Quentin Kopp, who once chaired the California High-Speed Rail Authority and led the effort to persuade voters to pass the 2008 law authorizing its construction, is speaking out against the project as currently planned. To succeed, he says, high-speed rail needs to run on dedicated tracks at high speeds and frequencies.
Instead, the current plan calls for California’s high-speed trains to run on the same tracks as slower Amtrak and commuter train. This will greatly reduce the average speeds because high-speed and conventional trains can’t be safely operated together. The current projected frequencies are two to four trains per hour (half in each direction), while Kopp says 10 to 20 trains per hour is needed for the trains to be “financially secure,” which presumably means that fares cover operating costs as required by the 2008 law.
When Kopp first proposed the project, it was supposed to cost $33 billion. Now it is expected to cost $68 billion for slower, less-frequent trains. Kopp has personally been involved in legal challenges against the project.
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If Kopp is lucky, he’ll be remembered as the namesake of the Quentin L. Kopp Freeway in San Mateo County. If he is unlucky, he’ll be remembered as the father of the biggest boondoggle in American history.
Another who has changed his mind about high-speed rail is Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom. While Governor Jerry Brown remains committed to high-speed rail, Newsom is widely expected to be the next governor. If that happens, he may kill it. Given that the cap-and-trade funds that Brown wants to dedicate to the project are still inadequate to finish the $68 billion plan, much less a true high-speed rail system, whoever becomes the next governor will probably have to kill it just because the state can’t afford it.
The Antiplanner wrote (with emphasis added):
The current projected frequencies are two to four trains per hour (half in each direction), while Kopp says 10 to 20 trains per hour is needed for the trains to be “financially secure,” which presumably means that fares cover operating costs as required by the 2008 law.
Aside from the Amtrak Acela service between Washington, D.C., New York City and Boston, what passenger rail service in the United States comes close to covering its operating costs? All of them “lose money on every customer and don’t make it up in volume” (quoted words from a former colleague).
Given that the cap-and-trade funds that Brown wants to dedicate to the project are still inadequate to finish the $68 billion plan, much less a true high-speed rail system, whoever becomes the next governor will probably have to kill it just because the state can’t afford it.
Only $68 billion?
I don’t believe it, based on the history of passenger rail projects around the U.S. I assert that the revised $68 billion estimate should (at least) be doubled.