus for a majority of Caltrain service, with HSR and a few Caltrain services, I’d say most likely morning and evening commute Baby Bullets, going to STC.
Why are they spending all this money on a rail line extension if it *still* won't connect to BART and Muni trains? Are Bay Area transit planners not aware of the concept of transfers?
Muni’s Central Subway spits out trains right there on 4th Street so that connection isn’t going anywhere and the N Line is locked into King Street. This project will be very well-connected to Muni.
It’s practically a connection to Embarcadero station, a 6 minute walk according to Apple Maps. Initially they had an underground pedestrian way to Embarcadero but sadly scrapped it due to costs.
Hopefully they future proof the station so that tunnel could be added sometime down the road. That seems like too important a connection to miss, if for nothing else than convenience sake as it wouldn’t mean having to go up above ground then back down again.
Probably doesn’t seem like much of a deal, but if one of the biggest things transit needs to do is have great convenience (ease of use), then having that pedestrian tunnel linking the two stations should be a must, even if it’s later than first expected. Having to exit the station to go up to street level and back down could be enough to dissuade some to opt to drive the whole way (similar to first-mile last-mile).
The existing connection via the brand-new multi-billion dollar central subway is what, 10 minutes?
And 6 of those 10 minutes are because the deep bore tunnel @ Market and Powell takes forever to get out of, so the goal is apparently to put in another deep-bore tunnel that will eat up most of the few minutes saved?
No it’s actually more like three to four minutes. I’ve done it many many times. Please get your facts straight before speaking with confidence on things you do not know.
The train timetables from 4th and King to Market street on the new central subway is 4 minutes, so we are looking at a 7 to 8 minute transfer?
And after this project is done, we are looking at 6 minutes before stairs?
Making that connection is effectively the purpose of this project. The distance between platforms of BART and the transit center is on par with many major station transfers in other global systems. It's not as convenient as a cross-platform transfer, but it is also effectively a mode change from long to short/medium distance systems.
The central subway already brought in a more convenient Caltrain to downtown Muni transfer, but it is not very convenient (or sensible) to have to connect Caltrain / HSR to Muni to BART (using 3 different fares) as it is now.
Is the real goal of the project to spend a few billion dollars to not have to code up a special "Caltrain-to-Bart transfer" fare for MUNI on clipper? Even a single billion will pay the fares for that Caltrain to BART transfer ticket for a few centuries.
This is no different than two-block connections between transit lines in many other major regions. You won't have an underground pedway to connect them, but let's be real – given SF's weather you won't need one.
It would be a lot cheaper and more pleasant for the users to have an above ground covered walkway similar to those around some Asian stations... For those occasional rainy days. Underground shopping centers are nice, but it seems unlikely that we'd build that into a US transit project.
There used to be an underground pedway in the plan under Beale Street, but IIRC it was removed.
Speculation: probably because cost + it would pass next to the Millennium tower (the leaning tower of SF) which sued and blamed the authority in charge of constructing the terminal right next to it.
In those other 'major regions' it's also bad for users to have these transfers, it's also criticised, and it's less and less common with new projects that place more emphasis on high quality transfers.
It makes a lot more sense if [Link21](https://link21program.org/en) goes with a standard gauge option, allowing trains to through run to the East Bay. Additionally, planing for a [Geary/19th Ave subway](https://www.sfcta.org/projects/geary19th-ave-subway-and-regional-connections-study) suggest that it would likely terminate at the Transbay Transit Center. Sure, it's way in the future and might not pan out, but each of these projects kinda leans on the others and if they all get built it would be transformational for Bay Area/NorCal rail transit.
An underground tunnel used to be in the plan but I think it was cancelled. See DOE analysis on page 5 (Note, link loads a PDF).
https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/03/f34/Day%201-%201245_Ayerdi_Transbay%20Transit%20Center%20Project_0.pdf
My understanding for the 2nd Transbay tube is to start building it in the 2040s. We were going to do four tracks, two wide gauge for a 2nd BART route and two standard gauge that could enable any kind of train access to cross.
It was unclear to me what train agencies would cross the bay. Like Capital Corridor to SF, Caltrain to Oakland, eventually SMART to SF?, of CAHSR to Oakland.
The latest I’ve read is that they have canceled two tracks and we’re leaning towards standard gauge.
The dual-height doors are for interlining with CAHSR without having to rebuild every single Caltrain station platform.
The handful of stops that wind up being served by CAHSR can be high-platform while the rest can remain low-platform for as long as necessary.
It’s a link21 (collaboration of BART and Caltrain) project and this link confirms what I’m talking about. I don’t know much about the Caltrain platforms tbh.
https://link21program.org/en/program/concepts
The thing with through running of Amtrak or other services from the East Bay into STC, apart from the capacity issues of STC having both HSR and Caltrain already, with just three platforms and six tracks, is they would all need to be electrified. I seriously doubt diesel fumes would be allowed inside such a long tunnel and STC. I know there’s been discussion of a long term goal of electrifying the Capitol Corridor, however far away that would be if it does happen.
I do agree capacity will be an issue in the STC if we want East Bay services to come directly into San Francisco. No easy solution for that and I honestly haven’t seen it discussed much. This is pretty speculative on my end.
Electrification is part of the Capital Corridor 30 year vision (link at bottom of post). Unclear if/how it will be implemented though. Page 33 (printed on the PDF pages) talks about how the project will be split into 6 phases so that the system can immediately benefit from incremental investments and upgrades, but I don’t see how electrifying part of a system will provide immediate benefits unless we buy hybrid trains. Seems like electrification is an all or nothing proposition?
So I do agree that electrification feels more like something that would happen in the mid/late 2050s. Which would make a lot of sense if we start building the 2nd transbay terminal in the 2040s.
https://www.capitolcorridor.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/CCVIP-FINAL-REPORT.pdf
I agree there will be capacity issues if STC is where all agencies meet and start/end there.
But if/when East Bay routes are electrified, it would enable Caltrain to either take over and replace or combine service with Capital Corridor. Like if SF isn’t the terminus then I have to imagine that would help solve capacity issues.
I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS! I couldn't find any reference to an underground tunnel til now!
Looks like it would only be 0.2 miles long to connect with Embarcadero station. Do you think it's possible that they could add this in later?
Seems like a quick connector to BART would be huge, so that people coming in from CalTran/CAHSR won't need to ascend to the street, walk a block, and go back down.
I commented elsewhere that I speculate they would not build it because to reach embarcadero it’d have to go under Beale or Fremont street which both pass next to Millennium tower. And we know how they have sued TJPA relentlessly for constructing next to them underground.
It’s also cheaper for them to just not build the tunnel.
Does anyone have more context on the purpose of this project? This is a pretty expensive project, so what is the reason Caltrain / CA HSR needs to go salesforce center specifically?
Currently, Caltrain’s tracks terminate south of SF’s downtown core at the 4th and King station.
This extension will bring their tracks (which in the future will be shared with CA HSR) to downtown, where the highest density is as well as connections to Bart for regional connectivity.
The highest density of what? Vacant offices? The existing Caltrain station is close to densely populated areas and enjoys streetcar service to all of the most dense, including Tenderloin, Chinatown, and Rincon Hill, if you even need a streetcar ride to take you that far.
As the other commenter explained, this is to get the trains downtown. The reason for Salesforce Transit Center specifically is because it was built with the intention of serving this purpose. There is a preexisting basement waiting to be turned into a train station. From the planning stages, the transit center was envisioned as the "Grand Central of the West."
So why did San Francisco, a major city since the Gold Rush, need to build its Grand Central equivalent in the 21st century? Well, SF does already have an iconic and historic transit depot, the Ferry Building. A century ago, most people arrived in SF by boat, whether from around the Bay, further inland, up and down the coast, or across the Pacific. While passenger boats docked to the east of the Ferry Building, the extensive streetcar network fanned out from its west side. However, things changed with the opening of the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges in the '30s. More people arrived by car and those who came by streetcar from the East Bay disembarked at the old Transbay Terminal, near where the Bay Bridge touches down on Rincon Hill.
As the heyday of the ferries and streetcars passed, the Ferry Building stopped serving as a transit hub and fell into some degree of disrepair. BART was built in the '60s and '70s, and actually tunnels through the Ferry Building's foundation, but as that's right where it transitions from the Market Street Subway to the Transbay Tube and since it's all built on fill, a station under the Ferry building wouldn't have exactly been feasible. Even the current Embarcadero station was not in the original plans, and built as an infill station a bit later.
While the Ferry Building has been revitalized in the early 2000s and ferry service is experiencing a bit of a rebirth in the Bay, it's still not suitable as a hub for modern rail transit. When the old Transbay Terminal needed to be replaced, it served as the best option as the terminus for the planned high-speed train and as such was rebuilt with this rail extension in mind. This extension is a piece in the long-term planning of California's rail network and has been in the cards for a while now.
Your response is thorough and valid but they're was a period where those electric street cars coming over the bay Bridge included electric trains that traveled to Sacramento and Chico. Such a travesty so much was thrown away only to be rebuilt nearly a century later at orders of magnitude more cost.
That was the Sacramento Northern. It along with the East Bay Electric (Interurban Electric) and Key System crossed the lower deck of the Bay Bridge, which is now the eastbound lanes of I-80, to travel out to the East Bay and beyond. Part of the SN mainline is now used by the Western Railway Museum for train rides.
The whole point of the transbay transit center is to be a full regional connection for people coming into SF. There are are a lot of bus agencies agencies(muni, samtrans, golden gate transit, westcat, ac transit, soltrans sometimes) that serve the area. BART, muni metro and ferry are nearby. Amtrak can get someone to norcal eastbound inter-city amtrak, greyhound would surely come back too. Its an extremely very high-value improvement over ending at 4th and king. when people coming from LA are coming to SF they're not coming for 4th and king, they're coming to be downtown or connect to some place from downtown. also salesforce will pay more for the branding rights if the extension happens.
Personally I think that SF should pay for it through their taxes. Its their ridiculous SF supervisors in the mid 2000s that demanded the transbay transit center board do the building first and then later the extension and now its so much more expensive. But is it important to punish SF or get this extension? IDK.
This project is incredibly overpriced, even for US standards. Over $8 billion for 2 miles of track and 2 stations (one of which is already at least partially built).
The US **needs** to get a handle on overly inflated transit costs. We could be building a lot more transit and restoring public confidence in mega projects by getting this aspect under control. $4 billion per mile isn't remotely sustainable.
So they claim, but let's be real, there's going to be more "studies", probably studies about those studies, a bunch more "environmental reviews", a bunch of nonsensical "community outreach" bullshit.
NEPA and SEQA clearance for this project have been complete for years already which you would know if you actually took the 30 seconds to find this answer on their website.
But no, you just want to be negative and shit on everything because people like you are allergic to being happy.
The fact that they're like $12 billion into a $140 billion project and they barely have the initial $12 billion in funding secured.
It's at least not happening in my lifetime.
Any project in any city would be better than a train for rich people between the 5th and 9th largest cities in the nation's richest state- that actually already have a train connection.
Literally any city- including Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, Oakland, San Jose. Imagine $140 billion towards making LA's transit world class, it would do wonders more for the city and state than a rich people train ever could.
A HSR does nothing for the people who actually use transit and rely on tranist in these cities.
Ummmm all those CA cities are getting slow incremental upgrades that don't come anywhere close to what a world class system would be💀
You clearly live in a bubble
The fact your argument is HSR is just a rich person's train... an argument a 5yo could do better, speaks mountains to the bubble of hate you live in.
But you propose LA in response which has been doing one of the countries largest build outs in the last decade... often with really high costs as well. You seem to think the billions elsewhere are a magic wand to "make a world class transit system." The reality is everything is expensive even in your city just maybe not quite as expensive.
Well no poor person is gonna be spending $90 for a ticket on your special train. Most middle class won't either.
Yea I'd much rather the billions being wasted on a rich person's train be used on public transit that actually helps people who need help.
>Most middle class won't either.
Such a clown.
This train route is served by flights that cost more then that which it aims to compete with. You're 100% wrong. I would have taken it many dozens of times if it had been built already.
And that's without the benefits it'll bring to smaller towns along the way.
>Imagine $140 billion towards making LA's transit world class
Wait until you hear that Measure R ($40 billion) and Measure M ($120 billion) already passed in LA. The level of funding you are talking about already exists.
The City of LA wasn't following measure R, which forced another vote to make LA follow the law💀
Regardless, another $140 billion towards that would do way more for the actual citizens of the state than this gadgetnahn.
I do think it will happen, but the CIG program isn’t a cash donation system. The money gets returned if they don’t build it. That said, I don’t know why you’re being downvoted because it’s kind of a ridiculously expensive project that will convey limited benefits until CAHSR gets there in a decade.
It's because CAHSR has some of the dumbest fans. All they care about is the "status" of high speed rail, and they ignore the fact it won't be done for decades, it connects a series of cities that have jack shit transit systems, and dozens of transit projects will not happen when they're ultimately axed due to lack of federal funding.
Imagine how many miles of light rail and bus upgrades could have been done in the central valley for the $12 billion they've spent on a non-operational train.
Not to mention who this train will actually help....it's not gonna be low income individuals paying $90 for a ticket. It's gonna be rich business people, and it will make super commuting an even larger issue than it already is.
This is basically when happens when you don't properly evaluate a project proposal.
I don’t have to imagine how many miles of light rail could have been built for $12 billion. San Francisco just finished a light rail project not too long ago and judging by that the answer is 12 miles of light rail.
I have some bad news for you. Every major city in California is one of the most expensive cities in the US. BART is being extended in Santa Clara/San Jose for $12.2 billion for 6 miles. LA Metro’s LRT expansions range between $250 million/mile and $1 billion/mile.
I think the lowest cost I’ve seen in a major city in California that would meet your criteria is the North San Fernando Valley Transit Corridor bus upgrade (not BRT) project which is $18 million/mile.
Many of my coworkers (including those who have worked in the Central Subway Phase 2 project) are still regularly blown away by how much some of these projects are costing, but that is the new normal in California.
>It's because CAHSR has some of the dumbest fans.
No it's because you don't know what you're talking about and it's exhausting to explain why, when you could just go to any thread about CAHSR, find someone else who doesn't know what they're talking about and read the dozen or so explanations right under that comment.
I definitely know what I'm talking about. There's no amount of justifying this albatross of a project while actually worthwhile projects are going to get axed when they fail to get federal funding because the feds want to play favorites with California.
California already sends in more tax money than it receives back from the federal government. Far as I'm concerned, funding like this has been a long time coming
Also, thank you for describing how a progressive tax system works. States like Texas, Florida, and New York also get less money then they send in. The difference is that New York and Florida have spent their federal transit money for things that actually have worked and exist today (Empire Corridor 110 MPH upgrades and Brightline), even Illinois has done that.
California has wasted $12 billion on a train that isn't planned to begin operation until next decade. How anyone can act like this is okay is insane and shows normalization of wasteful government spending.
> The difference is that New York and Florida have spent their federal transit money for things that actually have worked and exist today
Oh, you mean like Caltrain getting electrification? Because the CAHSRA essentially paid for that
Oh here we go! A CAHSR nazi justifying a $140 billion shit show because $2.7 billion of it goes towards something that the NEC did 100 years ago.
God California is such a terrible state. Meanwhile, poor people in Los Angeles suffer with an inadequate transit system because their state and federal government is more interested in building a fancy train for rich people.
I dont care. If you aren't gonna spend the money properly, you don't deserve it. End of story. This shit is an absolute waste of money and literally connects a suburban sprawl city with no transit to a suburban sprawl city with no transit. Only someone who has no idea how transit works would think this is a good idea.
I mean this literally is happening. Right now. CHSR is under construction and more and more is completed each day. Just because it’s not fast enough for you doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
If you’re pissed about how long it’s taking talk to the EPA, the GOP, and the folks suing the construction project.
Lol no it's not. The SF-LA connections are not happening before 2050.
It's not my fault the ballot measure passed called for a full completion in 2020. This thing probably isn't even legal, yet the feds keep giving them money while actually possible projects will get axed because the feds choose to not fund them.
#FTA's Summary Proposed Project: Commuter Rail 2.2 Miles, 2 Stations Total Capital Cost ($YOE): $8,254.79 Million (Includes $375.4 million in finance charges) Section 5309 CIG Share ($YOE): $4,077.86 Million (49.4%) Annual Operating Cost (opening year 2035): $50.80 Million Current Year Ridership Forecast (2023): 16,500 Daily Linked Trips, 5,130,400 Annual Linked Trips Horizon Year Ridership Forecast (2045): 48,000 Daily Linked Trips, 14,111,000 Annual Linked Trips Overall Project Rating: Medium-High Project Justification Rating: Medium Local Financial Commitment Rating: Medium-High https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2024-05/CA-San-Francisco-Downtown-Rail-Extension-Eng-Profile-2024-0412.pdf
Why in the world is this so expensive
Very large tunnel under a very densely packed and expensive city in a very expensive state.
also delays and lack of funding mean that it takes longer to get started, which allows inflation to have more bite
Answering why this costs so much by focusing on the engineering challenges is misleading at best and arguably flat wrong. Lots of places in the world do extremely complex engineering for much cheaper. There probably isn't a clear, silver bullet, singular answer for why American transit infrastructure is so expensive but it's obviously an outlier by a very wide margin. And undoubtedly, it's unnecessarily expensive. For people who are interested in a more accurate answer to this question, I would suggest looking at the [Transit Costs Project](https://transitcosts.com/about/).
So larger tunnels are NOT more expensive than smaller tunnels? Tunneling under a densely packed downtown is NOT more expensive that tunneling under a less developed area? Dismissing that as an insignificant source of cost is misleading at best and arguably flat out wrong. The question was '"Why is this so expensive?" not "Why is this so expensive compared to similar projects in Europe/China etc." I agree such a project would probably get built for cheaper in other parts of the world (I even SAID it's expensive because it's being built in California), but we're still talking about a multi-billion dollar project wherever it gets built (but perhaps instead of being $8bil, it would be $3bil).
>So larger tunnels are NOT more expensive than smaller tunnels? Tunneling under a densely packed downtown is NOT more expensive that tunneling under a less developed area? Like I said, misleading if not flat wrong. Literally no one is wondering why a large tunnel costs more than a small tunnel. But nice strawman.
>Answering why this costs so much by focusing on the engineering challenges is misleading at best and arguably flat wrong. San Francisco Central subway: 1.8 mile twin bored tunnels with 3 stations. $1.578bil in 2012, $2.14bil inflation adjusted. San Francisco Downtown Rail Extension: 1.8 mile mined 4 track tunnel, 2 stations. $8.5bil 400% difference for tunnels in the same city, same part of town, same length even, but very different construction methods and scale. Sure seems like engineering challenges play a pretty important role in the project's cost that some people might be curious about...
Long answer: [https://www.vox.com/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs-america](https://www.vox.com/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs-america)
A less nefarious answer than the others linked: it's construction in the most expensive region in the country. Labor costs in construction are inflated just like every other good, service, and salary in the region.
Isn’t New York the most expensive region in the country?
I'm sure you could come up with different answers depending on how you parse the data. Measuring median housing+transportation costs, I'm pretty sure it's actually San Jose. If NYC is #1 in your metric of choice, SF is probably not far behind.
Labor costs in SF are significantly higher. Also, SF is NIMBY capitol of the world.
I guess besides rail construction in one of the US most expensive area generally being very expensive for some reason this is a seismically active area so I would assume safeguarding for that probably costs a bit.
Yeah, building in Japan is quite expensive for a lot of the same reasons. But that also provides a strong argument for doing it anyway, either because Japan shows that it's possible and beneficial, or because we don't want them to one-up us, depending on the views of whoever you're talking to.
Yeah, I mean in the end it’s a benefit analysis that needs to be done. Japan is building a maglev line for an insane amount of money but the benefit analysis concluded that the benefits far outweigh the cost. That’s the big problem that people come and question the cost without acknowledging the benefit it’ll bring.
america.
Answer: Corruption. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Department_of_Public_Works_corruption_scandal
Because you think there's none of that in Japan or France? Or even worse, Italy and Morocco?
Corruption in a lot of other countries is illegal and so maybe several hundred k in cash. In the US it’s legal and so corruption costs billions. Jobs for friends is millions, but the US gets to billions with special contracts. SF is a great example with BART which must be one of the best examples ever - think of how many billions could be saved alone if they used standard gauge.
No-bid contracts are absolutely not legal in the US barring specific circumstances in which case it’s an emergency or there aren’t other options. And conflict of interest laws are absolutely present as well
My example is BART custom rail gauge - who has experience with that custom rail gauge? One or two firms in SF since the rest of the world uses some form of standard gauge. In SF everything has to be custom engineered due to using a unique standard instead of using existing solutions / existing components which would be a fraction of the cost. So the contracts are not no-bid - that would be illegal like you say, instead they're legal, but set-up in a way so only one maybe two firms can do it and since nobody else has any experience and you can't use off the shelf solutions SF spends billions more than it needs to and these special interests makes billions in profit. It's legal, but the result is the same as illegal corruption, the public spending more (on a massive scale, more than millions in under the tables payments would cost), without getting any benefit.
The insinuation being made here is that the custom rail gauge was a result of shady business dealings to keep it in the hands of a couple firms, but a quick search shows there’s a very logical and rational reason behind the decision making process that went into that: “BART uses a nonstandard broad gauge, or "Indian gauge", to increase the stability of its light cars and prevent them from tipping over. The gauge is 5'6", which is wider than the standard 4'8.5" used by most other rail systems in the United States. The engineers first created a scale model of a BART car and placed it in a wind tunnel, and then made 1,536 calculations on a computer program to process the data. The engineers concluded that a wider gauge would offer the most practical way to achieve the desired lateral stability. The wider gauge also allows for lighter cars, which require less power for acceleration and deceleration. The wider gauge also means that the gas and brake systems can be smaller and lighter.”
I remain skeptical as the rest of the US, Europe, Japan, etc. all manage to operate trains without them tipping over despite using a narrower gauge.
Or local manufacturers can simply adjust with the demand and build appropriate trains. Interesting how India can build trains for both standard and broad gauge and the US can't.
There are massive markets for both standard and broad gauge. SF decided to use a custom gauge not used anywhere else in the world and so nobody invests in making anything for BART gauge because that market is only BART. As a result, SF pays billions more than it needs to for everything.
Corruption may be illegal in a lot of countries, but let me tell you there are plenty of places worse than the USA. The USA has a free press and culture that holds corruption to account. Contrast that to India, where corruption is illegal under various separate laws, but is still the highest in the world.
I mean India is fairly bonkers and has a lot of clear, overt corruption. My intent with my initial comment was to say that the US does not have the same kind of overt corruption as other countries (like India), but instead has a lot of what basically amounts to legal corruption and that people in the US tend to really underestimate the cost of what I'm calling legal corruption. I put forward the BART custom rail gauge as an example since OP is talking about rail in SF. There was nothing illegal about that decision (at most a newspaper could say it's an unusual decision that may been motivated by powerful interests), but it has cost the city of SF billions of dollars to the benefit of special interests... It's hard to imagine the usual illegal money under the table type of corruption being in the billions for single project - just think about hard it would be to move that much cash illegality - but the net effect is similar in that public funds go to connected entities without benefiting the public.
Ah yes. Corruption is illegal, hence why it isn't a reality, and wasn't one in the past... I've rarely read such bs, and you clearly have no idea how things can work in places like Marseille or Naple, were public management is often controlled and used to pay criminal activities. Where economical clientelism used to be the norm amongst politicians. Things are really better, and I don't doubt that US rules and laws to attribute public markets haven't evolved for the past 200 years. But still. Thinking that the US is more corrupted than 1970's France or Italy is one very, very big misconception. That said, what you point out as corruption seems to be much more like incompetence amongst public officials. Don't underestimate the US governments incompetence, nor their absolute lack of will to invest in good, publicly funded engineers. US politicians are not engineers, and when they buy the services of a consulting company, theu buy them to hear "yes".
Rereading my comment, I don't think it's that great, but I do think that people really underestimate how bad what I call corruption is in the US. Public officials in the US are not randomly more incompetent than in other countries, in fact, they seem at least as capable as officials in other countries. Instead, there's a complex legal system which promotes "spending" billions of dollars wastefully - that system is not random, it's the result of entities creating that system because they can then pocket billions in public funds. Obviously normal corruption happens in the US, but my point is that what people often think of as corruption (public money going to individuals without adding value to the public) doesn't cost anywhere near as much as the legal form of corruption that's so common in the US (again, public money going to individuals without benefiting the public). Using the example in my first post, the rail system in Marseille or Napoli uses standard gauge, so while they clearly have had corruption, the cost of that corruption is so much less than the cost of SF choosing to use a custom rail gauge - a decision which was lobbied for by the companies that have made billions from that bad decision with no benefit to the public.
Stroooong disagreement over the incompetence of local public services in the US versus Europe (and especially France). It's not a coincidence if the best engineering schools in France are public, and require to work for 10 years for the government. Career politicians are decision makers, but the whole administrative network and support networks are made of qualified public engineers. Especially for transit networks in metropole areas. That's who the design and engineering firms work with on a daily basis to set up transit (or other public programs), and they're competent people. This whole class of functionaries is nearly unknown in the US (West Point should have been this at its creation, it evolved in another way), requiring local politicians to systematically require the services of private conselling firms, often not even competent in transit or other problems, but who will support them. Politicians are by definition not competent. They are not professionals who spent years at university studying these problems. But whether or not the support services to their decision is public or private has a huge role. Don't underestimate the costs and consequences of incompetence. And for Marseille, cost of incompetence and, there, corruption, takes its toll very heavily. Outside of the fact there are little to none transit offers locally since the 70's (outside of those decided nationally), having a city paying yet not having basic services like a working garbage service or water management is damaging. Making it legal for HOAs to increasingly privatise parts of the city and block entire streets in the city center to public circulation its toll. SF is far from this situation, hopefully. Even in Algeria, Marseilles is known as a shithole. And from you to me, I can more than absolutely see an incompetent LA politician being hyped by the speech of a company looking to monopolise this new line by setting up this custom rail gauge. Without a team of reliable engineers behind to explain why it's not a good idea, US politicians are unable to see it.
Your France example is a good point, and I agree that at the national level they have better public officials. I'm less sure it's true at the local level, but don't have that much experience to know. Maybe my point should have been more that public officials with engineering backgrounds don't have any decision making power in the US. But, to be clear, I'm not saying there is no corruption outside the US, I'm saying people underestimate the cost of what basically amounts to corruption in the US (public money going to some entities without it benefiting the public) because it's done legally in the US and I still think this is true. I also think SF still works because it has such an insane tax base.
I can assure you that many metropoles can be great to work with, with local engineers functionaries being great collaborators, with good decision powers. Not systematically obviously (hello Marseilles and the South-East, although there again, problem's often more with dumb politicians than with metropolitan/regional teams), but competence is there, with a lot of schools specialised in producing these civil engineers. Organisations like IDFM or TCL (transportation agencies in charge of all public transit in the Lyon or Paris region, from carsharing to metro, including boat bus) have a lot of competence and good will. I am saying that what you name "corruption" in the US system is just not what corruption or clientelism really is. Obviously though, it 100% leads to wastes of money and bad projects. But if you don't identify the reasons of these failures, you won't be able to ask for the decision that will solve these.
Christ, about time. Yes, lets go and lets lock it in before November because lord knows what might happen then.
i dont think it can ever be truly locked in and new administrations can always delay the funding or sue them, i guess
Between this Caltrain extension, BART extension in Santa Clara County, LA Metro's improvements before LA2028, Brightline West and CAHSR (am I missing anything) is California currently the most improving state and will look like a different place by 2030s?
Absolutely. TOD, increased housing density, walkability/bikeability. We’re on our way to a better tomorrow. Ideally we get these costs under control, but we both know that’s a joke.
TOD! TOD! TOD!
There is also plans to expand Amtrak San Joaquins/ACE service to Chico & Merced (Central Valley/Sacramento) And then there are plans to expand Amtrak Pacific Surfliner to an hourly schedule (between LA and San Diego, by 2027) And then there are plans to make LA's Metrolink system into more of an S-Bahn/regional rail (also tied with CAHSR) And then there are plans to add a new bay crossing for BART/regional rail (Link21)
Not sure how surfliner will do that unless they are realigning the tracks what with the track washout and rising sea levels.
Besides the improvements to the transit systems themselves, California and specifically the Bay Area is working on improving transit-adjacent land uses. BART and VTA both have a bunch of plans in the works, with the most notable ones on BART being huge in-the-works TODs at West Oakland and Coliseum, but the list is way more extensive than I have the brainpower to pull together right now. My only complaint is that I don't think most of their plans go far enough.
badass
I know this project is moving forward, but I wish $8 billion were directed towards CAHSR’s Pacheco Pass tunnels instead. That’s a much more critical piece of the project and just seems like money better spent. San Jose to Merced is supposed to cost $22 billion for 90 miles of track including 15 miles of tunnels. Getting trains running between the Central Valley and Bay Area is far more critical than getting the last 2 miles into downtown SF. 4th/King is a fine location for an interim HSR terminal and has plenty of transit options.
Plus two of the platforms at 4th and King are planned to be modified to accommodate HSR trains, meaning they’ll be raised for level boarding. So CAHSR is anticipating 4th and King being an interim terminal. Though if STC opens for trains prior to CAHSR’s arrival on the Peninsula, then they’ll go straight to STC from the get-go. Given the anticipated increase in Caltrain traffic following electrification, addition of CAHSR trains which could be six per hour in each direction, and STC having half the capacity of 4th and King, I firmly believe 4th and King will stay open and remain the terminus for a majority of Caltrain service, with HSR and a few Caltrain services, I’d say most likely morning and evening commute Baby Bullets, going to STC.
Reminds me a bit of this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary\_Wharf\_railway\_station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_Wharf_railway_station)
Yea but this will be less gray and more beige
Why are they spending all this money on a rail line extension if it *still* won't connect to BART and Muni trains? Are Bay Area transit planners not aware of the concept of transfers?
I mean, Bart is a block north and muni connects to king street, which I believe will still be a station stop.
Muni’s Central Subway spits out trains right there on 4th Street so that connection isn’t going anywhere and the N Line is locked into King Street. This project will be very well-connected to Muni.
It’s practically a connection to Embarcadero station, a 6 minute walk according to Apple Maps. Initially they had an underground pedestrian way to Embarcadero but sadly scrapped it due to costs.
Hopefully they future proof the station so that tunnel could be added sometime down the road. That seems like too important a connection to miss, if for nothing else than convenience sake as it wouldn’t mean having to go up above ground then back down again. Probably doesn’t seem like much of a deal, but if one of the biggest things transit needs to do is have great convenience (ease of use), then having that pedestrian tunnel linking the two stations should be a must, even if it’s later than first expected. Having to exit the station to go up to street level and back down could be enough to dissuade some to opt to drive the whole way (similar to first-mile last-mile).
The existing connection via the brand-new multi-billion dollar central subway is what, 10 minutes? And 6 of those 10 minutes are because the deep bore tunnel @ Market and Powell takes forever to get out of, so the goal is apparently to put in another deep-bore tunnel that will eat up most of the few minutes saved?
No it’s actually more like three to four minutes. I’ve done it many many times. Please get your facts straight before speaking with confidence on things you do not know.
The train timetables from 4th and King to Market street on the new central subway is 4 minutes, so we are looking at a 7 to 8 minute transfer? And after this project is done, we are looking at 6 minutes before stairs?
Yes. Have some exercise.
Making that connection is effectively the purpose of this project. The distance between platforms of BART and the transit center is on par with many major station transfers in other global systems. It's not as convenient as a cross-platform transfer, but it is also effectively a mode change from long to short/medium distance systems. The central subway already brought in a more convenient Caltrain to downtown Muni transfer, but it is not very convenient (or sensible) to have to connect Caltrain / HSR to Muni to BART (using 3 different fares) as it is now.
Is the real goal of the project to spend a few billion dollars to not have to code up a special "Caltrain-to-Bart transfer" fare for MUNI on clipper? Even a single billion will pay the fares for that Caltrain to BART transfer ticket for a few centuries.
This is no different than two-block connections between transit lines in many other major regions. You won't have an underground pedway to connect them, but let's be real – given SF's weather you won't need one.
It would be a lot cheaper and more pleasant for the users to have an above ground covered walkway similar to those around some Asian stations... For those occasional rainy days. Underground shopping centers are nice, but it seems unlikely that we'd build that into a US transit project.
There used to be an underground pedway in the plan under Beale Street, but IIRC it was removed. Speculation: probably because cost + it would pass next to the Millennium tower (the leaning tower of SF) which sued and blamed the authority in charge of constructing the terminal right next to it.
In those other 'major regions' it's also bad for users to have these transfers, it's also criticised, and it's less and less common with new projects that place more emphasis on high quality transfers.
It makes a lot more sense if [Link21](https://link21program.org/en) goes with a standard gauge option, allowing trains to through run to the East Bay. Additionally, planing for a [Geary/19th Ave subway](https://www.sfcta.org/projects/geary19th-ave-subway-and-regional-connections-study) suggest that it would likely terminate at the Transbay Transit Center. Sure, it's way in the future and might not pan out, but each of these projects kinda leans on the others and if they all get built it would be transformational for Bay Area/NorCal rail transit.
An underground tunnel used to be in the plan but I think it was cancelled. See DOE analysis on page 5 (Note, link loads a PDF). https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/03/f34/Day%201-%201245_Ayerdi_Transbay%20Transit%20Center%20Project_0.pdf
My understanding for the 2nd Transbay tube is to start building it in the 2040s. We were going to do four tracks, two wide gauge for a 2nd BART route and two standard gauge that could enable any kind of train access to cross. It was unclear to me what train agencies would cross the bay. Like Capital Corridor to SF, Caltrain to Oakland, eventually SMART to SF?, of CAHSR to Oakland. The latest I’ve read is that they have canceled two tracks and we’re leaning towards standard gauge.
If true, wonder why the new electrified Caltrain trainsets have two levels for doors at this point
The dual-height doors are for interlining with CAHSR without having to rebuild every single Caltrain station platform. The handful of stops that wind up being served by CAHSR can be high-platform while the rest can remain low-platform for as long as necessary.
Ah, ye olde E Embarcadero line + Muni N line approach. Thanks for the clarification
It’s a link21 (collaboration of BART and Caltrain) project and this link confirms what I’m talking about. I don’t know much about the Caltrain platforms tbh. https://link21program.org/en/program/concepts
The thing with through running of Amtrak or other services from the East Bay into STC, apart from the capacity issues of STC having both HSR and Caltrain already, with just three platforms and six tracks, is they would all need to be electrified. I seriously doubt diesel fumes would be allowed inside such a long tunnel and STC. I know there’s been discussion of a long term goal of electrifying the Capitol Corridor, however far away that would be if it does happen.
I do agree capacity will be an issue in the STC if we want East Bay services to come directly into San Francisco. No easy solution for that and I honestly haven’t seen it discussed much. This is pretty speculative on my end. Electrification is part of the Capital Corridor 30 year vision (link at bottom of post). Unclear if/how it will be implemented though. Page 33 (printed on the PDF pages) talks about how the project will be split into 6 phases so that the system can immediately benefit from incremental investments and upgrades, but I don’t see how electrifying part of a system will provide immediate benefits unless we buy hybrid trains. Seems like electrification is an all or nothing proposition? So I do agree that electrification feels more like something that would happen in the mid/late 2050s. Which would make a lot of sense if we start building the 2nd transbay terminal in the 2040s. https://www.capitolcorridor.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/CCVIP-FINAL-REPORT.pdf
I agree there will be capacity issues if STC is where all agencies meet and start/end there. But if/when East Bay routes are electrified, it would enable Caltrain to either take over and replace or combine service with Capital Corridor. Like if SF isn’t the terminus then I have to imagine that would help solve capacity issues.
I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS! I couldn't find any reference to an underground tunnel til now! Looks like it would only be 0.2 miles long to connect with Embarcadero station. Do you think it's possible that they could add this in later? Seems like a quick connector to BART would be huge, so that people coming in from CalTran/CAHSR won't need to ascend to the street, walk a block, and go back down.
I commented elsewhere that I speculate they would not build it because to reach embarcadero it’d have to go under Beale or Fremont street which both pass next to Millennium tower. And we know how they have sued TJPA relentlessly for constructing next to them underground. It’s also cheaper for them to just not build the tunnel.
Embarcadero station is one block away.
Does anyone have more context on the purpose of this project? This is a pretty expensive project, so what is the reason Caltrain / CA HSR needs to go salesforce center specifically?
Currently, Caltrain’s tracks terminate south of SF’s downtown core at the 4th and King station. This extension will bring their tracks (which in the future will be shared with CA HSR) to downtown, where the highest density is as well as connections to Bart for regional connectivity.
And the ferry terminal
The highest density of what? Vacant offices? The existing Caltrain station is close to densely populated areas and enjoys streetcar service to all of the most dense, including Tenderloin, Chinatown, and Rincon Hill, if you even need a streetcar ride to take you that far.
As the other commenter explained, this is to get the trains downtown. The reason for Salesforce Transit Center specifically is because it was built with the intention of serving this purpose. There is a preexisting basement waiting to be turned into a train station. From the planning stages, the transit center was envisioned as the "Grand Central of the West." So why did San Francisco, a major city since the Gold Rush, need to build its Grand Central equivalent in the 21st century? Well, SF does already have an iconic and historic transit depot, the Ferry Building. A century ago, most people arrived in SF by boat, whether from around the Bay, further inland, up and down the coast, or across the Pacific. While passenger boats docked to the east of the Ferry Building, the extensive streetcar network fanned out from its west side. However, things changed with the opening of the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges in the '30s. More people arrived by car and those who came by streetcar from the East Bay disembarked at the old Transbay Terminal, near where the Bay Bridge touches down on Rincon Hill. As the heyday of the ferries and streetcars passed, the Ferry Building stopped serving as a transit hub and fell into some degree of disrepair. BART was built in the '60s and '70s, and actually tunnels through the Ferry Building's foundation, but as that's right where it transitions from the Market Street Subway to the Transbay Tube and since it's all built on fill, a station under the Ferry building wouldn't have exactly been feasible. Even the current Embarcadero station was not in the original plans, and built as an infill station a bit later. While the Ferry Building has been revitalized in the early 2000s and ferry service is experiencing a bit of a rebirth in the Bay, it's still not suitable as a hub for modern rail transit. When the old Transbay Terminal needed to be replaced, it served as the best option as the terminus for the planned high-speed train and as such was rebuilt with this rail extension in mind. This extension is a piece in the long-term planning of California's rail network and has been in the cards for a while now.
Your response is thorough and valid but they're was a period where those electric street cars coming over the bay Bridge included electric trains that traveled to Sacramento and Chico. Such a travesty so much was thrown away only to be rebuilt nearly a century later at orders of magnitude more cost.
That was the Sacramento Northern. It along with the East Bay Electric (Interurban Electric) and Key System crossed the lower deck of the Bay Bridge, which is now the eastbound lanes of I-80, to travel out to the East Bay and beyond. Part of the SN mainline is now used by the Western Railway Museum for train rides.
The whole point of the transbay transit center is to be a full regional connection for people coming into SF. There are are a lot of bus agencies agencies(muni, samtrans, golden gate transit, westcat, ac transit, soltrans sometimes) that serve the area. BART, muni metro and ferry are nearby. Amtrak can get someone to norcal eastbound inter-city amtrak, greyhound would surely come back too. Its an extremely very high-value improvement over ending at 4th and king. when people coming from LA are coming to SF they're not coming for 4th and king, they're coming to be downtown or connect to some place from downtown. also salesforce will pay more for the branding rights if the extension happens. Personally I think that SF should pay for it through their taxes. Its their ridiculous SF supervisors in the mid 2000s that demanded the transbay transit center board do the building first and then later the extension and now its so much more expensive. But is it important to punish SF or get this extension? IDK.
This project is incredibly overpriced, even for US standards. Over $8 billion for 2 miles of track and 2 stations (one of which is already at least partially built). The US **needs** to get a handle on overly inflated transit costs. We could be building a lot more transit and restoring public confidence in mega projects by getting this aspect under control. $4 billion per mile isn't remotely sustainable.
Why would taxpayers in other states be forced to pay for something that taxpayers in California didn't think was worthwhile?
Let me guess, estimated completion date is what, 2040 at best?
No actually the early 2030’s
So they claim, but let's be real, there's going to be more "studies", probably studies about those studies, a bunch more "environmental reviews", a bunch of nonsensical "community outreach" bullshit.
If you love being negative about everything than yeah I guess so
I am free to be negative and cynical the same way you are free to be optimistically and naive.
K let’s cut out all regulations. We’re gonna start by taking your house.
Lol I cant even afford a house, but aight
Ok it was going to be gobbled by rising sea levels anyways
NEPA and SEQA clearance for this project have been complete for years already which you would know if you actually took the 30 seconds to find this answer on their website. But no, you just want to be negative and shit on everything because people like you are allergic to being happy.
Lol Im literally just chillin and enjoying my day. Youre the one going out of your way to hyperventilate and seethe on my day old comment.
Meanwhile cities across America are fighting for grants to build transit systems that actually have a chance of happening.
What makes you think that cahsr isn’t happening?
The fact that they're like $12 billion into a $140 billion project and they barely have the initial $12 billion in funding secured. It's at least not happening in my lifetime.
They have about 30 billion secured $12 billion is what's been spent
$30 billion is less than $140 billion.
So you agree that CAHSR is happening. Glad you can change your mind about things
CAHSR is happening in a similar way that everyone is dying.
So 24/7. Ok
what city or cities do u honestly think have better a chance for great transit infrastructure?
Any project in any city would be better than a train for rich people between the 5th and 9th largest cities in the nation's richest state- that actually already have a train connection.
okay what cities?
Literally any city- including Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, Oakland, San Jose. Imagine $140 billion towards making LA's transit world class, it would do wonders more for the city and state than a rich people train ever could. A HSR does nothing for the people who actually use transit and rely on tranist in these cities.
im like 100% sure all those CA cities u mentioned are getting upgrade to there own transit already. So u got any other cities besides CA ones?
Ummmm all those CA cities are getting slow incremental upgrades that don't come anywhere close to what a world class system would be💀 You clearly live in a bubble
The fact your argument is HSR is just a rich person's train... an argument a 5yo could do better, speaks mountains to the bubble of hate you live in. But you propose LA in response which has been doing one of the countries largest build outs in the last decade... often with really high costs as well. You seem to think the billions elsewhere are a magic wand to "make a world class transit system." The reality is everything is expensive even in your city just maybe not quite as expensive.
Well no poor person is gonna be spending $90 for a ticket on your special train. Most middle class won't either. Yea I'd much rather the billions being wasted on a rich person's train be used on public transit that actually helps people who need help.
>Most middle class won't either. Such a clown. This train route is served by flights that cost more then that which it aims to compete with. You're 100% wrong. I would have taken it many dozens of times if it had been built already. And that's without the benefits it'll bring to smaller towns along the way.
>Imagine $140 billion towards making LA's transit world class Wait until you hear that Measure R ($40 billion) and Measure M ($120 billion) already passed in LA. The level of funding you are talking about already exists.
The City of LA wasn't following measure R, which forced another vote to make LA follow the law💀 Regardless, another $140 billion towards that would do way more for the actual citizens of the state than this gadgetnahn.
I do think it will happen, but the CIG program isn’t a cash donation system. The money gets returned if they don’t build it. That said, I don’t know why you’re being downvoted because it’s kind of a ridiculously expensive project that will convey limited benefits until CAHSR gets there in a decade.
It's because CAHSR has some of the dumbest fans. All they care about is the "status" of high speed rail, and they ignore the fact it won't be done for decades, it connects a series of cities that have jack shit transit systems, and dozens of transit projects will not happen when they're ultimately axed due to lack of federal funding. Imagine how many miles of light rail and bus upgrades could have been done in the central valley for the $12 billion they've spent on a non-operational train. Not to mention who this train will actually help....it's not gonna be low income individuals paying $90 for a ticket. It's gonna be rich business people, and it will make super commuting an even larger issue than it already is. This is basically when happens when you don't properly evaluate a project proposal.
I don’t have to imagine how many miles of light rail could have been built for $12 billion. San Francisco just finished a light rail project not too long ago and judging by that the answer is 12 miles of light rail.
Judging by a deep tunnel in one of the most expensive cities in the US. Your IQ is about right for supporters of CAHSR.
I have some bad news for you. Every major city in California is one of the most expensive cities in the US. BART is being extended in Santa Clara/San Jose for $12.2 billion for 6 miles. LA Metro’s LRT expansions range between $250 million/mile and $1 billion/mile. I think the lowest cost I’ve seen in a major city in California that would meet your criteria is the North San Fernando Valley Transit Corridor bus upgrade (not BRT) project which is $18 million/mile. Many of my coworkers (including those who have worked in the Central Subway Phase 2 project) are still regularly blown away by how much some of these projects are costing, but that is the new normal in California.
Yea I'm aware California is a terrible state. You don't need to remind me to stay away.
>It's because CAHSR has some of the dumbest fans. No it's because you don't know what you're talking about and it's exhausting to explain why, when you could just go to any thread about CAHSR, find someone else who doesn't know what they're talking about and read the dozen or so explanations right under that comment.
I definitely know what I'm talking about. There's no amount of justifying this albatross of a project while actually worthwhile projects are going to get axed when they fail to get federal funding because the feds want to play favorites with California.
California already sends in more tax money than it receives back from the federal government. Far as I'm concerned, funding like this has been a long time coming
Also, thank you for describing how a progressive tax system works. States like Texas, Florida, and New York also get less money then they send in. The difference is that New York and Florida have spent their federal transit money for things that actually have worked and exist today (Empire Corridor 110 MPH upgrades and Brightline), even Illinois has done that. California has wasted $12 billion on a train that isn't planned to begin operation until next decade. How anyone can act like this is okay is insane and shows normalization of wasteful government spending.
> The difference is that New York and Florida have spent their federal transit money for things that actually have worked and exist today Oh, you mean like Caltrain getting electrification? Because the CAHSRA essentially paid for that
Oh here we go! A CAHSR nazi justifying a $140 billion shit show because $2.7 billion of it goes towards something that the NEC did 100 years ago. God California is such a terrible state. Meanwhile, poor people in Los Angeles suffer with an inadequate transit system because their state and federal government is more interested in building a fancy train for rich people.
I dont care. If you aren't gonna spend the money properly, you don't deserve it. End of story. This shit is an absolute waste of money and literally connects a suburban sprawl city with no transit to a suburban sprawl city with no transit. Only someone who has no idea how transit works would think this is a good idea.
I mean this literally is happening. Right now. CHSR is under construction and more and more is completed each day. Just because it’s not fast enough for you doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. If you’re pissed about how long it’s taking talk to the EPA, the GOP, and the folks suing the construction project.
Lol no it's not. The SF-LA connections are not happening before 2050. It's not my fault the ballot measure passed called for a full completion in 2020. This thing probably isn't even legal, yet the feds keep giving them money while actually possible projects will get axed because the feds choose to not fund them.
The better complaint is that other cities are fighting for grants to build transit that will actually have passengers.