Why Building Hyperloop from SF to LA is a Colossal Waste of Money and Time

Note: Please read the post in its entirety before hating! c:

Elon Musk, famed founder / investor of Paypal, Tesla, and SpaceX, recently revealed his much-hyped concept for an ultra-fast, ultra-cheap technology that would whisk passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in all of 35 minutes at speeds of up to 700 miles per hour in an elevated vacuum tube.

The entire system, end to end, would cost $6 billion dollars -- and while that sounds like a large chunk of change, it's less than the $70 billion dollars expected for much-debated California High Speed Rail project, which is beset with delays and cost overruns, and construction hasn't even started yet.

According to Musk, the Hyperloop technology could enable passenger and freight travel over long distances with:

• incredibly fast speeds
• a near-perfect safety record
• low capital and operating costs
• 100% reliability
• other statistics that are meant to blow California High Speed Rail out of the water

Honestly, I have no idea whether the Hyperloop will actually fulfill the rather lofty claims set out by Musk and other supporters of Vac-tube technologies. I shall withhold judgment in this case, even though it's likely that the $6 billion price tag doesn't quite capture the full costs associated with complex, prototypical technologies being implemented in novel situations in a highly politicized landscape with incredibly expensive land and extensive permitting process that require decades of work and research. I will still withhold judgment on this point.

What IS, however, a colossal waste of money and time, is the idea that the Hyperloop should be built from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Yes, I understand that the SF-LA corridor is one of the most travelled in the entire country (other than the Northeast Corridor); however, California High Speed Rail is already building in that corridor and has spent millions of dollars in planning, permitting, and design in that specific corridor. Building two competitive services in the same corridor would only be a waste of money. The Hyperloop should be built on a different route instead: maybe San Francisco-Sacramento-Lake Tahoe-Reno, or Seattle-Portland-San Francisco, which are both corridors with comparably high levels of traffic. This way, if both projects succeed, we end up with two separately useful systems, instead of two redundant systems.

And honestly, I think this concept of network-building may have gone over Mr. Musk's head. Transportation, out of all industries, works best with limited competition in a government-subsidized or cooperatively-managed and funded network. If every airline were required to build and maintain its own airports, very few airlines would have the financial resources to fly; and I would think that after a number of years, we would begin to see a monopoly of the airline industry, or some sort of private coalition of airlines that would regulate, maintain, and develop airports much like a public agency would. Likewise, if we required bus companies to build their own roads, we would probably not have any intercity bus services at all.

For simple economic reasons, duplicating capital-intensive infrastructure is a wasteful policy. Whether high-speed rail or a Hyperloop tube, laying down two sets of tracks connecting the same two destinations purely for reasons of creating competition (i.e. not because demand is so high that one track does not have enough capacity --) is wasteful beyond any point of economic rationality.

Mr. Musk (or whoever decides to build this technology, eventually...), please take note.

Paris's High Line

This is a picture of the real High Line in New York:

Courtesy of metropolismag.com

Actually, the famous landmark in New York that has been making urban designers and city folks around the world ooh and aah should more rightly be attributed to the Paris Promenade Plantée, which sits upon the Viaduc des Arts. And in fact, I would say that Paris's older version is better.

While that might seem like a crude, sweeping judgment, my case lies not in what lies in plain view, but rather in what lies underneath. Part of the re-imagining of the Paris Viaduc des Arts was to create a space underneath the park that could be used for commercial and community purposes.

Underneath the arches of the old train tracks, the spaces were transformed into ateliers and viable commercial spaces. This kind of innovation (reusing old structures for new purposes) is seen all throughout Paris and Europe: many an old factory or warehouse has been turned into a museum or an institute, and the old Haussman apartments from the 1800s are still in good use today, with interiors that are fully updated to modern standards. Instead of automatically tearing down old buildings, Europeans tend to also consider re-using what still works. Of course, Europeans also tend to build buildings for longer than 30 year life spans. (ehhhem.)

Sometimes the constraints which seem to impede actually let creativity flourish. In Europe and Asia, due to the lack of space, designers have come up with all sorts of ways to make the most of it. The key: efficiency and multifunctionality.

A view from the Promenade: the apartments on either side date back to the 1800s. Notice the little church squeezed in too!

Now let's go back to New York. What's underneath the High Line?

Courtesy Google

Concrete paving, fenced off areas, and dark corners. That's also a lot of wasted space. Now I know that the High Line actually goes over and through a number of different buildings, but there are still a lot of dull, underutilised areas underneath the structure. Put something there! Make it a part of the High Line experience! Put a commercial pedestrian street, or a lighted bike route, or make it a plaza for local markets (again an idea from Paris: will talk about it in the future), or make it a skate park, or put affordable housing! But just do something. You might say that the constraints are too difficult, that nothing will be cost-effective underneath; forget that thinking. Europeans (and Asians) have been dealing with much worse constraints and have come up with some of the most creative ideas for re-use that have been cost effective, socially equitable, and sustainable.

We've already got the 'high' of the High Line, with the pretty park and the views of the skyline, but now we need the 'line' of the High Line: the lines that connect the park with the community. No crimes have been reported yet on top of the viaducts, but what about underneath? The attention is being well paid to the surface of the high line, but underneath the structure tells a different story of neglect and inattention to a project's context within the community. The High Line misses out on what the Promenade Plantée does so well: The Promenade is not just a place of respite and a location in itself, but it also connects itself to street level and the life there.

That's why the Promenade Plantée is better.

First Post!

Welcome to my academic/professional blog on urbanism! My full name is Theodore Lim, but you can call me Theo. I grew up in the beautiful city of Vancouver, Canada (which will forever be my home), but for the past 2.5 years I’ve been studying Civil Engineering at Stanford University in California. At the current moment I am abroad in Paris, France, but I’ll be back on campus in April 2012.

I’ll start this off with an analysis of the interesting street life just in front of my building. Here's a view out my window: the facade across the building is the RER Line B stop Cité Universitare. In the middle of the street is the tramway (Line T3) stop of the same name. In spite of the fact that there is virtually no commercial life directly near the station, this place is always filled with people, most of whom are transferring from the N-S RER line to the E-W Tramway line.

Cité Universitaire is along the southern side of the city and is a quarter dedicated exclusively to student housing. Look for the RER line B (thick vertical blue line); trace it from the bottom of the map till it intersects with the thin orange line in the bottom quarter of the map.  The Cité consists of over 30 maisons representing different parts of France and different countries around the world. However, there is basically no commercial activity in the area, except for the cafeteria, bakery, and theatre in the Cité Internationale main building, located about 100 m south of the Tramway stop. North of the stop is Parc Montsouris, a large park which is popular with joggers and families which has a gentle slope upward toward the station.
Most of the pedestrians who use Cité Universitaire transfer to the Tramway from the RER or Vice Versa. The RER itself is actually much faster than the Métro, as it has fewer stops and runs with higher speed trains. Such is the case that people will take the tramway from Jean Moulin or Porte De Choisy to Cité Universitaire to take the RER because it’s that much of a time saver.
Because of the high numbers of rushed pedestrians, it’s interesting to see what the planners have done with the intersection.

Point 1: Placement of traffic lights
Now this is actually something seen all over Paris. The traffic lights here are not strung up high over the traffic; no, all the traffic lights sit about 3 m (10 ft) above the ground directly on lampposts. There’s also a mini traffic light lower down on the post, which specifically caters to the first motorist in the lineup (who can’t see the traffic light above) as well as to any bicyclists. This entire traffic light setup is meant to keep motorists looking down at the road ahead, where people are likely crossing.
Point 2: Distribution of Traffic Lights
Notice that there are not just one set of traffic lights in front, but actually two more sets down the road. About every 30 seconds, or whenever a tram arrives, all the lights turn red at once. Any cars stuck in the ‘middle’ of the intersection are forced to stop instead of carrying on their way. In this way, traffic on the entire street stops, allowing pedestrians to cross. It doesn’t matter if there are cars in the way because pedestrians can easily thread their way through the breaks. What’s important is that all traffic has stopped, and then the entire length of street from the first traffic light to past the last traffic light essentially becomes one long pedestrian crosswalk.
Point 3: Textured Driving Surface
Not only at the crosswalk, but also about 20 m before and 20 m after, there is a cobblestone texture on the road instead of asphalt. Essentially this indicates that ‘there might be pedestrians crossing here anyway’ and, in a sense, appropriates the right-of-way to the pedestrian. There’s something subconscious and powerful about the rumble of driving over cobblestone streets that tells drivers to slow down and cede pedestrians the right of way.

Point 4: The Grassy Median
Pedestrians (such as myself) will often cross using the grassy median. This is generally not a problem or a hazard to the trams, since they tend to run at slower speeds and can stop about as fast as a car can. (Still, you need to be extra careful when crossing any set of train tracks!) Instead of fencing off the tracks, filling in the tracks with grass is not only pretty, but allows the pedestrian more freedom to cross the street at will and breaks down the barrier usually created by train tracks.
Point 5: Bicycle Signalling
The bicycle lane merges with the road near the station as the rights of way are not wide enough and a bicycle lane cutting through the pedestrian crosswalk could be dangerous. So instead, the bicyclist is asked to merge with traffic, taking advantage of the frequent red light cycle to give the cyclists priority to merge without being afraid of getting sideswiped. See in the first picture that the bicycle light (middle right) is red while the auto light is green; when the auto light is red, then the bike light turns green so that cyclists can merge into the road without problems. The cyclists are asked to stop with the auto traffic to give pedestrians the right of way; although cyclists often just continue through without stopping, the merge with auto traffic causes them to slow down and be more careful when crossing through the pedestrian crosswalk.
Point 6: It’s intuitive
The best part is that the entire intersection is intuitive. Each person or user of transport is given only one thing to watch for, or one area to watch at a time. The drivers watch the lights, which are positioned low down to make pedestrians visible. The pedestrians watch for cars at the road, then after the island, they are warned by large tram crossing lights if a tram is coming (or one could just look down the tracks - there are no obstructions). Bicyclists don’t have to worry about getting clipped, so they can themselves prevent collisions with pedestrians.
And… that’s about all I’ve got to say about design. The intersection works - well, I might add.