Sanity Reaches Sacramento

California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced that he is cancelling the state’s high-speed rail project. The project “as currently planned, would cost too much and take too long,” he argued, and he doesn’t see “a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A.” (a phrase he got backwards).

Originally projected to cost $20 billion, then $33 billion, then $68 billion, and most recently $77 billion (but it would undoubtedly be even more), the state has never found the resources to fully fund even the lowest, much less the latest, cost estimate.

Newsom said the state will complete the 164 miles it is building between Merced and Bakerfield, allowing Amtrak to run its trains a little faster in that corridor. Amtrak’s San Joaquin, which goes from San Francisco to Los Angeles on that route, carries about a million trips per year and runs two-thirds empty. Amtrak claims the train lost only $11 million last year, but it doesn’t count depreciation and it counts state subsidies to the train as “revenues,” so the real loss is much larger.

Newsom claimed that finishing that segment was worthwhile because it would reduce air pollution in the Central Valley. But continued construction will undoubtedly generate far more pollution than what little is saved by operating the train, especially since Amtrak will probably choose to use diesels to power the train rather than spend the hundreds of millions it would cost to set up electrification.

The truth is, as Newsom noted, the state can’t afford to pay the cancellation fees and “lawsuits” if it stopped construction right now. The state would also have to return the $3.5 billion it received from the federal government, money that has already been spent. Yet in the long run, Amtrak won’t be able afford to maintain tracks dedicated exclusively to passenger trains on which it runs only a few trains a day.

When he was mayor of San Francisco, Newsom supported high-speed rail, enthusiastically participating in the groundbreaking ceremony for the San Francisco terminus (which has its own serious problems). When he was lieutenant governor, he came out against the project, saying costs had ballooned and matching funds had not materialized. When running for governor, he flip flopped in favor of the project.
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But after taking the governor’s office, supporters of the project worried that Newsom would kill it. Last week, reporter Dan Walters — who was something of a high-speed rail skeptic,” shocked a Fresno audience by saying that, I have a hunch it is going to die.”

High-speed rail would be a great idea if it could attract enough riders to pay for itself. In 2008, when it was projected to cost $33 billion, the state high-speed rail authority predicted that passenger fares would be sufficient to cover all of the operating costs and enough of the capital costs to lead private investors to contribute up to $7.5 billion towards its construction. But no private investors were interested, and as construction costs grew, it became clear that the revenue and operating cost forecasts were similarly optimistic.

All of the environmental benefits were based on assumptions that the trains would attract several times as many riders as Amtrak carries in its Northeast Corridor, which has higher populations than the California corridor. In the end, even Quentin Kopp, the state legislator who sponsored the original high-speed rail bill and who at one time chaired the state high-speed rail authority, came out against the project.

With the line being completed from Merced to Bakersfield, there’s always the chance the entire project could be revived. While the legislature could overturn the governor’s decision, most members know the state doesn’t have enough money. More likely is if Congress and the White House are captured by Democrats in 2020, and they find a trillion dollars in loose change in seat cushions left behind by the previous occupant. But it appears that, at some point, even Democrats realize that money isn’t infinite.

When Jerry Brown became governor (for the second time) in 2011, the very first thing he did was kill tax-increment financing, which saved the state billions of dollars a year. Gavin Newson’s decision to kill high-speed rail will save at least $70 billion in the short run and more in the long run. He should be applauded for doing so.