Just wondering….

Expanding on my comment over here:

This is the reason why contrary to years past - the airlines may be very open to the idea of running the HSR system as a substitute for running the competing planes. At the plane ticket prices they will need to charge + the airport delays driving LA-SF is nearly competitive with flying LAX-SFO.

For medium/short-range “flights” airlines will have the choice of running the trains or relinquishing big portions of their revenue. The airlines will face mounting issues jsut with fuel cost. Keep in mind that aviation fuel by international convention is not taxed. As the realities of Global Warming kick in - this will have to change. Aviation fuel will have to be taxed in proportion to its contribution to Global Warming.

I suspect that passenger travel is going to follow a modal separation model that we see with freight. In freight, short/medium-haul is dominated by trucks. Trucks’ ability to pick-up/deliver closer to the source/destination dominates over the fuel costs. In long-haul/bulk trains have the cost advantage because fuel cost start to dominate.

With passengers, trains/cars should dominate because both have the ability to pick-up/deliver their cargo (passengers) closer to the original source/destination. (City centers or people’s houses).

This leads to an interesting stock picking question: is there an airline/railroad out there that is looking to become an integrated transportation company (i.e. airline + rail + truck)? Considering the difference in the various cultures I suspect that this company will emerge but will be formed from the ground up with the exception of the railroad piece. I make the exception on the railroad people because of the interesting scheduling requirements that come from not being able to reorder trains (limited ability to pass!). But the railroading knowledge could come from the shortlines not the Class Is. Short line railroads have had to think innovative and in customer service intensive ways that the Class I’s have traditionally ignored. Norfolk Southern may be an exception to this.

Quite simply BART-to-SFO has major fatal, permanent flaws:

1. route time is not competitive. During the early morning rush taking a Baby Bullet train from points south of Millbrae to 4th and King with a transfer to Muni is faster. I did this for a year before Baby Bullet service started. Also there are express buses that take Caltrain riders to places like Fort Mason. Caltrain-to-Muni is more of a timed transfer. Caltrain-to-BART does not offer a timed connection and there is a lot of sitting around waiting.
2. Transferring to BART is more expensive. Caltrain-Muni combination offers monthly pass discount. BART has no monthly pass.
3. Getting to the airport is now much harder than before BART.

To expand on the last point on the difficulty of getting to SFO now. Lets compare the before and after picture:

Before BART:

1. Get off Caltrain at Millbrae
2. Get on (free) bus waiting for each Caltrain. The bus waited for you to shlep your luggage into the bus.
3. Passengers were dropped directly off at their airline terminal.
4. Unload bus.

Passengers did not have to go up and down at all with luggage and screaming kids.

Compare that to now:

1. Get off Caltrain at Millbrae.
2. Drag luggage (and kids!) to elevator #1.
3. Wait for elevator #1.
4. Load luggage into the elevator #1. (”Stop pushing the buttons!”)
5. Unload elevator #1
6. Buy BART ticket. (Hassle with change and bills)
7. Drag luggage through BART gate #1.
8. Drag luggage to elevator #2.
9. Wait for elevator #2.
10. Load luggage into the elevator #2. (”I said, ‘Stop pushing the buttons’, Rose!”)
11. Unload elevator #2
12. Drag luggage to BART train #1.
13. Wait for doors.
14. Drag luggage into BART train #1.
15. Unload luggage from BART train #1 at San Bruno.
16. Drag luggage to BART train #2. (less than a minute to do this with kids..go,go,go!) (damn missed it!)
17. (wait 15 min for next train)
18. Wait for doors.
19. Drag luggage into BART train #2.
20. Unload luggage from BART train #2 (at SFO) ( “Are we there yet!”)
21. Drag luggage through BART gate #2.
22. Drag luggage to elevator #3.
23. Wait for elevator #3.
24. Load luggage into the elevator #3. (”I said, ‘Stop pushing the buttons’!”)
25. Unload elevator #3 (”Honey, are you wearing deodorant?”)
26. Drag luggage to SFO people mover (Do we have the Xmas spirit yet?)
27. Wait for doors.
28. Drag luggage into SFO people mover.
29. Unload luggage from SFO people mover.
30. Drag luggage to elevator #4.
31. Wait for elevator #4.
32. Load luggage into the elevator #4. (”I said, ‘Stop pushing the buttons’!”)
33. Unload elevator #4

Update: This is what “stupid” looks like on a map:

View Larger Map

Be sure to thank Quentin Kopp and Mike Nevin the people responsible for the mess.

Any questions?

Interesting post from Paul Graham about the message and measure of success that different cities send.

This is my comment:

To the inverse question is also very interesting.- Specifically, what if a city *does not* send a message? To me that is the same as a company that can’t get its marketing message and corporate culture right. The city, like the company, flounders and “fails”. I used to live near Detroit. That city never recovered from the 1968 race riots. It could never re-discover its message of success.

If a city as a culture (not just a political entity) does not value something, then it provides no guidance to the immigrant (”new hire”). The resources to be successful are not visible nor readily available.

In SV, I would say the message is not “power” but action. Specifically, “Great idea. Have you built it yet?” This is why Cambridge as an “idea” center will not overtake SV. SV is about doing - and more importantly accepting failure as a step toward success.

For this reason, I do think that Silicon Valley must be the place to be in software — because software is the ultimate DIY tool.