8 ms·
Including time to get to the airport and through security, flying LAX -> SFO is not high speed :/
by joejohnson 9y ago
Including time to get to the airport and through security, flying LAX -> SFO is not high speed :/
- slapshot 9y agoGoing through the Central Valley and stopping in Fresno, Madera, Kings-Tulare, Bakersfield... (etc) to get to Los Angeles is not faster either. Buy a fully autonomous car and go point-to-point faster/cheaper/better. The train will stop at SFO and BUR -- if the train's last-mile delivery is better then we should focus on that last-mile rather than the stretch in the middle that is already well-solved.
- abritinthebay 9y agoThis is peak Hacker News: "Don't buy a $50 train ticket - buy a not-actually-invented yet probably $120,000 car instead". The high-speed rail project is a shit show, but more cars is not the answer either.
- dragonwriter 9y agoMore cars, or at least more car trips,—independent of whether they need drivers or what kind of powerplant they have—is, in fact, exactly the problem at which HSR is directed.
- erikpukinskis 9y agoAlmost no one will buy autonomous cars. You will just hail one for less than the cost of gas. Only rich people and people in and out of a car all day (full time parents, car-based workers, etc) will buy them.
- ubernostrum 9y agoYou will just hail one for less than the cost of gas. If the cost of the ride is less than the cost of gas, how is the operator making a profit? Especially since they have to cover more than just the cost of gas. (an Uber-style "use VC money to subsidize below-cost services" model is not sustainable in the long term, by the way)
- closeparen 9y agoI think the point is that they’ll be electric.
- sah2ed 9y agoIn addition to closeparen's point that such autonomous cars will be electric, they will also have much lower mantenance costs due to the lower internal complexity of doing away with the ICE.
- CPLX 9y agoThis is self evidently true because incredibly complex software implementations that interact with the real world have no maintainance requirements.
- abritinthebay 9y ago... hoping sarcasm. But you never know on here...
- dx034 9y agoAnd every family and anyone who likes having a car. I'd expect not more than 10-20% to stop buying cars. Having your own car is about more than just access to transportation.
- ebikelaw 9y agoSome trains will run sf-sj-la without further stops. Those will be far faster than air if you are traveling between city centers.
- magila 9y agoNot really. The platform-to-platform time from LA to SF is going to be, at best, a little less than three hours. That's comparable to the time it takes to fly from LAX to SFO plus the ~30 minute BART ride to downtown SF. LA is so spread out that departing from LAX or Union Station doesn't make a big difference. Most people are going to have to fight traffic to get to either location.
- 7952 9y agoIt is only two tracks. How can they run express services at the same time as stopping services?
- dx034 9y agoHaving an extra track at the station and timing so that they pass while the other train stops. You don't have services every 5 minutes so that works quite well usually. Worst case the express train has to go a bit slower before but they tend not to go at maximum speed so can catch up again later.
- CPLX 9y ago> Buy a fully autonomous car Make sure you put a winged pony on the shopping list too. They're a great fashionable match any time you're making fantasies of acquiring things that don't exist.
- jhall1468 9y agoAt least one of those is far closer to reality than the other.
- chipotle_coyote 9y agoWhile that's true, the less flippant question is whether fully autonomous cars -- where "fully autonomous" is defined as being able to climb in one, kick back and do your work with no concern the way you conceivably could on a train -- will (a) exist, (b) be road-legal, (c) be widely available, and (d) be generally affordable within a timeframe that makes a high-speed rail line moot. I don't think that's remotely a given.
- Animats 9y agoWe're going to have autonomous cars that can drive SF-LA long before we have high-speed rail. Self-driving cars from the big players are planned for the 2020-2021 model years.
- CPLX 9y agoI have this weird feeling that before we have many of them in mass production, we'll have a single car that fits this description.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dwg 9y agoTravel time to/from the station only matters if you're closer to the rail station than the airport. As for time to fly, I've made the trip between various airports (SFO, OAK, SMF) and LAX via Southwest many times. I try to arrive about 45 minutes prior to take off and so the whole trip takes about 2 hours. Even adding time to wait for a checked bag would probably still be faster than the high speed train.
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoKeep in mind airline miles. I take the shuttle out of LGA to D.C. over the Amtrak. The shuttle is cheaper and I get the comfort of earning miles. I've already invested into making flying comfortable. Lounge-access credit cards, Global Entry (which grants TSA Pre-check), upgrade-giving status, et cetera. I'd need trip time or cost cut in half relative to air travel to make switching worth it. I'm not the median consumer. But weighted by likely usage, I'm closer to the average.
- ghaff 9y agoI optimize miles too but, for short distances, it's mostly not worth it. For Boston to NY I essentially always take the train which is more comfortable if not necessarily faster. And Amtrak points are probably actually more useful for me in general than airline points. I'd get 500 points on United and use of the lounge but, really, that's not worth a whole lot. Amtrak is already basically as comfortable as an airline upgrade--which is hard to get on a weekday peak travel slot.
- rayiner 9y ago> Keep in mind airline miles. I take the shuttle out of LGA to D.C. over the Amtrak. Anecdotally: people where I work do a lot of traveling between our NYC and DC offices. Only one person flies rather than taking Amtrak...
- tootie 9y agoI did a bunch of trips recently. Flying is usually faster and cheaper, but more likely to go awry. Taxis to airports can vary widely in speed and cost. Flights can be delayed, security lines, etc. Train is easy, consistent and comfortable. Always power, Wi-Fi and cell signal too.
- randyrand 9y agoFor the train you also need to include the time to get to LA's union station. So the main difference ends up being TSA time.
- cmurf 9y agoExcepting travel time and security time, is the airline imposition of arriving anywhere from 45 to 1.5 hours before departure or you can't check a bag. And all the airlines recommend arrival 1-2 hours before a flight. This is to account for myriad unknown factors that apply to airline travel that don't apply to trains.
- dx034 9y agoIf you live in SFO and have a business meeting in LA (or vice versa), you'll only need the trip on one side. Few people will need to travel in both cities.
- erispoe 9y agoUnion Station is or will by a direct subway ride away from a lot of dense pockets in Los Angeles (Red, Purple & Blue lines when the regional connector opens). Yes, the train will come to LAX as well, but transfer will be less convenient and likely less direct than from Union Station.
- matte_black 9y agoFrom the time an Uber drops me off at SFO to the time I get through security is probably all of 10-15 minutes. The secret? TSA precheck and the Global Entry program.
- Naritai 9y agoAnd, I'm going to guess, not having children.
- matte_black 9y agoChildren can be enrolled in the program as well. Also I do not check in any luggage.
- Jesus_Jones 9y agoBut you are giving up their fingerprints to the government. That's one thing that really bugs me about those programs. I want to remind everyone of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Mayfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Mayfield. They arrested him because some of his fingerprints slightly matched. The FBI claimed they exactly matched. Quoting from the wikipedia article "His prints were ... taken ... when he joined the military. He became the prime suspect because of his conversion to Islam and because he had represented one of the Portland Seven... The FBI described the fingerprint match as "100% verified". According to the court documents in judge Ann Aiken's decision, this information was largely "fabricated and concocted by the FBI and DOJ". This is why I'm reluctant to give the govt. my fingerprints, but my friends think I'm overreacting.
- selectodude 9y agoIn no way is that remotely acceptable, but the dude got $2 million. The government making a habit of that behavior would get expensive quickly.
- ComputerGuru 9y ago
- kelnos 9y agoI can usually get door-to-door in 3-3.75 hours flying SFO->LAX, depending on my destination in LA. That's good enough for me.
- Retric 9y agoThat's ~100MPH which is basically highway speeds in many areas. http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/31/us/new-york-los-angeles-cannonball-speed-record/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/31/us/new-york-los-angeles-cannon... While illegal they averaged 98 MPH coast to coast. Granted this rail project does not really allow for high speed either, but it's still going to be reasonable.
- kelnos 9y agoA super-illegal drive isn't really useful for comparison. With moderate traffic you'd be lucky to average 60mph for the entire trip from SF to LA. Regardless, I'm not talking about what's ideal or perfect; even if HSR could get me there in 2-3 hours, that's not a meaningful enough improvement over 3-3.75 hours to justify a $64B+ price tag in my book.
- Retric 9y agoI am not sure how the price tag is relevant to you personally. If you build an effective network of High speed rail it ends up cheaper per trip which over time means the effective cost is ~0$. I doubt they are going to succeed, but in other areas it has worked.
- ComputerGuru 9y agoI regularly drive ~120mph+ in the empty expanses of Spain and elsewhere that isn’t America, and even I can’t average 100mph in that route in California.
- SamReidHughes 9y agoAveraging 100mph is unrealistic for I-5 most of the time. You'll get stuck behind cars doing 80 in the left lane while semis sit in the right, and that can last for miles and miles. I think things were faster in 2010-11, when the economy was slower, but I only drove it twice then -- even then, 90mph was more realistic.
- katastic 9y agoWhich is really funny when you think about it in perspective. Why AREN'T we looking for terrorists with as much gusto on trains and other transportation like boats? - Are boat and train people not as important? - Are terrorists incapable of boarding boats and trains? - Would a terrorist "never" think of attacking a large train or boat full of hundreds or thousands of people? Or, are we only "scared enough" to allow insane, feel good security measures at airports (because airports were already slow) and if they dared to add them to our other transportation, people would burn down the city? How would people feel if they had to pass through a security checkpoint at a hub before they boarded an uber?
- fiblye 9y agoAlong with getting there early enough to be sure that your flight isn't overbooked.
- acdha 9y agoThe SF Gate tried a plane versus car trip in 2001 and the driver won substantially – and that’s only gotten worse with the post-9/11 security theater and both airline and airport budget tightening pushing the whole system closer into the safety margins: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/The-Great-Race-car-vs-plane-2924383.php http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/The-Great-Race-car-vs-pla...