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The first rail project is sheer madness. A giant wasteful boondoggle. The second is too. The 50th, however starts to bring real change. People want to live near the stations, and start thinking of travel differently. The 100th brings sea-change. Everything becomes different.

Commuter culture doesn't make rail, its the other way around.

If an LA - Vegas rail funded by the Casinos brings wealth along the way to Indian country then I am so grateful.

> Yikes! No! This is a complete waste of money. Our cities are just not built to make use of something like this. The various stake holders (environmental groups, politicians, industry, unions, etc.) all but make sure that these projects will cost ten times more than they should and end-up in exactly the wrong places. And, because of this, not enough people will use them.

Our cities are not built to take advantage of rail infrastructure because for half a century we have been heavily subsidizing the car industry instead of the rail industry.

Also, that's not even true. Lot's of parts of the country could take advantage of rail infrastructure. Amtrak's northeastern line runs at a profit, even though it's a shitty shitty excuse for a high speed rail line. A Europe-style high-speed rail connecting DC, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston would connect a huge urbanized corridor with half the population of France.

They basically have that already and it is heavily used.

High speed rails rarely go directly to suburbs. That's the realm of supporting transit - busses, subways, light rail, etc. They're far more valuable going directly between commerce centers, where there are reasons for people to travel, and where supporting transit will actually be used to get to/from the center (since nobody actually lives there).

If the high-speed rail were put in, and that great mass of people would use it, there would be money in providing transit between the rail and the great mass of people. So it could be built, and problem solved. But I don't see how going to great mass X (instead of Y, Z, etc) is better than great(est) commerce center A.

As to those locations specifically - I have no idea if they're suitable. But high speed transit goes to city centers, not fringes, basically everywhere in the world, and this should be no different.

"High speed rails rarely go directly to suburbs."

And therein lies the problem for high speed rail in the US. We don't have that supporting network, and we're not going to. We're too spread out in our cities for it to work.

So it's drive 30 miles to the train station and then pay $15 a day for parking while on your trip, like the airport.

Definitely - most places in the US can't support a rail system. Partly because we're so spread out, but partly because it's a catch 22: we don't have it, so we all have cars, so we won't use it if we're offered it because cars are more convenient and they're already a sunk cost. Then there's also that our culture doesn't cast a very good light on public transit (homeless people, pee, graffiti, etc), and we're still very caught up in cars == freedom mentality.

edit: all that said, I'm not aware of anywhere that has high-speed rails going outside city centers. But I'm hardly an expert on this - I'd love a counter-example. Japan, for instance, has their bullet trains essentially only between city centers, and subway and light rail supporting it. And that's one of the better rail systems in the world.

Homeless people, pee and graffiti are fairly easy problems to solve, and can be turned around quite fast. Lots of places have resolved this.

The sunk cost argument can be overcome if you make public transport faster than cars, less congestion and parking difficulties is a big change. But you do have to rebuild it first (yes the US had public transport in the past, you ripped it out).

They're fairly easy problems to solve, but public opinion of it generally lags behind reality. And the occasional reappearance only strengthens it in people's minds for longer. So even once you've solved it, you still need to wait what are likely to be years to see the general population actually using the system without it being their last resort. During that time, funding threatens to drop because of lack of use. You need people willing to throw massive amounts of money at it until it works, not until it stops making money.

And yeah, if public transit gets better than personal, things will change very quickly. But that path involves trillions of dollars, and just try getting a tax increase voted through for one. I'd love it, but it's not happening any time soon, and certainly not on a large scale.

cars != freedom. cars == parking nightmare. I always feel so free when I don't have to think about finding parking.

I've heard that we've got a great existing rail infrastructure--the problem being that most isn't straight enough or suitable for use with high speed trains.

For example, the last train trip I took stopped a handful of times while we waited for livestock to finish crossing the tracks. High speed trains do not do this.

In St. Louis, the suburbs have actively petitioned against and succeeded in blocking light rail service from the city. They are convinced that somehow evil city dwellers (mostly black, let's be honest) are going to come out to rob everything they own. Only in the last few years did the rail service even extend to the near western suburbs near the fancy malls, which if St Louis wasn't gerrymandered to shreds, would probably be part of the city limits.

It turned out the nightmare scenario came to pass and lots of young, black, lower income residents from East St Louis started showing up to the mall. A strange thing happened though, instead of destroying the area, they mostly just brought a lot of money and purchased things.

Seems obvious to me, but rich white folks be crazy sometimes and mostly they write the checks when it comes to city planning.

What do you think about this article?

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2008-08-20/news/out-of-contro...

  Ask virtually any store manager at the Saint Louis 
  Galleria about shoplifting, and you'll invariably get two 
  responses: One, it's out of control; and two, it's gotten 
  exceedingly worse since August 2006, when MetroLink opened 
  a stop just 500 yards from the high-end shopping center.

  In the first six months of this year, Richmond Heights 
  police made 345 arrests at the mall. That's nearly double 
  the number of arrests made in all of 2005, before 
  MetroLink opened its Shrewsbury line.

  More alarming are the numbers of juveniles (kids under the 
  age of seventeen) arrested at the mall. This year police 
  are on pace to take 276 juveniles into custody for 
  shoplifting and other offenses — a sevenfold increase over 
  the 39 kids arrested at the Galleria in 2005.

  "I know it's not politically correct, but how else do you 
  explain it?" comments a frustrated Galleria store manager 
  who, like many Galleria shopkeepers interviewed by 
  Riverfront Times, says her employer prohibits her from 
  officially speaking for the company.

  "Anyone can see all these people crossing Brentwood 
  Boulevard from the MetroLink station," the manager 
  continues. "Most of them aren't here to shop. They're here 
  to hang out and cause trouble."

These statistics appear to support the supposition that the MetroLink connection did indeed increase crime at the malls. Do you have any data to support the alternative hypothesis that "rich white folks be crazy"?

The real key is the bottom line for the shop, if theft has doubled and sales have doubled then the shop should be making more money.

That isn't addressed, all the article says is that theft is up.

To be pedantic, the important metrics are not percentage increases but rather the change in profits and the change in costs associated with theft.

That's not pedantic, those are the same metrics retailers use when making decisions.

I said I was being pedantic because I was agreeing with the post's main point (what matters is the bottom line for the shop) but felt there could be a better way to describe what it means for it to be better for the bottom line.

Well, be Bayesian about it.

The incidents described in the full article include huge violent fistfights that led to curfews. Low income people are unlikely to spend lots of money. Lots of theft and violence is accompanied by lots of broken windows behavior that may not rise to the level of a criminal offense, but does scare away higher income people (example: screaming at the screen in a movie theater). And very few retail shops operate at 100% margins such that a doubling of revenue would exactly compensate for a doubling in theft.

All in all, it is highly likely that events transpired as predicted by the project's critics. No doubt the proponents like homosaur did not sell the project as "violence will increase, thefts will double, and your previous patrons like Johnny Fields will leave, but...". They instead tried to insinuate that "rich white people be crazy" to think something like this might happen.

And very few retail shops operate at 100% margins such that a doubling of revenue would exactly compensate for a doubling in theft.

They don't need 100% margins to come out on top if they sell more units than are stolen.

So if a shop was selling 10 units an hour and losing 1 unit an hour to theft, and footfall doubled (simplistically doubling sales and thefts), then the shop is now selling 20 units an hour and losing 2 to theft. At realistic margins, the shop is more profitable than it was.

The article says that arrests doubled, not that the costs associated with theft doubled.

Note that "costs associated with thefts" is not just the cost of the goods stolen. It includes the costs of security.

I also like how you think that they should be happy with your model, that how they feel about the situation is of no consequence.

They have to live with this situation; they've got skin in the game. You just post.

The article says that arrests doubled, not that the costs associated with theft doubled.

I wasn't discussing the article, but correcting errors in someone else's post.

I also like how you think that they should be happy with your model, that how they feel about the situation is of no consequence.

I never said what I think about the situation. I merely corrected someone else's financial misunderstanding.

They have to live with this situation; they've got skin in the game. You just post.

You're clearly angry at something. I strongly suggest you deal with this yourself, rather than continue to flail around and vent your frustration on strangers over the internet.

Violent fistfights are what make news. Just because something is news doesn't mean there is an underlying statistical basis to justify the conclusion of the article. Articles in papers are anecdotal in nature.

Actually low income people spend HUGE amounts of money, if you study economics you'd know that poor people pay more for almost any good than do the rich. What I mean by this is that the poor will by 500mL of milk rather than 4L, and so in a year when you look at the costs of milk for the poor they are more than the rich. Similarly, the poor shop at convenience stores and the rich shop at warehouse stores further exacerbating the price differential.

I will say, in rich white folks' defense, that the particular incident that is discussed in that article was pretty shocking; it wasn't just a couple of fistfights, it was a mini-riot. We're talking about 50 kids fighting here.

The issue of violence amongst teens has not been solved yet in St. Louis, even if the Galleria figured it out. The Delmar Loop, the other area talked about there, still has a major problem with petty crime and even had a shooting related to the spontaneous gathering of urban teenagers quite recently. The businesses can't have this both ways. They want all the increased business but they don't want to deal with paying for security. SLPD cannot solve these problems on their own and the Loop has dropped the ball on security and people are well aware of it now.

> They want all the increased business

Don't think it has yet been shown that their business actually increased due to these kids. The quotes from the article indicate otherwise: high income residents and middle lass kids were driven away by the violence and then the curfew. The mall owners aren't conflicted here, things transpired just as they had predicted.

That just isn't accurate though. That's not what happened at all. Yes, there was a period of about a year where they did not increase security or have a curfew or parental supervision policy in place where there were several incidents and a higher crime rate. That IMMEDIATELY plummeted over 25% after the parental supervision policy went in to place and by 2010 had dropped to levels that were essentially the same rate as existed before the metro stop was built.

You can't judge this from an outdated article about 2007. That was from that time period when it was a security free for all out there. The people who want to cause trouble certainly know they are not welcome at that mall anymore and will be arrested if they cause any trouble.

I'm guessing the Nordstroms, which is a very high end designer-centric dept. store with $200 silk ties and the like didn't move a 2 story store last year because the high income residents stopped coming. In fact, I'm sure the complete opposite is true.

That general hypothesis seems to be supported by the massive expansion of the Galleria in recent years, including the giant new Apple store, several new restaurants, Nordstroms, etc

Just so you know, this article might have been accurate in 2006, but it's completely outdated. Kids don't get to hang out in the mall anymore and security at the Galleria is quite strict on this. There is a very staunch curfew policy there and I haven't heard of any incidents of violence like this since probably 2006 or 2007 and I would say that's the mall's fault in the first place for not being ready security-wise. They are now and there are zero problems other than the same shoplifting that goes on everywhere.

http://voices.yahoo.com/st-louis-mall-sees-crime-drop-after-...

Suburbs of Atlanta, where I live, have also very energetically blocked any expansion of the downtown subway system, for the exact same reasons, rooted in racialised politics. As a result, the system has not been expanded since 1989, and, despite its potential, goes to uselessly few places that have no imaginable relevance to the existence of 90% of metro Atlanta residents.

The funny thing is, all the poor black people from the inner city come to their suburbs anyway. Who else is going to work in their low-wage retail sector? It's just that instead of doing so in an efficient and economical manner, they do so in old, broken-down cars that greatly contribute to the traffic problem that causes these very same suburbanites so much agony.

“Everyone knows what M.A.R.T.A. really stands for.”

Of course. :-)

"It turned out the nightmare scenario came to pass and lots of young, black, lower income residents from East St Louis started showing up to the mall. A strange thing happened though, instead of destroying the area, they mostly just brought a lot of money and purchased things."

If the new arrivals had so much money, why couldn't they just drive in earlier? Why did they have to wait till (cheap) public transportation was available to come to this mall?

They could, and probably did. But I would guess that the majority of them came and used it because of ease, not low cost.

You mean why didn't they blow thousands of dollars per year on an inefficient mode of transportation irrelevant to their ordinary daily lives? Can't imagine.

The proposed maglev train to Vegas from LA was supposed to be from Anaheim (aka Disneyland), not Union ("Central") Station in Downtown LA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California-Nevada_Interstate_Ma...

So a 1-2 hour drive for anyone living in Bev Hills, Hollywood, Brentwood, Santa Monica, etc... Not that Union Station is much more central. LA is just too damn big (geographically) to make that viable.

I think the choice of Anaheim was made in terms of moving tourists, proximity to Disney, right of way etc. Also Metrolink & Amtrak go to Anaheim, so you could in theory take the train from the Valley or SD and not have to drive at all

Of course American cities aren't built to support it, with their own present state of extremely automotive, exurban decentralization and highly distributed typography. It's a catch 22 that can only be solved by rather preemptive "build it and they will come" style investment, the goal being to slowly influence organic behaviour patterns over time. In the best possible case, people will start moving closer and closer to rail lines, and density of coverage will continue to usefully increase. In some cities that have developed entirely along the automotive paradigm, particularly New South developments like Atlanta (where I live), that may not be possible without a very radical restructuring, given their extremely hostile layout to anything but the car.

Nevertheless, if you give any credence whatsoever to a hydrocarbon-constrained future (and there are plenty of compelling reasons to do so), electric high-speed rail is the only option that makes sense.

> Heck, I drive 60 miles a day just picking up my kids from school!

This is incredibly inefficient. You could choose to organize your life another way. You'll get the cheap electric car sooner or later. You might even get cheap energy to run it with. But you'll never, ever get that time back.

This is very true. To me, the time waste of driving is almost as great as the fuel waste or the environmental pollution.

But! I think the adoption of self-driving cars is actually going to beat the adoption of all-electric cars.

Agreed. My next car will be fully electric whether I buy it or build it myself.

As far as organizing my life around it. Kind of tough. Sell the house and move? Can't do that. The schools are not moving. One of my kids will start at a school closer to home this year. The number will go down to 35 miles per day then. I can then contemplate the idea of a pedal-powered electric-assisted four-wheel contraption that I could most certainly build myself for a fraction of what an electric car would cost. It'd be a great project to teach the kids some engineering and ride around during good whether.

Well, that's Los Angeles. In Cascadia it's a bit different--Vancouver and Portland both have very well-functioning mass transit systems, and Seattle has an adequate but growing one which links to the Amtrak lines that go between the three major cities as well as the Empire Builder line to Chicago. I have little doubt that upgrading the Empire Builder and Cascades routes would be worthwhile.

I commute between Portland and Vancouver fairly frequently. Initially I drove because I never really considered not driving, but round trip expense wasn't really that much cheaper than flying ($120 in fuel costs compared to $175-$250 to fly) and time in airports and on planes was time I could be somewhat productive, while my ten hour round trip drive was completely wasted.

Then someone tipped me off about the train. It takes slightly longer than driving and about twice as long as flying, but it's almost all productive time. It's cheaper than flying and about the same as driving (depends what days you travel), and it's a much more pleasant experience than flying.

The only drawback is limited service (it's daily, but with limited direct service), but with better promotion and subsidies to increase demand, there's no reason service couldn't be more frequent. I'm sure there's equipment upgrades that could be made to shorten service times also.

Amtrak, in the pacific northwest at least, really is a hidden gem. It's a shame it's not more popular.

For American cities to stay competitive we need rail. We need to start building cities with rail in mind.

The train station in downtown LA is called Union Station, the one in NY is Grand Central.

Also, they are extending the lines that feed into Union slowly but surely. Pasadena already has good coverage, Hollywood coverage is decent, Santa Monica's Expo line should be done in a couple of years - it's already halfway done to Culver City. South LA lines already get lots of riders.

The REAL problem in LA is a taxi is still the best way to get to LAX.