You want to draw a high-speed train line into SF proper? You'd be looking at clearing tens of miles of housing or digging a comparable amount of tunnel, which would be either politically difficult or $EXPENSIVE.

What's your plan?

They are building the HSR into SF proper, and they're doing the obvious thing: using the existing Caltrain alignment from Millbrae into the city, terminating at the Transbay Transit Center (already under construction and build with this in mind).

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/67/California_to...

Which is also the sensible thing--leaving aside other pro/con HSR arguments in general. It also doesn't seem to be what the article is arguing for.

That said, you start having lots of connections and the value of transit systems goes down. I was just looking last night and I'm told that the time to get from SFO to the Santa Clara Convention Center/Great America/Stadium is still about 2 hours which, while theoretically doable, isn't something I'm going to do.

Well, ignoring the fact that it's being done, my plan would be to serve the bulk of the population (that would be not in Millbrae), for two reasons in particular: 1 - they're going to pay for it, 2 - political support of the aforementioned populace.

Millbrae resident here.

Millbrae is the largest 'intermodal' station west of the Mississippi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millbrae_Intermodal_Terminal). It is the closest station to the largest airport in the Bay Area (SFO). If you're flying into SFO and want to connect to the high-speed rail, Millbrae is the _most_ accessible station, and one of the few (only?) stations in the region which allows you connect to most of the Bay Area.

'Poor parking near the bart station' - BART says there are 2900 spaces available. I don't know what would be expected, but I wouldn't describe that as 'poor parking'.

Also, perhaps less relevant, Millbrae is the last stop on the existing rail corridor still allowing relatively flat (and straight) tracks. North of that, tunneling or large bends around hills may be required.

Parking: 5+ month waiting list. That indicates there obviously is more demand than availability right now, even without any proposed service additions (data: my experience waiting for a parking pass late 2014/early 2015). But please do lecture me on the abundant parking.

It is not the closest station to sfo; that's San Bruno, or at least that's how the trains go the majority of the day.

Milbrae is a nexus point for various transportation options in the bay area. BART, Caltrain Bullet, SFO Airport & the 101 highway all meet there. It's also close to the san mateo bridge.

I would suggest putting the high speed train station in the same station that BART & Caltrain share. If I lived in SF and wanted to go to LA, I would just hop onto a BART for 20m and then catch the high speed train. I would also expand the BART parking tower to several more floors if possible.

every system switch introduces friction and is pretty well known afaik in the transport literature to reduce usage.

Bart is already oversubscribed for many times of the day and shitty. Further, it's more like 35 minutes (San Bruno to Montgomery is 27 minutes; I know that bec it's my commute.) Bart also is hostile to people with luggage for much of the day, and with high-speed long distance transport you need to assume people will be bringing more than a backpack. Hostility: lack of space on the train, lack of good elevators, lack of clear directions to navigate the stations. Bart also lacks clear signage or directions, particularly for people from out of town or who don't speak or read english. And finally, bart is just flaky and shit. There are weekly 10-20 minute system delays, monthly 30+ minute delays, and quarterly system shutdown for hours. All of which is annoying for commuters, but a deal-breaker when attempting to connect to long distance transport which presumably is relatively infrequent and hence requires you to be on time.

There are successful examples of both models when building out high-speed rail. The Japanese system often puts the new stations on the outskirts of cities and lets people do the last-mile transfer via the local metro system. Many cities have both a station with the city's name, which is in the urban center and serves the old line, and a station named Shin-Cityname ("New-Cityname"), which is on the urban periphery and serves the Shinkansen line. In other cities they do roll all the way to the old station (e.g. Tokyo Station), but switching onto low-speed track for the final connection.

Europe mainly decided to route trains through city centers, sometimes by also taking the strategy of using older, low-speed track for the urban portion of the trip, and accelerating to high-speed once the train switches onto the new tracks. However even there sometimes the outskirts option was taken when geography makes it more convenient; examples include Gare de Saint-Pierre-des-Corps (outside Tours, France) and Köln Messe/Deutz station (outside Cologne, Germany).

I think the purpose of both the Millbrae and Burbank stops is to connect to airports.

And Burbank will eventually be connected to L.A.'s Metro system. Probably by dedicated busway, an extension of the existing Orange Line. Possibly by subway, a Red Line extension. Maybe.

It's already sorta-kinda connected to Union Station by MetroLink (regional commuter rail).

However, it is across the street from a major international airport.