[sjsamson]

Caltrain electrification project is independent/notdependent on CAHSR and also not dependent on grade separation projects, which seem to be tackled individually/ad-hoc in partnership with the city it's in. Everything I've seen suggests Caltrain will still have at grade crossings for the foreseeable future due to the high cost of grade separations (hundreds of millions each), while overhead electrification is slowly approaching completion including over existing at-grade crossings. Nothing prevents a high speed train from using an at grade crossing, albeit at appropriate speeds.

While it would be nice for CalTrain (and most rail crossings) to be fully grade separated, it's incredibly expensive, doesn't add much value for rail users as the train already has the right of way, and it primarily benefits auto traffic. It only makes sense if road money pays for it, rather than more limited rail money.

[inferiorhuman]

  Nothing prevents a high speed train from using an at grade crossing

Well…

  albeit at appropriate speeds.

Then you've just removed the "high speed" from "high speed rail". That's why HSR funds are paying for some of the cost of grade separation. Grade separation is hugely important (and hugely important to get right -- look at the consequences of the shit design of BART's Oakland Wye).

  While it would be nice for CalTrain (and most rail crossings) to be fully grade separated, it's incredibly expensive, doesn't add much value for rail users as the train already has the right of way, and it primarily benefits auto traffic. 

There's significant value in not hitting pedestrians or automobiles. There are also ways to reduce the cost of grade separation.

https://www.caltrain.com/media/1033/download?inline

https://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-exploding-cost...

[sjsamson]

I'm well aware of (and have personally suffered) all of that: BART's Oakland Wye delaying trains, suicide-by-train, the value of grade separations, and of Clem's Caltrain-HSR blog that I've been reading since the beginning and have learned a lot about railway engineering from it and technically informed commenters.

I would love for Caltrain to be fully grade separated (and electrified and modern Signaling and Train Control with Automatic Train Operation), but this costs a lot of money and there's an opportunity cost with that. Even with cost optimizations that Clem's blog discusses we are still talking billions of dollars and many years to grade separate the dozens of remaining crossings in the Caltrain corridor. Not to mention the ~210000 road-rail grade crossings across the USA, ~100000 in Europe, [0][1] and however many else exist in the rest of the world.

That is the scale of the problem. It is not affordable or realistic to eliminate all of them, we have finite resources and have to pick and choose our spots based on an objective analysis. And the benefit of that primarily goes to road users who should be the ones to pay for it or taxpayers at large, rather than rail users and more limited rail funds.

While loss of life is obviously tragic, in almost all case these are the result of illegal actions of people trespassing or committing suicide-by-train. I dislike characterization of "trains hitting people," as if it were the fault or malicious of the train. Trains operate on rail tracks which are fixed to the ground. Trains don't go anywhere all willy nilly like cars can, including right into people's houses (which has happened to a relative and a neighbor). It is not reasonable to compel a rail organization to spend billions to "fix" this problem, if it even can be. I've even endured a more than hour long Caltrain delay, because someone drove a truck into a structural support column of a Caltrain grade separated overpass, and we were not cleared to cross until structural engineer could come out, inspect it, and give the OK. So let's not act like this is some panacea.

HSTs are never going to operating at 200+ mph on the Caltrain corridor. It's going to be limited to "standard speeds," which can still be 100+ mph. Last I checked the US Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) allows up to 110 mph with grade crossings, and up to 125 mph with specialized upgraded crossings. This is plenty fast, and common in urbanized areas in other developed countries like Germany and Switzerland.

[0] https://railroads.dot.gov/program-areas/highway-rail-grade-c... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_crossing

[mlyle]

> While it would be nice for CalTrain (and most rail crossings) to be fully grade separated, it's incredibly expensive, doesn't add much value for rail users as the train already has the right of way, and it primarily benefits auto traffic. It only makes sense if road money pays for it, rather than more limited rail money.

Devil's advocate: at-grade crossings sound like a negative externality for rail that impacts other parts of society (road users, noise pollution for local residents, etc).

Why should rail not bear some of the social costs in addition to its direct costs?

[runarberg]

Let me be a devil’s advocate against your devil’s advocate: Pedestrian, bicycle and even bus-only crossings costs a fraction to grade separate compared to car crossings. It is much easier for cars to take a significant detours then other transport modes. It is always a much cheaper option to simply close the road for cars and force them to cross at the nearest crossing that is already grade separated, and build a ped/bike-only bridge/tunnel over the tracks.

Cars are the reason this negative externality is so expensive to mitigate. Why should funds from other modes be diverted to it?

[mlyle]

> Why should funds from other modes be diverted to it?

If the city's been built and is already car dependent, wishing away the existing uses and the massive amounts of capital dependent on them isn't an option. That is, we have to consider costs at the margin from where we are now.

[runarberg]

Since you answered my second order devil’s advocate, I should answer your first order devil’s advocate:

> Why should rail not bear some of the social costs in addition to its direct costs?

The social costs created by private cars dwarfs those created by train, and is seldomly actually mitigated with funds diverted from car infrastructure. Historically this has been an unpopular political choice, made without considering the local communities. Now California is prioritizing a different mode with the hope of reducing car dependency. Why shouldn’t car infrastructure now bear the defunding that other modes have historically suffered in order to accommodate cars historically, infrastructures which has historically created social costs to local communities?

I see this as a way to fix historic wrongs. Rail does not need to bear the social costs of its infrastructure because car owes us a bunch. We should collect on those debts owed by cars.

[mlyle]

> Why shouldn’t car infrastructure now bear the defunding that other modes have historically suffered in order to accommodate cars historically, infrastructures which has historically created social costs to local communities?

Because it devalues a whole lot of land and capital that have seen substantial investment under the prior equilibrium.

Fixing historic wrongs or not, churning our transport infrastructure incurs a whole lot of external costs and can't be just considered in terms of "road costs" vs. "rail costs".

[runarberg]

I’m confused, are you still playing the devil’s advocate, or do you actually hold this believe?

In the case of the former, then I’ve already answered why it is totally fair for car infrastructure to pay for social externalities of other modes meant to relief car traffic.

In the case of the latter, I don’t know what to tell you except that you are wrong. I didn’t mean defunding as in let existing things churn, I meant removing car lanes and forcing detours so that train infrastructure can be cheaper. The overall effect is better transport for everybody except cars (which already have it plenty good).

Also are you sure that removing car lanes actually devalues land and capital. I’m not so sure that is true. And even if it was, good. Housing in the Bay area is plenty expensive as it is, if cheaper train infrastructure means cheaper housing, then I’d say we’ve succeeded on two fronts.