Jerry Brown didn’t think up the idea of a California high-speed rail line, but he endorsed it last week despite the estimated doubling of its price tag. Brown has recommended that the legislature release funds so construction can begin in 2012.
“Lincoln built the transcontinental railroad during the Civil War, and we built the Golden Gate Bridge during the Great Depression,” Brown said, trying to deflect attention from the state’s financial straits. Bad examples. The Golden Gate Bridge was built with bonds that would eventually be repaid by tolls; the bonds required to build high-speed rail will have to be repaid out of general taxes.
Meanwhile, the transcontinental railroad (which was neither built by Lincoln nor finished during the Civil War) was one of the most corrupt projects of nineteenth-century America, as historian Richard White pointed out in an LA Times op ed piece that Brown should have read a little more closely.
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Let’s do the arithmetic again. The state has approved $9 billion in bond sales–provided there is an outside match. The feds have granted a little more than $3 billion, so the total available is a little more than $6 billion. That’s enough, the Authority homes, to build 140 miles of track in the Central Valley–but not enough to provide “electrification, trains or other necessary parts of an operating system,” says the Times. Meanwhile, the entire SF-LA line is expected to cost nearly $100 billion.
In an otherwise excellent editorial opposing the rail line, the Wall Street Journal points out that the federal government has made construction in the relatively thinly populated Central Valley a condition of the grant. “The Obama Administration’s logic seems to be that if it forces the state to build a train to nowhere, the state will then dig deeper into taxpayer pockets to connect it to somewhere.” The Journal apparently didn’t know that the administration targeted the funds in that area because two Democratic congressmen from the Valley were fighting close reelection campaigns in 2010.
The boosters who promote rail “think we are suckers,” says White. “It’s time Governor Brown put away childish things,” says the Wall Street Journal. Let’s hope the legislature is a bit smarter than Brown or state taxpayers will be on the hook for more than $3 billion for a train to nowhere.
The Antiplanner wrote:
In an otherwise excellent editorial opposing the rail line, the Wall Street Journal points out that the federal government has made construction in the relatively thinly populated Central Valley a condition of the grant. “The Obama Administration’s logic seems to be that if it forces the state to build a train to nowhere, the state will then dig deeper into taxpayer pockets to connect it to somewhere.â€
Not just the Wall Street Journal.
The Washington Post had a superb anti-California High-Speed Rail editorial in its Monday (2011-11-14) editions:
California’s high-speed rail system is going nowhere fast
Said the Post (emphasis added):
As questionable as this project is, we would have less business objecting if the only money at risk was California’s. But the Obama and Brown administrations are talking about devoting the nation’s funds to what looks more and more like a boondoggle. If the president and governor won’t slam on the brakes, then Congress or the California legislature must find a way to prevent the spending. Somebody, please, stop this train.
The criticism is not limited to the Washington Post of the Wall Street Journal. The OC Register recently published the two following articles:
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/train-326262-billion-high.html
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/11/12/rail-critic-high-speed-agency-moving-too-fast/130913/
In case there is any confusion in my position, nothing I post in this thread takes a pro or con position on the concept that HSR and intercity rail is a bad concept in general. The topic at hand is the foxtrot-uniform behavior of CHSRA, which rational rail proponents should object to since these bozos are hurting their cause. Pro- and anti- rail people need to find common cause and kill the CHSRA once and for all. Then they can start bickering on how many HSR trains can dance on the head of a pin.
We’re all aware of the technical success on the Shinkansen, ICE and the TGV, and, because I’m not a Japanese or a French taxpayer, the economics are irrelevant to this discussion. There’s no reason to argue that here, let the Japanese and Europeans conduct these debates.
For once, I must strongly second Hugh’s point. As presently constituted CA HSR needs to be killed since it is going nowhere fast. Unfortunately “liberal” (sic) political hacks like Robert Cruickshank of http://www.cahsrblog.com/ keeps eating up any and all the B.S. he’s spoonfed.
Not as presently constituted. It just needs to go away, period. The days of lusting for grand rail projects are over. There is no market for the product, especially if ticket prices reflected the cost of construction and operation. Any claims to the contrary are, at best, hopelessly optimistic speculations.
Practically every year now, we hear about the increase in single occupancy vehicle commuting and the decrease in transit use. Despite billions wasted on fancy transit boondoggles, transit continues to disappoint.
We need to learn how to walk again, before trying to run.
Even just extending Coastliner services from LA to SF would help a lot.
Hugh Jardonn said: intercity rail is a bad concept in general.
THWM: WTF? You might as well have said that roads between cities was a bad concept in general or boats crossing the Pacific Ocean was a bad concept in general.
I don’t care if you agree or disagree with me but please quote me correctly. I said “In case there is any confusion in my position, nothing I post in this thread takes a pro or con position on the concept that HSR and intercity rail is a bad concept in general.”
I confine my comments on California high speed rail, which is so unbelievably bad that honest rail supporters like Richard Tolmach:
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/05/4031645/dismantle-high-speed-rail-authority.html#ixzz1d3xlthgu
(hit send too soon)
see that CHSRA is setting back the cause.