Benefits Of California High Speed Rail

Partly because of the most congested urban areas Californian has one of the worst air qualities. Accorind to California High Speed Rail Authority website in 2010 alone green house gas emissions in the U.S. totaled 6,821.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). Central Valley residents in particular have seen increase in aspiratory ailments. The State Legislature passed Global Worming Solutions Act in 2006, which is aimed to reduce statewide emissions by 2020 to 1990 level (17 %).
High-Speed Rail One of the key parts of the strategy is the reduction of cars on roads by replacing it with high speed railway systems. One of the proposed alternative modes of transportation is among the largest high speed railway systems. The goal of High-Speed
Rail (HSR) system is to connect Los Angeles San Francisco, Sacramento, Inland Empire, Orange County and San Diego (Catherine et al., 2011).

and expected to cost about $68 billion. So far the project has not reached the half of this funds, which are likely to increase just like for any grand construction project.
With a speed reaching over 200 mph it will have 2 hours and 38 minutes time travel between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
In 2022 (due to the delays pushed to 2033), when the Initial Operating Section operation starts, it is expected to see between 100,000 to 300,000 metric tons of CO2 reductions. This is the same as taking 17,700 to 53,000 cars off the roads. By 2040 the estimated total reduction is about 10 million metric tons of CO2. The supporters of this project expect to see a reduction of up to 180 flights a day in air travel as well, eventually leading the state towards more sustainable economy and much less congestion on the ground and in the air (California High-Speed Rail Authority, 2012).

The high speed rail is significantly faster than traveling by car but still slower than traveling by plane. An average ticket will cost $80 to $90.
Assuming all estimates are correct, the costs of the California High Speed Rail make the project a greater financial burden than the Hyperloop.
Hyperloop

Elon Musk, the founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceX, proposes another alternative to this new infrastructure connecting the two valleys. The Hyperloop system that is considered the fifth mode of transportation system (if it comes to life, hopefully) has the same underlying motive as the HSR: to provide an alternative to driving and flying. But the most important question here is whether any of this two is actually better for the society than driving and flying. In his white paper Musk explains that Hyperloop is an electric-propultion pod train system suspended in a near vacuum reduced-pressure tubes. The passenger carrying capsules travel through the suspended tubes with a maximum of 760 mph. Each capsule is only wide enough for two passengers with a capacity of 28. Travelling with the average speed the distance between LA and SF will be covered in 35 minutes. The tubes will be suspended approximately 20 feet high on concrete pillars along the California 5 Interstate highway. With a total estimated cost of $6 billion the construction is estimated to begin in 2020. By avoiding building a new massive infrastructure Hyperloop project expects significant reduction in construction costs unlike the HSR system (Musk, 2013).
The suggested benefits of Hyperloop are many; higher speed than HSR and fewer invironmental impacts. Although both projects have had prodused great inthusiasm among the residents many experts are still full of skepticism mainly towards Hyperloop. This of course shoul not be surprising since the underlying technology has never been used before and some of the proposed engineering solutions are not even tested yet.
Cost and Benefit Analysis
A more detailed cost benefit analysis will try to closely exemine which one of these two projects will be most beneficial to the society.
A meta-analysis study conducted by researchers from USC used a 7% discount rate to conduct a cost benefit analysis comparing the two projects. This discount rate is suitable, because it accounts for the high risk and uncertainty that are associated with large-scale transportation endeavors. The costs and benefits were discounted over a 50-year period, which includes construction and projected lifespan for each project. It is also assumed that all costs and benefits will occur at the end of the year (Gasparian and Groves, 2015).
The costs include capital costs for the construction period, lifecycle costs, and operation and maintenance costs. All of the costs for the high-speed rail were obtained directly from the California High-Speed Rail 2012 Business Plan. The construction costs for the Hyperloop were taken from its Alpha proposal. (Oster, Kumada, & Zhang,
2011).
Some researchers suggest Increasing the Hyperloop costs by 45% because that is the average rate that this type of projects would normally go beyound their forecasted costs (Flyvbjerg, Holm, & Buhl, 2003). For the HSR this rate is not used since the current cost projections already account for a 60% increase from the original amounts (Vranich & Cox, 2013). The combined researches estimated total costs for the HSR to be $94,804,798,705 and $23,286,215,000 for Hyperloop.
The benefits of this type of projects are calculated by accounting for reductions in travel time, vehicle operating costs, reduction of oil umports, reduction in airline traffic. The most important benefits come from using cleaner energy and cutting green house gas emissions, which leads to improved sustainability and reduction in environmental damage.
The estimated ridership for a 50 year period for HSR is about 513 million and 375 million for Hyperloop. It is expected to see 71% of passengers diverted from of car travel, 27% from air travel and more than 2% new commuters (Brinckerhoff, 2012).