Would You Take a Bullet Train from Anaheim to Las Vegas?... Brightline West

[DarkMetroid567]

My 47mpg hybrid can do a round trip from Vegas to Anahiem for $40-45 total. That's significantly less than a round trip on the train.......and on top of that it dumps me off 30 miles from the front gates as the crow flies, so I would have to spend even more money and time getting from Rancho Cucamonga to my hotel in Anaheim. At least if I drive I have a vehicle at my disposal while I'm there for a few days.

Another consideration for trains, if traveling solo, is the surplus free time. I had to make it from the Bay Area to the Central Valley this week and ended up choosing Amtrak over renting a car. I’m a lawyer and dedicating 5 hours to driving is really hard to squeeze during the work week. Was a cinch on the train!

The Bay Area has BART, Caltrain, Lightrail, and buses, and are the highways less congested because of them? Nope. It still took 30-40 minutes to go 7 miles down 237 in the morning.......unless you want to pay like $75/month for Fastrack.

The Bay Bridge gets really bad if BART goes down, though. I shudder to imagine how bad traffic would get if we lost all that transit.

I suspect when the CSHR finally opens its first phase it’s going to have the same problem, very few people are going to use a HSR that’s limited to the central valley, without a connection to LA and SF it’s never going to make sense.

The Central Valley is so interesting in that I do think it’s the one place in America where the ridership is still going to be great even if HSR is half-built. The Amtrak San Joaquins route is crazy busy everytime I’ve ever ridden it, and it’s my impression that service from Merced to Bakersfield will be replaced by CAHSR once HSR opens.

And San Joaquins is a very mediocre service. I think CAHSR will attract a lot of ridership once people see the time savings.

 

[Disney Irish]

Another consideration for trains, if traveling solo, is the surplus free time. I had to make it from the Bay Area to the Central Valley this week and ended up choosing Amtrak over renting a car. I’m a lawyer and dedicating 5 hours to driving is really hard to squeeze during the work week. Was a cinch on the train!

The Bay Bridge gets really bad if BART goes down, though. I shudder to imagine how bad traffic would get if we lost all that transit.

The Central Valley is so interesting in that I do think it’s the one place in America where the ridership is still going to be great even if HSR is half-built. The Amtrak San Joaquins route is crazy busy everytime I’ve ever ridden it, and it’s my impression that service from Merced to Bakersfield will be replaced by CAHSR once HSR opens.

And San Joaquins is a very mediocre service. I think CAHSR will attract a lot of ridership once people see the time savings.

Not to mention that now with SB79 new housing developments will popup in the areas that are serviced by CAHSR and other forms of transit.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

The Central Valley is so interesting in that I do think it’s the one place in America where the ridership is still going to be great even if HSR is half-built. The Amtrak San Joaquins route is crazy busy everytime I’ve ever ridden it, and it’s my impression that service from Merced to Bakersfield will be replaced by CAHSR once HSR opens.

And San Joaquins is a very mediocre service. I think CAHSR will attract a lot of ridership once people see the time savings.

I hope so for HSRs future, I’m still worried about the cost though, the last estimate I saw for CHSR was prices starting at $86, I just did a quick random date check on Amtrak and their tickets from Bakersfield to Merced look to start between $20-30, that’s a substantial difference.

I freely admit I have next to no knowledge of the central valley though, I think the last time I drove through it was in the late 90s so I picture mostly farmland, which doesn’t typically have high wages, $86 seems like a major obstacle for farm wages, if it’s transitioned into Silicon Valley wages it won’t be the impediment I picture in my head though.

 

[Professortango1]

I swear our phones eavesdrop

That’s why my earlier comment said for $50 I’d take Brightline, at the proposed $100+ I’ll keep driving, I don’t mind paying a little more to save some time and for the added convenience, but 2x3 times the cost isn’t “a little more”, and that’s as a single individual, for a family of 4 the train tickets likely need to be $25 to convince them not to simply drive, the financials have to make sense or it’s doomed to fail.

I mean, I pay around $150-$225 to fly to Vegas. I'd rather take a HSR and not have the hassle of an air flight.

The HSR isn't here for the folks packing into a car and paying in change to get to and from Vegas. The HSR is for folks, like myself, who hate that drive and will pay $100-$250 to avoid sitting in that traffic. HSR rail beats air travel for such distances. Air travel beats car for such distances. But car will always be the most affordable, with bus being the cheapest from of road travel.

 

[Disney Irish]

I hope so for HSRs future, I’m still worried about the cost though, the last estimate I saw for CHSR was prices starting at $86, I just did a quick random date check on Amtrak and their tickets from Bakersfield to Merced look to start between $20-30, that’s a substantial difference.

I freely admit I have next to no knowledge of the central valley though, I think the last time I drove through it was in the late 90s so I picture mostly farmland, which doesn’t typically have high wages, $86 seems like a major obstacle for farm wages, if it’s transitioned into Silicon Valley wages it won’t be the impediment I picture in my head though.

Depending on where the Central Valley is made up of communities that grew starting in the 90s as Bay Area prices skyrocketed. So you do have a lot of people with Silicon Valley wages living in the area. And as HSR access comes I expect more to pop up over time.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I mean, I pay around $150-$225 to fly to Vegas. I'd rather take a HSR and not have the hassle of an air flight.

The HSR isn't here for the folks packing into a car and paying in change to get to and from Vegas. The HSR is for folks, like myself, who hate that drive and will pay $100-$250 to avoid sitting in that traffic. HSR rail beats air travel for such distances. Air travel beats car for such distances. But car will always be the most affordable, with bus being the cheapest from of road travel.

True, but according to the LV visitor statistics report 1.8 million passengers flew into LV from the LA Metro area last year, even if Brightline could somehow convince 100% of those guests to switch to rail it’s not enough, Brightlines own forecasts are 9 million trips a year, 4.5 million each way, for those forecasts to become reality they need to convince 2.7 million people a year to get out of their cars and into a rail seat.

 

[Disney Irish]

True, but according to the LV visitor statistics report 1.8 million passengers flew into LV from the LA Metro area last year, even if Brightline could somehow convince 100% of those guests to switch to rail it’s not enough, Brightlines own forecasts are 9 million trips a year, 4.5 million each way, for those forecasts to become reality they need to convince 2.7 million people a year to get out of their cars and into a rail seat.

I think the idea is to try to convince the normal crowd who drove, which could be significantly more. I think one statistic I saw said that upwards of 30% of all LV visitors were from the LA area, or about 12M visitors. And they aren't all flying if its only 1.8M passengers according to your statistic, so its to pick up a portion of those other 10.2M that would normally drive I-15.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I think the idea is to try to convince the normal crowd who drove, which could be significantly more. I think one statistic I saw said that upwards of 30% of all LV visitors were from the LA area, or about 12M visitors. And they aren't all flying if its only 1.8M passengers according to your statistic, so it’s to pick up a portion of those other 10.2M that would normally drive I-15.

Agreed, but the person I was replying to said those who drive weren’t the target demographic, I was just pointing out they are, without them the numbers don’t add up.

 

[Disney Irish]

Agreed, but the person I was replying to said those who drive weren’t the target demographic, I was just pointing out they are, without them the numbers don’t add up.

Not really the way I read it. The way I read it is that for them Brightline LA/LV is not for the commuter who is scrounging for change like its a toll, ie they care about the cost. Its for the driver, plane traveler, or anyone who wants to avoid doing the actual drive but also wants to avoid dealing with the airport and would be willing to pay to do it.

 

[Professortango1]

Not really the way I read it. The way I read it is that for them Brightline LA/LV is not for the commuter who is scrounging for change like its a toll, ie they care about the cost. Its for the driver, plane traveler, or anyone who wants to avoid doing the actual drive but also wants to avoid dealing with the airport and would be willing to pay to do it.

Exactly, I drove for years not because it was cheaper, but because it was cheaper AND easier than taking a plane. Now that I travel more, I'm more used to the purgatory which is our badly managed air travel system and will choose it over the many drives being stuck in traffic that takes hours just to reach Primm and fuel that annoying question; "do we spend another $80 here and sleep for a few hours then jump back on the road the last 3 hours or do we sit in traffic for another 5?"

HSR would have convinced me awhile back. Also think about the folks who enjoy Vegas but don't have cars or cars that they trust to drive 4-6 hours through the desert each way. Or who don't want to take a car to Vegas to only deal with Casinos now charging guests to park. HSR checks so many boxes for so many folks. I would certainly travel to Vegas more to catch a show and return home the next morning. Especially if I didn't have to deal with TSA and the airport. Hence why I took a train from Buffalo to NYC last week. Could have flown faster and could have taken a Greyhound cheaper and faster. But train travel is the most relaxed form of travel, so $80 and 8 hours later I arrived in the heart of NYC well rested and another book completed. While enjoying a good meal and seeing the sights roll by.

 

[truecoat]

On a cross-country trip, I left Vegas for my last stop in Anaheim. I had reservations for a Christmas boat parade and left in plenty of time...except for the traffic. A four-hour drive turned into 7.5 hours. It sucked so bad. I've been in traffic jams, but nothing like this one. There is a rest area about an hour outside of Vegas that holds around 30 vehicles. Cars were lined up for miles to get to this rest area, and it's what caused the traffic jam.

I plan on doing a trip from Vegas to Anaheim in the future but I'll be riding the Brightline train and not renting a car.

 

[Parteecia]

I know it's not always possible but I planned my Vegas travel days and times to be going opposite of traffic. That made the drive actually fun.

 

[Parteecia]

I know it's not always possible but I planned my Vegas travel days and times to be going opposite of traffic. That made the drive actually fun.

Adding that I flew a few times but that took much longer when including airport travel time plus TSA time, and was far more inconvenient and expensive than driving.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I know it's not always possible but I planned my Vegas travel days and times to be going opposite of traffic. That made the drive actually fun.

I wouldn’t say fun but timing is definitely everything with that drive, we usually did what you did and just went opposite the LA traffic to avoid the worst of it, there was a time when our work schedules restricted our DL visits to Wed to Fri though, even then we knew if we were on the road before 2 on Friday it would still be a 4 hour drive, anytime after that though and we risked the 15 being a parking lot. On several occasion we took naps in the Target parking lot in Rancho Cucamonga, that was a more productive use of time than sitting in an El Cajon traffic jam for a couple hours.

The biggest problem with Vegas to LA is there’s no good alternate route, if there’s an accident, or just heavy traffic, the 15 slows to a snails pace. That will probably be the best advertisement for Brightline, thousands of cars sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on the 15 with a train flying past at 100+ MPH, priceless advertising.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Adding that I flew a few times but that took much longer when including airport travel time plus TSA time, and was far more inconvenient and expensive than driving.

This is why we continue to drive also, once you factor in driving to the airport, parking, checking bags, going through security, etc, etc, then the flight, then waiting for bags, then getting an Uber, etc it takes just as long as driving… and you’re on someone else’s schedule and at risk of delays and cancellations… we find it easier to just get up and go when we want to.

That’s one thing we love about trains also, with trains leaving so frequently its not stressful like flying, if you miss your flight it’s a nightmare, if you miss the 9:15 train you just jump on the 9:30, not a big deal.

 

[Disney Irish]

That will probably be the best advertisement for Brightline, thousands of cars sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on the 15 with a train flying past at 100+ MPH, priceless advertising.

And why many will take it no matter the price, which is a benefit for all.

 

[chadwpalm]

Another consideration for trains, if traveling solo, is the surplus free time. I had to make it from the Bay Area to the Central Valley this week and ended up choosing Amtrak over renting a car. I’m a lawyer and dedicating 5 hours to driving is really hard to squeeze during the work week. Was a cinch on the train!

Well, my scenario was related more to me traveling from my apartment in Henderson, NV to my hotel in Anaheim, CA. Traveling by train for vacation and traveling by train to commute for work are two different things. I knew a lot of people that worked while riding the ACE train and found that extra time productive. I'm all for that, but my focus was on Disneyland and my trips there.

In my scenario I would need to get to the train station on Las Vegas Blvd. either by rideshare or paying to leave my car there in long-term parking (whichever is cheaper). Then take the train to be dumped in Rancho Cucamonga. Now what?

Perhaps they will have shuttles that take you down toward Ontario airport to rent a car.....or rideshare to that? Or I can stay on the rails and take the Metro to Union and transfer to the OC line down to ARTIC where I will still need a rideshare to my hotel? Or do I just do rideshare from Rancho Cucamonga to my hotel? All of the options are just more time and money. It's that last mile (or 30 miles) that kill me. If Brightline went all the way down to ARTIC I wouldn't hesitate to use it every trip. It's just the terminus in R.C. that deters me......not so much the money. I still flew from San Jose to Santa Ana from time to time even though it costed more than driving. I could watch a movie or nap on a train at least.

This is why I think Brightline will be more geared toward Angelinos visiting Vegas than the other way around. The Vegas station is only a few miles from the strip with many options to get to the strip (Boring tunnels eventually being one) and navigating Vegas without a car is much easier than navigating L.A. without a car.

I do think it will be fairly popular for the people in L.A. who already take weekend trips to Vegas which is where the majority of the I-15 traffic comes from anyway.

ETA: Just read that there is a proposed people mover between the Brightline station and Ontario Airport.

 

[chadwpalm]

Brightline to Victorville then across the High Desert Corridor to Palmdale then south to Anaheim on CHSR would be the ideal trip. Sadly, I don't expect that to be an option in my remaining lifetime

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I’ve talked with many of my friends in Vegas and I think we’ve all gone through each and every train scenario to areas around LA, unfortunately none make much sense for those of us who live in Vegas, which is too bad because it eliminates a lot of potential trips.

Several of us wonder if Brightline will partner up with direct bus services to major tourist destinations like Disney (which could also service Angels Stadium and the Honda Center), Uni (which could also service Dodgers Stadium and the Hollywood Bowl), etc. Being able to go to a game and not needing a hotel after would be a game changer, being able to go to Disney or Uni and not needing a hotel after would be a game changer, those are scenarios where the train becomes essentially free because a ticket allows you to avoid an extra night in an expensive hotel, all we need is Brightline to partner up with someone to make it easy.

 

[Professortango1]

Adding that I flew a few times but that took much longer when including airport travel time plus TSA time, and was far more inconvenient and expensive than driving.

Its a 45-minute trip from Ontario International Airport to Vegas. Add in taxi-ing and TSA and I'm looking at 90-120 minutes each way vs 4-8 hours each way. You save a minimum of 2 hours with the flight.