When We Don’t Build It, We Won’t Build It Here Instead of There

Once the envy of much of the rest of the United States, the California high-speed rail project is increasingly viewed as being run by a bunch of buffoons who can’t see the handwriting on the wall. Actually, a few of them may see it: last week the authority’s executive director and board chair both resigned. The former said he wanted to “spend more time with his family,” code for “I no longer want my name associated with these crackpots.”

The board chair remains on the board, and the board as a whole still can’t read the handwriting. Last week they decided that, when they fail to find the money to build the portion of the line from Bakersfield to Los Angeles, they won’t build it through Lancaster and Palmdale instead of not building it over the Grapevine, which had previously been given serious consideration. To even bother to make the decision shows they haven’t realized the project is hopeless.

California Republicans have introduced a bill in the state legislature to prevent any bond sales that would fund the initial construction out of Fresno. Surveys show a majority of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans in the state all oppose construction, as do people who consider themselves conservatives and moderates. Only self-described liberals still support the project.

To complicate matters, a Los Angeles County supervisor, Michael Antonovich, is promoting the idea of improving existing tracks to run trains at speeds of up to 110 mph. While economically feasible with available funds, the terms of the 2008 ballot measure approving the initial bond sale requires trains going from Los Angeles to San Francisco in no more than 2 hours and 40 minutes. Since existing tracks could not be used for such high-speed trains, any money spent on those existing tracks could arguably not come from funds approved by the 2008 measure.
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The latest news is that “doubts [are being] cast on cost estimates” for the alternative to high-speed rail, which is better highways and airports. The Antiplanner cast these doubts back in 2008 in a report showing that the alternative being considered by the authority was overly expensive because it increased highway capacities everywhere, even where there is no congestion. In addition, the highway-airport alternative did far more to reduce congestion than the high-speed rail line, suggesting that a highway-airport alternative that accomplished the same congestion reduction as the rail line would have cost much less.

What raises doubts now is the way the cost of the alternative has crept up. When the authority was insisting that the rail line could be built for $43 billion, its highway-airport alternative was estimated to cost $100 billion. When the rail cost jumped to $100 billion, the highway-airport cost mysteriously increased to $171 billion. “There is some dishonesty in the methodology,” says a UC Berkeley transportation engineer. “I don’t trust an estimate like this.”

All this shows is that advocates are increasingly desperate. While advocates hysterically talk about California’s population growing to 50 million people, the truth is that, by the time the state could ever finish a high-speed rail line, the technology will have been completely superseded by such things as driverless cars and improved air service.

As if to show that Californians are not the only ones living in never-never land, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MDOT) announced a plan last week to run a 110-mph high-speed train from Minneapolis to Chicago. Maybe MDOT hasn’t noticed, but there is this state between Minneapolis and Chicago named Wisconsin which has pretty firmly rejected the idea of spending moony on high-speed trains. But many state officials are happy to give federal dollars to consulting firms to study fantasies no matter how unrealistic they are.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

14 Responses to When We Don’t Build It, We Won’t Build It Here Instead of There

  1. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    The Antiplanner wrote:

    As if to show that Californians are not the only ones living in never-never land, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MDOT) announced a plan last week to run a 110-mph high-speed train from Minneapolis to Chicago. Maybe MDOT hasn’t noticed, but there is this state between Minneapolis and Chicago named Wisconsin which has pretty firmly rejected the idea of spending moony on high-speed trains. But many state officials are happy to give federal dollars to consulting firms to study fantasies no matter how unrealistic they are.

    They can build high-speed rail (whoops, 110-MPH sounds like medium speed rail to me) up to the borders with Wisconsin, and slow the trains down to 69 MPH while crossing cheesehead country.

    Though I’m not really sure what the point would be, since well over 50% of the journey is crossing Wisconsin.

    Google Maps says it’s just over 400 miles (650 km) using the most-direct highway routing (which bypasses Milwaukee) – I think I’ll just fly if I need to make that trip.

  2. thislandismyland says:

    There would be about 30-40 miles in Minnesota and about 50 miles in Illinois. That would leave just 350 miles in Wisconsin.

  3. jwetmore says:

    Not to be snarky, but the abreviation of Minnesota Department of Transportation is Mn/DOT (pronounced: min dot). Again, no joke about the min.

    About 15 years ago the Mn/DOT project manager for high speed rail observed that the capital costs for the Minneapolis to Chicago line exceeded the stock market value of Northwest Airlines – which flew between Minneapolois and Chicago with more frequency than HSR would, and flew many, many other routes in addition. It would have been more cost effective for the state to buy the airline if they wanted to create a government owned link between Minneapolis and Chicago. As I recall, the airline ticket prices were less than the projected cost of the HSR tickets.

  4. Nodrog says:

    Actually, the Minneapolis-Chicago line, by adding about 30 miles, could completely skirt Wisconsin by going through Iowa to northern Illinois, paralleling the old Milwaukee Road tracks to Dubuque, and the BNSF tracks then to Chicago.

    Which is too far in any case. The ideal trip for a fast train, where it can beat an airplane trip that requires going in and out of an airport terminal, is less than 300 miles. This disqualifies the California high speed train too.

  5. Nodrog says:

    What, pray tell, are these “improvements in air transportation” that will allow quicker short hop trips between cities? Hovercraft over skyscrapers?

  6. Sandy Teal says:

    One big advantage of airlines is that you can add or subtract flights easily, changing number of passengers, time of arrival, connections, routes, etc. Train routes are literally nailed down.

  7. Hugh Jardonn says:

    Uh oh. Looks like Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown didn’t get the peer review committee memo. According to this Sacramento Bee report, it’s “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” on HSR in today’s “State of the State” address.

    “(Brown) reiterated his support for California’s beleaguered high-speed rail project, urging a skeptical Legislature to approve the start of construction in the Central Valley this fall. He called it a “wise investment” for a growing state.”

    Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/01/jerry-brown-3.html#storylink=cpy

    Meanwhile, Golden State residents have to prepare for yet another batch of tax increase proposals on November’s ballot.

  8. Dan says:

    In a lower-energy world, most of us will be traveling less frequently anyway. I don’t get down in the weeds enough to know how many cal/mi airlines vs trains might be, but in the next decade or so we are going to see the lower-energy mode win out.

    That goes with other forms of transport too, which is why Buffett bought a railroad for freight shipments.

    DS

  9. LazyReader says:

    And planes will be lower energy…….GE has already unleashed it’s next generation of aviation engines that promise 20 percent efficiency gains over any current engines in planes now.

    The U.S. overall consumes about 100 quads; 100 quadrillion BTUs of raw energy per year. We do three basic things with it: generate electricity (about 40 percent of the raw energy consumed), move vehicles (30 percent), and produce heat (30 percent). Oil is the fuel of transportation, of course. We principally use natural gas to supply raw heat, though it’s now making steady inroads into electric power generation. Fueling electric power plants are mainly (in descending order) coal, uranium, natural gas, and rainfall, by way of hydroelectricity. Note that in spite of the attention lavished upon oil as a political topic it accounts for less than half of all energy use in the United States. But there is a difference between energy generated and that used. A big fraction of the energy generated in electric power generation plants is lost by the time electricity flows through a wall socket. To supply enough nuclear power to operate cars would require more heat generation than is currently generated from burning gasoline in cars. That shift is already under way. About 60 percent of the fuel we use today isn’t oil but coal, uranium, natural gas, and gravity—all making electricity. Electricity has met almost all of the growth in U.S. energy demand since the 80s. Electricity is taking over ever more of the thermal sector, too. A microwave oven displaces much of what a gas stove once did in a kitchen. The electrification of our economy is accelerating. I don’t see an energy crisis, GDP of the U.S. has grown along with our energy consumption since the first oil embargo in the 70’s. Our energy consumption will continue to rise, forever. “Forever” is a long time, of course, so maybe it won’t be quite that long. But if you have to project when energy consumption will cease to rise, longer is always a safer bet than shorter. Whatever energy we’ll use in the future whether we catch our solar energy live, or dig it up in fossilized form, or dig up uranium instead, is really just a detail. The one near-certainty is that energy consumption will rise, not fall.

  10. PlanesnotTrains says:

    On January 18th, 2012, Nodrog said:
    What, pray tell, are these “improvements in air transportation” that will allow quicker short hop trips between cities? Hovercraft over skyscrapers?
    ******************

    The addition of GPS based navigation will smooth flight operations and add predictability to arrival streams improving enroute system throughput. This will reduce block times and spread flights out over larger periods of time reducing delay. It doesn’t necessarily add capacity so much as it improves the reliability of schedule.

    Forward Looking Infrared/Synthetic Vision systems will also improve the ability of crews to land aircraft in bad weather (need proof, see the link below). This alone will make instrument landing problems a thing of the past. Yes, this is very real. You can buy it today.

    http://www.gulfstream.com/product_enhancements/evs/

    Constant Descent Approaches (CDA’s) will reduce fuel consumption on the order of about 5% per flight because a constant vs. variable thrust setting in the decent into an airport will be used from cruise to landing.

    The next generation of aircraft is now coming off the assembly line with new engines reducing fuel consumption by 15-20%.

    Finally, the inept TSA is actually getting better at its job and new airport development will incorporate changes in systems and checkpoint design that will improve passenger processing capacity, negating much of the claimed HSR benefit over airport security.

  11. PlanesnotTrains says:

    On January 18th, 2012, Dan said:
    In a lower-energy world, most of us will be traveling less frequently anyway. I don’t get down in the weeds enough to know how many cal/mi airlines vs trains might be, but in the next decade or so we are going to see the lower-energy mode win out.

    That goes with other forms of transport too, which is why Buffett bought a railroad for freight shipments.

    **************

    This isn’t all a bad thing anyway. Rememeber when just about every flight across country was in a widebody? Perhaps the biggest benefit of higher cost fuel to aviation is the low end of the economic scale stops at about 100 seats for the jet and 40 for a prop which is only good for about an hour and a half. No more three hour flights in a 50 seat sardine can…. Sure it will mean fewer flights to smaller markets in larger planes as well, but is that all bad???

  12. the highwayman says:

    Sandy Teal said:
    One big advantage of airlines is that you can add or subtract flights easily, changing number of passengers, time of arrival, connections, routes, etc.

    THWM: Though the same can be done with trains too.

    Sandy Teal: Train routes are literally nailed down.

    THWM: Though that’s the same thing with roads.

  13. Andrew says:

    Sandy Teal:

    One big advantage of airlines is that you can add or subtract flights easily, changing number of passengers, time of arrival, connections, routes, etc. Train routes are literally nailed down.

    Of course they are. Because pie-in-the-sky concepts like switches, couplers, and schedules have never been thought of by railroads where trains can (1) move to a different route, (2) change their length, and (3) change their frequency. And planes don’t have any fixed capacity fixed plant costs like runways, airports, and gates. You can just land a plane on any cornstrip or country highway if demand suddenly develops there. (/sarcasm)

  14. the highwayman says:

    Andrew, teabaggers don’t give a shit about reality! They are only against “big government” when they feel that they don’t benefit from it.

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