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Re: Road-Rail Grade Separations
Author: BOB2
Date: 03-04-2015 - 01:15
SCAG, SanDAG, and SBCAG have a complete list of grade crossings, I believe that SANDAG's may even be accessible on-line.
No, not all crossing require full separation, but a goal of 90% of traffic separated for major passenger and freight routes is not an unreasonable goal over 20 years. And, all remaining crossings must be fully protected with state of the art technologies, including things like full quad gates, islands, integrated with traffic control systems, and with intrusion detection.
We are building dozens of grade separations as you blog. ACE is an example of that effort, aggressively building grade separations on UP lines in the San Gabriel Valley (Nogales, Baldwin, San Gabriel Blvd, and a dozen of so more....). OCTA has just finished Sand Canyon and has a half a dozen more LOSSAN and BNSF Orangethorpe corridor projects in various phases of funding, design and construction.
ISANDAG is planning and constructing about another dozen major grade separations.
The Inland Empire and VCTC are the laggards, with MRA fair to middling, with many holes and gaps in the planning, prioritization, and implementation of grade separations LA County, with the exception of ACE.
Maybe because I first worked on the Alameda Corridor in the 80's (when it was a "pipe-dream"), I have too much of a can do attitude, since I've actually seen it done, and paid for, yielding huge benefits to motorists, and creating the capacity necessary for our ports, creating those stupid "jobs" and increasing those evil "profits" to business.
We should be grade separating and double tracking the entire LOSSAN corridor, if we are really serious about high speed rail, since this is where there is already the most demand, and where such an investment can easily result in a 110 mph max speed, and an under 2 hour running time LAX to SD is easily achievable.
Cost vary, going up and over with the street is generally cheaper than going under the train, but circumstances vary. Arcadia just paid about 10 million for the Santa Anita Gold Line grade separation, and I was involved in the efforts that added the thin deck structure where Holly Street crosses the Gold Line in Pasadena for about 3 million in additional costs (the trench was there, but they had intended to cut off Holly Street).
Our parents actually paid for and built the freeway system most of us used to today.... And, today most of it is decaying. It won't be my problem in another 20 years or so..... But, unless we really hate our grandchildren, it would be nice to see this country get off its lazy, greedy, cheap, short sighted, fat ass, and maybe fix a few of these things. And yes, just imagine spending part of the trillion or so, in my tax dollars, that we pissed away on the fiasco in Iraq, here....on America, for Americans? What a fricking concept?
No, not all crossing require full separation, but a goal of 90% of traffic separated for major passenger and freight routes is not an unreasonable goal over 20 years. And, all remaining crossings must be fully protected with state of the art technologies, including things like full quad gates, islands, integrated with traffic control systems, and with intrusion detection.
We are building dozens of grade separations as you blog. ACE is an example of that effort, aggressively building grade separations on UP lines in the San Gabriel Valley (Nogales, Baldwin, San Gabriel Blvd, and a dozen of so more....). OCTA has just finished Sand Canyon and has a half a dozen more LOSSAN and BNSF Orangethorpe corridor projects in various phases of funding, design and construction.
ISANDAG is planning and constructing about another dozen major grade separations.
The Inland Empire and VCTC are the laggards, with MRA fair to middling, with many holes and gaps in the planning, prioritization, and implementation of grade separations LA County, with the exception of ACE.
Maybe because I first worked on the Alameda Corridor in the 80's (when it was a "pipe-dream"), I have too much of a can do attitude, since I've actually seen it done, and paid for, yielding huge benefits to motorists, and creating the capacity necessary for our ports, creating those stupid "jobs" and increasing those evil "profits" to business.
We should be grade separating and double tracking the entire LOSSAN corridor, if we are really serious about high speed rail, since this is where there is already the most demand, and where such an investment can easily result in a 110 mph max speed, and an under 2 hour running time LAX to SD is easily achievable.
Cost vary, going up and over with the street is generally cheaper than going under the train, but circumstances vary. Arcadia just paid about 10 million for the Santa Anita Gold Line grade separation, and I was involved in the efforts that added the thin deck structure where Holly Street crosses the Gold Line in Pasadena for about 3 million in additional costs (the trench was there, but they had intended to cut off Holly Street).
Our parents actually paid for and built the freeway system most of us used to today.... And, today most of it is decaying. It won't be my problem in another 20 years or so..... But, unless we really hate our grandchildren, it would be nice to see this country get off its lazy, greedy, cheap, short sighted, fat ass, and maybe fix a few of these things. And yes, just imagine spending part of the trillion or so, in my tax dollars, that we pissed away on the fiasco in Iraq, here....on America, for Americans? What a fricking concept?
