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What are the benefits of high-speed trains?

Benefits of the California High-Speed Train System:

Carrying up to 117 million passengers annually by 2030, with the capacity to also carry high-value, lightweight freight.
Meeting the need for a safe and reliable mode of travel that would link the major metropolitan areas of the state and deliver predictable, consistent travel times sustainable over time.
Will not require an operating subsidy.
Serving tourist and leisure travel, business travel and long-distance commuters over a variety of long, intermediate and relatively short-distance trips (such as Los Angeles to Anaheim, Palmdale, Riverside, San Diego, Fresno, Sacramento and the Bay Area).
Sharing rail alignments throughout much of the system will improve joint facilities benefiting safety and operations of existing freight, commuter and conventional passenger rail services.
Providing quick, competitive travel times between California’s major intercity markets.
Providing door-to-door travel times for longer distance intercity markets that would be comparable to air transportation, and less than one-half as long as automobile travel times.
Providing considerably quicker travel times for intermediate intercity trips than either air or automobile transportation, and bringing frequent high-speed train service to many parts of the state that are not well served by air transportation.
Providing lower passenger costs than for travel by automobile or air for the same intercity markets.
Providing a new intercity, interregional and regional passenger mode—the high-speed train— which would improve mobility, connectivity and accessibility to other existing transit modes and airports compared to the other alternatives.
Improving the travel options available in the Central Valley and other areas of the state with limited bus, rail and air service for intercity trips.
Providing transportation options in cases of extreme events, such as adverse weather or petroleum shortages.
Providing a predominantly separate transportation system that would be less susceptible to many factors influencing reliability such as capacity constraints, congestion and incidents that disrupt service.
Providing superior on-time reliability.
Providing a lower accident and fatality rate than automobile travel. Will avoid over 10,000 auto accidents yearly with their attendant deaths, injuries and property damage when compared to exclusive reliance on highways.
Offering greater opportunities to expand service and capacity with minimal expansion of infrastructure.
Adding capacity to the state’s transportation infrastructure and reducing traffic on certain intercity highways and around airports to the extent that intercity trips are diverted to the high-speed train system.
Eliminating traffic delays at existing at-grade crossings where the high-speed train system would provide grade separation.
Using train technology proven to be the safest, most reliable form of transportation known through extensive regular revenue service in Europe and Asia.
Expanding airports and highways to meet the intercity travel demands of 2020 would cost two-to-three times more than building the high-speed train system.
California’s highways and airports are highly congested and conditions are projected to further deteriorate from projected growth – even if we widen highways and expand airports.

Benefits to the Environment:

High-speed trains will have less impact on the natural and built environment than expanding airports and highways: less potential impact on wetlands and water resources, biology and farmlands; less noise impact and even reductions in areas where the high-speed trains project grade-separates existing roads over adjacent rail lines.
Projected to save 12.7 million barrels of oil per year by 2030, even with future improvements in auto fuel efficiency. Comparing the energy required to carry a passenger one kilometer, the high-speed trains needs only one-third that of an airplane and one-fifth of an automobile trip.
Avoiding and/or minimizing the potential impacts to cultural, park, recreational and wildlife refuges to the greatest extent possible.
Decreasing air pollutants statewide and in all air basins analyzed by reducing pollution generated by automobile internal combustion engines.
Electrically-powered high-speed trains reduce pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on fossil fuels. The total predicted emissions savings of the California high-speed train system is up to 12 billion pounds of CO2 per year by 2030 and would grow with higher ridership.
Maximizing use of existing transportation corridors and railroad rights-of-way in order to minimize the impacts on California’s treasured landscape.

Land Use Planning Benefits:

All high-speed train stations will be multi-modal transportation hubs that will stimulate denser infill development and will be linked directly to local and regional transit systems, airports, and highways.
In contrast to highway improvements that encourage sprawl, high-speed trains are consistent with the State’s adopted smart growth principles and are highly compatible with local and regional plans that support rail systems and transit-oriented development.
Increasing public benefits beyond the benefits of access to the high-speed train system itself, including relief from traffic congestion, improved air quality, promotion of infill development and preservation of natural resources, increased stock of affordable housing, promotion of job opportunities, reduction in energy consumption, and improved cost-effectiveness of public infrastructure.
Being a catalyst for wider adoption of smart growth principles in communities near high-speed train stations.

Economic and Social Benefits:

Creating more economic growth for California – over 450,000 more permanent jobs expected by 2035.
Benefit-cost analysis has shown that direct benefits would be more than twice the costs of the high-speed train system.
Economic growth would come from construction and operation of the system, travel time reductions, travel quality advantages, reduced delays to air and auto travelers, reduced air pollution, reduced accidents and fatalities, and location advantages related to proximity to the high-speed train system.
Reducing airport delays (by diverting some airline passengers to high-speed trains), thereby reducing aircraft operating costs.
Generating 160,000 construction-related jobs to plan, design and build the system.
Improving travel options available in the Central Valley and other areas of the state with limited bus, rail and air service.
Providing lower passenger costs than travel by automobile or air transportation.
Enhancing and strengthening urban centers. In combination with appropriate local land use policies, the increased accessibility afforded by the high-speed train service could encourage more intensive and efficient development and may lead to higher property values around stations.

Footnotes:
1. For more information, see “California Environmental Quality Act Findings of Fact and Statement of Overriding Considerations” (pages 70-78) and the “Staff Report for the Final Program EIR/EIS” posted under the “Final EIR/EIS”. Also see the Authority’s Implementation Plan, “A Blueprint for Building California’s High-Speed Train” and “Draft Bay Area to Central Valley HST Program EIR/EIS” (July 2007).

2. As expressed in the Wiggins Bill (AB 857, 2002), and in Government Code Section 65041.1