Swiss people use public transportation for 19 percent of all their trips. Mass transit accounts for just two percent of trips in the U.S., although that number is growing. So, can Swiss transportation solutions provide a model for the American West? The Sustainable Transportation Road Show, launched by the Consulates General of Switzerland in San Francisco and Los Angeles, brings this question and others to swissnex San Francisco during an in-depth discussion of rail transportation in the two regions.
Gregor Saladin, media spokesperson for the Swiss Federal Office of Transport, and Elizabeth Deakin, a professor of city and regional planning and urban design at UC Berkeley, discuss rail infrastructure -- its present and its future -- in both Switzerland and California. WIRED Magazine's Rachel Swaby, who recently co-authored an article on bullet train networks in the U.S., moderates.
Accompanying the discussion is the exhibit, "The Challenge of Sustainable Transportation for the 21st Century: Prospects for Switzerland and the US." The exhibit looks at the similarities and contrasts between Switzerland and the US with regard to rail travel and presents policies, incentives, infrastructure, land use planning, and timetables for transportation projects including the Gotthard Base Tunnel, set to provide a modern, low-gradient railway through the Alps to allow for shorter travel times and more freight capacity.
Partnering with the Swiss Federal Office of Transportation, swissnex San Francisco, the Exploratorium, the Institute for Transportation Studies at UC Davis, the University of Washington, and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Sustainable Transportation Road Show is a project of the U.S.-wide program ThinkSwiss-Brainstorm the Future. As a leading country in science, research, and technology, Switzerland is working with its American counterparts to address key global topics such as sustainability to better understand trends and arrive at solutions.
Bio
Elizabeth Deakin
Elizabeth Deakin is Professor of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley, where she is also an affiliated faculty member of the Energy and Resources Group and the Master of Urban Design group. She served for 10 years as director of the UC Transportation Research Center, the UTC for Federal Region 9, and for four years as co-director of UC Berkeley's Global Metropolitan Studies Initiative, which involves nearly 70 faculty members from 12 departments.
Deakin's research focuses on transportation planning, urban development policy, environmental impacts, and political and institutional factors in policy implementation. She has published over 200 articles, book chapters, and reports on these topics. She served for nine years on the City of Berkeley Transportation Commission and was one of the founding members of the Alameda County Transportation Tax Authority. She also served for four years as the Legislature's representative on the California Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance Committee.
Gregor Saladin
Gregor Saladin is the media spokesperson of the Swiss Federal Office of Transport (BAV/FOT) and Assistant Department Head of Information and IT. He holds a degree in philosophy and literature from the University of Basel. Since 1983, he has held various positions at Swiss press agencies and worked as an editor and journalist for several Swiss media companies, specializing in public transportation. He founded a railways news service.
Saladin joined the FOT in 2002 where he organised communication of the New Rail Links through the Alps (NRLA). He recently served as project manager for the Gotthard base tunnel's breakthough event. He has contributed to several publications including More trains for Switzerland and The Lötschberg base tunnel. His knowledge of public transportation systems is not only theoretical but also practical: he uses public transportation all over the world.
Rachel Swaby
Rachel Swaby is an assistant research editor at WIRED. She has been with Wired for the last three and a half years and has written articles on a wide range of topics, including transportation. Her most recent feature discussed the future of high speed rail in the United States.
Electric railway that runs on a single rail either above or under the railway cars. The first systems were introduced in the early 20th century; the earliest probably opened in 1901 in Wuppertal, Germany. Short-run monorails have since been built in such cities as Tokyo and Seattle. Because of higher costs and slower speeds than conventional rail systems, the monorail has not gained wide support. High-speed monorail vehicles that use magnetic levitation have been undergoing research for many years.
Population density in Switzerland: 487/square mile
Population density in the US: 83/square mile
That's a factor of almost six.
Worse, still:
Area of Switzerland: 15,940 square miles
Area of California: 163,696 square miles
You got a factor of ten there and no realistic scenario for coverage is possible. The only non-local connections are between two, maybe three urban areas in California. The two major ones, the Bay Area and L.A. are so far from each other, that flying is superior to all but the fastest imaginable rail system. The cost per passenger for rail, because of the limited ridership, is close to prohibitive.
The question of subsidies is really secondary, if there is no measurable benefit. There are probably 200 daily flights from the Bay Area to LA. Multiply with maybe 150 people per flight, so that's a total of 30,000 daily air travelers. Multiply with two for the return flight. So that's 60,000*200lbs/passenger=12 million lbs = 6000 metric tons of CO2 emissions daily. If we reduce that with the train to zero, the total savings in CO2 emissions are something like 6000tons*365days/year = 2.2 million tons per year. That compares with 400 million tons of CO2 emissions for CA in total... a simple change in fuel efficiency standards could easily do ten times more for CA CO2 emissions than a high speed train between the two metropolitan centers.
I am all for trains, by the way... where they make sense. I can't see the sense in this one.
member. 
