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Comment by Aloisius | Hacker News Reader

If ALL Musk does with the Hyperloop announcement is shed more light on the potential debacle that is to be our $70b+ high-speed rail in California, we owe him a debt of gratitude.

Really? Because it looks like this is an attempt to derail CA HSR using a proposal for an experimental technology that offers a fraction of what CA HSR does, but is potentially faster.

CA HSR replaces/upgrades two metropolitan rail systems (Caltrain/Metrolink) in addition to connecting SF (as opposed to Oakland!) and LA, requires no R&D, is supposed to handle significantly greater ridership, has detailed cost estimates which include things like take into account electrification costs (because it does get cloudy), support facilities (because there is maintenance of these cars), administrative buildings (because someone has to run the system), bypassing/rebuilding overpasses (which are all over I-5) that are in the way and grading land.

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> CA HSR replaces/upgrades two metropolitan rail systems (Caltrain/Metrolink) in addition to connecting SF (as opposed to Oakland!) and LA, requires no R&D, is supposed to handle significantly greater ridership, has detailed cost estimates which include things like take into account electrification costs (because it does get cloudy), support facilities (because there is maintenance of these cars), administrative buildings (because someone has to run the system), bypassing/rebuilding overpasses (which are all over I-5) that are in the way and grading land.

Not to mention their estimates actually include going into downtown SF and LA, unlike Musk's $6B figure.

To be fair, Oakland is a much more sensible location of the initial terminal for any rail system. It's very well-connected to SF, has a complete lack of powerful, moneyed NIMBYs, and it would be easy to punch the line through to SF once it's proven.

> To be fair, Oakland is a much more sensible location of the initial terminal for any rail system. It's very well-connected to SF, has a complete lack of powerful, moneyed NIMBYs, and it would be easy to punch the line through to SF once it's proven.

The East Bay (and even Oakland specifically) does not have a complete lack of moneyed NIMBYs. There are at least as many of those in the East Bay as in SF and the Peninsula.

And its actually a lot easier to "punch a line through" over land than over the Bay, and existing SF-Oakland transit capacity is fairly well saturated and expensive to expand (because, again, of the Bay).

You could maybe find some non-insane argument that extending Caltrain as conventional rail to San Francisco and running HSR to Oakland makes more sense than HSR to San Francisco and existing conventional rail to Oakland, but I doubt there's much case even for that; in any case, any sane strategy for rail is going to involve a fork with lines running up the Peninsula to SF and up into the East Bay separately.

I don't think that's really true. The people in Oakland who would be NIMBYs and have enough money to be effective at it all live in the hills, or in Piedmont. The people who live in the flat parts of Oakland, and to a large extent all of the flatlanders of the East Bay, don't have anything to fight with.

Now compare to the kind of 19th-century legacy gazillionaires along the CAHSR route in Atherton.

Sure, I'd grant Oakland. The line is shown ending roughly near Bay Fair station, an 18 minute BART ride from central Oakland, but perhaps that's still a good compromise. And North Valley? People in this comments thread were saying they'd rather take a flight from Burbank airport, but the train ends even further from central LA.

But more to the point, it's costed through the straightest, least dense, cheapest part of a "SF to LA" route. It's shown with 3 km of tunnel west of Dublin and you'd need at least five times more to get to usefully located stations. This isn't how real infrastructure projects are estimated unless you're purposefully trying to arrive at a low cost estimate.

The estimated ridership of even the Hyperloop is high enough that it would crush the Bay Bridge even if a majority used BART. Not to mention add an hour to the transit to people going to San Jose.

Oakland was chosen to make this thing look cheaper, not because it makes sense from a civil planning perspective.

The capacity of the proposed system at 28-person capsules every 30 seconds is 3360 pph at peak. Three thousand more people per hour would crush the Bay Bridge?

Ahahaha no. I live in Oakland, you're quite wrong. On the upside I do like that I can walk a short distance to catch a train that will take me to LA :)

It is presented to provoke and I think you're right, it does look like an attempt to derail CA HSR.

Instead, I think of it this way... if it's so cheaply do-able, then - do it! Sounds like an easy money making idea if you can build it for the figures proposed. While you may only need to charge $20 each way to break even, why not charge double what it costs to go the next most fast, convenient way, and you would make bank! I mean, who wouldn't do this if it works as envisioned? It's a genius business plan, right!?

So do it! Some rich bold genius! Build us a hyperloop - so cheap and obvious and do-able! And whenever we get to HSR, we'll build it so it connects to the awesome LA-SF express hyperloop.

One problem is that the land needed to build it belongs to the state. Admittedly another is that a massive amount of R&D remains to be done and is not factored into the cost.

West Oakland is 10 minutes from downtown SF (Embarcadero station, nearest to the HSR terminal) by BART, and you can take any eastbound train, so you rarely have to wait more than 2-3 minutes during the day to catch one. The area is already set up for rail, and land is relatively cheap. It's a fantastic location for it. The only reasons to go to SF proper are politics and pride.

> take into account electrification costs (because it does get cloudy)

Did Musk say his Hyperloop wouldn't be tied to the grid?

Yes. It says it is self-powering using battery packs and solar.

No, it specifically says it's tied to the grid for backup power. Section 4.3.

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