Monthly Archives: September 2008

The Antiplanner is an unabashed rail nut. My office walls are filled with pictures of trains and rail memorabilia. I’ve traveled at least a quarter of a million miles on Amtrak and Canada’s VIA. When I’ve visited Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, my preferred method of local travel has always been by train. I helped restore the nation’s second-most powerful operating steam locomotive, and my living room has the beginnings of a model railroad.

There is no doubt that, if high-speed rail worked, I would be the first to support it. But my definition of “works” is somewhat different from that of rail advocates, one of whom once told me that he considered a rail transit project successful if it allowed just one person to get to work a little faster — no matter how much it cost everyone else.

For me, “works” means that a project is cost-effective at achieving worthwhile objectives. “Cost-effective” means that no other projects could accomplish the same objectives at a lower cost. “Worthwhile objectives” might include reducing traffic congestion, air pollution, or energy consumption. Though high-speed rail advocates are gleeful about the prospect, I don’t consider shutting down competing air service to be a worthwhile objective.

This series of posts on high-speed rail has revealed at least twelve important facts.

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The 2005 environmental impact statement for California’s high-speed rail includes two alternatives to building rail: a no-action alternative and a “highway-air” alternative that proposes major expansions of both freeways and airports in the rail corridor. The highway component alone of this alternative was projected to cost twice as much as high-speed rail, allowing rail proponents to claim that rail is cheaper than roads (page 4-1).

But this alternative was a “straw man” designed to make high-speed rail look good. One reason for the high cost is that the alternative proposed to expand every freeway along the rail route, even highways that are not expected to be congested in the rail project’s time horizon. For example, the alternative adds one-third more capacity to freeways in the Central Valley that are expected to operate at only 92 percent of capacity in the no-action alternative (page 3.1-12).

On top of that, the highway-air alternative is more than five times as effective at relieving congestion than the rail project. Where high-speed rail is expected to take 3.8 percent of cars off the road, the highway-air alternative reduces congestion by more than 20 percent (page 3.1-12). This suggests that an alternative that costs only one-fifth as much as the highway-air alternative, or about half as much as the rail alternative, would be more comparable to rail.

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The costs are exorbitant and rising. The risks are staggering. And the benefits? Even if you believe the Authority’s optimistic assumptions, you pretty much need a magnifying glass to see them.

What are the benefits claimed for the rail network? Less traffic congestion, less energy consumption, less air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, economic development, and, of course, saving people’s time.

Congestion: With or without rail, the EIS predicts that highway congestion will be far worse in 2020 than it is today. With rail, highways parallel to the rail lines will have an average of 3.8 percent less traffic than if rail is not built (p. 3.1-12). Rail will do most on the L.A. to San Diego route (which will probably be one of the last segments to be built), taking 7.9 percent of cars off the road. It will remove 6.6 percent of cars on the Bay Area-to-Central Valley portion. Elsewhere the relief will be less than 3.5 percent.

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Yesterday’s post on the costs of California high-speed rail discussed the likelihood that this megaproject will cost more than projected and the likelihood that taxpayers who pay for construction will have to pay again to rebuild the system every thirty or so years. Such costs are not so much a risk as a certainty. But there are many other risks involved with high-speed rail, some of which could unexpectedly drive up construction costs even more, and others affecting operations.

Some of these risks were identified in the senate oversight report on high-speed rail, including right-of-way, safety, and ridership risks. One important rish that was not brought out by the senate report is the risk that competing technologies will render high-speed rail obsolete.

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The California High-Speed Rail Authority wants to build an 800-mile rail network between Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Anaheim, and (via Riverside) San Diego. Electrically-powered trains would travel over this network at speeds up to 220 miles per hour, allowing people to get from downtown San Francisco to downtown L.A. in about 2-1/2 hours.

It isn’t clear to me why any self-respecting San Franciscan would want to get to downtown L.A. in 2-1/2 hours, though I can imagine why they would want to quickly return. I suppose the Northern-Southern California cultural divide works both ways. But the four big questions are: How much will it cost? What kind of risks are involved? What are the likely benefits? And what are the alternatives? Today’s post will focus on cost.

By any measure, California high-speed rail will be a megaproject, the most expensive public-works project ever planned by a single U.S. state. Exactly how much it will cost is still uncertain — estimates published in various places have varied over a wide range. Just as uncertain is who is going to pay that cost. What is certain is that the $9.95 billion in bonds (of which $9 billion is for high-speed rail and $0.95 billion is for connecting transit improvements) that California voters will decide upon this November will be little more than a down payment.

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