The head of California’s High-Speed Rail Authority, Brian Kelly, says that the train will take longer to build and be more expensive than anyone ever thought. He almost says it like those are good things. The authority plans to publish its latest cost and construction estimates next week.
The authority recently admitted that the first section of the project, which was supposed to cost $6 billion, is now expected to cost $10.6 billion. That’s the cheapest segment of the line because it is flat Central Valley of the state. Getting from there over the mountains to Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area will require expensive tunneling at both ends, including a 13.5-mile tunnel that is expected to cost anywhere from $5.6 billion to $14.4 billion.
The total cost of a truly high-speed line all the way from L.A. to San Francisco is almost certainly going to be more than $100 billion, and it won’t be complete until sometime in the 2030s at the earliest. A representative of the airline industry pointed out that, for just $2 billion and eighteen months, the state could start a high-capacity airline service between the two cities — and sell the planes if it doesn’t work out. Though rail proponents say that downtown-to-downtown train times will be comparable to flying, the Los Angeles area has five airports and Bay Area has four, so far more people live near one of those airports than to downtowns.
All this is irrelevant, however, in the eyes of one of California’s leading rail nuts, Rod Diridon, Sr. He’s the one who thinks that “mass transit is the only answer to gridlock” when in fact mass transit has failed in Silicon Valley, where he headed the region’s transit agency, and in general it is the cities that are spending the most on transit that are closest to gridlock.
In Diridon’s latest opinion piece, he argues that high-speed rail’s objective is “to efficiently bring employees to work and clear roads to move products to market.” In Diridon’s fantasy world, people who work in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley are going to live in the “affordable” Central Valley and commute to work by high-speed train.
Why will people need to live so far away when there are hundreds of thousands of acres in Los Angeles and the Bay Area suitable for development? The answer is that counties have forbidden development on those acres because they are supposedly such valuable farm land. In fact, most of that land is rolling hills that is currently used only as cattle range. Wouldn’t it be better to develop those lands and save both the cost of the high-speed trains and the highly productive Central Valley farm lands?
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“Only a small fraction of those daily Central Valley trips need to ride the train for profitable operation,” claims Diridon. Of course! That must be why the Altamont Commuter Express, which takes commuters from homes in Stockton in the Central Valley to jobs in San Jose, is so profitable. In 2017 it collected $26.6 million in fares against $8.6 in operations and maintenance costs. Whoops! Got that backwards. It collected $8.6 million in fares but spent $26.6 million on operations and maintenance.
But, Diridon argues, high-speed trains are special: because they are so fast, they are more likely to be profitable, “as is the case with most of the world’s high-speed rail systems.” Except that most of the world’s high-speed rail systems are far from profitable; only a handful cover their operating costs and only one or two have covered their capital costs.
The ones closest to covering their costs captured most of their customers from low-speed trains, not from cars or planes. But California doesn’t have enough low-speed train passengers to even fill the trains, much less make them profitable. On average, less than a third of the seats in California state-supported Amtrak trains were filled in 2017. (The Altamont Commuter Express filled 42 percent of its seats.)
Of course, people like Diridon never admit that their dreams are unrealistic, even after they have are proven failures. Diridon is the primary promoter of San Jose’s light rail, yet per capita transit ridership in Silicon Valley has declined by more than a third since 2000.
Sadly, if Trump’s infrastructure plan is approved, California would probably blow most of its share of the funds on its high-speed money pit. The state’s only hope is that the next governor is brave enough to shut the project down even after it has spent several billion on pointless construction.
“Sadly, if Trump’s infrastructure plan is approved, California would probably blow most of its share of the funds on its high-speed money pit. ”
Since California has declared it does not have to follow federal laws (civil or criminal) and keeps threatening to secede at the drop of a hat, it may well be likely that California’s share of infrastructure spending will be ZERO. That would stop the high speed train farce.
The Antiplanner wrote:
In Diridon’s latest opinion piece, he argues that high-speed rail’s objective is “to efficiently bring employees to work and clear roads to move products to market.” In Diridon’s fantasy world, people who work in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley are going to live in the “affordable” Central Valley and commute to work by high-speed train.
In other words, Diridon is in favor of a sprawl-inducing train line?
Regarding his claim about rail leading to “clear roads,” under the doctrine of “induced demand,” any capacity added to any freeway or expressway is immediately filled with added traffic (except when rail advocates are pitching expensive rail transit lines such as California High Speed Rail) which are supposed to provide highway congestion relief without any of that “induced” traffic.
Why will people need to live so far away when there are hundreds of thousands of acres in Los Angeles and the Bay Area suitable for development? The answer is that counties have forbidden development on those acres because they are supposedly such valuable farm land. In fact, most of that land is rolling hills that is currently used only as cattle range. Wouldn’t it be better to develop those lands and save both the cost of the high-speed trains and the highly productive Central Valley farm lands?
Not when the real (but unstated) goal appears to be to keep the unwashed masses of modest means away from settling in jurisdictions like Santa Clara County and the City and County of San Francisco in the Bay Area.
Under NEPA, the government cannot start building a segment of a whole project until the entire project has been analyzed and funded. How does the Cal High Speed Train justify building the cheapest segment first and then hope for more money?
Sandy,
California wrote a programmatic environmental impact report for the entire HSR project, then is writing individual impact statements for each major segment. The feds consider that acceptable.
When this thing was passed the budget was largely kept out of public limelight, when Gov. Brown learned the thing was gonna cost in excess of 100 billion he knew this thing was sinking……..and quietly shelved the very basic criteria that justified it’s construction in the first place. Like it making it from LA to SF in 2 hours, 30 minutes, going 220 miles per hour, etc, etc. Not to mention building a new rail line from scratch……..
The program has since been turned into a blended system that shares rail with Amtrak, commuter rail stock with some new rail out in the boondocks which means this vehicles speed will differ from location to location. Plus they’re still scratching their heads as to how they’re gonna build over 400 bridges and tunnels for this thing.
Hoping cutting the extravagances, more off the shelf technology and would lower the programs costs; it did; to 67 billion. What’s changed since 2008, 2010, 2014 onward besides inflation, contractor corruption, deadlocks, California’s exploding budget………….has risen the cost of the project yet again. In other words………. they tried to cut costs, succeeded in doing so by turning the high speed rail promised into a slightly faster than Amtrak…….and now the budget has grown even though it’s not a high speed rail anymore.
Yet you guys have no problem with “socialism” when it comes to roads :$
“Yet you guys have no problem with “socialism” when it comes to roads :$”
Yes, we do. We would prefer all subsidies to end, even those to highways and roads. I would prefer all roads to be privately owned.
So stop repeating this crap.
Highways are there regardless of economic conditions -Randal O’Toole :$
@ the highwayman
Seriously….do you have repeat that stuff….waiting for a cracker.
Yes roads don’t generate net income. So what, they’re the preferred choice of transportation for just about everybody….and most of our roads are local, not federal. There are 3 million miles of roads in America only about 47,000 miles are interstate and fall under the guise of federal funding….
Roads are an invention around since ancient times….first ones were dirt, then rocks, then gravel, compacted dirt, cobblestone, bricks and now asphalt and concrete.
2nd stop using that word socialism.
1st, Socialism is not the proliferation or being bequeathed with a given service. We have public post offices and libraries, etc.
2nd, Socialism is a politically maintained economic system where by the means of production and given resources are handled/owned by the public or state entity; and the private acquisition or utilization is either curtailed or prohibited….last I checked private libraries or roads were not illegal.
3rd the financial efficiency of roads is superior to passenger rails.
One of the more common arguments that has worked its way around the country is that roads, public services, and schools are socialism. This argument is created in an attempt to slap capitalists in the face and make them realize that they do indeed appreciate the things that socialism has established for them in their day-to-day life including the things that they utilize in their capitalistic enterprises like roads if they run a transportation or freight business. A road is a public good. An item whose consumption is not decided by the individual consumer but by the society as a whole, and which is financed by taxation. A public good (or service) may be consumed without reducing the amount available for others, and cannot be withheld from those who do not pay for it. Public goods (and services) include economic statistics and other information, law enforcement, national defense, parks, and other things for the use and benefit of all. No market exists for such goods, and they are provided to everyone by governments. Our roads are mostly local and state run. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Like building Roads…………………..Actually the fed does have the power to produce roads. Article I, Section VIII, Clause VII of the Constitution…
“To establish Post Offices and post Roads” albeit this was before electric communication.
The Postal Clause was added to the Constitution to facilitate interstate communication as well as to create a source of revenue for the early United States. There were some early disagreements as to the boundaries of the Postal Power. John Jay, in a letter to George Washington, opined that the postal service should not be burdened with the responsibility for handling newspaper delivery, and also suggested that the Post Office be placed under the supervision of the executive branch (a suggestion which later led to the creation of the Post Office Department). Thomas Jefferson feared that the postal service would become a source of patronage and a waste of money. Jefferson also expressed doubt at granting Congress the power to designate post roads, as he considered road building to be a state responsibility. Congress also has the power to fix the Standard of Weights and Measures…..which could be interpreted as the width and gradient of highways, why the signs and signals are identical nationwide……………
Public goods do not qualify as ‘socialism’. First, they typically do not generate wealth; there may be nominal user fees for such things as the post office, but these are not as much wealth generators as they are upkeep fees. The government does not create wealth based on the use of roads, police officers, or public libraries. There is little to no market for such goods. Even though the government oversees the means of production, it does not control the means; the government has not taken over the factories that produce concrete or asphalt or streetlights or street signs. They contract the company to produce such things. It’s also ironic that socialist countries..also build pretty comprehensive road systems even if they discourage automobile usage or ownership, if for no other reason to put people to work. Public services…….no matter how individualized are not socialism. Socialism is about means of production and property allocation, not means of utilization
Your argument is political, not economic :$