The future (A) or a boondoggle (B)? The answer is (B).
7
L.A. and San Francisco have the most disastrous traffic I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing. If there were a high speed rail connecting them, I'd definitely be more inclined to travel between the two cities.
24
Everybody hates these projects while they are being built. Then after they are built people start using them and they like them. Then they start complaining that the plan wasn't bold enough and the line should have been longer.
South of SF, they wish BART went down to San Jose, but at the time it was built they were worried it would bring crime. Now, they would love to have the option of taking BART instead of the commuter train.
Everybody complains, it what people do.
39
Nagourney makes it sound as if High Speed Rail is a Fantasy or a boondoggle. He says nothing about what other countries have achieved: China has over 16000 miles (SIXTEEN THOUSAND MILES) of HSR built in short order, while we still argue about a few hundred miles. Europe, where the high population density, presents a challenge, has been going full blast expanding their HSR. Whether in China or Europe, it is State investment that is involved, because it is deemed a social necessity.
30
Really?
The state is on fire. We have to think that the situation as usual has got to change. Just the same ol' same ol' is not going to cut it anymore.
Let us all now consider what we could possibly do to make a difference for the people of our state who are baking and losing their property and lives due to our (all of our) limited thinking on how to do better.
We are an amazing species. We have got the chops. We are not lemmings. Let's do this!
13
The skyrocketing cost is astounding. The inability of the US to do big public works projects at a reasonable cost is a testament of both corruption and inertia. China’s high speed rail with a maximum speed of 350 km/h has a typical infrastructure unit cost of about US$ 17-21m per km, with a high ratio of viaducts and tunnels, as compared with US$25-39 m per km in Europe and as high as US$ 56m per km currently estimated in California.(world bank).
28
Excuse me?
California, if it does not do something about its transportation issues, the state faces building 3 new airport in LA, and expanding the I 5 to twice its size, significantly expanding it's Co2. Jets just blow out a lot of CO2.
A train can carry many more people and reduce pollution per capita.
And, traveling Amtrak is one of the most pleasant ways to travel. Just to top it off.
I read in this that someone thought it would cost too much, well, gasoline is going up, and I bet on the freeway is is easily above $40.00 a gallon.
just do the math, people
SF is 360 miles. at 30 mph you will use 108 gallons, at $4.00 that is 432.00 dollars $864 round trip. the train will be less than that.or even if it is the same amount, your relaxing and enjoying yourself.
Hard to think you could pass the deal up/
19
I agree about the need for the train, not so sure about your math on how much it costs to drive a car from San Francisco to LA though.
15
This high speed rail is needed more in California than in any other states but there are those fast behind it. Yes, it’s expensive but it mirrors everything from the real estate market to corporate building to wiring all towns, cities, counties and rural America. Other tech savvy nations are far ahead of us: Japan, South Korea, The Chunnel Train between London & Paris, China’s new fast train services and solar fields. All make the United States look archaic which is so sad as we are the country that created The American Revolution: electricity, telegrams, enormous bridges like the Brooklyn, Verrazano Narrows, The Golden Gate, The Hoover Dam. We don’t need a Border Wall. We are the Country of Innovation but we are losing that title by not thinking about the Future.
16
Bakersfield to Madera. There is nothing there and nobody there. The biggest boondoggle in the history of government. Pathetic is an understatement .
17
The HSR is needed and will only get more expensive the longer we wait. The president talked a big game about infrastructure during the campaign but after 18 months in office that has amounted to zilch. California needs to stay the course and not let the typical short-term thinking of partisan politics leave us with what could have been.
Dozens of countries have successful HSR lines. Are we somehow incapable of achieving what the Japanese or French did decades ago? Are walls the only thing we will spend money on now?
20
California needs massive investment in water infrastructure. Years ago already. This crazy train (that no one will ride) should be scrapped, and the funds reallocated to reservoirs, dams, aqueducts, and if need be desalination plants.
14
It should have been done years ago.
As long as it's cheaper and easier than flying between the two locations, it's a win, especially with not having to get to the airport 90 minutes early and dealing with weather delays in other parts of the country.
14
A bullet train near a fault line...what could go wrong?
11
Japan is on fault lines, the Bullet Train was designed to take that into account. So far so good, up and running since 1964.
17
I think you are actually referring to Joe Nation, not Nathan, in the article. Just a hunch.
2
A third of the Jet A fuel used by commercial airlines in the state is used to fly people from North to South or South to North. think about that. LAX, SFO and others are some of the biggest international hubs for aircrafts. but still a huge amount of kerosene is burned just to get to another part of the state. Bullet trains make more sense.
14
@mark Sorry Mark your obviously a employee of the state, your whole career depends on solvency, Ca will not be able to print money. You guys need to stop and think where your next pay check will be cashed.
6
A friend of mine and I did a back of the envelope calculation. We are old telecom startup execs, with 60 years between us.
For the money currently projected for this choo-choo, a fiber optics connection could be pulled and lit to EVERY residence in California, while keeping Comcast, AT&T, and the other usual suspects out of the action.
Now which plan will result in more usage, and less carbon generation? The answer is obvious.
8
Sure, $100 billion is a lot of money. $200,000 used to be a lot of money for a house in San Fran - 25 years later that same house would now cost $1.5 million. Real property costs invariably go up. $100 billion could be $200 billion down the road, when our population is double and the roads and skies are clogged with cars and planes, polluting our air. Planes may be quicker but there is still security, baggage claim, hire car rental, travel to and from the airport etc so time savings is minimal.
BART was expensive when it was built in the Bay Area - it would be so much more to build now. These are lasting investments that won't just benefit existing residents but for generations to come. Progressive countries that plan for the future, like China, Japan, and most of Europe invested in rail and underground systems a long time ago (less so China but they are catching up) while we only talk about building walls and supporting dying industries like coal. EV's, solar, HSR - these are the future. $100 billion puts people to work and provides something permanent and tangible for all. In most civilized countries you can get a train from almost any major (or minor) city to another major city. This project isn't about today or tomorrow but about 20, 50 and 100 years from now. Let's not be too restricted in our vision for the future and overly focused on current day costs that will seem like a bargain in retrospect, just like that $200,000 house would seem like a bargain today.
25
HSR and all rail projects are us catching up to the rest of the world. If we killed this project (and we won't) those towering concrete overpasses I see when I pass through Fresno will become lasting monuments to our collective stupidity.
No, build it, let's make America like we were in the 1930s and 1940s, building infrastructure. Let's make America great again!
20
And let’s get the homeless jobs at the same time.
6
If California, the richest and most forward thinking state, can’t get this done, it would prove the USA incapable of accomplishing large infrastructural projects. Are we a great nation? Or a once-great nation that can’t even build a train?
In the mean time, we can watch the world pass us by.
29
It's the greatest boondoggle of our time. Rapid transit or even transit in California is a joke. Buses and trains running everywhere empty. Maybe a few passengers to a Wal Mart. Costs of billions of dollars Billions with A Big B. No one is ever going to ride the bullet train to no where. But every Californian is going to pay thousands of dollars a year for it. There will be no money in California after the baby boomers retire and move to Nevada or Utah. None.
16
@scruff
BART is busting at the seams here in the Bay Area. Parking lots are full early in the morning, ridership has never been higher and housing close to BART stations is worth more due to its proximity to public transportation. If anything under-investment is the issue, not over-investment. Sure, expansion of the system has been slow, BART employees are overpaid and trains break down but sitting on a train for 30 minutes easily beats sitting in bumper to bumper traffic for 60 minutes and then dealing with downtown parking. It's the same in other cities around the world - London, Paris, Tokyo, Munich. You must live in the hinterlands.
6
Ever ride Amtrak between the Bay Area and SoCal? Say, on the San Joaquin? Packed.
Naw, didn't think you bothered to leave your car.
4
This is not true at all. I purposely spend half my year in North County San Diego because there is a train that runs from the beach communities into the city. And it’s expanding because of MAJOR use. The US is SO far behind every other competitive country when it comes to advanced transportation: Japan, Seoul (amazing trains!!!), England (the London to Paris Chunnel is superb!), Germany and China is in the midst of high-speed trains everywhere. It’s absurd for the US, especially, The Country of the Industrial Revolution, to be willingly ignorant.
13
Much worse than a boondoggle. A massive waste of money that has no way to exist over the long term. Invest in local mass transit, not this foolish idea.
8
I felt this article lacked too much detail to really understand the issues. How fast will the train go? How long will it take to go from SF to LA? How many passengers will it be able to ferry between these cities? How many will it need to carry and at what price to be economically feasible? What else could CA do to ease transportation problems for $100 billion dollars? A high-speed train sounds great, but it's impossible from this article to tell if it's worth the investment.
11
@Leo
I agree the article lacked details. Here are some answers to your questions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
6
Did I miss any estimates of travel times - SF to LA? Seems like a pretty basic point to discuss - even if it becomes a moving target, estimate etc.
5
@John galvin
LA to SF in 2 hours, 40 minutes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
The article was woefully lacking in details and factual background.
12
@MidtownATL As you know very well, 2:40 is the goal, and it is unlikely ever to happen. Stop misleading people.
2
@Here
You are correct, it is the goal. And the 2:40 time is a legislated target for a non-stop LA-SF rail trip.
And it is achievable, with mature rail technologies that have been in place for decades in Europe and Japan, and now in China.
380 miles in 2:40 is an average speed of 142 mph. The French TGV has a top speed of 186 mph, and Chinese trains are even faster.
So I am not misleading anyone. Unless you think the United States cannot replicate a proven technology that other nations perfected decades ago.
5
I love trains. I live in CA but was brought up in NYC. I rode trains for decades, including numerous trips between NYC and DC. While traveling, I marveled at the convenience and punctuality of European trains.
But the bullet train is a lie and a disgrace. It is not being built for the masses, but only for those fractional few who could afford it. It will not replace cars. No regular business traveler drives a 14 hour round trip between LA and SF. As the article states, completion is now scheduled
for 2033( that's not a typo - yes- it's 2033 !), except for some nowhere to nowhere segments. And based upon past performance, current obstacles, and unforeseeable future problems, there is a 50-50 chance that the project will never, ever be completed.Meanwhile, well in excess of $100 billion will be shoveled into a furnace.
California has the worst homeless crisis in the country. The amount being spent on this ultimately useless project could eradicate that crises. Instead, the poor and the sick will continue to live in filth on the streets, while tracks to nowhere are laid.
11
As an urban designer and urban strategist I get to hear a wide spectrum of refrains on urban development all over the world.
Its notable that when there are cost overruns in Germany they are justified as investments in the future. In the US work is simply stopped. If we designed and built infrastructure for a 100 or more years, and spread out the costs over that lifespan, the cost concerns would not be such a big deal.
Here in the US we are the global lords of narrow short-term thinking and investment. Nothing less than a quick return on investment will do! Without long term perspective, there is no hope in any area of our collective gain.
25
Touché! One of the best comments yet. During the US Industrial Revolution, we launched the US Railroad (still here), The Brooklyn Bridge (ditto), The Hoover Dam (ditto) and the Panama Canal (vitally important still today).
10
the boondoggle Train To Nowhere is just that because the route goes through the center of CA where there are very very few people to ride it. look at the map and population density. absurd.
9
This appears to be a plan without a plan. How much will it cost to complete? W ill it be faster and cheaper to fly? There is a lot of tough terrain to cover here, literally.
As someone who will not use any train in the US due to the constant accidents and safety issues due to poor management, lack of training and maintenance I surely am not going to ride this very fast one. If it ever is completed.
The Japanese Shinkansen or French TGV? Sure. They don't have incidents.
There are plenty of other projects that the state needs more.
7
Oh, give me a break. There are more accidents and deaths than there are train accidents/deaths. I have travelled by subway, MetroNorth, BART, Metro in DC, Suburban rail in various places in the US and Amtrak all over the country. I use the mass transit from North County San Diego into the city center. Best way to travel. I get there and back in 30 mins instead of an hour & a half in bumper to bumper toxic traffic.
6
I live possibly on the route,(so bear with me) they may take to build this ridiculous, expensive, slow "high-speed rail!!" We have been fighting it for years, but nothing is happening. I see State employees sitting at booths at county fairs, supposedly to talk about this plan. When I ask them about basic questions, they have no clue--yet my tax dollars are going to ALL these people involved, those who have these endless meetings and never do anything. At least they are physically building some parts, that will never connect to anything. We cannot afford this ridiculous system. Flying is very reasonable, and there are buses that now will take you from LA to San Francisco for $15!! Too expensive and too late for California, and I hope our new governor, Newsom, will stop it....or the many auditors looking at the excessive overpayment of everyone so far....
9
My wife an I live in Tehachapi, (about an hour and a half away from Bakersfield.) Our two children and four grandchildren live
in the San Francisco Bay area.We travel to visit them fairly often by car.No matter what route we take, we always run into a massive traffic jam somewhere along the way. And,folks, this is not going to get any better, no matter what we do to to the highway system.
12
Was it marketed by Lyle Lanley?
3
Monorail! Monorail! Monorail!
3
I would generally support high-speed rail and other train projects, but I just googled 'la to sf directions' - its 382 miles via I-5. Yet the Times reports that the route under construction for this same trip is 800 miles!
What is the use of going fast in the wrong direction?
Public transport is a wonderful thing, but planners need to get one thing straight - if it doesn't make sense, don't do it! There are still a few people around who can read a map.
6
@Eric
LA-SF is 380 miles. The total system is close to 800 miles. That includes branches to Sacaremento, Irvine, and San Diego via Riverside.
The article is woefully lacking in factual details and background.
10
It is just so ridiculous that we spend trillions on war and tax cuts and then we struggle when we realize that there is no money left for the citizens of the USA (i.e., public transit, social safety net, child care support for working families, a living wage, the list goes on and on...). I wish we had leaders in power who could MAGA.
12
It's only 400 miles from SF to LA, not the 800 reported. Maybe that's the problem with the budget.
2
It’s explained in a few comments above yours.
2
Anybody that supported the CA bullet train is either someone that feeds off the public funds or has a very low gullibility threshold. Billions of $$ WASTED. It would have been more effective to just add another lane on I5. Right now, I bet there are many that wish those funds were used to buy and support a fleet of 747 air tankers that would have quashed those disastrous wildfires in a few days or less. But ---> there's no funds for effective firefighting...only bullet trains that will never be effective and are far too expensive...
7
We’ve been adding lanes to highways for decades and it’s only got us more traffic (look up induced demand). Counterintuitively the solution is the opposite.
4
I've been against this project from the start. I knew the initial bond measure would only be a drop in the bucket of the overall cost, and that costs would continue to escalate as the project ran into the inevitable barrage of unanticipated obstacles. (For comparison, the 2.2-mile eastern span of the Bay Bridge opened in 2013 was originally estimated to cost $250 million, but the final price tag was $6.5 billion -- a 2500% increase! -- with the finished product having multiple known defects.)
It makes no sense to pour tens of billions of dollars on 19th century technology to address 21st century transportation issues. Even more maddening, it costs more to make it a high speed rail line, when even its strongest proponents acknowledge that the trains will be forced to travel at much slower speeds along vast stretches of the line. It's an unconscionable waste of taxpayer dollars. If Jerry Brown wanted a signature public works project before leaving office, he should have built one or more dams. California hasn't added any water storage in more than 40 years, despite the fact that our population has doubled in that time.
9
population has doubled us the key and 100% yet there are crazy that want to return Hetch Hetchy to a natural valley. unbelievable.
2
The map says it all. In order for the train to succeed it has to offer a comparable total time to flying. Detouring through the central valley will add hours to the trip, and doom the train. Moving people directly between the Bay Area and LA and San Diego on a high speed train is a compelling value prop. Detouring through the central valley kills it.
10
@Gilroy Reader
The travel time from LA Union Station to central SF will be 2 hours, 40 minutes. That is competitive with flying (1:40 + time to/from airport + 2 hours advance arrival to airport).
5
@MidtownATL Except it's difficult to see how that will ever happen. Bring high speed tracks into San Francisco? Really?
1
@Here
"Bring high speed tracks into San Francisco? Really?"
The last 30 miles do not have to be built to the same specs as the bulk of the rail line. In fact, they can run on the existing CalTrans tracks into the city at conventional speeds, with electrification added. That will have a negligible impact on the total travel time.
2
The article states the route is 800 miles long. And therein lies the problem. The distance from Los Angeles to San Francisco is less than half that. Instead of a direct link between the second and fifth largest metropolitan areas in the country, they're taking a roundabout route to link up cities like Bakersfield and Fresno.
Kind of kills the whole concept of high speed rail. What tech worker in San Fran headed to a conference in Santa Monica wants to double the time of their commute to stop and pick up passengers in Fresno? My guess is very few. The whole selling point is the convenience. This isn't a leisurely Amtrak ride through the Rockies where you soak up the majestic scenery of the mountains.
It just makes no sense. They probably could have built a direct line between San Fran and LA and built separate ones linking Bakersfield, Fresno, and Sacramento into the main line for less money. And yes, some locales get left behind. That's what happened when we first built railroads, and that's what happened with our interstate system.
To put this in perspective, if you charge one hundred dollars per one way ticket, you need a billion rides just to get back the construction costs. Of course there's a huge advantage to lessening congestion by cars on the freeways and the benefits re climate change. But that's a lot of riders whether you want to amortize the costs over fifty years or a hundred.
Driverless electric cars may make the whole thing a monstrous boondoggle.
7
This is another example of uncritical both-siderism of the New York Times. Republicans in CA are a Fascist sect. Their only essential concern with the project is that, qua being publicly financed, it is going to benefit "those people." The secondary concern is that it might bring more of "those people" to their backyards.
Every so-called policy argument put up by this group is nothing but a smoke-screen. Republicans see facts and arguments as useful to distract gullible liberals, and not much else.
Looks like they found another sucker in the author of this article.
Of course the completion of the HSR project will be tremendously beneficial to the state, including the reactionary backwaters traversed by it, whether or not they deserve it.
5
@Lars Maischak nope, it's just a stupid waste of money. I'm a lefty-progressive (I vote Green party when I'm unimpressed with the Dems), and I voted against the Prop for this rail line. In the Bay Area, public transportation is fractured, aging, and pretty terrible. We should have put money on fixing local train systems, first.
5
how do you see any mass transit project costing 100 billion dollars as 'hugely beneficial' for anyone but lenders?
how do you foresee this paying for itself? if ridership reached ten million passengers per year at a hundred bucks a ticket, it would only take a century to pay for.
assuming it cost zero dollars to maintain, I mean, and not the twenty six billion projected.
5
This is the sort of project that the Federal Government should be supporting. This should be a partnership and forward thinking people should be behind rapid trains across the country. It took President Eisenhower to begin building our freeway system. It will take a man or more likely a woman of vision to do the same for fast trains. For less than the cost of one of our many wars, we could have a national high-speed-rail system. A state can't do this, but might jump-start the process. Eisenhower had far more vision than any current Republican and most Democrats. Why can't American's do the impossible anymore?
9
It’s time to end the sentimentality. Jerry Brown has been a liberal icon here for years and this bullet train boondoggle is totally out of nostalgia for his Moonbeam day’s with Linda Rondstat that we’ve even indulged this notion here for such a long time. The math doesn’t work, NIMBYs will kill this long before it gets even close to downtown LA and no way will they get a miles long tunnel through the Tehachapi Mountains. The kindest thing we can do for him is pull the plug and let him just retire to his ranch without this big black asterisk on an otherwise proud legacy.
7
Every public works project in California wastes huge amounts of funds on consultants. The only reason for this is that public officials cannot bear to take responsibility. Rather than hire engineers and managers that make decisions, the state hires outside private consultants that get paid to make recommendations. Then, if those recommendations fail, the state can absolve itself of responsibility and fire the consultant, only to hire another one. This shell game goes on at the state and local level in California. They get a kickback on election day when the consultant funds the campaign. It's a legalized form of corruption that ends up in wasted public funds and the taxpayers end up getting much less than they paid for.
7
The Interstate Highway System faced significant criticism along some of these same lines. Aren't we glad it succeeded anyway?
7
Many countries outside the U.S. from tiny Japan to giant China
have had High Speed Rail for absolute decades. In a country of the size and wealth of the U.S. we *don't have High Speed Rail ? And yet we can "afford" a new boondoggle of incomprehensible cost called a "Space Force" ? Please.
High Speed trains operate via what is called "Mag-Lev", or "magnetic levitation". In the same way that two refrigerator magnets of opposite polarity repel one another, so Mag-Lev
trains able to "hover" slightly over the tracks produce frictionless forward movement (and thus *very high speeds).
When a MagLev train needs to slow, the magnets are *reversed so that they now attract rather than repel. By reversing a few magnets at a time, the train is brought to a complete stop.
So, how can it be that this Country remains completely *without
High Speed Rail ? Did you notice in the description of operation
above *any mention of OIL ? From the Koch Bros. to the Giant Oil Companies, Anti-MagLev lobbyists (& Republican Legislators) have been busy as beavers *preventing MagLev from ever becoming "viable" here in the U.S.
The California system is said to run on "electricity", and, unless this electricity comes from renewables, it still comes from either Nuclear or Fossil Fuel sources.
True, but how much less oil is burned and pollution generated when every "traincar" does *not have its own engine (autos) crawling slowly along the endless freeways. Thus Anti Maglev
Lobbyists.
4
On Thanksgiving Eve in 1976, I drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Interstate 5 was a bumper-to-bumper line of cars traveling 60 miles per hour the whole way. The trip was about 10 hours of nerve-wracking driving, fortunately without any accidents that I saw. Counting driving to and from the airports, the return trip took about 5 hours.
Automobiles and airplanes are the most inefficient ways known to man to move people. High speed rail works in other countries, so it can work here. Delaying building this infrastructure merely insures that it will be more expensive when we finally do it. Building more roads has not solved the transportation problems in the L.A. basin, or in San Francisco.
Perhaps a way to take your car with you on the train might help to overcome some of the opposition, as freedom to go where we want when we want is very central to American thinking. Even if all the cars were electric, the energy required to move people from L.A. to S.F. is still enormous. And that is what it will finally come down to: how much energy will it take to get me there.
5
@Scott Holman - 10 hours at 60 MPH is 600 miles. It's under 400 miles from LA to SF. Not sure what the relevance is to a Thanksgiving weekend more than 40 years ago. I drove I-5 last Sunday, and while the road was undoubtedly busy, it was manageable. We made it home in 6 hours, which included a one-hour stop for dinner.
3
About 20,000 people travel between LA and SF every day, so do the numbers.
4
@Steve The above comment is misleading. 20,000 airline passengers a day between LA and SF. How many traveling between SF and LA by car? I don't know.
3
@Steve
The purpose of CA high speed rail is to compete with air travel. SF-LA is the 2nd most-traveled airport pair in the country. The airports in these cities are capacity -constrained.
Rail will free up airport capacity for longer flights, as it has in the NE corridor (DC, NY, Philly, Boston). The Acela trains on the NE corridor dominate travel modes between DC and NY - and they are not even state-of-the-art like the CA rail will be.
1
Well, I have a problem with the HSR Project. All HSR projects are SUBSIDIZED by their governments. This information is what I could find out via other HSR projects internet information around the world. The estimate here in California is that the cost per passenger could be up to $100 one way to the Bay Area or to the LA Basin. Round trip would be about $200 a day. This is WITHOUT Government subsidies. With the Government Subsidies (depending on the amounts granted) would be about $50 to $75 one way....$100 to $175 Round Trip. Round Trip per day, 20-21 days a month would be an estimated $3675.00 to $4200.00 a month. Is it worth that to live in the Central Valley???? The Central Valley that farms, pumps oil (of which 85% is refined in Ca and used by Californians), 2 large Hazardus Waste Landfills, several large (closed down) chemical plants, and not to mention naturally occuring Asbestos mines that leak into the Central Valley during the rains.....seriously you want to live here????
3
With the budget now over $100B, why hasn't the CHSRA planned for the advances in high-speed rail technology that will be the possible norm in 2033 when this boondoggle will proposedly be completed? No one will want to take this 'slow boat to China' if faster, and possibly more eco-friendly transportation is available.
2
From personal experience, I would take a high speed train over riding in a car or flying commercial 100% of the time. It's so much more relaxing and comfortable. However, a project like this needs to be financed in a responsible manner. What the hell are they thinking building a project of this scale that leaves the two largest cities in California out to dry!
The logistics and the money NEVER have added up for this project. There are lots of needs in California and other places of more importance than this project seeks to solve and this project looks to be financially unsustainable.
3
Dear NY Times editors,
I would like to complain about this article. I felt like I was reading a politically biased piece on Brietbart.
I would prefer to read neutral pieces without bias. This article quoted people with every valid source of opposition to this project. But it only quoted a few sources in favor of it. Where were the quotes from Jerry Brown's office? Or even Schwarzenegger?
More importantly, where were the background facts?
The California high-speed rail project promises a trip-time between the center cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2 hours, 40 minutes. This compares to air travel at 1 hour and 40 minutes, not including travel time to and from those airports. Air travel between LA and San Francisco has ranked as the 1st or 2nd most traveled U.S. air route for many years. LAX and SFO are capacity-constrained, and expansion is limited by geography and cost. Estimates to add airport and highway capacity in California, as an alternative to high speed rail, have been as high as $120 billion or higher - compared to the $100 billion estimated cost of the rail project.
---
NY Times, please at least provide us with the background facts and both sides of the arguments. It is certainly true that the California rail project is expensive, and costs are rising, and there is no current funding source to bridge the gap between the $30 billion of committed money and the $100 billion estimated total cost. But please tell the whole story.
9
@MidtownATL "I would prefer to read neutral pieces without bias. "
And yet you came to this website.
3
@Here
As I said, I would prefer straight news. That said, I would expect a left-leaning bias from the NY Times, if anything. But this article is clearly biased to the right.
And that said, I tune out bias in news, and focus on the facts in the articles I read. (I expect the NY Times to skew left - despite this article, and I am more than capable of reading beyond that.) I read many sources and form my own opinions.
Where else do you go for your news? And are you able to tune out bias?
Except for the US, the industrialized world has opted to connect its cities via high speed rail. The link between Hong Kong and Beijing will cut present rail travel time in half, as a part of a national HSR interconnectivity.
After reading recent posts positing that the billions to be spent are best shifted to widening freeways, it seems contraindicated to remain hostage to fossil fuels to move our people in the face of increasing congestion. And this will be be true for many years until the majority of our cars convert to electric, god knows when.
The fictional romance of the independent driver having it his way crashes reality in universal, rush hour gridlock. That a modern society would choose this over disruptive, innovative alternatives in future planning, marks us as hopelessly mired in the past while the world moves ahead in transforming its transportation systems, leaving us choking exhaust fumes in smug obsolescence.
5
So many highly rated comments claim HSR is widely proven to be effective. So true, HSR is great. However, that fact is far from sufficient to support HSR in California.
We know that HSR works better in some circumstances than in others. Take Japan. It's land mass is 11% smaller than California, its geography is more conducive to HSR, and, perhaps most importantly, it has much greater population density: 89 M people vs. 37 M.
3
@John Hamilton How is Japan's geography, with all of its islands and terrain that is even more rugged than California's, more "conducive to HSR?" California has around 40 million people....more than any other state.....but most of those people are concentrated in Southern California below the Tehachapies, the Bay Area, and a string of cities in the San Joaquin Valley. Right now the options to get between these regions is limited to driving, flying, and very slow traditional rail via Amtrak.
Traffic in California is no joke, as anyone who has driven I-5 can tell you. Flying is super-polluting and the number of flights is limited by the capacity of these regions' airports, which cannot be expanded due to sprawl, etc. This leaves trains and buses. Trains are the fastest, most environmentally friendly, and most dependable option.
Why am I even replying to this? Just go to Europe. California is bigger and more economically important than most European nations, but our transportation infrastructure is practically Third World thanks to the GOP.
8
How is is possible that in the 1850's and 60's we could build transcontinental RRs but we can't manage just CA today? This is jobs and good infrastructure, let's figure it out and get it done.
6
@Nancy Rockford The Transcontinental Railroad was initially a single track and disturbed few settlers. High Speed Rail requires a considerable width for safety reasons. On either end, it must go through fifty miles of suburbs. Not a problem the railroad builders of 1869 had to deal with in Nevada and Utah.
2
@Here
The Transcontinental Railroad was forced to *blast
tunnel its way *entirely through the *GRANITE of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, and as to Nancy Rockford's point, they *still got it DONE.
Is there a *similar engineering problem that you care to identify between L.A. and San Francisco ? The mtns. that do exist South to North on this proposed route are "styrofoam *bumps" compared to the granite and the monolithic *size of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range.
It is not impossible topographical engineering challenges that keep the U.S. deprived of the benefits of Mag-Lev High Speed Rail. It is the simple fact that Mag-Lev trains do *not run on *OIL !
2
Ignore the naysayers. I remember the same critical zealotry over the Big Dig in Boston. Over budget, of course. Behind schedule, for sure, corruption without question. Been to Boston lately? Want the SE Elevated back? Of course not. The cost overruns? Covered in economic advantages after the first five years in operation.
8
So yeah this is a pie in the sky project of greatest uncertainty and while I neither forcefully endorse this near impossible rail line that needs to do something over the mountains that prior engineers did with an enormous looping track ( tehathapi) and virtually abandoned into the bay, I still don't understand how come the coast route from la union station up to Martinez, Davis Sacramento and on cross country or up to Seattle isn't simply upgraded to a 70 mph route ( easy low pickings ) and then we can tackle that mountain range after we demonstrate we can make things work.
1
Think about this.....
Building new freeways is not as cheap as it seems for transportation.
What about the expense to fill those freeways with cars and all the people who will be injured and die using them?
The problem with the train system is that many people who are alive now will not benefit from them, but people in the future will. Just like in the past for when things were built.
5
If you think the cost of this train is high, just wait until you see what they're going to charge you to ride on it.
4
The US infrastructure, especially public transport, will soon lag behind most former Communist countries in Central/Eastern Europe. Of course, it's already far behind most Western countries, Japan, South Korea and even China.
Investments into infrastructure help employ many small business and individuals so a portion of the money is going back to the tax payers even before the projects are finished.
Unfortunately California does suffer from overpopulation and the housing crisis is only getting worse. I'm not sure if or how it will ever get solved. But uncontrolled mass illegal immigration doesn't help, that much is clear. It would be easier to convince the taxpayers to support this great project if they didn't have to worry about declining quality of schools for their kids or going homeless after housing becomes unaffordable. Too many life-long Califonia taxpayers are now moving to other states for retirement. That's not fair to them.
4
We don’t bat an eye mandating a minimum number of green vehicles, even if this raises the price of vehicles state-wide and nationally. If the goal is to reduce congestion on our roads and emissions in the air, it’s simply a question of who should be paying for the alternative. Road tolls, in-state air transport taxes and consumption taxes could all be used to finance such a big project.
6
I fully support HSR, but endless attempts by shortsighted GOP officials in the Central Valley will surely ensure that it A) never gets built, or B) becomes a semi-useless rump connecting San Jose and Fresno (if we are lucky). Only in America would a project like this generate so much controversy. I guess the powers that be want every American to drive a greenhouse gas-spewing SUV and contribute to endless congestion. Thanks to Republicans, American infrastructure has become a miserable joke, and increasingly, America is a joke too. It is the Third World of the First World. I wish I could emigrate.
6
Boondoggle for sure.
2
California high speed rail is a feasible, necessary, and worthy project that will yield benefits in both transportation and economic development for the next century. Yet the bias of this article, and of many commenters (including many citizens of California), reflect a dystopian vision of pessimism and fatalism.
What has happened to our great nation?
- Where is our ambition?
- Where is our forward-thinking vision?
- Where is our optimism about the future?
Eisenhower proposed the interstate highway system, which was largely completed a decade after he left office.
Kennedy said, "We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are haaaaad."
---
America has always been great. Ambition, optimism, and investment in the future is how we will be even greater in the century to come. The private sector continues to address most of our needs, including essentials such as housing and food. But the government plays a valid and indispensible role in investing in things we all benefit from: infrastructure, education, and advanced research.
You want to really see Mr. Trump's "American carnage"? Then cancel California high speed rail - and similar investments in our future across the nation - and see where America is in a decade.
8
Good for California's economy and future development. I support this high speed train system. First in America. It is about time.
4
We spend 40 Billion on highways every year on top of user revenue; that adds up fast, and we never really address it as waste. This project, in terms of national infrastructure, isn't so crazy. The headline is the typical hysterical reaction with no context of what interregional major infrastructure costs in the United States. This project isn't perfect, but it will change California in a fundamental and necessary way. The most irresponsible option would be to shut it down.
4
This is basic infrastructure spending that we have neglected too long. Right now the alternative is either to drive 7 hours (ugh) or fly (ugh) and right now we have a pilot shortage nationwide. You simply can't replace high speed train service with air service. When I drive up and down Interstate 5 during a holiday it is jammed with cars. Clearly the need is here. The high speed aspect is not as critical as the "right of way" aspect. We currently have north south passenger trains in CA that could average 65 mph, but travel at an average speed of 30 MPH because they share the tracks with freight trains and must sit and wait several times during the day. So the most critical part of this project is setting up the right of way for north south passenger transportation. Connecting two large population centers with HSR makes sense. It's basic infrastructure.
5
Once you could go from San Diego to Santa Monica via interurban streetcars. The system was scrapped. The LA subway system from the 1920s was destroyed—"Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" is based on the destruction of LA's urban streetcar system by automobile and freeway interests—and now those interests seek to halt this project, too.
There is still time to fund this, to build a system for the 21st Century, not for the 19th.
8
It was designed to be a boondoggle to begin with. First this train only runs from L.A. to San Francisco so how many people really needed it to begin with? What's the ticket price going to be? The sad fact is that this country is now so corrupt any kind of big big plans like this one will always be and remain a boondoggle.
3
If you think it would be too complicated here, with for example a provincial assumption that Uzbeckistan is just empty desert, Japan which had the first system, South Korea and France all of which built HSR systems, are as complicated as here. It didn't even slow them down.
5
@Bill H Japan was rebuilding and so could plan for HSR. France built its system in the 1970s and so had to deal with the fact that there were such things as suburbs and other things it couldn't drive new tracks through, so the stations in such places as Avignon are miles from town. The problem with California HSR is getting it close to downtown LA. That is not going to come out of petty cash. You got me on Uzbekistan, though.
1
The article refers to "[t]he 800 mile rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco. But the distance between these two cities is 348 miles at the crow flies, and 416 miles by highway.
Something is very wrong here.
Only in America can better, more efficient transportation among major economic centers - in a state with the world’s 5th largest economy - be construed as a boondoggle.
As other commenters have noted, travel outside of the US and experience how modern accessible trains elevate countries all over the world.
Sadly we seem to prefer to spend over 50 cents of every tax dollar on military across the globe rather than improve our infrastructure for our citizens.
9
There are many places with extensive high speed rail networks. If you've spent any time in these places, you've come to depend on them. They are transformational. You would realize how backwards and stubborn we are to do without them. You can get onto them without elaborate reservation processes. You would never take an airline for a trip of less than about 700 miles. As these short flights were eliminated the on time performance of airlines in the area would improve exponentially. And the ride is so comfortable and quiet. You really can work or sleep. Rejecting them is like rejecting antibiotics. Once a few are built we will wonder how we ever did without them and we will marvel at how we believed the most absurd lies about how expensive and nonfunctional they are.
10
Three examples I know of in the NYC area of build it and they will come:
Second Avenue subway - alleviates crowding on the Lex line, encourages construction and generates property taxes on the Far Eastern parts of the Upper East Side
PATH train to NJ - enables Hoboken, Jersey City and Newark to grow. Compare this with points north on the NJ side, which are also within spitting distance of NYC but limited growth has brought serious traffic snarls
7 train extension to Hudson Yards - largest construction project in US, made possible by related transit improvements
7
"I could get on a train at noon and be in San Francisco at 3 p.m.”
Sounds great for you John Fernandez. Google Maps shows you could jump in your car in Frensno and drive to San Francisco in 3 hours and 40 minutes. Why spend $100 Billion and 14 years?
4
Why would you want to spend so much money to simply improve on 19th century technology. If you are going to spend $100 billion, spend it on the future like a hyperloop.
3
They’d be better off putting HSR between LA and Las Vegas.
1
@Mike O' How do you get the rails through the first sixty miles east of downtown LA, and through the mountains?
1
The rail line will be expensive and there will be scandals about inflated contracts and the usual corruption, but one fine day when there's a 7.6 temblor in Los Angeles or in San Francisco, and Interstate 5 is a broken ribbon, and local transportation is a mess, that railroad will be a priceless gift. Toss the passenger cars aside and line up box cars and flat beds filled with food medicine and water and everything needed and everyone will be profoundly relieved. You can lay five miles of rail in one day. Try replacing five miles of Interstate in a day! Yes it will be used by too few and it will look like a boondoggle, until that terrible day everything goes wrong and those metal rails which don't need computers or engineers, crank up an old diesel or maybe a steam locomotive and take off. California assumes the next century will be disaster free, such deluded thinking. The railroad offers a failsafe for California.
3
I'm a bit bitter about the project since they dropped San Diego and Orange County. Guess they wanted the votes and monetary support from the second and third most populous counties, but not to provide any service to the 6+ million people residing there. It does me no good to commute to LA to catch a train that was supposed to get someone from San Diego to San Francisco in about two hours. The commute to LA alone can be several hours to then take HSR for another couple of hours from that point to San Francisco.
1
It will not be a bullet train, it will be a stop and go fast train. (perhaps to nowhere) The HSR will have most likely 3 or 4 stops between LA and SF. How long will each stop take? How much will the fare be? I'm guessing it will take about 4hrs.
Now if Gov. Brown wanted to run a HSR from Gilroy through San Jose to Oakland (BART) for 40 billion dollars, that sounds good to me. And for another 40 billion from San Diego to LA, you got my vote.
But, unfortunately, I voted for this 10 years ago.
1
Meanwhile, Japan is building the next-gen of their bullet train, the Chuo Shinkansen, that is going to nearly double currently attainable speeds through the use of mag-lev technology and extensive tunnel boring. The travel time between the two mega cities of Tokyo and Osaka will be cut from 2.5 hours to a mere 67 minutes.
I hate to say it, as I voted for the proposition and wholly support transit projects, but by the time Sacramento is able to realize this project, it will be yesterday's technology. Of course, we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good -- we must simply acknowledge and accept that our country has fallen far behind our developed peers, and that there really is no chance of catching up in the current political climate.
3
For once can we drop our pride and study why other countries are getting it right?
7
Why are we doing high speed rail by not the hyper loop? That's what California should be spending money on.
1
@Federico
Perhaps because it is only theoretical and has never once operated anywhere, let alone on this scale?
8
@Federico Hyperloop is a disingenuous idea that can't work even in theory. It's a gigantic vacuum chamber that couldn't possibly be build in California desert (thermal expansion issues) and it would implode at the smallest damage. And most importantly, it would not even be able to support the speed of HSR, thus defying the purpose. The current experimental prototype is a joke for a reason.
2
Most of you commenters wanting the train live outside of California and won't have to pay taxes for this $100B ogre!
I resent this train in so many ways, including geographically bc it will end up being 1/2 mile from my home and the local CAL Train is already way too loud and has started running 24/7.
But I also resent putting money on this train when we cd be spending it to improve our water systems (thus, not have so many devastating fires) and improve our education system (we used to be in the top 10 nationally, not anymore!!!)
4
@dolly patterson
I live in Atlanta. There is a proposed high speed train from Atlanta to Charlotte (245 miles away).
One business leader summed it up as:
"Too short to fly. Too long to drive."
California has historically been a forward-thinking national leader. As a citizen of California, you have every right to oppose the future. Meanwhile, other parts of the country will pass you by.
6
@MidtownATL What do you do when you get to Charlotte, without your car?
@Here
What do you do when you get to the Charlotte airport without a car?
As far as arriving in uptown Charlotte, if were a business traveler, I would walk or take the Lynx transit line. That covers the majority of important destinations. If my destination was not amenable to that, I would do the same thing I would do if flew to Charlotte.
1
Yes, a boondoggle. A project mainly thought of for the construction industry i.e. workers, contractors, sand and gravel companies. Oh, what joy these gov't projects are. To start building in the valley is stupid. Build where the popualtion centers are: L.A. to San Diego; Fresno to San Francisco. Why can't the gov't admit that we're a car transport nation, except for the most part in the big cities. $100 billion for this nonsense? The parts constructed now will have to be maintained and upgraded by the 2030 completion date, costing more money. Have the total yearly maintance costs been added? No one will use the L.A. to San Fran route- they will fly or drive. The cost per ride per person will be out of reach for most people. Thanks Arnold and Jerry for your stupidity. Please don't put them in NASA and for they will insist we go to Mars and spend even more precious money- another boondoggle.
4
I'm reminded of the (wonderful) Channel Tunnel rail link that joins France and Britain. The money was not all there when they started digging. The people behind the project knew that if they tunneled far enough the tunnel could never be abandoned. So it proved.
5
It is a complete and total waste of everything, money, land, time, etc.
Soon cars will drive themselves, and many side streets will be returned to fields and nature, as will parking garages and lots and car dealerships (no one will have their own car), so too will street lights and home garages and so forth and be transformed--with the land being (largely) brought back to nature.
To now construct a huge carving up of land for a train that some might travel is backward thinking not forward thinking. [Perhaps down the road some of these expressways could support a train, but to carve up new land is unwise.]
Nice try but pull the plug now.
3
One place California could get billions of dollars to support this is from the $17 billion/year more it gives to the Federal Government to prop up the red states than it gets back in revenues.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-state-local-tax-subsidy-20171029-s...
4
This article shows significant bias toward the anti-high speed rail faction and is nearly bereft of voices in favor of the most visionary infrastructure project in the state’s recent history. How about interviewing governors Brown and Schwarzenegger? Instead we get multiple quotes from Jim Patterson, the third rate former mayor of Fresno who began his career as a radio evangelist.
In addition to its obvious environmental benefits, high speed rail will bring inestimable economic benefits to the impoverished, culturally isolated Central Valley, where, ironically, most of the opposition to the project is concentrated. How about assigning a different reporter to cover it?
5
A bullet moves at appr. 1200 meter/second, i.e. appr. 4570k or 2900mi/hour. It would have been interesting to read how fast the so-called bullet train will supposedly be. The article doesn't say. Other sources say 200mi/h. This is less than the maximum speed of French TGVs and much less than the Japanese or Chinese HSRs. What's the big deal?
2
California voters were told the bullet train would cost $38 billion. It will cost at least twice that. We were told the train would travel between LA and Oakland in 2 hours and 40 minutes. Not a single independent expert believes that goal will be met. We were told the project would be completed no later than 2020. Now we're told it will be 2033. We were told that private investors would fund at least half the project. Not a single investor has come forward, though some have said they would invest if California guaranteed both the principal and interest.
It just gets worse: Unrealistic ridership projections. Promises that ticket sales and private investment would fund daily operations (The operation of every high-speed rail system in the world is state subsidized, yet we were told California would somehow be different.) The claim that the train would reduce air polution, when in fact air pollution in the Central Valley is largely a product of agriculture, heavy trucks, industry, and locally driven cars.
Finally there is this: Trains are old technology. Even bullet trains have been around for more than half a century. The future is electric autonomous vehicles. Invest in the hydrogen highway. Invest in high-speed charging stations and solar sources to power them. Yes, it's a harder political sell because construction companies and unions won't get as rich off these, as off HSR. Sometimes the right thing isn't the easy thing.
7
@Hugh
"The future is electric autonomous vehicles."
How many more freeway lanes will these autonomous vehicles require?
And how much will these lanes cost? And who will pay for them?
5
@MidtownATL
Researchers model autonomous vehicles safely traveling at high speeds separated by only a few feet. The capacity of existing highways will increase without building new lanes. Traffic flow is improved and the fuel efficiency of conventional cars is also improved, further reducting air pollution.
https://phys.org/news/2018-02-autonomous-vehicles-traffic.html
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-662-48847-8_16
@Hugh I would not take the risk, even with California guaranteeing every cent. Look at what happened in Puerto Rico. There is too much of an attitude among progressives of "Well, you took the risk the legislature would change the law and confiscate your money. Sorry!"
I support California's effort get the dirt flying and tie in the ends when the time comes. The expenditure of couple of hundred billion will help the State push past the NIMBYs in the future - it work on the inter state highway system.
The Acela Trains from DC - New York - Boston work remarkably well even traveling on 150 year old track bed. Over the years Amtrak even had the funding to improve Acela service but was shut down by the NIMBY crowd.
Maybe what is needed is for Congress to declare HSR an environmental good heading off the thousands of impact lawsuits Acela faces crossing through eight States and 100's of locals.
4
I HATE this train! It will be 1/2 mile from my home and stop where I live in Redwood City ,at the shopping ctr and grocery store I use, plus it is w/i blocks of the already over-crowded Hwy 101!
I agree w the other commenter who said the bay area shd get its act together providing local transportation before doing it state wide!
3
@dolly patterson
NIMBY
2
$100 billion? We spent that in ten months in Iraq, and we have negative return on investment and still counting down.
California wants to invest in an infrastructure asset that will probably or might not make positive returns on investment for decades.
This is a no-brainer. Build it!
6
I have thought that the route should go along the coast underwater like the chunnel. It would be supercool and you could make the turns!
@Alicia Peterson
Yeah. Ask someone who lives on the coast in CA how easy it is to get Coastal Commission approval to change their roof, build a patio, or put up a fence. I suspect that an underwater tunnel might also be a bit more expensive to build.
1
China spent 500 billions dollars and built 14,000 miles of HSR tracks, their operation is highly mechanized due to it's size, with their intensive experience, can't they bid on the project ? I'm sure the chiness firms want to demonstrate this skill set.
2
This train is a boondoggle just like the trips to the moon were boondoggles but they were made to prove our superiority to Soviet Communism. Now we are in a similar position where we must show our superiority to Chinese Communism and China is far ahead of us. While they have several high speed trains already in operation and building more, we have nothing. The race may or may not be on depending on what happens to this project.
1
@lester ostroy
The space program provided immeasurable benefits to American citizens.
Can you imagine the world today without satellite communications, weather forecasting, and GPS - as just a few of the benefits?
5
The Iraq War cost at least ten times that; and when it all began people in California and all over the U.S. were driving around in their cars waving American flags in utter joy. They couldn't wait to pay for that unmitigated disaster. And now, when something worthwhile and constructive is happening, we're fretting about the cost? Mocking the very idea of it? That's as dumb as it is hypocritical.
This is something that will happen, needs to happen and should have happened a long time ago. Next time they plan a war, see how many of these same prissy, little hand-wringers start feeling the vapors.
6
At age 84 I don't expect to travel over the high speed rail system that Governor Jerry Brown and other forward thinking Californians support. I have taken the Eurostar under the English Channel from downtown London to the very heart of Paris, flying along in three hours flat while traveling in utmost comfort and safety.
That is why I am willing to have my tax dollars go toward this CA project. Future generations will thank us for not paving over more of the state to simply add traffic lanes.
When I moved to Spring Valley in 2000 there were four lanes in front of my residence; now there are 10; further, where freeway 805 merges with Interstate 5 there are now 23 lanes of concrete jammed with cars and trucks.
Come on fellow citizens, wake up and devote more attention to what we really need instead of listening to the constant bellowing of that idiot in the White House. These are facts, not fake news!
8
@Sgt. Scott
Well said, Sarge ! I am 70 yrs old. When I was born, the
Earth was home to between 1.5 and 1.6 Billion people.
During that relatively brief interval, we now have roughly 7.6 Billion people on the Planet.
Planning and building for the future is no more than common sense, an attribute that is no longer "common"
in this modern self-involved, self-referential world.
4
As ever, Americans resist any and all public transit options, and Republicans resist twice as much. I love this idea, and don't get why if the car-crazy state of California can get this, the mass transit-mad Northeast Corridor can't.
3
I voted for HSR knowing fully well that the actual cost would be much higher than originally budgeted. These large capital projects always cost more than expected, yet prove indispensible in the long run. Whether its the Golden Gate bridge, Big Dig or the transcontinental railroad, all had higher costs, lawsuits, property relocation issues but were integral to the growth of the region and the US. Similarly, HSR will unite multiple regions into a super network providing a competitive advantage vs. other regions. The only reason it's taking so long is due to how funds are allocated. We can and should speed this up especially after the Democrats take control of Congress. Making America great means world-class transportation infrastructure with California leading the way.
8
This is nothing compared to China’s new Silk Road initiative. We are falling behind China beyond belief. They are laying the groundwork that will propel China ahead of the US for centuries to come.
Trumps a developer! What’s he building besides a wall? I’d gladly be ok with naming a high speed rail after him if he actually built it.
I always say, these Republicans today would veto the Hoover Dam, Golden Gate Bridge, and the NY City Subway. Their shortsightedness is appalling. We need visionaries in office!
7
I used to live in L.A. and I used to live in S.F. I don't ever remember wanting to go from one to the other.
This is what will happen if and when the train gets built. The rich in both L.A. and S.F. will jack up the prices of everything forcing all of the middle/lower class to move to the Central Valley and commute back and forth. There, the worker will be taxed on the train that gets him to work and will no doubt have higher water taxes of some kind as the rich rob more and more resources for their ever growing mansions.
Let the rich start paying for the infrastructure. What is $100 billion to them? Hell, they lost more than that in one day on just one stock (Facebook) and they are still rich. Time to quit taxing little old ladies out of their homes and find more useful things for the rich to spend their money on than launching electric cars into space.
3
The simple fact is that there is no alternative, in the long run, to high speed rail. California cannot sustain more freeways and more cars indefinitely. Neither can it take much more in-state air travel. And both are vulnerable to spikes in fuel cost that will certainly come, looking 20-50 years into the future. Arguments against this high speed rail project are really just arguments to kick the can down the road, off loading more of the inevitable, eventual cost of development onto our children and their children.
4
In the Fifties, LA County freeways got similar opposition. By the early Sixties, "sticker shock" resulted as freeway construction costs topped $1 million/mile.
This HSR project is on a phase of a larger state railway project that's planned with 2040 goals.
This HSR will eventually link 2 world-class economic regions, SoCal and the Greater SF Bay Area.
California is a huge state; on the Atlantic Coast, it would stretch from Jacksonville, FL, to Philadelphia, PA.
However, this HSR must contend with one of the most challenging physical regions in the world...a tectonically active continental plate boundary along which ~70% of the most populous state resides.
California is a much more hilly and mountainous state than most folks, even many of its residents, understand. The Great Central Valley is the easy part. To whatever extent that reality modifies current plans, it will be built nevertheless.
3
How fast will it go? What would a ticket cost? What are the projected ridership numbers? How does it compare, in cost and time, to air travel between SF and LA? This was a fact free article, the reporter gets a few quotes from proponents and opponents and calls it a day. Reporters and editors are so lazy these days.
3
@Pat K
Here are your answers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
2
What an irony! Everything that benefits our planet first , and humanity second has been turned down by #45 and his supporters (the big $). No bullet train (which will be a heaven for clean air from San Diego to LA and beyond);destroy public parks; let mining industry reign, let charter-private schools to replace public schools so we keep having ignorant citizens, easily persuaded by Fox "fake" news. And, lie, lie, lie: # 45,"our president" a lier and a a scornful abusive#1 keep destroying as much democratic institutions as he can.
3
Did we learn nothing from building that stupid interstate highway system. Designed to make Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles nearly infinite in mobility, I have yet to see the first one of those as I drive at high speeds to all corners of the country.
1
Are the airline lobbyist whispering in Macarthy ear.
1
Americans don't have what it takes anymore to make this kind of project a success. It will undoubtedly falter because of the cacophony of conflicting opinions and interests that cripple this country from achieving anything of value for the people, be it in healthcare, education and now transportation. It is puerile to compare this nation to the multitude of other nations where sensible things actually do get done; the people are not the same.
3
Wow spending all that money with no guarantee that this will be finished and little public support is tax payer abuse.
2
Honestly, if you used some of the absurd concentration of Silicon Valley wealth to build this, and created hundreds of middle class construction jobs -- so that people in the middle class can actually afford to continue living in California -- then you've done a good thing by building it, even if a single train never runs on the tracks.
The real-world benefits for transportation are a nice bonus.
5
IMHO it is better a 100B$ bullet train than a 25B$ wall on the south border!! Show the way California ; the USA should have such a service on its East and West side !
4
Four problems
- Earthquakes- Train service suspended for 6 months to repair 22 damage supports that were designed to withstand an earthquake.
- Earthquakes - Train crashes 135 killed. Service cancelled for 1 year to research? Software, design, training and etc...
- American morons - shopping carts, rocks, cars and trucks on tracks, track and signal vandalism, etc... America is Not Japan!
- Threat of terrorism - unspecified threat requires posting 1 police patrol car every mile for 120 miles.
2
Even if the section between Madera and Bakersfield is the only section that gets completed, that will still provide a huge area for California to grow outside of the overcrowded Bay Area and Los Angeles.
Investments in infrastructure pay off in jobs now and productivity in the future. Conservatives, it has been said, "know the price of everything but the value of nothing."
5
When last I heard of this project, there was no plan for bringing the train into downtown Los Angeles or San Francisco since the land acquisition for the high-speed tracks was infeasible. Has something changed? Or is this to be a great way of getting from Fresno to Madera, assuming you don't need a car on the far end?
1
Necessity is the Mother of Invention, no matter what the cost, because the future cost to the public will out weigh the implementation cost. Inventions spur innovation to which spur more inventions that pay for themselves, as will this train. Dallas, fangs extended against our Rapid Transit, did so anyway. Commerce around each stop, to say the least, is phenomenal.
2
China has been successfully building HSR for the last 20 years. Maybe we should ask them to build this train, at a much lower cost.
Also, Japan has bullet trains for the last 40 years. Why can't the US build one? Once you ride in a Shinkansen, you will be convinced that that's the way to travel, instead of cramming into 31-inch pitch seat on an airplane.
2
we're having the same arguments in uk
we have a fast north south route planned, saving about 20 minutes off a 2 hour journey is going to cost £20 billion or so, and will not be opened for about 8 years
The railway builders here miss the same big question as they do in CA
Why are journeys made??
We can build an electric rail line, to travel at very high speed, But the economy itself is oil driven. We have built an oil based infrastructure (wind and solar can never replace it).
Oil is a rapidly depleting asset, irrespective of Trump's claims, (we currently use 10x more than we discover). It is likely to be too expensive/scarce to use 10 years hence. (there just won't be enough to support our industrial existence in the sense that we know it now)
If oil isn't there to support our business and leisure, journeys will have little or no purpose, no matter how fast they go,
The purpose of that journey will no longer be there. Travel will be too restricted to make long journeys a worthwhile proposition.
This is another symptom of the end of our oilparty
https://medium.com/@End_of_More/the-oilparty-is-over-c06d3c723655
Which goes some way to explaining it, but offers no solution. It is a crisis of our own making, and a high speed rail line will not provide an answer to it.
1
I want this so bad.
Airports are not great user experiences, especially for intra-California flights. Would love to have an alternative besides driving 5-7 (depending on traffic) in my tiny car through the sweltering desert past CAFOs.
Please continue to invest in transit, California. It makes our state work!
3
This project has been stoned to death from its very beginning. Every conceivable objection has been voiced, including all the concerns about cost. Compare this to China's most recent completion of both 4,500 miles of high speed rail as well as demonstrating the feasibility of Maglev designs. They now have a system of extending pre-cast sections along for elevated lines that appears to be sound and cost & time saving. Could it be the naysayers are mostly auto-related companies, oil distributors, freeway contractors and most obviously, airlines?
2
One hundred billion dollars buys you 400 million $250 round trip airline tickets between Northern and Southern California. In other words, the government could instead provide completely free statewide transportation for several decades, to everybody. Transportation that’s far faster and will even land you directly at an airport in the specific city you want to visit. This is the wrong project on the wrong route, attempting to solve a problem that never existed in the first place.
3
Yes but the train isn’t just for people traveling from LA to SF - it’s at least as much for people who live in Fresno, Stockton, etc... That area of California has been left behind. A government’s responsibility is not the same as a business - there’s more to it than turning a profit. If this rail project is like much smaller scale rail projects that I’m familiar with, the full benefit won’t be apparent for years after it’s built.
3
It won’t be any faster of cheaper than flying from Fresno or Sacramento to San Francisco, let alone Los Angeles. The article also fails to detail how slow this train’s average speed is and how extremely expensive the tickets will likely be. It maxes at 220 but will typically travel far slower. This is not a maglev and it makes a lot of stops. By 2050 odds are also very high all cars will be electric, clean, fast, safe and self-driving. Autonomous electric commuter planes are also now in early stage development. Whatever we call buses may be like what Elon Musk is proposing for Chicago. If even half of these highly likely technologies take root over the next two decades, this rail system will even be used less than critics estimate. Wrong investment in the wrong location at the wrong time.
5
Ouf, even the 119 mile stretch in Central Valley, for 2022, it is a good idea.
Do that, and take that as a starting point for the next phase.
People will be shocked by how many new doors even that opens.
2
It is a bit baffling that you could write a whole article on the subject without bringing much information on the financial standing of the project. If it costs $100 billion but that cost can be paid back fully by ticket prices, then it’s not really a cost. If the ticket prices can only finance $70 billion, then we have to figure out what the missing $30 billion are for. If it is saving on $40 billion to add some lanes on highways, it is still worth it. Any infrastructure planner should have put that kind of figures together; are they not out there at all (I highly doubt it)?
Without these figures this is just an ideological debate. A completely pointless exercise of people shouting about clean and efficient transports (which is important) on one side, against people shouting about taxpayers’ money (also quite important) on the other. And politicians who can have a field day with political postures in the meantime.
1
The ticket prices won’t capture any of the construction costs. The ticket prices will capture one third to one half of the operating costs. The. State will have to repay construction bonds while also paying ongoing operations and maintenance. This project will cost the state at least $5 billion annually in perpetuity.
2
@Rick Any source? Or is your comment based purely on anti-state ideology?
1
Right wing budget hawks need to look in the mirror before criticizing the California bullet train. Sure there is a lot to criticize, but look at where you have spent federal money this year.
Tax bill gift to the rich will raise the federal deficit to $1T this year. Supply side? Hah. Big corporations already told Congress that they had no intention to invest in factories, and no intention to create jobs. And they haven't. Unemployment is down but wages are barely keeping up with inflation. Talk to the blue collar wages who lost their well paying jobs during the Great Recession and ask about jobs.
And about Trump's infrastructure plans? None! Unless you count his plans for the wall. But Trump is quietly destroying the ACA and Medicaid which is slowly bankrupting local hospitals. Lost local jobs and destroys the possibility of companies relocating to an area without medical care. Those areas need Federal welfare to survive.
Now about the bullet train. Expain again in the federal context about how this real infrastructure project is bad. It is creating jobs. It will create more support service jobs. Compare that with your $1T deficits and come up with a better story.
5
California governments have demonstrated over and over that they lack the competence to operate public transit. Other than lining the pockets of the politically connected, this project won’t do what it’s supposed to. Juan Peron would be jealous.
4
If a train infrastructure project that spends about $5b per year over 2 decades is a Boondoggle, what would that make our military budget at $700b per year?
Last year, we increased the military budget by $90b per year - enough to pay for the whole train project.
2
@jk
OK, by that logic then, we have an even bigger boondoggle problem with welfare, which costs $1,137 billion per year.
When the proposition was on the ballot, I voted yes because my cheating ex-brother-in-law signed the ballot argument against it, and I figured whatever he was against was probably a good idea.
Today, I travel from the Bay Area to Southern California frequently for work, and while Southwest Airlines is reasonably cheap and reliable, I look forward to a decent alternative of 21st-century air travel, which is always horrible and even worse when you do it twice in one day.
Driving is not as bad as it sounds, but you lose a day, which is ok for vacations but not for work.
Unmentioned by most is that air travel has even worse -- actually much worse -- environmental impacts than freeway travel.
California has been remiss in developing alternatives to flying or driving within the state. Huge cost or no, we need to be investing in public transportation. It won't get any cheaper as the years go by so we have to bite the bullet (train) and get it done.
4
Going north and south on California freeways has gone from kinda bad when I started driving in the 1970s to an existential challenge when considering the travel today. You plan according to the big city choke points, and if one other soul has a bad day and crashes you get to extend your time on the road by sometimes hours.
People who live in a metropolis in CA are mentally held hostage by traffic. Maybe this project won’t solve our car addiction but it sure won’t hurt. It could open a door to a better future.
4
This project is a necessity in California. With our growing population and the resulting highway congestion, it will be nearly impossible to move people and goods through the state in a couple decades, or less.
The HSR system, if completed, will give Californians more mobility choices and meet the State's needs given the 2040 population projections.
Even with cost overruns HSR is cheaper than adding thousands of miles of new highway lanes and adding runways and constructing new airports that would be necessary to keep us mobile, and, both would be illegal under California laws that demand that we cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Some would argue that this is not the optimal alignment for the project, but at this point we need to move on and support the completion of the project, warts and all.
There are sections of the rail system that would make a huge environmental impact if constructed which should have been prioritized: Long distance commute routes in Southern California such as the San Diego/Orange County/Los Angeles line, and the San Jose/San Francisco/Sacramento line. With HSR time savings, both of these would produce a significant cut to freeway traffic in both regions, especially given the increase in first/last mile solutions.
So just get on with it already.
3
Not sure if a high-speed rail, from SF to LA, is a priority but I wish they would make significant improvements to local rail service. CalTrain in particular has become old and in serious need of upgrading including electrification (trains still run on diesel), Wifi, and other safety upgrades. All the Republicans who oppose these types of projects are being short-sighted. Heck, even Trump supports 'infrastructure' even if he doesn't lift a finger to push any significant infrastructure legislation...
1
The Japanese build high-speed rail when it makes sense, but they've cancelled many high-speed rail projects when they didn't. The first line linked Tokyo, Nagoma, and Osaka. Tokyo metro area has a population of 39 million. That's more than the entire population of California. Nagoma has app. 10 million and Osaka 19 million. Wikipedia references an annual ridership of 159 million passengers for that line alone. The most successful rail system in the United States is the northeast corridor. It has an annual ridership of 18 million. The annual ridership on this line will simply fall pitifully short of sustaining it economically.
2
$100 billion is the tax cut that Trump gave to Apple which Apple promptly gave back to shareholders in the form of stock buy-back. $100 billion for HSR is chump change for this country. We can not only afford it, we should do many more such projects.
3
This is big government at it's worst. By the time they finish building it, a lot of corrupt private construction companies will become billionaires thanks to the California tax payer. One also assumes technology is fast paced. To spend so many years building phased out technology......what a terrible waste of money. Imagine the amount of money that could have gone towards improving actually used roads, existing transport systems and perhaps loaning money towards the education system.
2
I believe the professor from Stanford that is quoted in the article is Joe Nation, not Joe Nathan.
I would have liked to know why he made the statement which I believe was along the lines that the high speed rail makes less sense now than it did.
1
A very important issue in need of understanding about California’s high speed rail system is; what happens without it? Without the system, every other mode of transportation will require substantial upgrading and/or massive expansion in order to accommodate the burgeoning transportation demands of 40 million people. An expansion impacting every commercial airport and their support facilities coupled with the massive expansion of every major north-south highway and connecting road. The cost of these alternative projects, plus the dislocation, noise, environmental battles and degradation would easily dwarf the rail system’s ultimate cost, no matter the escalating figure. These familiar expansion projects will not be free, and their costs ultimately borne by every Californian’s pocket and then some, in the form of higher taxes, airfares, flight delays, pollution etc.
Skeptical this will happen? Take a late night or early morning drive on I-5 or Ca-99 between LA and SF and note the astonishing traffic volume. Look up at California skies and see the planes lined up for landing. The roads and skies are already near capacity. The overall bill will never be announced as one figure like the rail project, but in piecemeal announcements, such as $14 billion in upgrades at LAX. Millions here, billions there, the cost of each project intentionally or unintentionally hidden in the borrowings of governments, but you can rest assured, it will be dramatically more than CHSR.
1
Looks like a boondoggle but is the future of California. This happens over and over again. Spending on public transit is always "unaffordable." Pedestrianizing streets is always seen as threat to vehicle deliveries. Both are false. When the systems are in place they are often widely used and provide significant benefits.
2
There is a high speed rail line from Atlanta to Charlotte (245 miles) currently in the planning stages. Recently, a business leader summed up the advantages of this project this way:
"Too short to fly. Too long to drive."
---
LA-SF is 380 miles. The engineering specification for this high speed rail trip is 2 hours, 40 minutes. That is an average speed of 142 mph, and well within the performance range of mature and proven rail technology in Europe, Japan, and now China.
The Acela line, on the NE Corridor, has taken the majority share of trips between DC and NY, as compared to flying or driving. Acela is not state-of-the-art, and the 226 trip takes 2 hours, 45 minutes (avg speed of 82 mph). But even with those less than ideal specifications, rail is still the preferred mode for travel between DC and NY.
California has long been a forward-looking state and a leader in the United States. If the people of California choose to abandon this viable high speed rail project, you will be left behind by other regions of the United States.
6
It will take four hours with stops.
@Rick
4 hours is possible today on the cheap by using the existing Norfolk-Southern freight line on the southern crescent corridor. That is already the same as driving with no traffic - which never happens. (The existing Crescent train already does it as fast as 5:30, with no optimization or improvements.)
There is a greenfield corridor proposal that could be as quick as two hours. The only relevant stop is Greenville, SC. Air travel, including time to and from each airport, is not competitive even with a four-hour train ride.
As the article noted, Florida governor Rick Scott unwisely refused federal funds for a Tampa to Orlando HSR.
But the privately funded, higher speed rail Brightline has been built in South Florida by parent company Florida East Coast RR and its commercial development subsidiary FEC, connecting the downtowns of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, financed with a combination of bonds, and just as crucial, commercial development. The new Miami Central Station will have condo/office/restaurants/shops, serving passengers, downtown residents and workers.
While this three-city section only reaches 80 mph due to the dense corridor it traverses, it's still much faster than the snail's pace I-95. The next section will be built to Orlando, reaching a speed of 119 mph.
No airport, no traffic, no stress.
I've ridden between the downtown cities, and it's incredible to look at a phone app and see you're going 80 mph through the cities, and I look forward to being able to get to Orlando quickly and easily.
There are, admittedly, differences between FL and CA.
Existing surface tracks in FL were upgraded, there are no mountains to tunnel through, and Brightline is not built for 200 mph.
But South Florida is just as car obsessed as CA, and building and riding fast rail here is a no-brainer, and I hope CA can find the money (injecting commercial development money at stations?) to complete the entire line.
And it's sad that resistance in the Northeast has stopped HSR there.
1
Bakersfield to Madera?! Farm workers and country western singers will have their own high tech transportation system.
It's about time!
3
I'm in favor. But the problem is all the NIMBY nonsense and rent-seekers running the table. On the brighter side, by the time this gets completed, we'll have cured cancer so hopefully there'll be a comfortable smoking car.
1
If only we had alternatives like air travel...
2
Huge waste of money, and I say this as a bleeding heart liberal and environmental wacko.
There are amazing high speed trains in Japan and Europe. Of course, when you get off of one of those trains, you are in a compact city with amazing local public transit.
Cities in the U.S. have been built around the car since the late 1940's. Like it or not, you can't get anywhere here without a car. I live in Austin, Texas, and you can't even walk from one side of a big-box shopping center to another. There are no sidewalks, and you literally take your life into your own hands trying to run across traffic lanes.
The money would be better invested trying to make our roads more efficient, like eliminating bottlenecks, designing vehicles that can communicate, and investing in electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Based on the last 70 years of construction, people are still going to get around on roads, not rails.
4
@Steve Acho
"Cities in the U.S. have been built around the car since the late 1940's. "
Post-war American cities were built that way in reaction to taxpayer-funded investment in roads.
As Wayne Gretzky said, "Skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been."
Build the California high speed rail.
4
It would use a lot of great American steel the world that if the Japanese, Germans, French, Chinese and Uzbekhs can do great feats of engineering and modernization than America can too! We practically invented railroads and now we are behind. Sad! Make us great again here.
2
Sorry to get all "mathy" on you all, but at a price of $100 billion and a payback time of 30 years, they're going to have to charge prices that will never be competitive with the airlines. This project is absolutely doomed to fail.
Amtrak NE corridor has 12 million riders per year. If you assume that the California train has that same number per year for 30 years, they'll have to charge an average fare of $277 just to get the principal back. That takes no return into account. It assumes $0 for operations and maintenance. It assumes no inflation.
Self-driving cars are going to kill ridership. Why would you buy a $277 ticket when you will be able to get into your mobile bedroom at night and wake up in LA/SF refreshed.
Dollars to doughnuts this train never gets completed (which is why it was so dumb to start it in the Central Valley to begin with). At least if you had started it from San Diego to LA, you'd have something usable after it got cancelled.
1
Time is of the essence. Any project beyond 5 years is a management nightmare. 5-10 years a entire city can be built. Resources resources resources. The second is catchup of technology to speedup the transition processes call time. Maybe its the wrong time to build such a project hence the escalating cost. The second avenue project in NYC took 10 years mainly because of corruption. Initially all the financed was not in place. Its projected to last 5 years. You can do the numbers from there . That was kalico then chairman paying his crones. The city pay the cost. The most expense subway per foot ever built in the world . No accountability , no prison , no fault . Don’ t build the high speed rail. Not with public money! Once private money is fully funding this fiasco 100 percent. They can then go full speed ahead. I bet you that will never happen. Its a bridge to now where in 20-30 years.
1
It's mind boggling that Republicans are utterly silent when Trump adds $1 TRILLION! to our debt in six months just to give the very, very rich a tax break, but a fast rail line costing one tenth of that sends them into paroxysms of fury.
9
@Smart Person Obama added 10 trillion in debt over 8 years- why didn't the rail boondoggle get any?
1
2000 years ago the Ancient Romans taught us that the fastest way from point A to point B was a straight line. Apparently the big thinkers in CA can't wrap their heads around such a radical concept
1
This project is part of the moral imperative in the tools we have to fight climate change. What is the alternative? Drive ourselves into oblivion? The roads are already over clogged and quality of life has drastically decreased in the SF Bay area with congestion and don't even get me going on the traffic night mare of LA. Why can't California be like modernized countries in Asia and all over Europe and have a 21st century transportation system? Republicans are ridiculous, they stand against everything, but what do they stand for? This project is a stand for people of California, Republicans just want to be beholden to special interest oil companies forcing us to sit our lives away in a car.
6
All major innovative infrastructure projects look like overpriced boondoggles until we actually do them! When I first came to California - the boondoggle was BART - Bay Area Rapid Transit a billion dollar boondoggle under the Bay which everyone figured would be bankrupt quickly because it didn't go anywhere. 40 years later, BART is essnetial and our big problem is how to double the passenger vulume, build an additional new tunnel under the Bay and extend new lines and at the ends of existing lines without overhauling the whole system - all while continuing to carry half a million passengers today. Development has clustered in higher densities along BART so its spawned a lot of desirable higher density housing without crowding over-crowded freeways. Where would we be without our essential BART?!!!
The same is true of High Speed trains between SF and LA - the sooner we build em the better, and we need to put a few architects like me on the design team so we will design in the ability to expand in the new future. As the air gets dirtier and hotter, it will be more expensive to keep flying on fossil fuels. So the idea of riding a magnetic train at high speed to LA will be every more energy efficient, attractive, and eventually over-crowded. American Knowhow used to get it done. Anti-future backward folk don't want forward thinkers like Jerry Brown our intrepid futurist 85 years young governor to get credit for this essential "extravagance!
Shut up Naysayers!
4
@San Francisco Voter
Excellent analysis ! We too often overlook the fact that "naysayers" are rarely futuristically-minded engineers, architects, or people even vaguely familiar with the vagaries of what must be considered with transportation infrastructure or even the basics of City Planning.
As others in this string have duly noted, there has never *been a public project bigger than filling six potholes in one single day that has *failed to draw a huge public clamor in opposition.
People in general resist change, and people in the modern era are encouraged to "sound off" on computer queues often in *full-throated absence of even *general knowledge, much less a modicum of professional expertise, on *any subject under consideration.
2
Makes sense. But people in the USA are not big on being sensible. They really don't want to ride with other people. They want to go where they want to go when they want to go there, listening to their tunes and talking to their friends on the phone. They don't much care about pollution or the next generation. There is a reason we have a narcissist for a president.
6
The interstate highway system cost about $425 billion (adjusted for inflation in 2006 terms as per Wiki). The republicans and trump have no problems with that since the gas and auto industry keep their axles greased. But spend any money on mass transit in a Democrat state and it's suddenly a bad idea to invest in transport infrastucture? If you get Halliburton, Goldman-Sachs and BP to build high speed trains, you can bet that the president and his troop of republicans will get right behind it. Mass transit is going to be the only way in the future... the days of the automobile are numbered. Just look at the stupidity of traffic jams in even small towns... the one main street can get blocked for hours. Mass transit of any kind is cheaper, safer and faster than individual transportation.
1
@Peace
So $100 billion and counting for one rail line partway through one state is comparable to an entire nationwide system for only about four times the price?? Boy what a bargain!
3
I know it's perverse, but the very fact that Donald Trump and Republican Congressmen and Senators are against the project is a sign that it's a good idea.
I would not have made this statement earlier in my life, but the Republican Party has come to represent every thing that I find reprehensible. My single word for Donald Trump and all his Republican enablers is "vile".
Let's build that high-speed rail!
1
It's California. It will be done.
1
High speed rail is going to save us in many ways. People who object will want it too when it is finished
7
When Trump launches the coup that transforms America to the Republic of Gilead, California may be one of those places that remains American. The future lies in California.
How much did it cost per mile for Japan to build the bullet trains ?
3
By the time this project reaches completion for $1 trillion in 2050, high-speed rail may be obsolete.
4
America is a backward country beset by selfishness and the false creed of hyper-individualism. Japan had high speed trains in the 1960''s! One can travel virtually anywhere in Europe on a combination of high speed trains and efficient "normal speed" trains.
If we are to forge a better future for the citizens of America, we need to focus on public transportation, public spaces and the public good.
6
Think of what that money could do for roads - fix them, widen them, and add more where needed. Such a waste...
1
The distance from LA to SF is closer to 400 miles than 800.
@John H.
It’s 800 miles per the State because it does not go in a direct, “as the crow flies” lone, but meanders here and there!
2
@George S I hope that's a joke, because if it's true, it really is a boondoggle. But there's no way a high-speed line can double the mileage.
Build it and we will come.
3
Republicans just need to shut up when it comes to issues of infrastructure and financial responsibility. It seems all they can do is whine and complain, but they don’t actually DO anything constructive. Remember when Trump said he would rebuild America? He hasn’t done anything. Remember when Republicans criticized Democrats for being “tax and spend liberals”? Well guess what GOP, you gave America a $1 trillion a year budget deficit and haven’t done a thing to rebuild our crumbling country. So please do us all a favor and just go away and be quiet. You had your chance and you blew it. Let the adults run things now. California doesn’t want or need your Conservative whining and complaining. We’ve got a job to do.
5
@BrainThink There aren't many Republicans in California, so why is that an issue? The article says most Californians no longer want it, so that means a good number of liberals don't. If you want to spend your money on a project that is years behind schedule, already 2 1/2 times over budget, and a not high speed high speed rail, go ahead grown -ups (?) and build it.
Love all the 'bait and switch', 'overbudget', etc. comments.
Could some of those who wrote those comments tell me when ANY big project was different? Please be honest.
2
@A2ern
Houston consistently comes in on time and under budget on its large capital projects.
1
I suspect they'll look back and be glad they did it, despite all the cost overruns and changes in technology that've altered the work world. High speed rail has kept the European economy buzzing along and is what any advanced civilized society needs in these times of energy supply uncertainty and skyrocketing costs. California is really the only innovative state left, thanks to Gov. Brown, and is standing up to our neanderthal President. Choo choo on, I say, and all the power to CA (I say this as a Virginian).
4
If vigorously opposed by Republicans it must be good.
1
800 mile line? Is it? I just checked maps and the distance between LA and SF is 383 miles. No wonder the project gets costlier day by day as lazy Americans have forgotten to count. :) :)
@Toonyorker
Look at the actual route map! The straight line thing is irrelevant.
2
I voted against this Proposition primarily because of the inflated numbers of jobs during construction and later permanent jobs! How can a system of less than 1,000 miles long claim to and justify 100,000 permanent jobs! Trains will be primarily computer controlled with one person in the cab and 1 or 2 conductors aboard. This operation will more than likely provide fewer than 5,000 jobs between suppliers and within the operating organization! It will probably be Very top heavy with layers of unnecessary management and very few actual train service and maintenance personnel, equipment and track! Also the requirement of the almost $10 Billion Dollars provided by this Proposition to be the ONLY Taxpayer money provided! ALL other funding to be from the private sector, which because of the 2008 Crash along with the politics involved, has dried up and NEVER materialized!! This is only Governor Moonbeam's Legacy High, er Slow Speed Choo Choo to Nowhere!!!!
2
Of course to Republucans anything other than needless mega expensive weapons, tax breaks for billionaires, putting people in jail, separating families at the border, and paying for Trump's golfing outings is a big waste of money. The Can't Do Party. We'd be speaking German amd Japanese if these miscreants were in charge during the Second World Wat. We are sick and tired of these narrow minded reactionaries always telling the people of our country what we can't have, can't do, and can't afford. There's plenty of money if Republican liars, crooks and traitors stop shoveling buckets of money to their owners, the Koch Brothers and their plutocrat pals. We want Republicans removed from every lever of political power in tha country so America can get back to that quaint concept called Making Progress.
November 6, 2018. NO REPUBLCANS. None. Not one.
6
@Ignatz Farquad
Indeed it IS lobbying by The Koch Bros., Big Oil in General,
and Republican Legislators in *particular that have thus far
*denied the entire United States so much as the *option of
HSR in general, and Mag-Lev technology used in other countries in particular, bcuz, of course, neither Rail System runs directly upon *OIL !
1
Maybe we should simply have asked the Chinese to build it for us.
2
"[A] 119-mile stretch of track from Bakersfield to Madera by 2022." Talk about a "train to nowhere."
@BurbankBob Yes, but... 1) that's the flat, easy part. 2) the opposition is going to come largely from the GOP up and down Hwy 99. That opposition is muted when 1000's of locals have great construction jobs.
YOU GO CALIFORNIA! This has got to be the future and these trains, in France, Germany, Britain, Japan, have been miracle solutions. Wonder how long before our cowardly politicians in the Northwest get cracking on a line from Vancouver to San Francisco. Seattle's gridlock alone is absolutely unbearable.
3
@frankly 32
So *True ! How about a Mag-Lev Train line from
Bellingham North to San Diego South ??
Both non-stop trains and "milk runs" ? The only thing retarding and preventing construction of HSR in the U.S.
is the fact that HSR does *not run on Oil !
1
The question this article really raises is does the benefits of the high-speed rail line outweigh the $100B price tag. And yet the writer and the NY Times provides virtually no rational or numerical arguments for or against the line. As a result, the discussion devolves into the politics of who is for or against large government projects.
The NY Times missed an opportunity to bring some real facts to the topic and educate its readers on the economics of the project. Instead, is just provided a forum for both sides of the argument to .... just argue.
1
California high speed rail is a feasible, necessary, and worthy project that will yield benefits in both transportation and economic development for the next century. Yet the bias of this article, and of many commenters (including many citizens of California), reflect a dystopian vision of pessimism and fatalism.
What has happened to our great nation?
- Where is our ambition?
- Where is our forward-thinking vision?
- Where is our optimism about the future?
Eisenhower proposed the interstate highway system, which was largely completed a decade after he left office.
Kennedy said, "We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are haaaaad."
---
America has always been great. Ambition, optimism, and investment in the future is how we will be even greater in the century to come. The private sector continues to address most of our needs, including essentials such as housing and food. But the government plays a valid and indispensible role in investing in things we all benefit from: infrastructure, education, and advanced research.
You want to really see Mr. Trump's "American carnage"? Then cancel California high speed rail - and similar investments in our future across the nation - and see where America is in a decade.
2
Not one single mention of how many people want to or do travel from LA to SF and vice versa. How about how many would travel the 110 miles being built in the central valley when it's done?
I love high speed rail, but this is a boondoggle.
How about we focus on making Amtrak allow you to travel outside the NE corridor without going through Chicago?
2
Let me make a prediction: success will silence the skeptics. The realization of a high-speed link between Silicon Valley and Silicon Beach, two of the biggest powerhouses and innovation hubs inside the world's 5th largest economy, will transform the Gold Rush State in ways few people now imagine, catapulting it into the 21st century.
By abolishing distance, the concourse will make the San Joaquin Valley a vast and vibrant corridor, an eco-friendly zone of innovation, and the economic backbone of the state. California's fast track to a new future will radically change the national HSR debate, as other states scramble, once again, to follow California's lead.
From the Hoover Dam to the Tennessee Valley Authority, major public infrastructure projects have always faced resistance. But, in the end, posterity will celebrate the achievement as a triumph in the face of adversity.
6
Is there any subject that gets more flack than mass transit when it's in the planning stages? While I'm sure many of the people criticizing the project have their points, I'm not aware of any mass transit project that hasn't become a mainstay in the community it serves after it is completed.
1
I'm pushing 66; grew up in LA with grandparents in SF. We often drove between the two areas on school breaks, and with each trip watched the transformation of little 101 into a massive, important artery.
I watched the Hollywood Freeway go up in the San Fernando Valley, and also the massive 101 project in the San Jose/Silicon Valley. Huge earthmovers, massive amounts of concrete. And lots of tax dollars. San Jose and Silicon Valley would NOT be what they are today in part due to these projects.
Pat Brown was a visionary when we had 15 million residents. Jerry Brown likewise sees what the future holds for us, now that we're 40 million, and in a different environmental and economic place.
3
HSR lines are not development sparks to areas that provide the land. Having more than one or two stations between the start and end points defeats the purpose of the High Speed. It sounds like in CA, since politicians are involved, the system has many more stations than that standard. In TX, we had similar efforts by politicians. Since our effort is private, any add ons would require public money of which none exists. Consequently no added stations, but lots of political talk about stations, much of it resembling the comments here.
We will get a relatively clean shot between Dallas and Houston that will demonstrate exactly what pure HSR can accomplish. If it goes well, it will be the standard for connections between giant hubs.
1
A high-speed rail link between San Francisco and Los Angeles will eventually be built notwithstanding the opposition to the current project. I am sad that I will not be around to enjoy the ride. Spend the money now and the benefits will accrue for generations.
That’s a billion dollars for every 8 miles of transit.
And since it will take approximately 20 more years to complete, that cost will likely go up 50% or more.
3
You'll find 'high-speed rail' in most 1st world countries. They have managed to build and maintain it. You're telling me that 'we' can't ? If the state government is mis-managing the project or mis-spending the money, that's another issue that needs to be addressed seperately. The need speaks for itself. California is already over-populated and it's only going to get worse. The drive up I-5 was gridlock when I did it last and that was close to 10 years ago. If this project takes cars off the highway, it's a good thing. And if it shows the rest of the country that high speed rail is a profitable and ecologically sound investment in our collective future, it'll be a very good thing.
3
Anyone who has been to Europe or Asia can see the benefits of high-speed rail.
And no, perhaps we don't need it this minute. But what happens in 2050, as the population of California continues to increase, when we decide it's needed and it won't be ready for another 50 years?
The right political decision isn't always popular at the time. Full steam (electricity) ahead.
8
Travel anywhere outside of America and Americans can immediately understand that our national transportation system is a complete joke. It’s old, it’s crumbling, it’s slow and doesn’t support smart population growth. Japan, China and France have totally smoked America when it comes to high speed rail. We should be utterly embarrassed.
@wilsonc The rail lines in Japan and Europe were built post World War II (though of course on earlier tracks). Due to the war damage, this could be done. When the TGV tracks were built in France in the 1970s, they had to miss a number of cities in favor of suburban stations because the high speed tracks could not be run into the cities. There is no chance you could thread high speed tracks into downtown San Francisco.
Better to use the roads and robotic vehicles to move people. You'll live to see it.
1
When Japan was a forward looking place, it began the first of the world's bullet train systems. Working there, I recall similar objections just prior to opening the Tokyo-Osaka Shinkansen in 1964 but Japan went ahead. With its unmatched combination of speed and safety the Bullet Train helped drive Japan's economic miracle.
California is doing fine economically, proof that states can be a laboratory of federalism, so high speed rail will not be a cornerstone for economic growth. But for a region as modern as California better late than never is OK. If Donald Trump doesn't make himself President for life, a Democrat or an independent will become President in 2020. A new administration will renew a federal commitment to cost sharing; completing the railway between San Francisco and LA will become economically feasible.
Meantime, private efforts at what should be called mid speed rail, such as those mentioned in the article and Bright Rail in Florida are increasing. If Japan, Europe, China and ROK can do it, why do Republicans (save for Arnold) tell Californians they are inferior?
8
Don't usually agree with the GOP but on this I do. The greater need is a comprehensive regional plan in the San Francisco Bay area. What good is getting to Los Angeles, which I rarely do, when I can't get across town on public transportation?
6
@Claire F Indeed, ask our regional planning agency, MTC, why? They have produced a half-baked "Plan Bay Area" twice, with the third in development. None really addresses missing transit links, and none comes close to meeting out greenhouse gas-reduction goals. Thank god Steve Heminger is retiring soon, none too soon.
1
My father voted for BART in the 70s while he was going to college. His hope was that it would reduce congestions and allow workers to live in affordable areas and still be able to recoup from a hard days work. Today, BART has expanded outside the immediate bay area except in San Mateo because the community refused BART to cross its county lines. Now if it were to be built, the cost would probably 20X the original estimate. I talked with my friends and everyone is either living in S.F. or commuting by Cal Train or BART. Eventually, we would all want a place of our own, the affordable areas will be outside of the bay area or LA. Time will tell if building it would be a success, not building today would only cost more, just ask if the San Mateo community if they made the right decision 30+ years ago.
7
I think that many commenters accept that the Hoover Dam, and the accompanying system of irrigation which created the Central Valley, and also insured that the Colorado River would only be a trickle, if that, when it reached Mexico, and more to the point here, the Interstate Highway System, were unqualifiedly successful public projects. Indeed, that they were "good" is never questioned today. But in fact the Hoover Dam and the Interstate both caused immense environmental damage and social dislocation. I believe that an objective study would question whether either project was worth the true costs. This high speed rail proposition is similar.
2
One also has to consider the cost of travel on this train. If it's way more expensive than a plane ride or about the same, then not many people are going to take it as plane ride is only 1 hour from SF to LA or 2 at the most including security check. The train ride is going to be at least 2 hours . Also, it is the cities in Central Valley that are going to benefit the most from it as they are not as well connected to SF or LA presently. Yes, traffic grid lock between SF and LA does present a huge need for alternative means of travel, which can be best addressed by more plane rides between various cities. High speed train, because of the huge cost of construction and maintenance is not the best solution.
3
@hk Add the time and expense it takes to reach the airport and deal with security and then write back. Try and get from the suburbs of SF to the suburbs of LA by air in less than four hours.
A high speed train would make towns in the Central Valley suburbs of San Francisco, easing the housing crisis in Silicon Valley. The growth potential is enormous.
10
Any New Yorker can assure Californians of one thing: The initial cost estimated by politicians will balloon by billions of dollars before it is completed.
That said, to those who believe the answer is in increased airplanes: How will two already heavily used airports sandwich in these flights? And, in estimating air time, how come no one bothers to add in the time spent in the TSA line, the inevitable flight delays and the hassles of getting to and from the airport compared to a downtown rail station?
The Amtrack express trains between NYC and DC, NYC and Boston are heavily used for those reasons. Sen. Pat Moynihan used to say that he was confident that his time in Purgatory in the after-life will be shortened by having to travel so often on the NYC-DC flights.
3
@HKGuy The San Francisco area has three major airports, and the Los Angeles area four. Room for more flights.
1
Apples and oranges. Along the route between the latter Eastern cities are densely populated areas that can also efficiently make use of train travel. Eastern cities have ample public transit. The route for the California bullet train runs through hundreds of miles of very sparsely populated gigantic corporate farms in the sweltering Central Valley. Arriving in Los Angeles, a gigantic sprawling suburb of detached single story ranchers, one is lost without a car. It is the train to nowhere.
1
This article cites that 'Californians are mostly against it', and only 31% support continuing construction on the bullet train; however, the 31% figure reflects Southern California respondents, who are more likely to be Republicans. It would be important to poll a more representative section of Californians in forming a more reliable consensus. This transportation project is needed in California.
2
@MacPherson...have you looked at the concentration of Democrats in Southern California? From San Diego to Santa Barbara, it's as blue as the Pacific.
2
Anyone who has traveled to places like China, Japan, and the EU knows how amazing and effective their high-speed train networks are. It's mind-boggling how far behind the US is on these infrastructure projects simply because people are either afraid of the cost, or because the finished product will come too late to benefit them personally. C'mon guys, I-5 is hardly enough to handle all the traffic between NorCal and SoCal as it is. We need this train for future sustainable growth.
4
@ziqi92 China has an excellent bullet train network, which I've had the pleasure of riding three times. But. They are not using downtown stations, but building on the agricultural edge of town, and creating new urban centers at the heart of which is the train station. It's a lot harder for the US to do that, since we have much more of a free market economy and it's a lot harder to condemn land. There is no practical way to run high speed tracks into the urban centers of LA and San Francisco.
3
@Here Not so. There is already a robust heavy rail system used by both commuters and freight that goes right into the center of DTLA and passenger rail travels from San Jose to SF many times a day, and will soon reach our new Transbay Terminal complex.
Most American cities, like European cities, have downtown rail stations. The Chinese stations are connected to city centers by new or existing transit systems.
At least it's infrastructure—something that the US could use a lot more, and more jobs, of.
Perhaps SPMFA and a drug-ad ban can push down the costs. Healthy workers cost less and need less money, which means less back-and-forth commutes to multiple jobs, which means less wear of the infrastructure, which means less to repair, which means fewer infrastructure workers and projects needed in the first place.
Non-crazy government has a butterfly effect.
I am not an engineer or a contractor of any kind, but why can countries with less money build these high speed rails decades ago. Seems like we are individually so greedy that we cant get anything collectively done without the price being a big turn off. Is it really permits and environmentalists? Or is it all the different participants raising the costs.
5
It's the airline industry.
@Mickey
All the money in politics today creates too many chefs in the kitchen who have different financial goals from the general public. The Koch brothers finance a vast right wing media opposition to High Speed Rail because people taking more trains might diminish their future business in extracting and distributing oil, etc., etc., etc.
At some point, people need to be optimistic in public projects. Can we imagine life without the Golden Gate Bridge in San francisco today? No. But when it was built, there was a lot of opposition. Etc. etc. etc. There is always a lot of opposition to public projects. But when they are finished, everyone wants to take credit for them. The best answer to these questions is to check out these systems where they are used successfully. At some point, it's a gamble as all investments are. But over time, gambles in infrastructure tend to pay off by providing long term value to society for all income levels.
1
@Mickey You might be interested in the excellent NYT series on the cost of building big things here as opposed to the rest of the world. It concerns NY subways, but the issues in California are the same, I would guess. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction...
The most pioneering projects are started with a vision yet are ridiculed by short-sighted people. We committed to putting a man on the moon when we had no idea how to do so, and the U.S. still leads in space exploration. Eisenhower sold us on the idea of interstate highways, and 60 years later they are essential to daily life. High-speed rail is a visionary investment in the future. We spend a too-tiny percentage of public funds on these investments. It's now wonder America is falling behind the rest of world. Congratulations to Californians for committing to this vision. Show us the way!
10
Actual numbers are often helpful when estimating if something costs 'too much'.
$100 billion ($100,000,000,000)
$200 each way. Guess for maximum avg ticket price (flying cheaply LA to SF is < $100)
500 million (500,000,000) Number of trips at an avg ticket price of $200 to cover build-out costs (assumes no cost to operate or maintain)
20 million (20,000,000) About half the population of California
25 trips per person (by half the population of the state) to cover build-out costs.
Reality adjustments: it will cost more that $100 billion to build (per article); it will cost money to operate and maintain; fewer than half the state population will use it (at an average of 25 trips each); and - perhaps most importantly, doubtful that avg ticket price will be as much as $200.
Conclusion: this project won't cover its costs.
As another rough est: Amtrack east coast express now averages 35 million passengers per year. If assume starting year 1 that same number of trips just LA to SF, at an avg ticket price of $100, that would be about 70,000 riders every day and still would take 30 years to cover $100 bn build out costs (which ignores actual costs to operate and maintain).
Conclusion: this project won't cover its costs.
Do your own estimates - and I'd love to see official projections (which would include costs like passenger parking, trains, staffing, etc.), but this seems like a case of financial hope vs reality.
7
@john Last I checked, an Amtrak Acela ticket from NY to DC wasn't $100, it was $232. And that was a few years ago.
2
@john Not sure where the $200 came from. I've never heard anyone talk about HSR fares costing $200. Local, regional, and interstate transit rarely recovers construction and operating costs, a fact many conservatives love to trot out. Meanwhile, the costs of road construction and maintenance, as well as the true cost of fossil fuels, is rarely mentioned. And here in California, Republicans are trying to choke off our roadway maintenance funds. In 20 years, when the bridges are collapsing, Republicans will no-doubt blame Governor Brown.
1
The "don't build it" mentality was central to the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system and the Washington Metro: too much money, too much commitment, too much, to much... But 45 years later, who would imagine either city existing without it.
With the huge growing Central Valley populations that are non-farm workers, we will need another BART/METRO on an entirely different scale. The worst examples of indecision are the NY-Boston and NY-DC rail.
Europe and China are so far ahead of the US with mass transit we will spend decades catching up to our own growth.
I say, build it California.
15
@JaaArr Both BART and Metro were badly planned. People assumed everyone in the DC suburbs would drive into the city for work. A circle-Beltway line would have been great to have. BART could have used much greater emphasis on both sides of the Bay, down to San Jose and further.
1
@JaaArr Have you actually been on BART lately?
The stations are scary, and the cars are filthy.
2
@Garth
And they’re still the same cars from the 1970’s!
Gridlock in the LA/Bay Area is insane and has been for decades. Dependence on airlines as the only mass transit system does not offer the consumer a competitive advantage. Once the first high speed rail (HSR) train starts operation, cities will be clamoring to be tied into the network. Look at the history of light rail in the Salt Lake Valley for proof. Very little support until the first trains started running. Now the infrastructure has bloomed across the valley connecting outlying communities. HSR won't solve all transportation issues, but it will give the consumer a much needed alternative.
6
On the other hand, look at San Jose's VTA low usage rates. A poorly-conceived public transit system is no solution. Build it and they will come is very naive.
2
Do we need better rail service in the US? Yes, we do.
Do we need a "bullet train"? Probably not.
The existing LA to SF train service plods along at 40-60 mph. Imagine how great it would be if we could get a decent train that could travel 100-120 mph. Better to focus on that in my opinion.
4
@Hugo
"The existing LA to SF train service plods along at 40-60 mph. Imagine how great it would be if we could get a decent train that could travel 100-120 mph. "
That is what this project is. And this is the only way to do it. Single-track freight lines with at-grade crossings cannot support passenger rail at 100+ mph.
1
@Hugo
Furthermore, your comment is equivalent to suggesting that a two-lane country road can support the traffic and speeds of a grade-separated freeway.
1
I'm so excited for the rail road I hope it gets built!! I am angry at this article it has a clear Republican baise. the rail system is being paid for with bonds so the state is not having to pay the full cast. not to mention that to ride the train you will have to pay a fee, so the money will be payed back at some point. the rail system will hopefully take more then a billion cars off Californias clogged highways giving commuters releafe and helping the environment. it's going to be great.
4
@Andrew. I guess you’ve forgotten the Fed contribution and the rest of California. Where are the ridership projections?
How exactly do you plan to get around Los Angeles without a car?
How does this plan relieve traffic gridlock or take cars off the road?
The harebrained train route runs through sparsely populated, sweltering, ugly farmland. It will have very few riders who will pay a premium ticket price only to arrive at a downtown Los Angeles train station mobbed by Uber drivers, sitting in gridlock.
On top of the Uber effect, undoubtedly travelers will expect to find car rental agencies at the train station. More cars on the road. More time waiting in line.
Ask San Franciscans what it's like trying to get to the CalTrain station at rush hour. Uber has worsened the traffic problem in San Francisco. Swarms of Uber drivers block streets surrounding the train station, increasing traffic congestion and causing gridlock. And unlike Los Angeles, San Francisco actually has ample mass transit. You don't have to take a car to the train station. Yet whenever available, many residents choose car travel (i.e., Uber) to get to the train station. Given a choice, people don't want to ride on filthy, overcrowded public transit. That's the fact, Jack.
If they could build the bullet train as a car ferry, that might work.
Improving local mass transit in all of California's cities would make a huge difference.
1
The entire country should be investing in high speed rail. Go to Europe and you can get around to any country via public transport or air; come to the states and. nothing.
Used to be we'd get something for our taxes, now they just go to billionaires and corporations. That's got to stop. We have to start investing in smart, 21st century infrastructure, otherwise citizens will start looking at countries to move to where the citizen actually gets something from the system they put into.
5
I voted for and still support a high speed rail system that connects the major urban centers in CA. We are so far behind other countries in regards to infrastructure and the last thing we need here are more freeways. Amtrak is already a relatively popular way to get around the state , even with a system that is very inconvenient in many ways. Imagine if our trains actually connected places and made sense in their routes (let alone reduced the current 12 hours+ time to go from the Bay Area to SoCal). Imagine if the federal government had actually stepped up and given full backing to this endeavor to not only bring our most populous and prosperous state into the 21st century, but to be a model for other states? The federal government spends nearly $10 billion per day, so earmarking even half the high speed train budget ($50 billion) is virtually peanuts. We are living in an age of resource allocation dysfunction. The things we need most - good transportation, good schools, good public health - are sidelined to squander billions on overseas wars that don't end, providing subsidies to industries that don't need them and demonizing anyone who has the audacity to suggest spending money on things that actually impact the quality of our citizens' lives. I don't see any benefit to pouring billions into Afghanistan or Iraq, but I would see an immediate benefit if we had a functioning high speed rail system connecting CA.
4
It's sad the US is so far behind other developed countries in fast transportation. Everyone in the country should be FOR this project which will give our country a boost in self-pride and give future generations a modern means of moving from one place to the other. Meanwhile our "leader" in DC, who promised to make America great again, is opposed to it. Why? because California didn't vote for him. Why do Republicans feel the need to be Ludites when progress is the issue?
4
What this article doesn't mention, and this may be a failing of HSR's communication, is that a lot HSR's budget is going to fund modernization of California's rail network that benefit both passenger and freight rail transportation in the state. HSR money is helping to build, modernize, and integrate existing transportation systems throughout the state including Caltrain Electrification, station improvements, and grade separations (San Francisco to Gilroy); San Francisco's Central Subway (almost complete); Amtrak Capitol Corridor track improvements (Oakland to San Jose); advanced signaling systems for Caltrain and BART; track improvements for the Amtrak San Joaquin corridor; 2 miles of new LA Metro light rail; improvements to San Diego's Trolleys; and improvements to San Diego North Country signaling systems. These are projects that help relieve traffic congestion, reduce greenhouse emissions, and improve quality of life in the region near-term. This is in addition to all of the grade separations and other infrastructure that will improve passenger and freight travel even before the high-speed trains start running. Critics should acknowledge this and I think that HSR's messaging should be improved to emphasize the near-term benefits.
6
No boondoggle. The framing of this article title is exactly the language sought by the resource extracting corporate plutos love to read. The contest is about BigAg and BigOil vs. what is good and best for California's people. Often wrongly described as a tax burden, the corporate interests of oil and agricultural interests in the souther San Joaquin Valley, AKA Bakersfield and San Bernardino, do everything possible- including big money financed lies- to prevent such a wonderful investment in infrastructure. Devin Nunes and Kevin McCarthy are the stooges of their cooperated handlers. Period.
6
While I agree we need an alternative between SF and LA; this would be great if it was available now. The technology is by no means cutting edge, even by today's standards. In 20 years it will be obsolete compared to what might be available.
3
So we should continue to do nothing? Pat Brown's vision of the future of California is what moved it forward. Not acknowledging the problems is what allows them to become even worse.
"Beginning construction without all of the financing in place represents a strategic gamble by the rail authority, and by Mr. Brown, that once enough work is completed, future leaders will be loath to walk away from the project and leave a landscape of unfinished pillars, viaducts, bridges and track beds. Faced with reduced resources, the authority has altered its plans, and is now focused on finishing a 119-mile stretch of track from Bakersfield to Madera by 2022."
This is exactly right. California government HSR advocates are hoping they can sink enough concrete in place that completion of the project becomes inevitable, regardless of the cost or utility.
It will be interesting to see the pitiful ridership numbers once the first segment from Bakersfield to Madera is completed. I can't imagine why any sensible Bakersfield resident would pay for an expensive rail ticket, when the trip can be made by car for less than $20 in gas. The tickets will need to be free, or nearly so, to get any riders.
7
The idea of high speed rail is great but needs to be started where the engineering feats are minimized and the effect on real people maximized.
A high speed rail from Boston to Chicago would be a much better idea. It could follow interstate 90 most of the way and extending through Illinois, Iowa to Omaha. It would bring the midsized towns of Massachusetts, New York ie Springfield, Albany, Syracuse, Toledo etc etc into a transportation grid which would work for them. While most of these midsized towns are serviced by airports they usually require transport to hubs and are limited in frequency of flights. A local HSR with stops every 25 miles combined with an Express HSR with stops every 200 miles and running twice or more an hour would be godsend for these intermediate sized communities while providing direct connections from Boston to Buffalo to Cleveland to Chicago.
Subsequent grid lines could then connect with this line from NYC to Montreal via Albany and Detroit to Cincinnati via Toledo. This would just be the beginning. All using previously built up corridors.
3
@James That's misguided. No one is going to want to take an 8+ hour train trip, with multiple stops, when it will be cheaper to take a 3 hour trip by plane for less money.
35 yr SCAL resident here. Wrong project to spend $100B. Doesn't build out "last mile". So I have to get to (some) train station in LA, and arrive in SF in 2 hrs. Then what? Can already make that trip via commuter planes. There are as many airports around here as train stations. I see this as a Jerry Brown legacy / vanity project, and I like and support the guy (mostly). "I'm doing what's right for the state, and the people who disagree are short-sighted idiots". How about desalination investments, more solar, better downtown congestion relief (SD, LA, Bay Area, etc)?
6
@John G The Metro Gold Line goes right from Pasadena to Union Station in DTLA where you would catch the HSR to SF, and usually takes less time than driving.
Your welcome.
Would that Trump sycophant Chris Christie could have been railroaded out of town before he submarined the Hudson train tunnel.
9
Do you want to know why this project is so unpopular in heavily Democratic California? As a supporter of advanced transportation who had lived in Los Angeles for over 30 years, let me explain. I have driven or flown between SoCal to NoCal countless times. Each time, do you know what question I and my fellow travelers have never asked themselves? “Gee, why isn’t there a far more expensive and less convenient way to get from LA to San Francisco?” Build high speed rail where it is needed. This route is a solution to a problem that simply does not exist. The air routes between north and south are numerous, conveniently dispersed and cheap. The freeway is long, straight and usually devoid of city traffic. This project will only end up as a politically devastating boondoggle, sucking up money and support for desperately needed mass transit projects everywhere else.
8
People seem to forget that one reason much of Europe was able to install rails, often in pretty straight lines, was due to the fact that there was so much devastation after WWII. The US used to have a huge rail network but abandoned it over the years...trying to reinstall it in areas that have since built up is extremely difficult without condemnation actions, not always easy or cheap to achieve (unlike China we can’t simply take land).
4
@George S Also, the distances are much less in Europe. The distance between SF and LA covers most of Europe.
3
@Garth Europe has also built up its local transportation which supports the high speed by ensuring you can get anywhere locally after you get off the mainline train. I doubt Madera has a light rail and local bus system comparable to, let us say, Dusseldorf.
@George S Actually, railways existed long before WW2, and certainly before highways. Central City rails stations existed in all larger European Cities long before cars were invented. Many HSR lines shared or replaced low-speed lines. New track paths are usually adjacent to old, but, even if not, they had nothing to do with WW2.
Here in ruby red Utah we have a high speed (80 MPH in streaches) rail line between SLC and Provo. You wanna know why? It’s profitable — I will admit that it’s barely in the black, but still! — and taxpayers aren’t forever on the hook for paying maintance costs on something that’s losing money anyway.
It’s not so much Republicans hate mass transit, although some do, as it is the long term expense of it all.
Having come from Tampa, the train to Orlando was always gonna be a money loser. Tickets were predicted to be ~110$ and you’d still need ‘last mile’ connections. That’s not average person commuter costs.
I pay ~9$ round trip between SLC and Provo.
1
Why don't they view this first as a central valley development project? It should extend to Sacramento. Then you link Bakersfield, Fresno, Modesto, and the capital with no tunnels!
4
@Bruce...The Central Valley is Red. They need the Blue vote in the Bay Area and the LA Basin to keep this train wreck on the rails.
Boondoggle.
It's about buying votes:
Support
~ California Labor Federation
~ California-Nevada Conference of Operating Engineers
~ Operating Engineers, Local 3
~ International Association of Machinists
~ International Brotherhood of Teamsters
~ International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
~ Laborers International Union
~ State Building and Construction Trades Council of California
Source:https://calaborfed.org/issues/build_high_speed_rail_in_california/
CHSRA: High-speed rail has created 2,000 jobs
( https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/chsra-high-speed-rail-has-created-2... )
The costs will continue to rise and the beneficial use will take longer to realize and be less than expected.
If the project is not killed soon, it just may get "too big to fail" and become "doomed to succeed" this is what all boondoggle political public works projects aspire to.
10
Like the guy says, this is America, and we can’t do stuff like this anymore. Apollo? Houston, we have a handout. Internet? A Golden Fleece award for computer nerds. Give it up folks, this is the new America. Leave the big national projects to big ambitious countries. Like Uzbekistan.
You may think it a boondoggle because you won’t use it - but remember, especially if you’re a driver, that drivers only pay about 50 cents in of each dollar it costs to maintain the road network. The rest is paid by everyone including the substantial number of people who don’t use the roads or use them very lightly. Being a carless person (by choice) I get tired of hearing that we shouldn’t build transit unless it pays for itself.
I cite this article published a 5 weeks ago:
How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country - NY Times
Mass transit pays for itself. Mass transits boosts the overall economy, it has so many positive effects on the future.
@Studioroom
"Mass transit pays for itself."
Right. That must be why AMTRAK is so profitable.
The United States has always been a mation of skinflints. We get the 20th century infrastructure we deserve. Remember that while you sit in 115 degree traffic jams from coast to coast. The Chinese, Japanese, EU, and nearly every other civilized nation are laughing and popping champagne corks on their extensive bullet train networkss, toasting to the downfall of the good old backwards home of the Scrooge McScroogeface.
Pay taxes? Whatever for?
2
Aircraft are a better connection in every way for LA to SF
6
Eveytime I come home to California from my home in Holland, I’m appalled at the discpicable conditions of the roads and public transport. Hurry up and get on with catching up to the 21st century, and stop whining about the costs. That’s what governments are suppose to do - invest in the well being of its citizens and future citizens. The profits from increase productivity, connectivity and business alone eventually pay for themselves many times over. GG Bridge, Bart, Bay Bridge.
3
@A. Let's keep a little perspective here. You can fit 11 Hollands inside California. You can fit 240 Hollands inside the US. The cost of bringing that area to a European high speed rail standard is in the multiple trillions of dollars. Driverless cars are going to obsolete trains within 10 years anyway. If your comment was why isn't California spending money on infrastructure to support driverless cars and trucks, then I would be all for it.
(Also, Holland's rail system really isn't all that. It's about as good as the one serving Chicago and its suburbs).
7
@Andrew Also, the Dutch do sensible things like build a train station inside the airport. (Schipol) Unlike our officials (i.e. LA Green Line) who stop the train two miles short of the airport.
@Garth
Yes, thank the LA taxi lobby for that brilliance
They could well wind up with several unfinished overpasses that resemble Newhall pass featured on the cover of the Doobie Brothers "Captain and Me'. Hmmm.
3
Meanwhile, Trump and cronies are on board for throwing hundreds of billions more at the F-35 program.
Maybe the Governor should make like Trump and claim that the HSR system was going to cost $200b before he renegotiated it downward.
Here's Trump lying about the F-35 and its inflated value:
"Amazing job, an amazing job. So amazing that we're ordering hundreds of millions of dollars of new airplanes for the Air Force, especially the F-35. Do you like the F-35? I said how does it do it in fights, and how do they do in fights with the F-35. He says we do very well, you can't see it. Literally you can't see it. It's hard to fight a plane you can't see right? But that's an expensive plane you can't see. And as you probably heard we cut the price very substantially, something other administrations would never have done, that I can tell you."
1
@D.A.Oh
BTW, since each F-35 costs $100m to manufacture (on top of the $1.5 TTrillion up to this point), then ordering just 2 jets is "hundreds of millions of dollars of new airplanes for the Air Force."
A single train line won't reinvent California especially when so many of those who will likely be riding on this future $100 billion dollar train are already to easily afford plane tickets that complete the jaunt in about an hour.
Will it look nice on paper? Yes, and it'll get a lot of oohs and ahhs to begin with but it'll hardly be the "future of California".
I feel like it'd make much more sense to use the 100 billion for intra-city transportation options, especially in LA. More people commuting to more jobs in more areas in a city the size of LA would net you better economic results than some flashy train connecting LA and San Francisco.
But then again that may be harder to build since the State would have a harder time condemning the property it wants.
3
The final cost will be $300 Billion but so what, we waste more than $1 Trillion a year on the bloated DoD budget. The Joint Strike Fighter - 135 alone is a black hole of waste. If America cannot build this, I wonder what we can do?
5
In 1925 Los Angeles had the world's largest trolley system only to be dismantled later by lobbying from the auto industry. Now we have chocked 10 lane highways, and an airline system that is the envy of the stupid. Let's join the civilized world and build a world-class rail system. Having lived in Japan, Europe, Boston, and the SF Bay Area, I've experienced how efficient and enjoyable rail travel is. In the 1970s when Miami was building their MetroRail, many people talked about that project as boondoggle. But people began using the system, and businesses and housing sprang-up along the routes. Total success. The same will happen in CA with our high speed rail.
3
A better idea: Personal Rapid Transit -- smaller scale, point-to-point like a car, but shared-use, like a train. A "packet-switching" network routes dynamically without fixed "train lines" and no transfers for passengers. For the $10 bil they'd need to fix this, you could do the entirety of urban and dense-suburban California. https://www.climatecolab.org/contests/2011/contest-2011-national/c/propo...
2
Interesting how few comments there are from Californians who are enthusiastically supporting this Moonbeam boondoggle of $100 billion and counting. Easy to say how wonderful high speed rail is when you aren't paying for it. First of all, California is not Europe, nor will it ever be. So you can ditch that argument. Secondly, if it ever makes it to both SF and LA, what does one do after getting off the train at Union Station in LA? Most likely arrange a Uber or Lyft. Or maybe rent a car? Just like one does at LAX or BRB or SNA if you have not already parked your car there. And what is it going to cost to enjoy this 21st Century miracle mode of transportation? I don't hear any talk of that. And how frequently will the train run? I've lived in Southern California for 40 years. I remember when the population of this state was closer to 20 million. It's now 40 million. In that time only one new freeway was built...the long delayed Century into LAX. It's now jammed daily. Any rail into LAX after all those years? We're still waiting. Sorry, but Californians were lied to as usual by the Democrats, talking to you Jerry Brown, about the cost of this boondoggle and the time to build it. It's not too late to tear it down and spend the money on rail projects in the LA, SF, and SD metro areas.
5
LA as it is should not be the model for what California should be. SF has Bart and while it isn’t perfect, it’s 100 percent better than LA. So to answer your question, when get off the fast train in a progressive city, there will be some public transportation waiting for you.
You are right about the freeways in LA. They are a blight across the landscape.
1
@Southern. Sorry, but Bart is no better than LA's subway and light rail lines. SF just got there first. LA's freeways are as much a blight as are the veins in your body. They are magnificent engineering marvels which made Los Angeles the envy of every city west of the Mississippi. The freeways are not Los Angeles's problem. That blame can be placed squarely on out of control immigration, much of it not legal, which has turned a once beautiful, clean and very livable city into a crumbling, overcrowded, unsafe, third world cesspool to all but the 1%.
For forty years Grover Norquist and Republican politicians have continuously brainwashed voters to believe lower taxes would result in trickle down economics with the middle-class reaping the biggest benefits.
Now step back and view the local, state and federal infrastructure that is all around you and compare it to the infrastructure in China, Europe and Japan.
Do we, as tax-paying citizens, seriously believe we can continue traveling down this Republican pothole-filled dead-end infrastucture road to the 1950's?....and if so, where does the USA look and feel like at the end of this continuous tax cut road?
Soon we will all realize "tax cuts" is political speak for corporate greed and wealth accumulation for the already wealthy. Those are the paymasters of our political class.
Vote for the future you want....on November 6th.
2
Well, if they did it in Uzbekistan, that pretty much settles the issue, doesn’t it?
5
What’s more useful an aircraft carrier or a transportation system?
2
@Mr Ed
Talk about apples and oranges.
Yes, yes and yes. Build it. Get it done. It should have been finished a half century ago.
2
Infrastructure in USA is an international embarrassment. Let's stop all these projects so that we can fully embrace our third world status.
3
The train is critical, but the route through the Central Valley was ridiculous, just billions of pork for GOP counties. Really, how many riders hop onto HWY99 in Madera to go to Bakersfield and LA? The train SHOULD have started in Sacramento, then to San Francisco, and then followed HWY101 to LA. Oh, well....
5
Interesting how few commentators are from California. I guess they have no objections to how we spend our tax money.
1
Every civilized--and some not so civilized--countries in the world have robust passenger rail systems. Except the US. The Koch's and GOP see rail as a threat to Big Oil so they fight against it. Don't be looking to take the choo-choo train anytime soon. If ever.
3
The original article is fatuous and biased, focusing on the usual complaint that the project is too big and expensive. I was pleased to see that many of the comments from readers pointed out the real problem, which invades most of the large City and State projects in California: Corruption. Try taking Amtrak anywhere but the Capital Corridor (the one that the pols take from SF to Sacramento) and you will see a 3rd world cesspool of poorly managed staffs and obsolete equipment. Why spend money on personnel and equipment when you can reward friends, family, and campaign supporters with huge contracts?
2
Think of this as a mini-version of ObamaCare:
--only liberals want it
--liberals want it because they have it in Europe
--most will never use it, but all will pay dearly for it
--no one knows how much it will cost, but likely more than anticipated--yet full speed ahead anyway.
--no one knows if it will function as envisioned
--it will eventually go off the rails.
8
@Jesse The Conservative-to paraphrase Nancy Pelosi on the ACA, "We have to build it to see if it is worthwhile" Cost estimates are usually low balled to obtain approval. If this project is similar to the Big Dig, the final price tag will be north of 300 B. I am all in favor of HSR as long as we can build it at reasonable cost. The commenters compare the USA to the ROW but the recent articles in the NYT point out that the second Ave subway line in NYC cost 5X per mile what subways in the rest of the world cost. Maybe if we can identify why that is at the outset and control the overruns we can build HSR affordably.
Every First-World nation has a train system that puts the one in the USA to shame, not to mention all the Euro nations, and Japan.
What is it about the need for trains as the arteries for the lifeblood of our nation that the USA just doesn't get?
7
NYer--Unfortunately, there's a lot that our "exceptional" nation doesn't get. We need to wake up, and get real.
@NYer The U.S. is much bigger geographically than Europe. Most cities in Europe weren't developed with the automobile in mind. Fewer Europeans own cars.
Those are some of the reasons.
1
@NYer...The US has tens of thousands of miles of train tracks that carry the lifeblood of the country and much of the First-World - which includes much of Europe and Japan. How do you think our exports get to the rest of the world? It's the same way our imports get to their destinations. Rail.
1
The route is driven by politics and not demand.
The existing "Coast Starlight" train route (LA, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, San Jose) would have allowed for an incrimental appoach of eliminating at-grade crossing, electrification, and railbed improvements. We would have seen benefits within a few years.
2
Do you even take the train thru LA to Santa Barbara from San Diego? It is still slower than driving. It is great if your not in a hurry to get where your going. What plan has ever been proposed to get the train over single track faster to SF(not San Jose which is still an hour south of SF or Oakland)?
3
@Southern
That's my point, improving the existing route (double tracking, no at-grade crossings) has immediate benefits and eventually it evolves to be the train system we need.
FYI: I take Oceanside to/from Union Station 2x a week.
Fun with Math:
Assuming $100B and 5000 riders per business day and 240 business days per year, and 15 years, that works out to a daily fare of more than $5500 per rider per day...with no operating costs to run the system or interest on the debt.
5000 × 240 x 15 x $5500 = approx $98B
Assuming same ridership 365 days a year, after 15 years cost per rider drops to about $3600 per rider per day.
1
@LMT Even if you assume 50,000 riders per day, that's still $550 per ride subsidy.
1
@Garth Yepper, that's still a-lot.
To be fair, I suspect if one calculated the cost of highway building, cost of personal cars, insurance, etc, the cost of auto travel per person per mile would so far above the cost of miles per gasoline, one's head would spin.
(Oh, and the cost to address the backlog of our crumbling infrastructure is staggering. Given all, not sure I fathom the recent tax cut or the $12B spiff to farmers, but that's grist for another day. SMH.)
An excellent article and some wonderful comments by the readers.
I’m a former Californian, from Los Angeles. I left California for NY a couple of years before the state’s voters approved the initial bond issuance to start this project.
I’m torn about this railroad. The highway network in California is overloaded, even in rural areas. Planes are full running between the major cities. A high speed railroad network definitely makes sense in theory, and if done well could transform the economy of poorer inland areas.
The costs have gotten so high, however, that it will be tempting for future governors and legislatures to pull the plug and redirect money to more pressing priorities (eg, water projects, highway improvements, financing the schools, creating housing).
I am concerned that a finished railroad would be in such financial trouble that it will need to charge fares higher than the airlines, and would carry very few passengers as a result. This reminds me of parts of the railroad network in Japan, that surmounted enormous engineering challenges but which have been supplanted by busy air routes.
A successful high speed rail network would need to have frequent service and low fares. I am doubtful that the political will exists to do this in California.
1
The Times suggesting this may be a boondoggle in the headlines represents the very conservative viewpoint. You know, if this is crony capitalism, come out and say it, and set about proving it. Otherwise, it's creating good construction jobs, and enabling people to avoid car travel, having a direct impact in global warming. It's time to spend the billions on alternatives to cars, and tax the the people using cars more. The tax breaks for corporations need to end - they are free riders on the infrastructure and education systems government has funded.
3
We never would have had the Union Pacific's nation-spanning railroad without the Civil War. Reactionaries, mainly southern government-haters, blocked all attempts to fund it. The War removed them from the equation, the railroad was built, the west opened.
Reactionary culture has taken over the Republican party. They refuse to advance 21st c. rail, as their ancestors did the UP. All kinds of other countries do. Japan, China, France, Germany, Spain and more.
California is ideal size, long, thin, metro areas 3 hrs apart by HSR. Endure traffic, airport security, and planes, or go door to door in the same time on train.
Climate: planes don't lift in hi heat. One day McCarthy will have to fly at night. Pollution: planes much more. Comfort: planes much less. Weather: delays planes not HSR. Stops: a problem for planes, not trains.
But trains need political will, to buy land, route lines, and fund. Running through mountains costs a lot, reactionaries top complaint. Remember UP? Southerners said it could never cross the Rockies.
In 2000, global HSR carried 1/4 as many as planes. In 2016, 3/5. America can't? California can.
3
Why can't we build anything in this country anymore? No matter what it is: a bridge, a new road, nuclear power plants, solar panel farms, you name it; it simply can't be done. Someone runs to court to stop a project before the draftsman has taken his hand off of his mouse. Then various interest groups and lobbyists step in to either dilute the original intent of the project, or to claim that it will destroy the "historic nature" of the land where the project will be built. I never thought I would say this, but maybe Communist China is doing the right thing by suppressing people's rights for the greater good of society as a whole.
3
The need for this project is very far from clear. Especially give the very spread out nature of LA businesses. And the relatively lo airfares for travel planned in advance.
With CA progressives attention now focused on some many expensive social programs, this project does not have a prayer of succeeding. Moreover there are other expensive infrastructure projects in greater need of funding. One example is widening the route 101 from Santa Rosa to San Francisco.
It is time to stop wasting money. Sunk costs are just that, sunk. Forget them and walk away.
2
@wbarletta Yes, your comment highlights one of the other unspoken objections to this project: When you arrive in LA, you're still going to need a car.
Maybe no so much in San Francisco, unless you need to go somewhere else, like Marin, Monterey County, Sonoma or the East Bay, in which case you will still need a car as a practical matter.
There is a failure of imagination here. When Huntington built his regional railroad in L.A. county, land developers followed. Such was the strategy and it worked: Field of Dreams. He built it, they came.
Instead of seeing the state's Central Valley as an empty, waste-land and a "railroad to nowhere," imagine it, instead as the backbone of "Third California." Businesses and families priced out of "First California" around S.F. Bay and "Second California" in Socal have already started moving inland. Sacramento is the clearest beneficiary of this transition. The high speed line will accelerate this process and turn cities like Fresno and Bakersfield into a destination for developers.
New political and economic zones that fall between the federal and state administrative structures are being born. The entrepreneurial state is both catching up to this phenomenon and promoting further growth. California is the 5th richest economy in the world, it can wager $100 billion dollars on infrastructure in an age where $100 billion dollars in value on garbage like Facebook goes, "pft" on an afternoon.
5
Keep roaring ahead, California. As a second-generation Angeleno of modest means, I need this train. So do millions of others like me.
5
Sadly, America has become so short-sighted that it no longer recognizes that transportation is a public good. The network of roads, airports, sea ports, AND RAIL are the arteries that carry the life blood of the economy.
At one time - not too long ago - we knew this. America's infrastructure was vibrant and muscular.
The US is no longer the new world. It's in China.
4
If this train is to be successful it must also be an auto train. People are going to want their cars when they get off the train.
@David
The time needed to load and unload cars would make any dream of high speed utterly unachievable.
1
Some perspective on cost, not sure if it's good or bad. Facebook lost $120 billion in stock value just last Thursday. In one day. They lost enough capital value to afford this boondoggle.
1
@Midwest Josh That's meaningless. Loss of stock value on an index has no bearing on anything except as to those who need to buy or sell.
According to Wikipedia, "The total cost of the actual 30-year service life of the [space] shuttle program through 2011, adjusted for inflation, was $196 billion.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program) How can an 800-mile train system cost more than half of that? I’d be interested to learn about the details of the process by which these estimated dollar amounts are produced. For instance, the head of the High Speed Rail Authority said that tunneling through mountains would add $4 billion to $13 billion to the project cost. The difference between those two estimates is a jaw-dropping number, which makes me wonder how precise the estimating process is. Are there variables that could be replaced by firm numbers if more thinking was done up front?
I just returned from Finland and Russia. I'm amazed at the public transportation in both places. The rail systems in Helsinki and Moscow are quiet, clean and efficient. It can and should happen here in California statewide.
For all those complainers in places like Brownbackistan Kansas, who say they won't fund infrastructure projects in other states - stop taking Californians' taxes and start taxing your own people (Koch Industries for example). Californians pay more in federal taxes than we get back.
BTW, this article overstates the distance from here to Los Angeles - it's around 400 miles not 800.
1
I wrote about this eight years ago when the tab was expected to be $50bb. Has anyone seen ridership projections or what the charge will be to ride this?
I would encourage those who are claiming that high speed rail wouldn't because California is too big to look at a map.
Tokyo to Osaka is 500km
SF to LA is 631 km.
High-speed rail might not work in CA, but that's because of our politics, not our geography.
3
@Todd But unlike Tokyo, when you arrive in LA, you need a car to get around.
2
This is a fine example of thesis driving reporting.
Yes, sharp opposition. We had that in Houston to light rail, which is slowly being expanded and ridden. Questions about how to pay for it. Sure, who needs the NYC subways, which face similar questions. Let's just put more cars on the streets.
Articles like this merely normalize the right-wing refusal to invest in infrastructure due to a perverse hatred of "the public" and fealty to petrochemical companies.
I'll say this for trump: He's the ideal figure for a dying empire.
9
Might as well build it now. Won't get any cheaper.
8
I think it is great to live in such a forward-thinking State, but HSR in such a diverse environment is a heavy lift without Federal and private support. The Boston to Washington DC Acela corridor really makes the most sense for HSR at the national level and is where the Feds should probably devote the most resources and attention. Not going to happen under the current administration and Congress. That being said, conventional rail would have been in my opinion, a better way to establish a CA Statewide rail system that could have incrementally upgraded to HSR. Now it is like investing in a Tesla when a Camry would be sufficient. The only missing passenger rail link today in the state network is between Bakersfield and LA through the Tehachapi Pass - that corridor is devoted to freight trains only and rail passengers have to transfer to a bus. Close the gap and tap into the existing passenger rail network and build train ridership through frequency and speed improvements.
I am very disappointed in the lack of relevant facts in this article.
For one, the travel time between San Francisco and Lost Angeles on high speed rail will be 2 hours and 40 minutes. A flight from SFO to LAX takes 1 hour and 40 minutes - not including travel time to and from each airport. Good luck with getting to or from either airport in 30 minutes. And that doesn't even include the TSA recommendation to arrive at the airport 2 hours prior to a domestic flight.
LA to SF is consistently the first or second most-traveled airport pair in the United States. These airports are capacity constrained, and a expansion of airports and freeways as an alternative is projected to cost more than $100 billion that HSR costs. As with the successful NE corridor and Acela, this rail project will divert trips from air to rail, and free up runway slots and gates for longer flights. The rail project will also serve the central valley, and support economic development and jobs in those cities.
5
@Midtown
Your argument that, to make a fair comparison between the high speed rail and flying LA to SF, you need to include time spent going to & from the airport, makes no sense. Of course an air traveler needs to get to & from the airport. But unless the plan is to put a high speed rail station in every Californian's front yard, passengers on the new high speed rail will also need to spend time beyond the 2:40 goal in order to get to & from the train station. Also, most people now acknowledge that the 2:40 transport time goal is never going to happen.
3
@GMooG
Central city stations are - by definition - closer, more convenient, and better connected to most business and personal travelers than out-of-the-way airport locations.
High speed rail has proven superior to air travel for distances up to 250 miles. The 380-mile distance from SF to LA is well within the competitive range for high-speed rail, based on proven and mature technology in Europe, Japan, and now China.
The story should have explained why the project is beginning in Fresno rather than with a more salable stretch, like from San Francisco to Silicon Valley. Additionally, it should have addressed the coming impact of autonomous vehicles, which will put more people on the roads and away from public transportation.
The tens of billions of dollars in eventual cost over-runs are the tip of the iceberg. Over time they will pale in comparison to the incalculable operating subsidies carried on the backs of California taxpayers for generations.
2
So if hi-speed rail is properly built out in California, the land surrounding it becomes more valuable. Isn't it fair, then, for the rank and file taxpayers to demand some return on this public investment from those adjacent landowners? Why do town, county and state taxpayers only get to fork over subsidies for economic development, but, when tax-based development makes private landowners, developers and speculators rich through no effort of their own, there is no requirement that some of that windfall be returned to the citizens who created it? That could be a pot of money that Californians, especially those living in the overpriced areas like LA, SF and Silicon Valley, could use to fill a dire need for more affordable housing. Why does our peculiar form of socialism i in the United States (cf 2007 bank bailout) only grant returns on public investment to the rich? They didn't build it.
2
Doesn’t CA have property taxes based on land valuation? Counties and cities in other states capture increased valuation using that method.
When private funds aren't there, it's generally a bad idea.
2
This project is coming along at a time when autonomous, battery-powered vehicles are will be on the road before this project gets completed, if it ever does.
These autonomous vehicles will come in all sizes, including bus-sized. Unlike rail that requires a massive new infrastructure with permanently fixed entry and exit points, autonomous vehicles will use existing roads to go from many places to many places. And their routes and stops will be easily changed to accommodate fluctuations in demand by the season, day of the week and by the hour.
At a time when the world is moving to more and more individualization - consider what you see when you look at someone else’s smartphone screen - this rail project is a socialized one-size-fits-all solution. If you love this sort of rail project, you probably also love those ancient, heavy, black AT&T phones. They are both from the same 19th century technology.
1
Oh, yes, everyone will have an electric car stuck in permanent gridlock unless an equal $100 billion or more is invested in expanding the road networks. Really? People don't want the train running next to their house, but they'll accept a freeway?
Most of the arguments against HSR fail to recognize that one way or another money needs to be invested. I'd rather have a train then more freeways.
3
When I lived in Belgium, a merely average country within the EU in terms of public infrastructure, the doctor plugged in my government issued national ID card, my prescription was sent automatically to the pharmacy and the bill automatically to my insurance. There are no crooked wooden utility poles with ugly transformers everywhere, the regular train from Brussels to Bruges runs faster than the"high speed" Acela, highways have dynamic speed limits adjusting to traffic and have average speed based speeding tickets on major axes, there are bicycle lanes everywhere and bicycle highways between cities. Etc. etc. People have no idea how much this country has fallen behind. Will there be many mistakes and budget overruns constructing California's high speed rail? Of course. But we need to acknowledge that our expertise in big public infrastructure works is gone and we need to restart somewhere.
3
Taking bets that the fossil fuel industry lobbyists have a hand in creating political problems in getting this done. The Koch brothers are notorious for stonewalling projects in this area and other more efficient systems.
Just look what they’re trying to pull with asking for homeowners to be taxed by states for installation of solar panels. They’re trying to tax the sun. It’s laughable.
1
This state will continue to grow in Population. The high speed rail will present new opportunities for people to work in jobs outside their communities. It will mean fewer freeways, less drive time in stand still traffic, less smog and will be a draw for big business to come to California. The republicans only approve of debt when it is put on the backs of the poor and middle class to pay for it. They don't mind giving themselves trillions in tax relief by canceling programs that help common people. This administration is all about running the debt up for our kids and grandkids for their own agendas, not ours.
1
People who oppose HSR have offered no _realistic_ alternatives that support future economic growth. If you think there is opposition to the rail line that is nothing compared with adding additional runways at SFO and LAX, or all the additional highway lanes throughout the state. Of course the Republicans oppose this project because its not part of their agenda to make the US a small, insignificant 18th century country again, in ways too numerous to list here.
People who say that trains are 19th century technology simply are uninformed about high speed rail elsewhere.
2
The article says:
"Californians are mostly against it. "
What happened to democracy? If most Californians are against it, it should not be built. That's how democracy works, yes?
1
The golden years of the middle class California suburb was created without the deterrent of congested commuter traffic gridlock. In those days your dad could drive his Ford Fairlane and be at work, in the city - in all of twenty minutes. Today, that same route can take mom or dad up to two hours of driving time. Building the bullet train will create jobs and provide potential access to areas where healthy, affordable housing can be developed. It's an obscene violation on all Californians to have any child and family move into an affordable housing box built above a city freeway off-ramp. Children need clean air to breath, back yards to play and the songs of birds to soothe their way.
4
I think the real “boondoggle” is the originally quoted cost of only $40 billion ten years ago not to mention what kind a realistic time frame of completion was given. I’m no engineer or construction genius, but I have been in the transportation and construction fields long enough to realize that building an 800 mile high speed rail line that would include tunneling through the Tehachapi Mountains and going from LA to San Francisco when all of the financing had not been nailed down from the beginning would result in the mother load of all cost overruns and major, MAJOR construction delays.
This project seems as if it was design to fail from jump street. It’s one thing for the cost of a project of this magnitude to “supposedly be split among the state, federal government and private business” but come ten years later and “the rail authority has only come up with less than $30 billion” of the now expected $100 billion and the tax payer may end up footing the bill, one has to ask just who came up with this “brilliant” financial plan? Once a commitment and promises are made, it seems that those who championed this idea need to figure out a way to honor those promises made 10 years ago. It should never be a case in which every one wins EXCEPT the tax paying citizens of California, who could end up paying for something they will never see completed in their lifetime.
2
It's time America caught up with the rest of the world. Read Tunnel Vision By William Finnegan in the July 9th issue of the New Yorker regarding the mess the New York subway system is in do to neglect, underfunding and infighting amongst the states political leaders. It is fixable, and worth it, just ask Andy Byford the new president of the NYCTA- he's done it elsewhere, just not in the beast called America. Why are we comfortable spending billions on the military and not on our own people? This is equivalent to the building of the highway systems in Eisenhower's America. It's disheartening seeing car after car with one passenger in it clogging up the roads and wasting precious energy, both in fossil fuels and in time and personal frustration and isolation. it's a quality of life issue, an economic issue and an environmental issue. It's also common sense.
1
I remember in the 1970s when Republicans opposed the high cost of building the Metro in Washington, DC. Can you imagine the chaos, expanded gridlock, and additional sprawl without it? President Trump promised to fund infrastructure. These infrastructure not only create value and confront global warming, but they create solid, livable-wage jobs. Republicans should step up to the plate to fund an America for the 21st century rather than dumping continued subsidies into global warming fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas.
3
Why is it that France can build its most expensive line at $15M per km and we are 4 or 5 times more expensive? Using that price, LA to SF could be built for $20M
1
An arrogance exists in America. Americans, or at least a goodly number of us, believe we know better than the rest of the world on just about everything: health care, environmental building practices, transportation, and the energy grid, for example. Why can't we accept that we're not always the smartest and wisest folks in the room?
We also accept cost increases as "the price of doing business." Why? When the California bond issue which raised more than $9 billion for the high-speed rail construction, with a total cost of $40 billion was presented to taxpayers and voters, was the total cost a willfully (and criminally) fictitious figure in order to get the bond issue passed?
Why has the cost gone from $40 to $100 billion, and with the completion of the originally proposed project in doubt anyway? Who is running the show in Sacramento and elsewhere?
I support the rail project, but I and most Californians do not have wallets to plunder. Californians deserve answers about the current estimated cost of the project, essentially and specifically why the cost has gone from $40 to $100 billion.
America's dominance in industry and commerce was based on explosive growth in our systems of railways, roads, and eventually our interstate highway system. The fact that we have stagnated, and that we continue to whine about other nations passing us by (China, Germany, et al.) while doing nothing to invest in new, cutting-edge infrastructure projects is maddening to anyone who wants to see America continue to succeed.
Conservatives who decry such spending: how do you propose competing with the rapidly rising efficiencies of other first world nations? I'm all ears for your better proposals, but to date I have seen zero, just empty criticisms.
2
Somebody apparently believes it’s a great idea to race a very few high-paying passengers (elected officials?), at enormous taxpayer cost (note how no private investors are interested), from the State capitol to Los Angeles. Where they will need to rent a car anyway and immediately get stuck in trafffic gridlock, as Los Angeles is the epitome of suburban sprawl, making mass transit economically and practically infeasible. Might this boondoggle just be Brown’s hubris at play - to create a legacy project (let’s just call this train what it is: the California Concorde). At least his dad’s legacy made sense: The University of California system. Gavin Newsom has it right: the priority must be to invest in affordable housing. And it must be built along existing mass transit corridors, which are often underutilized. Unlike Alaska’s attempted taxpayer boondoggle, California will soon actually have a train to nowhere in the sweltering heat of the Central Valley, linking the vast corporate farms. Nice.
Pay for it, now. It will only cost more, in the future. This project will certainly pay off, in so many ways. We need high speed, East to West, and North to South. The problem is that it will suppress car sales, and we sure can't have that, can we?
3
There is a real amnesia and wilful forgetting around infrastructure projects and its so easy to be a naysayer. People forget that BART was considered a complete boondoggle in the 50s and 60s - it was bitterly criticized for its extension to the East Bay especially beyond Oakland.
1
California will not be the first with HSR. Texas will be in 3-4 years connecting our 2 largest cities, both of which are in the top 10 in the country. Ours relies on private funding and debt with no State or Federal funding beyond some relatively minor upgrades around the 2 stations. By the time California gets around to finishing its first leg, and if the the market supports it, we may link San Antonio, a city that may join Dallas and Houston in top 10 by then. If you have a hankering to ride HSR before 2035, come to TX.
@Michael Blazin
Having moved from Dallas to San Francisco I can tell you that Dallas is a very forward looking city with a government that has a problem solving attitude. CA government at all levels are dysfunctional and exists solely to ripoff taxpayers. We are the can’t-do-anything state! SF has a light rail system that mostly run on streets at an average speed of 8 mph. Dallas has built more DART lightrail in last 10 years than what SF did in it’s entire history and DART is faster, cheaper, cleaner and safer. The only possible solution is to privatize all infrastructure in CA.
1
In principle, I am wildly enthused. In practice, Phase One is a train from nowhere to nowhere, serving a tiny proportion of the state's population while ignoring the giant metropolises of LA and SF. To demonstrate its usefulness, the first section should be linking LA and San Diego, or SF and Silicon Valley. Whatever were they thinking?
1
They should've outsourced it to Chinese. They built Beijing-Shanghai line, twice the distance of SF-LA, only for $35b.
As much as I would like to see HSR between SF and LA, it just doesn't make an economic sense. Even if it replaces all the air traffic, it'll take over 100 years to just pay for the construction cost. That won't even cover the cost of capital. Building a regional high speed rail instead will do a lot more for the environment and economy. There are a lot of people getting up 4 in the morning to commute from Central Valley to the Bay Area, for example. An HSR loop spanning SF, San Jose, Altamont Corrior and Sacramento will be cheaper and go further to save time and relieve the terrible Bay Area housing price and traffic. LA could do something similar and then connect the two at a later time.
In Tucson, they have just a short rail going between the downtown area and the University. It was over budget and late to schedule. But after at least 2 failed attempts to revitalize downtown over the last 30 years, the light rail was the tipping point. Downtown is now booming with cranes in the air building high rises.
Construction jobs are one of the few remaining well-paying blue collar jobs. Trump jobs.
1
If we could only manage to collect fair progressive taxes on wealth we could afford these projects that make life easier and better for everyone. Instead we just passed another tax break for the billionaire class.
4
@mary bardmess
Translation: "I am all for HSR as long as someone else pays for it."
2
Politics has been the biggest problem with this projects. The original route was supposed to go east to Manteca by way of Altamont, then down the valley serving increasing numbers of commuters from Stockton and Maniteca areas.
The developers got into the act and changed it to the Pacheco Pass area going just north of Los Banos where an connected ex state representative had interest in a residential development.
I5, US 101, and C99 look like the 405 in LA. Worse yet is I80 Sacramento to the bay area. It is 80 miles of stop and go during rush hours and very heavy the rest of the time. HSR would reduce pollution by a significant amount. Sacramento, Placer, and El Dorado counties population are increasing at the fastest rate in the state as people flee the bay area to find affordable housing. This puts commuters in a four hour commute home and back. Studies have shown this has caused serious family disruptions and strife. The Capital Corridor commuter train is full mornings and evenings. HSR is needed here and will be needed even more so in the future.
As we see, Republicans are opposed to public works like this, they object to the expense, but they never seem to pay for anything, and have the money to give to their friends in the form of tax cuts, and an unpayable debt. Yet Donald the Mad wants to bail out the soy bean farmers, these same farmers that railed against the GM bailout, and called allowing the fed to give the banks more reserves to prevent runs a bailout..
7
I've lived in LA and Southern CA as well as NY, MA, NJ and PA. Traffic is a mess. There is literally no relief in highly populated metropolitan areas. Traveling to and from major cities leaves us few choices. The Northeast corridor and I 95 is congested from South Carolina to Maine.
Now I live in Florida. I often travel across the country but I avoid the airlines and the trains. I go by car and circumvent the worst areas. To visit PA I used to take the Auto Train but now its so crowded that I avoid that too. So, its back roads, longer routes and couple of days more travel but its far more comfortable than anything else.
If we could have high speed, modern rail across the nation it would be booked to the hilt and demand would rise for more trains and upscale rail travel. I'd love to see a Broadway show and travel on a high speed comfortable train from Fl. to NY. It wold be nice to get to Miami and Savannah and lots of other places too.
In Europe and Japan I can take trains everywhere. But not America.
Republicans are always complaining about the cost of infrastructure and they refuse to invest in America. Trains mean jobs, technology, and more industry for America. We love trains but hate to pay for it. Something is terribly wrong. The Interstate system and air travel are overwhelmed. We need hi-speed, modern rail and not just in CA.
7
Why the distraction about non-expenditures on lines in the Northeast?
True highspeed rail needs very straight runs, those aren't going to be built between Boston and Washington DC.
Now ironically the US has highspeed rail, for freight from the west coast to the east coat. Seems like a good idea to build it for passenger travel.
Republicans don't like rail since it means that it's harder to "develop" fields and prairies--can't speculate on the land at every exit. And yes, having a passenger station results in land speculation too--but nowhere near as much.
Then further ironically in the 1920s and 1930s, passenger rail running on flat straight track was quite high speed--with trains regularly averaging over 100 MPH.
2
@Yaj
And they did that with steam engines in many cases!
1
@George S
Well, steam engines are plenty powerful and fast, but have other pollution issues.
Right the express train from Boston Back Bay to Augusta Maine was about 2 hours with stops at places like Porthsmouth and Portland.
Plenty straight and flat, but lots of rail bridges over what are called rivers in Maine.
And in 2018 freight from the Port of Oakland to Bayonne New Jersey is like 2.5 days with big changes in Omaha, and of course the Rockies.
Robert Moses built all those parkways on Long Island and the Long Island "Express"way as gifts to developers.
And he explicitly built the Long Island Expressway without allowing for possible future rail tracks running down the middle.
It would be good to find out how these projects are so expensive in America. In any other developed country it would cost a fraction and be built twice as fast.
3
Carlos--Why are our drugs so much more expensive, than anywhere else? Because, here, every middleman along the way needs to get his cut, including the politicos.
2
Unions
In addition to the economic analysis of high speed rail (see my post) there is the larger question if culturally the US system of State government has the competence to deal with large development projects.
In France, high speed rail development is a project of the central government of France, staffed with highly competent bureaucrats trained in the Grandes Ecoles, whose administrators are not turned over when another party wins.
This is not the case in US State governments, where the winning party tends to hand out jobs on political, rather than competence merit.
See, e.g. the NY TImes, June 1, 2018
"New York Spent $15 Million to Build a Film Hub. It Just Sold for $1."
"A $15 million state-built film studio outside Syracuse, which promised to produce hundreds of jobs and bring Hollywood’s glitter to Central New York, hit an inglorious milestone on Friday with its sale to a new corporation set up by Onondaga County to manage it.
The price? $1."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/nyregion/new-york-film-hub-sale.html
3
The reason it failed is because there’s no fast way for the talent with the skills to get there.
State put the cart before the horse on this one.
@Woof
In the 1950s and '60s, we built Eisenhower's Interstate Highway System with minimal state interference. What happened to us?
California railways present another interesting test of the US republic. Outside the interstate highway system, Americans have never really grappled with the complexities of big-state economics. Is it even reasonable to assume a small state can successfully sponsor a regional railway system? There's a reason large scale infrastructure projects are almost always underwritten by the federal government. Read a little bit about how railway gauges became standardized and you'll see why big government isn't always a bad thing.
California is arguably a big state unto it's own. This is probably the best reason to experiment with regional rail systems in such a location. I'll admit the geography is a bit hostile but you should try Chile or Peru. Unlike the Eastern Corridor, Californians are at least free to operate within a single state dominion too. We're not talking about an interstate collaboration here. You really should think of California as an independent state within the greater United States. From our current president's blatant hostility towards California, the federal relationship is increasing tenuous as well. Check the CA ballot initiatives this year.
The real question though is why any country has such a hard time sustaining popular support for major public projects? Look at Ollantaytambo’s Wall of the Six Monoliths for a good example. Californians really shouldn't complain about a central corridor train line.
1
As a native Californian now living in Buenos Aires, I like to read about my home state. What concerns me is the rising cost of housing in the Bay Area and the consequent longer commutes for people who are forced to live farther from the city. I look at the map in this article and I think, "Fine. Build high-speed rail from Bakersfield to Sacramento, where it's easier to build, with a stop in Stockton. Then connect Stockton to the BART system." It won't be high speed, but it will be reliable public transportation for commuters who can afford to live in the Central Valley, where housing is still affordable.
My concern about trains is that they are 19th-century technology, an artifact of the Industrial Revolution. Trains changed how people lived by forcing commuters to adhere to their schedules. The automobile freed us from the tyranny of the train schedule but gave us the tyranny of the rush-hour traffic jam. Can't we do better? I envision something like the autonomy of the automobile combined with the speed and safety of trains. Where are the engineers who can create this mode of travel for the 21st century? Self-driving cars are not the answer. I want travel pods that let me sleep in comfort while I go overnight from San Francisco to New York, or that drops me off in New Orleans for a dinner in a favorite restaurant before taking me all the way to Atlanta. If we do this in the next 20 years, I might still be alive to try it out.
2
Those things are called, wossname, ah yes, "train cars."
Governments have to make choices. Transportation infrastructure is the backbone of the economy. Invest in highways, airports or rail. How much would new airports or highways cost between SF and LA to relieve existing congestion and prepare for future growth? Infrastructure is a partisan issue based on who profits or benefits. There is conflict between those who will try to control transportation for their personal gain and the public benefit of transit. HSR will contribute to and sustain California's economy, as will the Texas Central between Dallas and Houston and Brightline between Miami and Tampa.
8
Living in Shanghai, PRC for several years, I always met first -time visitors at the airport and brought them into the city on the Maglev train. Smooth and quiet at 430 kph, it always blew their minds, and totally rebuilt their conception of China in 15 minutes, to the good. That was and remains the purpose of the project, as there are many other adequate ways to travel to/from the airport, and expansion of other high speed rail has made further extension impractical. California is not China, but it has a strong claim as the technology leader of the world. While the cost of high speed rail is high, the cost of not having it is much higher, and comparisons with the rest of the USA are irrelevant.
21
@In Wonderland
Truly excellent and informed comment by "In Wonderland." Thanks.
Building the Interstate Highway system wasn't cheap. We have recouped our investment there countless times.
The same could be true for high speed trains if we developed a truly comprehensive national policy.
Ideally, we would knit our country into a linked system of high speed rail and air travel. For any trip less than 750 miles, high speed rail would be a viable option, for longer hauls flying makes more sense.
Connections between airports and rail would be seamless. The tracks could be publicly owned but the trains privately operated (perhaps some by the airlines themselves).
5
Federal Fuels taxes at the time we’re quadrupled to fund the IH project. Everyone had skin in the game. What are Californians willing to pay for this?
1
I get the "why can't we do it like Europe does?" comments, but California is not Europe. Cities across the pond are densely built, with less sprawl, and they are perfectly set up for train stations. Here in California, we have tons of sprawl, and its difficult to get to train stations without getting in your car, which kind of defeats the purpose.
That said, I enthusiastically support high-speed rail. If you look at events like the fire in Redding, you see that our state is unsustainable in its current model. If you build the rail line, eventually, cities will morph and adjust their business and housing footprints to match up with the rail line. I wish we had strong central planning, but we don't. The rail line is another step in trying to push us to where we need to be.
20
California has transportation needs. When a project secures land upon which to construct SOONER than later, you optimize its utilization because MORE inflexibility is a function of time.
California has an "I want to visit the city" need. Without alternatives to the commuter highways that are approaching limits of expansion, the commuter cannot get up early enough to avoid gridlock.
Whatever the cost overruns to build and the shortcomings in planning for High Speed Rail, the future is MORE transportation costs and planning. Maybe not just HSR, maybe mediocre speed trollies with more stops across coastal cities.
The state accepted the federal dollars for HSR. It was an infusion of money and jobs in the short run, and a commitment in the long run. The economics of HSR didn't substantially change, it was always going to be subsidized to some extent. (Though it can be argued that gains from housing access and tourism is an economic plus to state revenue.)
Republican politicians get elected by railing against rail. Commitment to ANY APPROVED PLAN is only a problem, if you listen to DESTROYERS OF PLAN.
12
California is not the size of New York. I see many skewed perceptions based on this fact. I live in the Northern part of California where most people think of San Francisco as "Middle California". It is 12 hours from here to the other end of the State. Flying out of the true north of California is a millionaire's dream. Middle class families drive the six hours to San Francisco and then fly out from there. It is five hours to the State Capital through treacherous roads snowed in during the winter and currently on fire during the summer. But I think the most important thing to ask is where would California's economy be had we not invested in the Central Valley water projects a half decade or more ago. There is a reason people pull together collectively to make progress. That is life in a blue state and why California is the fifth largest economy in the world.
34
@Jane Smith
Eureka and Oregon wouldn't be so far north if they had better thansportation than US 101 and I-5. Time for better public transmit.
As we heat up, the far north is going to be much more attractive to sweltering people in southern California. Provide some transportation for them that doesn't cause more global warming than it escapes.
1
Why is this project even controversial? Even middle-income countries like Morocco and Turkey have high speed rail. It is only the U.S. that is stuck with 19th century railways and 1950s freeways. We increased military spending by $90 billion alone this year, but we have no money for the actual people of the country?
42
As I see it, the real problem with American Mass transit is thy are trying to reinvent the wheel. Having spent many vacations in Europe, I have enjoyed the good to superb transportation systems. In particular, France is doing it right. whether in a large city like Paris or out in the small towns, Easy, low cost and frequent public transportation is the norm. But instead of hiring one of the European companies to design and construct out mass transit systems, we are trying to invent our own while ignoring the much better ones in the rest of the world.
I live in a small rural town in Norther California. Using public transportation to get to the nearest international airport in Sacramento is impossible. I can get to the San Francisco airport using public transportation but it would take me a day and a half. The same type of trip in France would take me a couple of hours. The Bay Area's BART system is terrible. The train cars are poorly maintained the rails are third world, and the schedules are inconvenient. If we want a first class public transit system, we need to hire a European company to design the system and manage the construction.
11
I voted for the initial bond a decade ago & was very optimistic & hopeful about a future with high-speed rail in my state. I rode a high-speed train from Brugge, Belgium to Paris in 2001 & it was an exhilarating & exciting experience.
That said, over the last decade I’ve watched as the cost estimates for the project have skyrocketed, all with no actual construction taking place until very recently. Meanwhile, the roads, highways & other transportation infrastructure that taxpayers in California use everyday are in dire need of repair.
The Legislature here passed and Governor Brown signed a gas tax last year to fund transportation infrastructure improvements. A ballot initiative to repeal that gas tax will appear on the ballot in November. I was inclined to vote against repealing that tax but In light of the news that Brown & the high-speed rail commission are wasting taxpayer money constructing tiny portions of the HSR project in hopes that future governors won’t abandon it - a political Hail Mary - I am now more inclined to vote to repeal the gas tax.
You can’t claim you need additional taxpayer money to pay to maintain the infrastructure you already have while also throwing tens of billions of taxpayer dollars st a project that may never be completed. If Brown actually cared about being fiscally responsible as he claims he’d see HSR as the fiscal black hole it is.
3
A number of readers have noted that something has changed in America. Something that prevents us from building big projects like the Hoover Dam or the Interstate Highway system or the Panama Canal or a dozen other well known and not so well known big engineering projects.
A perfect example of this is right here in my state: the failed V. C. Summers nuclear power plants. They are - excuse me - WERE being built close to the old nuclear power plants in Jenkinsville. The old plants were built without too much difficulty, back in the era when nuclear power was brand new. But the most recent project had massive cost overruns, big delays, redos and what ever else can go wrong on a project until finally, the two power companies in charge of the project just pulled the plug. The ratepayers now have to continue footing the bill for power plants that will never provide them with electricity.
And what ever the problem is, it has nothing to do with the usual Republican bogymen such as environmentalists, unions and government projects (one of the two power companies is a private company), because we're a deep red state and we don't worry about that stuff. The problem is something else. As Larry the cable guy might say nowadays: 'Get 'er done!...um...well, never mind, just quit.'
10
@Thucydides It'd be interesting to know ho many of the cost overruns were the product of having drastically to underbid to satisfy a penny-wise, pound-foolish legislature.
I swear to God: 1) Shame on the GOP for your ignorance and backwardness to deny the pressing need and vital promise of high speed rail. China has built 12000 miles of it since the financial crisi! 2) Shame on the Dems for your refusal to challenge unions on egregious staffing and work rules that drive costs--well beyond the level of ensuring dignity and living wages!
12
So, it was supposed to cost $40 Billion, but is now est. to cost $100 Billion?
The Fed gov was supposed to be the "third partner" but has now pulled out?
The State of Ca. can only come up with $30 Billion?
And there was no mention of either who the "private" partner was or what their $$$promise was, but that's irrelevant as they are long gone...?
Judgment: Quit while you're ahead.
Take that $30 Billion that the state CAN come up with and apply it the other problems of this beautiful state: Water and housing.
WATER: Use the money for desalinization plants. Water is our #1 "limiting factor". It was desperate even before we stated "fracking". Now we have potentially polluted the entire system.
Geologically, I haven't a clue where it would be safe to site such a plant, but then I suspect that that fast-train isn't geologically well-sited, either.
However, we NEED water. We don't NEED a train system.
Or put it to HOUSING. The state of Ca. was created by mega-builders like Pulte or Toll Brothers. Thirty years ago they specialized in slapping up mega-complexes, cheaply built, cram them in. They filled instantly and the Dream was to Get Out. So they built McMansions. Now when mega-complexes are built, they mysteriously burn down before they open.
This state is desperate for cheap, safe, sound-proof apartments.
I'm ashamed of Jerry Brown and his choices. Add this boondoggle to his "Tunnels" and his legacy is gone.
Nationwide, this country needs WATER and HOUSING.
Get on it!
6
A perfect example of what happens when the liberal/leftists are left unchecked. This thing is totally idiotic. Why not spend the money on a state of the art desalination plant? Something that Californians could actually benefit from.
8
@JP I guess the rest of the world is run by unchecked liberals, since almost all other developed countries build high speed rail. But boondoggle? Desalination defines it.
@JPI guessed you have not been driving recently on highway 101... or you would see clearly the need for this.
1
This is an absolutely crucial project. Back in the 1990s, when it was on the drawing board, $2 billion was the estimated cost. Airlines, car manufacturers and others opposed it, dragging out the process. By the early 2000s, the estimated cost had risen to $40 billion. Opponents were able to paint high-speed rail as a boondoggle. Now it's $80 million. Meanwhile the freeways are choked with cars up and down the state and traffic in major cities is often at a standstill. Many of those in opposition today are in farming areas. They seldom if ever go to LA or SF and so don't want it built. Once it's completed, people will wonder what we did without it.
29
It would have been great for this article to include the benefits, if any, to consumers compared to existing modes of transportation.
14
@RB Apparently, that's not how The Times operates anymore.
Instead of building the most expensive new rail system possible, It makes more sense to me to do the following. Modify existing tracks where needed, and/or rebuild rail tracks on abandoned right of ways. Then, essentially reintroduce the equivalent of the Southern Pacific's Coast and San Joaquin Daylight trains. This would provide an approximately 10 hour trip San Francisco to LA, without the need for additional infrastructure, and using existing equipment. Further, completing the passenger service link between LA and Bakersfield would then provide direct city center to city center transit service, unlike the current air-only routes that deposit travelers at out-of-town airports.
4
@CA Native Sure, after all California's a Third World country, right? Not a civilized region like Europe or Japan. Give it the milk run and tell people to shut up.
1
Though I am generally pleased that at least one US state is slowly catching up to the likes of Europe and parts of Asia, I wish that the project participants had a gone one step beyond high-speed rail, and looked at Maglev or even Hyperloop. It might have taken more time, but at least we would not be saddled with a technology that’s already 30 to 50 years old. On a more positive note, when combined with autonomous vehicles on either end, a high-speed rail option becomes an attractive transportation solution. It is my hope that other states and regions follow in California’s footsteps to finally help modernize our nationwide transportation infrastructure.
1
THE ECONOMY OF California is the 6th largest in the world. So whatever it is that they're doing must be worthwhile. The Europeans have invested heavily in high speed trains to join England, Germany, France, and Benelux together, along with Italy, Spain and Portugal. The European railway system has become the backbone of their international transportation system, along with high quality super highways and high taxes on fossil fuel for cars. The result is that many cars are off the roads because it is more economical and relaxing for Europeans to take the train. California has been criticized for moving to sustainable energy, cutting pollution and incentivizing all electric cars, with the result that they are farthest ahead of any of the 50 States in achieving the goal of becoming a sustainable economy. Rather than doubting California, the critics should get their own houses in order. Laugh with joy, sing and shout or weep and wail with sorrow; For what California is today, you all shall be tomorrow.
13
We poured over $4 Trillion down the toilet in Iraq, a disastrous and pointless war we are still fighting fifteen years later. I find it comical and sad that we cant find a tiny fraction of that amount to update our lagging and crumbling infrastructure for the 21st century.
I know the GOP and the Koch brothers would be happy if we all drove gas guzzlers until the world burned to a crisp, but we need to be forward-thinking in regard to infrastructure, green-technology, and the environment. If we actually taxed the wealthy and corporations, and invested that into our nation again, we could finally begin to catch up with the rest of the developed world which is increasingly leaving us in the dust.
28
As a lifelong Angeleno, it would seem to make more sense to me to address the south’s water issues before the train. Otherwise there may bo no reason to want to go to Los Angeles from San Francisco by high speed rail because there won’t be anything there to go to. California already has enough old west ghost-towns as it is. Of course after the state’s north-south civil war brought on by that water battle is over, the train linking the two halves may be completely unnecessary anyway. This bullet train is nothing more than make-work in the meantime.
2
Americans want to invest in infrastructure until they don't. While our infrastructure crumbles the rest of the world moves ahead.
13
This should be being done at the federal level. There should be a high speed train connecting Vancouver British Columbia, Seattle Washington, Portland Oregon, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego. It’s absurd that it’s 2018 and we have to live so primitively. Imagine how this would affect the economy of the Western states that are an engine of high tech for the whole country.
19
Do we really want to be the last developed nation on Earth without ANY high-speed rail? How does that help MAGA?
Go for it, California!
11
It is interesting how the opposition to HSR sounds like the opposition to the building of the building of the San Francisco Bay & Golden Gate bridges 90 years ago. We all know what a waste of tax prayer money those two bridges was.
15
Wars? Plenty of endless money.
But,..
Bringing American transportation out of the sardine culture and into the first world?
This $100 billion flows within America.
Jobs, technology, safety, comfort are boondoggles?
While the rest of the world moves on, many buying their 21st century trains from China, Japan and Europe, republicans are feeding us misinformation. Sticking their foot out so America trips. If we fall for their diversions we will surely miss the train.
Wave goodbye. The rest of the world has left the station.
Hopefully, California will develop an American innovation to catch them. That is, If they can keep the republican foot from tripping them, and beating them back into the past.
21
I ride high speed trains in China every year when I go there on business. Quick, comfortable, cheap and super efficient from ticket purchase to arrival.
Airplanes use 10 times the energy of trains, and they turn it into greenhouse gas emissions. Cumulatively, our taste for air and car travel makes us one of the least efficient industrialized powers.
That didn’t matter once, but it does now. The fact that we can spend 700 billion a year on weapons but can’t even build a train tells you a lot about this country’s future as long as the current backward-looking Death Cult holds sway. We’re like a man with terminal cancer buying the world’s costliest bulletproof vest.
33
America. Always failing to look to the future. We don't need fast trains we just need more traffic jammed highways. Where much of the world sees the light America tends to pull the plug. Hey our decrepit infrastructure was good enough 70 years ago and it's good enough for the future.
18
You can fly from LAX to SFO in 90 minutes.
Of course, flying doesn't funnel taxpayer money to politicians and cronies, which I guess some people find a problem.
9
@The Quietist Not really. You're forgetting the time it takes to get to/from airports (which are far from city centers). It's also expensive, and doesn't stop in between LA & SF. Of course you can drive in 6 hours, unless there's traffic. Which there always is.
6
@The Quietist A 90 minute flight is easily 2-3 hours after factoring in security, airport transit, baggage claim, boarding, delays, weather, etc. I'd choose a reliable 3 hour single-seat train ride over a 90 minute flight probably 99 times out of 100, and I fly a lot.
That said, aside from the fact that trip duration is likely comparable, train is significantly cheaper, more comfortable, easier for families & groups, less subject to delays and changes, better for the environment, and generally less of a hassle.
Fly time yes, but total transportation time is more like 6 hours after surface trans and TSA time is included. California is getting more populous and we will need more options. Also, those airports were built with taxpayer money and remain heavily subsized by taxpayers. Pull those subsidies and fares will double.
How is the high speed rail going to be 800 long, as this story states? I drive it often, and I only drive less than 400 miles.
9
@peter wolf
I just sent a correction to the Times about this. A fact sheet at www.hsr.ca.gov says that the 800-mile length includes eventual extensions to San Diego and Sacramento.
More actual information please. Why is considered a "slow" high speed rail? Why is it so expensive? Also, it is about 400 miles from LA to SF, not 800.
8
Revisit these negative comments in a generation. People then will be complaining about why there isn’t *more/better* CA high-speed rail, just like they complain about lack of sufficient BART, MUNI, subway in LA, etc. now. Kudos to Brown for his vision.
19
This is the type of project that should have been done 50 years ago.....would've cost a lot less back then.....
14
@Matt
Agreed. And that's exactly why it should be built today, for fifty years from now people will say the same thing.
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is today. Infrastructure is no different.
1
"Gambling" that future administrations will be loath to kill an unfunded project because it's already under construction is very poor public policy by current leaders.
2
What a one sided article! Clearly biased and hence focusing only on the negatives. With both air and road travel becoming cumbersome, unpredictable and time consuming, this is the right alternative. For a state that is technologically 21st century, our public transportation resembles the 19th century. It’s pathetic. And Republicans want it to remain that way.
Silicon Valley should see this as an investment in CA’s future and their own success!
16
Imagine if a project like Shasta Dam or Hoover Dam or the Golden Gate Bridge or any other public works project our parents and grandparents paid for during the Depression was being proposed today. Republicans would be yammering about costs as they awarded themselves a trillion or two in tax cuts. California agriculture would be a fraction of what it is today, not to mention the booming economy of all those those coastal counties north of San Francisco.
What became of the "can do" spirit of our parents and grandparents, who built and paid for all those things which shaped modern California into the 5th largest economy on the planet?
Get the financing fixed, clean up the processes, and just do it, for criminy sakes.
17
I support high speed rail in principle and I think a high speed line from San Francisco to Los Angeles would be very popular, and perhaps even profitable. However, this is not a San Francisco to Los Angeles railroad.
This is a Bakersfield to Madera railroad that one day will probably extend from San Jose to Palmdale. The idea that HSR will actually make it to downtown San Francisco and Los Angeles is purely aspirational at this point, but let's assume that the railroad is fully completed on the timeline that is currently projected.
Trains won't be rolling into LA's Union Station until at least 2029. That means that for at least 7 years (2022-2029), this railroad's only income will be from tickets sold between cities such as Bakersfield, Tulare, Fresno and Madera. Needless to say such a route will not generate a profit. Thus, in addition to paying $100 billion for construction, the railroad will probably be eating at least 90% of operating costs, because there is no reason to buy a train ticket between cities that are a less than 2 hour drive apart.
3
@guwinster Except, perhaps, to save energy and avoid traffic jams.
Even when a private company takes on the project (funded by tax-free bonds), the public fights it. Here in Florida we have Brightline, eventually meant to connect Miami and Orlando. It's not high-speed, just faster, but so much easier than driving on jammed and dangerous highways. Yet the public in certain counties has fought it tooth and nail. America is backward compared to the rest of the developed world for two related reasons:
We elect backward politicians who don't want to raise and spend tax money on infrastructure. We're losing our competitive edge to the one-note policy of Republicans: give tax breaks to the rich.
8
LA to SF has been the first or second most-traveled airport pair in the United States for many years. I have seen cost estimates for airport and freeway expansion in California, as an alternative to high speed rail, at $120 billion.
Seen through that lens, $100 billion for high speed rail is the cost-effective solution.
9
If CA residents are willing to be taxed to pay for this go at it! But you cannot compare this geography to areas like Japan and Europe where distances are much smaller and the population density is much bigger. It's like apples and oranges. And it does not solve in any way the congestion in LA. Americans don't use train transport like they do in Europe. And that "build it and they will come" mentality just does not work.
4
@Anita France, which has a superb public transportation system, is, in size and population just about as large as California. Americans don't use public transportation like they do in Europe because we do not have decent public transportation. Every time I go to the Bay Area and have to use BART, I dream of the transportation system around Paris that links the small towns and suburbs to downtown Paris. So it is not, as you say "apples and oranges."
7
@Anita - And of course, my example is the high speed train from Rome to Milan or Rome to Naples. Both are DIRECT links, not going 200 miles out of the way. Looking at the map, I have no idea why it'd go anywhere NEAR Bakersfield. It should be LA to SF, you know, like the over-priced Amtrak surfliner that already exists
2
We have visited Japan twice during the last two years. We rode both the bullet train (Shinkansen), and the regular train. Taking the Shinkansen is a little less than twice the cost and well over three times as fast, in addition to being twice as comfortable. In traveling to downtown Tokyo from downtown Takasaki, for instance, the bullet train cost a bit over $30.00 and took 44 minutes. It was a comfortable, and relaxing ride. The regular train would have cost a bit over $15.00 and would have taken something over two and a half hours (that’s between150 and 160 minutes). The estimate travel time by car was an hour and twenty five minutes (that’s 85 minutes), at a cost similar to that of the regular train. This would of course have made the trip cheaper if there were more than one person, but it does not factor in the time and expense of parking.
Back in this country, we took a trip east to Michigan and then on to Virginia. We wanted to take the train from Toledo to Richmond. Even though we were prepared to pay airline prices for a longer trip, we found that the train ran once a week and would have gotten us to our destination a day late (or 6 days early). In addition, the trip took place mostly at night, so there was no prospect for scenery to pass the time.
High
If we must use the metaphor from “The Ancient Mariner:” we are the mariner, standing on the deck, crossbow in hand; the bullet train is the living albatross. Do we shoot it dead or let it fly free?
I’ve just travelled on the TGV from
Lausanne to Paris. For three hours and 45 minutes I travelled in comfort at 200 miles an hour and arrived in the heart of Paris - about the same distance between LA and San Francisco.
The rail line will be used. It will be a success. And people will wonder why it didn’t happen years ago when the rest of the world was building this type of infrastructure.
15
Odd the way other countries seem to be able to accomplish HSR, including China and, as pointed out in the article, Uzbekistan, but Republicans think it can't be done in the US. Where is their ambition for America?
6
Looking at the increasing fires throughout CA every year I can’t help wondering whether focusing on water and irrigation would have been a more prudent use of funds. Where will people live in CA if it burns up? What difference will high speed rail make to an uninhabitable place?
1
@Michael Lasell: California will not "burn up" as you put it. The size and number of fires are minuscule compared to the size of California. You need to understand that we have counties that are larger than your home state of Maine. The problem we have in California is that 1) we have a semi-desert environment, 2) too many people from east of the Rocky Mountains immigrate to California, and 3) many of them insist on living in forest fire prone areas and 4) since the mid 1800s we have suppressed all fires which resulted in a extremely dense forest ecology and tons of dead wood on the forest floors.
1
It's heartbreaking that we're spending a hundred billion dollars for a train in the middle of nowhere. Think what we could have ad for that money - decent subway/transit systems in our top five urban markets, drastically helping with our traffic gridlock problem.
Why didn't they start by connecting areas with the highest population densities first – the most viable segments in terms of ridership volume and relatively distance? San Diego-Long beach-Downtown LA-Santa Clarita would have made much more sense. More expensive construction costs yes, but a much higher return in ridership and a clearer demonstration of viability.
In this current phase, few are going to take the train between two sprawling suburban cities as they will still need a car to get around at their destination. This is what always happens when grandstanding politicians ignore basic business rationale for their decisions and recklessly squander other peoples money.
3
I hope to goodness this project is completed. America badly lags the rest of the developed world in clean, efficient transportation, rail being the most conspicuous example. Any Americans who doubt that should travel to Europe and Asia to see for themselves. We desperately need an example to follow. In short we need to think big again.
There are always plenty of reasons to do nothing. Thank the Lord we still have some visionaries who are prepared to push the envelope to a better future and it is only right that such a vision be realized in California.
7
There is a whole string of somewhat isolated cities in the Central Valley. If you drive Route 99 between LA and SF, you are almost shocked at the number of small cities on the highway.
Connecting these cities by rail would enable a giant conurbation stretching from San Francisco to LA along the eastern side of the Central Valley. We have to put future population growth somewhere. And our airports are at capacity.
4
@Mark Allen - A high speed train (by design) does not stop at small cities. That would defeat its' purpose of speeding travelers from one urban location to another. You are speaking a 'local' train.
1
Does the project have an end-to-end solution, i.e., how do I get from my home in San Francisco to the train and from the train to my destination in Los Angeles? How much time does that add to the journey? How does this compare to travel by air?
3
@Leicaman
The new Salesforce Transbay Transit Center in SF, Union Station in LA. Both are very well connected to public transit/taxis/rideshares and centrally located.
Those locations are much more convenient than SFO and LAX (or OAK/BUR). Flying is obviously much faster but it is incredibly inefficient and harmful to the environment.
These are great questions. Though I am by no means an expert, I do believe that networked autonomous cars will provide an efficient way to go directly from one’s home to a train station, airport or – eventually – a spaceport.
Subjective and mostly incorrect
This should not be a partisan issue. Most of this route is rural. Very conservative estimates for a composite (rural/urban) Interstate cost (~$20M/mi) would yield around 50 (yes 50) six lane routes from Sacramento to the grapevine (entrance to the LA basin). Any commuter can attest to the desperate state of our infrastructure. What a waste.
1
Back in 2014 when this project was going to be done for $68 billion I calculated that it was "$131 million per slowly built mile" compared to "$19 million per quickly built mile" in China ($300 billion to complete 16,000 miles of track by 2020).
See http://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2014/01/06/high-speed-rail-in-california-...
If Californians want to do this with their own tax dollars, though, why not?
1
@Philip Greenspun
What's the alternative? Roads. Of course building a road is cheaper than an HSR. But to use even existing ones, requires a car. AAA and Forbes found gas, depreciation, maintenance, insurance, fees, finance, etc., cost .75 cents per mile. Most people have no idea. They worry about traffic, accidents, etc.
A 250 mile trip costs $185. HSR train tickets are expensive, $50 or $80. Not $185 (of course inflation will increase both cars and trains.) Plus no road rage.
@Brian - I'm not sure where you got your pricing for the high speed. To take the Amtrak "surf-liner" slow train a round trip ticket is $80. Certainly, the new version will be double that (speaking from experience in Europe and their cost structure for high speed vs. low speed).
Plus the math on a 250 mile trip is for one person ($50$80). Families traveling have a fixed $80 vs. a per ticket $ on a train
@Brian What's the alternative? I went to a lecture by a Boeing engineer and he claimed that, in those pre-Airbus A380 days, that a B747 was the cheapest form of transport (per passenger mile) ever developed. For $100 billion California could buy approximately 500 400-seat airliners (in all-coach configuration). That's a people-moving capacity of 200,000. (Remember that California has a lot of non-hub airports that aren't currently busy.) Diesel buses on an already-paid-for road are probably cheaper, but if you count in the cost of building the road then the B747 is cheaper (have to pave only a couple of miles for a runway). As California trends toward a larger population they could shut down their highways (or half the lanes within their highways) to private cars and have fleets of 50-passenger buses use the existing pavement. I think that would certainly move a lot more people than any rail system that they could build. And 50-seat buses use less energy per person than current train technology (remember that rail cars are crazy heavy; freight railroads are efficient, but passsenger railroads aren't).
It would be even better for the environment if people used telepresence more and stopped going places so much.
3
It is an hour and a half flight from LAX to SFO. Allowing for another two and a half hours to get to the airport, go through security, board, and get from the arrival airport to your destination, this means it takes four hours total. The fastest trains in the world seem to travel around 200 mph (going by a quick google search), so this train is not helping many people get from SF to LA any faster at all.
If the goal of the project is to allow people to live far from SF and commute to the city by rail, then by all means build or extend regional rail lines if they make financial sense. If the goal is to make the SF to LA trip more pleasant, lines connecting each airport to their downtown are worth making world class, as is improving the airports and screening to reduce wait times.
As designed, and assuming rail systems do not go much faster than 200 mph, this seem like a silly idea. As far as the environment goes, the money is likely better spent on making airplanes greener - it would take a giant number of passenger trip to offset the pollution generated by the construction of a long rail line.
Projects like these allow a few people to stuff their pockets with taxpayer money and offer a nice PR moment or two. They also give a huge boost to whichever party favors smaller (non-military) government. Pictures of half-built projects provide great political ad fodder for years. It is time for Democrats to stop ceding that label to Republicans.
8
@Alan I guess maybe the idea is that it will be easier to amortise and that the tickets should be cheaper. although by my experience here in Spain, the high speed train is not that much cheaper than flying. However, the ticket prices are more stable...there's no price gouging at xmas or summer season.
but you make some very great points about regional trains and commute between downtown and airports.
If these forthcoming high speed trains syphon significant numbers of flyers between the two metro areas as well as the valley, each airport will see notable relief in congestion and reduced delays. Regional flights can be easily replaced by high speed rail. The impact will be greater gate availability at each major airport. And unlike flying, high speed rail will offer intermediate cities transportation options. And petroleum will not stay this inexpensive forever and California will have given itself options while freeing up airport slots and gates while reducing the number of cars on the highway. I will be this will be an enormous success and every progressive state (read: Blue) will jump on the high speed bandwagon.
5
The 787 gets 90 mpg per passenger for a full plane. Aircraft leave from and get you to your destination on average.
2
The real problem with this project is politicians decided on the most expensive route, along the more heavily populated Hwy 99, instead of along Hwy 5, where the state already owns much of the necessary right of way, and there are many fewer roads that need to be passed over. I've never heard an explaination, but suspect landowners along the 99 route stood to profit, as will the campaign coffers of the elected officials responsible for this choice.
12
@peter wolf The route serves the central valley cities because millions of people live there and those cities are rapidly growing. Being an hour away from downtown San Jose is going to totally revolutionize life in Fresno. I live in Oakland and I can't even get to San Jose in an hour because of our dysfunctional transportation system. Heck, I might even move to Fresno to shorten my commute.
1
@peter wolf
Peter, the real problem is that this is not the project the California voters approved. But we are well used to being lied to, and very accustomed to bait and switch projects as well as diversion of funds . So no one is surprised, just disappointed as usual. And mad at ourselves for being fools. Frankly. I love the idea of high speed rail. But this, sadly, never was and never will be high speed rail...and if it had a chance it was killed by the whistle stops added for political pay offs. Of course there are astronomical cost and time over runs. What part of "Sacramento" didn't the voters understand? A Bullet Train by any other name would smell just as badly...with Boondoggle being the best choice.
3
Taxing gasoline by an additional 35 cents per gallon this year and then increasing the tax by 10 cents per gallon per year over the next five years and using that money to fund bonds for the construction would have many, many benefits in California. Not only would it help to reduce greenhouse gas, but it would encourage drivers to use mass transit instead of their cars.
The reduced air pollution would result in fewer hospitalization from asthma and fewer incidents of heart disease in the elderly.
Thus, raising gasoline taxes make drivers pay for the damage to the environment and people's health, while contributing to greener forms of transportation.
20
@David MD adding 10c per gallon per month for two years would only barely get us up to the average fuel tax for developed countries, which stood at $2.62/gal three years ago.
@David MD
As someone who lives in CA's central valley, I can tell you that the gas tax is a burden on top of already high gas prices. A public mass transit system is not in place to serve this still largely rural area. I live 30 miles from the nearest BART station, and unless I want to spend an extra 3 hours a day making bus connections to get to BART for the 1.5 hour ride to San Francisco, my option is to drive.
4
@David MD. So electric cars get a free ride? And where are the projections for ridership?
1
This article relies far too much on scare numbers.
$100 billion by itself sounds terrifying and absurd, but it doesn't sound nearly as crazy when you factor in time or scope, as should be done.
As to time, the project is forecast to go through 2031. Averaged over that time frame, the cost is about $7 billion per year,
The federal government could *easily* find $7 billion per year if it felt like it. The military budget alone is nearly $700 billion per year.
As to scope, the project covers 800 miles. That's $125 million per mile. That's significantly cheaper than Gateway, for example.
Conceptually, all of our major cities should be connected via high speed train. There are enormous economic, environmental, livability, and even national security benefits of having such options.
It's a shame that infrastructure projects like these, ones which would move our country into the 21st century and prepare it for the 22nd, continue to take enormous flak and criticism when the costs would be rounding errors in the federal budget. The predictable result is endless delays, further cost escalation, and continued infrastructure decay.
37
Republicans actually are hoping that significant chunks of the project can be completed before the money runs out and the willingness of Californians to see their taxes increased to pay for it -- you can forget about the feds adding to the kitty -- before Brown leaves office and the contractual commitments end and need to be renewed.
A few pristine steel-reinforced concreate viaducts, a few stretches of rusting track, all never used, will serve as great props in every Republican political campaign in the state as well as help out-of-state Republicans as well. "Brown's Multi-Billion-Dollar Folly" will be serving Republicans for years.
Before Trump considered running for president, Moonbeam should have asked him to take it over as a charitable act. Probably would be in place by now and been brought in for 10% of the projected expense.
7
@Richard Luettgen What is it about public transportation that you Republicans hate so much? An LA to SF high speed rail system should have been in place decades ago. And Gov. Brown has given us a $6.1 billion budget surplus. Trump would have bankrupted the state then sued us for his wrongdoing. Get your head out of the abyss, man.
8
@NemoToad
It's not public transportation that is offensive and it has little to do with my Republican guatamaliness.
It's liberal legislatures taxing the bejeesus out of their constituencies voting massive funding that is managed by their executives in league with private and public sector unions that get out the vote for them.
It's the messiness of true liberty (or, anyway, some approximation of it) that we have and that Euros don't and never did, regardless of their conceit that they do -- which is why rights of property mean nothing when "society" wants to put a bullet-train through your farmland or township.
My head isn't in the abyss: it's aboveground and very sensitive to the massive hypocrisy that exists in that everlasting circle between Democratic voters and their elected and the economically dependent interests that feed off them.
It's also the random thought that while it could make sense to build massive boondoggle public transportation works in the East, that is relatively tectonically stable, spending $100 billion (plus overruns) on public transportation probably makes a lot LESS sense on terra as INfirma as California between La-La-Land and San Francisco.
The usual knee-jerk comparisons to Japan and elsewhere fail to comprehend the vast differences. Japan has more than three times the population of California on 1/3 as much land. That population density makes mass transit much more efficient to operate. Japan also has a very different system of unions, regulation and litigation.
The only section of rail in the US that is comparable in population density is the northeast corrider, where the Acela demonstrates exactly how difficult "high speed" rail really is in America. The Boston-New York leg averages about 65 mph. The distance from LA-SF is 400 miles, and takes 6+ hours by car. The new train would have to reach 80 mph (or 20% faster than the Acela) to get that down to 5 hours. And that's 5 hours from station-to-station. Driving to and from the stations is extra (and adds potentially an extra hour from most of LA). Which means... 6 hours.
24
@SRM
Don't forget transportation from the SF terminus to your ultimate destination in the SF area -- could be 7 hours by train in total, and 6 hours by car.
5
@SRM
The Acela from New York to Boston runs on 19th-century right of way along the Connecticut coast that limits it to 20 mph in places. It's an absurd route, but local interests and NIMBY attitudes have blocked a dedicated route, which is the obvious solution. In any event, it's a terrible comparison to the California system, which will have long stretches of straight rail were 200 mph plus will be normal.
The real challenge and cost that are being played down in California is getting through the mountains from the Central Valley to SF and especially to LA -- crossing the San Andreas twice as well as dealing with very rugged mountains in the south. But once built, average speeds well above Acela will be no problem for the CA system (if every built...)
6
@SRM 80 miles/hour for a high speed train is snail pace. High speed trains in France average 120 miles/hour. Thus LA to SF could be done in under 4 hours. I do not know what speed is planned for the California system, if it is slower than that it is probably not worth it. SF has mass transit which makes the use of a car unnecessary if the train station has good access to it. The problem is LA, it is impossible to get anywhere without a car there. With a large amount of long term parking near the train station or rental cars it may still be more convenient than flying.
1
The rest of the industrialized economies can afford health care for all, and high speed rail between cities. And it can’t be done here?
I wish the deniers would turn off Fox News and could afford to travel to Europe and see the reality.
18
@S Dee
Exactly what I was thinking. It's about priorities. The needs of ordinary Americans are not a priority in this country now. The pity is that many ordinary citizens have been convinced by the Republicans that they are landed gentry and they will work hard against themselves.
1
@S Dee. I wish you would face reality.
@Jackson back at 'ya.
What is the cost to build an airport of major roadway?
1
@pat, it varies a lot depending on the urban/rural character. interstate can be as low as 2M/mi or as high as 200M/mi in LA.
Why do politicians act like the money doesn't come from somewhere?
New York and California both think taxes are magical and they simply rise out of the Earth.
It's ridiculous.
Maybe Republicans were right to cut the SALT deduction in order to enforce some sobriety about spending. This is a prime example.
12
@Curtis Sumpter, Republicans passed the biggest give away to the rich and corporations that I can think off. The federal budget deficit is approaching 1 trillion. It is, I believe 800 billion now. Republicans have zero sobriety when it comes to money management.
3
I’d rather spend the $billions on high-speed rail than the Trump Wall! Go California! I wish we could do that in NYS - would be a boon to upstate.
6
Most Californians are against the project, but it proceeds anyway? How did that happen?
10
@BD
It's politicians and "experts" who believe they know better than the unwashed masses.
2
@BD The answer to this riddle is that most Californians support the project. This was true when the bond was passed (obviously) and it's still true today. In a recent poll the majority of adults support the project and only 43% oppose it. 64% of poll respondents rate the HSR project as important or very important to the future of the state.
http://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/s-318mbs.pdf page 14.
@Jeff Baker ... but 43% of the California population oppose the project while 64% rate the project as important ( sample size = 107% ). Do the two opinions overlap to some degree?
From Los Angeles Times, yesterday. http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-train-speed-2018072... This quote says it all in terms of what voters want. “It does not make sense to run at these speeds given the cost, but it is too late to change,” said Kopp, a plaintiff in a suit alleging the state is violating the bond act. “You would have to go back to voters and they would turn it down as a way of stopping the project.”
5
I take Amtrak’s Coast Starlight Train when I travel from Los Angeles to Emeryville. Then Cab to BART and then BART to San Francisco.
3
just get lobbyists to present the need to transport DoD interests from SF to the Mexican border (perhaps border wall engineers?) Billion dollar defensive boondoggles don't get questioned. CA gets an innovative public transportation project (akin to interstate highway project scenario) and republicans can build upon their xenophobia platform.
3
A state renowned for its sunshine, solar powered electric trains - it is a no brainer. Republicans are still oil heads.
3
As always in articles like this, people love to pipe up about China doing this and that as if the obstacles they face are the same as we do. China is essentially a dictatorship run by the Communist Party. When they decide to lay down a high speed rail line somewhere they do it; they are not encumbered by environmental laws or, even bigger, lawsuits, that can delay things for a decade or more; they can tear down a village or cut through private property for there is no concept of eminent domain restricting their actions; they don't have to negotiate with labor unions and raise construction costs; the list goes on and on. It is a silly comparison!
8
@George S
In addition, modern China is built by the same crony capitalism that most NY Times readers seem to hate.
1
You didn’t mention the real reason billionaire pretend tea partier Scott refused federal billions for high speed rail along the notorious (and never ending) I-4 construction site — because privatized high speed rail from Miami to Orlando was better for “the people.” He also refused Medicaid expansion billions for health care for poor kids but that was just cruelty.
7
If this were the US government we'd borrow that money and give it to the rich 1%, what a waste to spend it on a transportation project.
7
So who is planning to use this train? Apparently you on the Left Coast want others to pay for it.
2
Thoughtful transit is never a waste. The unwarranted tax cuts in December were a waste.
@Jackson considering how much the “red” states depend financially on the “blue” states, I found your remark quite hilarious.
To save money and time, the easy thing for Californians to do is to hire Chinese companies for the job. These Chinese companies are world class construction leaders with tons of experience to deal with large projects and difficult tasks. Don't bother with domestic companies that they are famous for project delay and price overrun. Just look at our records in state and federal government with full of ridiculous examples.
3
@Usok
First, much Chinese construction and engineering, while shiny and pretty to look at, is not "world class". Secondly, even if you could do what you suggest, those companies would still have to comply with our laws and regulations, which would negate most of what you seem to think will solve the problems.
1
Is it too much to expect the New York Times to tell us something about need and justification? How many people fly/drive/bus between San Francisco and Los Angeles each day? How long is the trip, including waiting at the airport? What does it cost to fly? How much does it cost to run the airports for that purpose? What is the estimated cost per passenger mile of the train trip, supposing it costs $100,000,000,000 to complete? Is it economically justified, or just politically feasible because both cities are on one state? What technology would be employed? How fast would it go? Because Acela is not high-speed rail.
I'm the first one to say we need high-speed rail between Boston and Washington. Look at the number of flights between those cities (including New York, of course). Look at the state of I-95 anywhere along the route. Consider the time it takes to get to La Guardia, to be at the airport in good time. Driving to Boston from Manhattan takes about one hour longer than taking the shuttle, all factors included. High-speed rail could cut that time from 4 hours to just 90 minutes.
I'm not convinced the same rationale holds for San Francisco and Los Angeles. Those cities are further apart and — as far as I know, thanks to the superficial reporting — not as economically connected. The criticism that the project is politically motivated and "slowest, most expensive high-speed rail" is at least plausible, and nothing in the article speaks to it.
24
@James K. Lowden San Francisco and Los Angeles are very strongly connected. There are three major airports in the Bay Area and three in Los Angeles, plus San Diego. Between all of these airports aircraft arrive about twice per minute. That's a huge number of daily travelers.
But HSR isn't today's transportation needs, which we demonstrably can accommodate. HSR is about the next ten million Californians. How can we move them? HSR is actually the cheapest way, by far, and the only way that's congruent with California's legally-mandated reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. We could build more airports but that would cost twice as much as the railroad and wouldn't serve any of the central valley cities. We could build more freeways but that would cost more than ten times as much and pollute far more. This article doesn't explore any of these interesting questions. This article is pure anti-rail propaganda.
5
@James K. Lowden,
100B makes a great headline. While not disavowing the need for improved high speed rail between eastern metro cities I believe you underestimate the business dynamic and employment opportunities between The LA basin (including Irvine OC) and SF (including Silicon Valley cities). Many companies have branch offices in both locals and reap benefits. These are two vastly innovative and multi cultural metropolises in a single state that already equal the economy as the sixth to eighth most advanced country. Hopefully that is not news to you. The cost benefit analysis accounting has been reiterated for over a half century. It’s long past time to get this infrastructure done.
Can no one Google? Washington and Boston are further apart than San Francisco and Los Angeles.
"The rest has to be found,” said Martin Wachs, an emeritus engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a member of a committee appointed by the Legislature to review the project. “At the moment, 100 percent of the cost is going to be absorbed by the taxpayers.”
Where else does Prof. Wachs think the money is going to come from, the sky? And this guy's a professor?
8
@Jeff
If he is a typical Cali Progressive then he probably really does believe it is going to fall out of the sky.
1
$100B over 15-20 years
versus
$700B per year (this year) for Defense
I'll take the train instead of some extra missiles
20
100 billion? Jeff Bezos could pick-up the tab and still be in the middle class.
5
Where are the NYT articles regarding high speed rail for the Washington-to-Boston corridor? That is the only US region that could support high speed rail yet opposition in the many wealthy suburban towns that would be impacted prevent even a discussion!
7
If this is a good idea require by law that passengers pay the full cost of riding and maintaining the trains and right of way. That, in reality,will bring the true cost of a ticket to about $4,000 or more.
It is a massive, scam and boondoggle that will inflict extraordinary costs on tax payers into the future or it will have to be abandoned. Trump and Congress should act immediately to cut off federal funding or prohibit by law future subsidies and bailouts. Let fashion conscious, europhile, socialist Californians pay for it. After all it is a good idea right>
The
8
@antonio gomez
Sure -- as soon as truckers pay the full cost of driving on highways, and airline passengers pay the full cost of airports, runways, flight control, and so forth.
The whole point of infrastructure, including transportation, is NOT to be self-sustaining in cost. It's to enable lots of other profit-making activities, as well as economic and social goods like clean air, less congestion, etc. etc. Infrastructure also involves large initial investments that can rarely be justified by immediate returns. Without HUGE Federal subsidies, the transcontinental railway would not have been built until much later, if ever. Are you saying that that was a bad investment?
3
@antonio gomez Kansas--that figures.
1
How about car drivers pay the full cost of their transport (procuring, refining, transporting oil; polluting the air; paying for ALL roads) first?
2
Twenty years ago, the CalTrain that I rode between towns up and down the peninsula felt like a relic -- a handful of passengers in each car; loud, slow and coughing. Now, it's still loud and slow, but finding a seat is often impossible.
5
In this article on high speed trains I find a disparaging comment from the opposition: "This is going to be the most expensive and slowest form of fast rail imaginable...”
But nowhere in the text is there any mention of the projected speed of trains running on this line. A serious oversight!
11
This Californian says this $100 billion train is a
Giant Boondoggle.
10
The Chinese, who have built a vast high-speed-rail network where the trains routinely run around 200 mph, surely are laughing at us.
21
Trump promised us a $1.5 Trillion Infrastructure program. What happened to that? Republicans would all be in favor of this if it were a Republican project. Arnold supported the idea, but I guess Arnold is a RINO? Brown and the Dems pushed it, so Repubs must oppose it. Lose the partisan politics and do whats right for the State.
California has more citizens than Canada! Transportation is essential to a functioning economy. Its beyond crazy that California rail lines are still creosote soaked wooden ties on gravel beds laid down in the 19th Century!
12
Indeed, if we truly want to “make America great again,” we’d better get working on our infrastructure, not to mention education and healthcare!
@Pete
You believed Trump?
We need to hire people who can actually design successful high speed rail systems. At this point, I suspect we should be looking in China and Japan. We don't have to invent these systems - some are much more profitable and workable than others. We should not repeat the mistakes made on the design of the "image only" Willie Brown Bridge between Yerba Buena Island and Oakland. That design was a committee which thought only about appearances, not practical design which would be durable and hold up during an earthquake. Public infrastructure has to first be safe and effective. Then when it's made functional, it should be attractive but we should not start with how it looks which is just a mater of what looks "futuristic" now.
1
@San Francisco Voter
NOBODY believes Trump! He's truly unbelievable.
Late stage Liberalism. Tax and spend. Borrow and spend. Pay people with promises of pensions that are unfounded. Let crime and homelessness swell while building monuments.
6
The state of California is just waiting for Gov Brown to leave, then they're gonna repurpose the entire project as a toll road.
4
This country desperately needs to invest in infrastructure, rather than tax breaks for the wealthy. At the height of the depression New Deal programs built tens of thousands of infrastructure projects all throughout the nation. There is hardly a town in America that doesn't have a school, park, post office, courthouse etc, built during the New Deal, and most of them are still in use. NYC alone has more than a 1000 such projects, ranging from the Triborough Bride to dozens of public pools. There is no question that we should do this.
5
@David
Invest implies an actual return. It is difficult to see what actual return this project will provide to the taxpayers of the state.
5
@David I actually work in one of a huge complex of New Deal buildings that FDR and Chicago mayor Cermak built. With millions of unemployed and destitute people, the New Deal in its various manifestations was instrumental in salvaging the USA from economic wreckage. In anno 2018 there is no such sense of common cause or common good, neither between ordinary people nor between multinationals that are legally one person and the polity. We can only look forward to further decay and ruin as the class rifts widen.
2
The first national railroad in the 1860s was also a boondoggle that a few industrialists and politicians used to profit from at the expense of the taxpayer. Route designers were told to avoid straight sections in many areas so that more miles could be added and subsidized. The early railroads were an iconic American scandal.
And yet we built it, and at this point it's hard to argue against the utility of the system. Investing in a new railroad will always be tremendously expensive, and yes, it would nice if the process weren't corrupt and inefficient. That says more about our politics than it does about our need for better transportation though. Doubtless all our infrastructure suffers from the same problems: remember the cost overruns, delays, and baggage handling problems of the Denver airport? But does anyone want to go back to Stapleton as a major hub?
2
Simply replace the interstate highways with high speed railways...already laid out and graded, well-engineered, and much much cheaper.
2
@John
Or we could continue to maintain and expand those same interstate highways funded by existing fuel taxes and let individuals cover the rest of the cost of their own private vehicles. The level of innovation happening in this area is in overdrive these days. I can imagine in a few years we'll have automated convoys of electric, autonomously driven cars gliding along at a fraction of the cost of this rather slow "bullet" train.
2
@Kevin Perera
Actually, fuel taxes no longer cover even a fraction of road maintenance and construction costs, because they haven't gone up to adjust for inflation for years, while more economical cars and trucks use less fuel, reducing the income even more.
But California Republicans are basing their entire 2018 campaign on _repealing_ a correction of state fuel taxes that only partially caught up, and will still leave the state with a big hole in road construction costs.
The obvious conclusion is that Republicans in California are blind or liars: you can't say you want transportation infrastructure to be funded by those who use it, as Mr Perrera suggests, then campaign to sharply reduce the user fees on transportation infrastructure.
Instead of starting trade wars that end in bailouts to farmers Trump and the GOP should wholeheartedly support this amazing, visionary infrastructure project. That is how you Make America Great Again.
1
Putting bullet trains in California and between DC, NYC and Boston would be vanity project the elite who live in those cities. High speed trains somehow became in the minds of few Europhiles the epoch of civilization. Its not. It would be another way for the wealthy on the coasts to hold on to their weath.
Texas is building a bullet train between Dallas and Houston. Not as extensive as California but who knows what can happen. Could it go north to Oaklahoma City and Denver? West to Phoenix and San Diego? East to New Orleans and Miami? 100 billion to build 500 miles in California vs 12 billion to build 250 miles in Texas. Why build in California and the east?
People are discovering NYC and the Bay Area aren't without problems. Its not really economically feasible for the middle class to live there anymore. Pricing their cities out of the market is just part of the reason people are leaving for elsewhere. How provincial to think you and where you live is the center of the universe.
@JoeG Oh, I forgot. T.he Texas bullet train will be built with private funds.
With all of the challenges and government give always in California that need funding this is just a waste. Medi-Cal is underfunded, basic roads and bridges need work, and legislators pump out new laws with new costly entitlements. The billions tied up in this project is a waste.
As to why it is an expensive and inefficient one has to do with Sacramento’s relationship with unions. If union workers get the bid Democrats stay in office.
4
When it comes to war funding, our politicians lavish the Pentagon - sometimes with even more money than they request. But when it comes to something that can improve the quality of life of the public, the politicians become Ebenezer Scrooge.
3
We could build high speed rail lines, or we could build the wealthy’s bank accounts in Panama, the Caymans, Switzerland, etc. The difference in how many Americans benefit from the construction of high speed rail should inform our decision.
3
The Texas HSRail is going forward. No Republican opposition, as it is privately funded.
First this country allows, via skewed tax laws, a few individuals and corporations to amass billions. Then we either wait to see what they will offer as investments, or go hat in hand begging for dollars for x project. It’s not what this country needs, it’s all about what these profiteers want and can make even more money from.
I don’t want self driving cars. I don’t want a ticket to ride to.....Mars. And I especially don’t want one more egg slicer.
I want high speed rail. Transcontinental, both coasts to have rail, and multiple short lines to connect rural to urban.
The cost. Yes, regressive property, sales taxes are at their limit. But financial transaction taxes, soda taxes, sugar taxes, even minimal, progressive gas taxes, tolling of roads....a quarter a pop, have promise.
In a democracy/republic, our representatives decide what we need, not a handful of billionaires. This HSRail should have been that joint venture. And all those jobs..... Keep going, California. We will come around.
3
Why the United States lacks a real high-speed rail system is mind boggling.
All across Europe there are high-speed trains, on-time, clean, reliable and at reasonable cost.
European trains have big windows, too, not Amtrak portholes!
I recently traveled round trip between Paris and Marseille. 3 1/2 hours one-way; 783 km (489 miles). 2 people round trip, leaving mid-day was about $250.
On Amtrak It takes more than twice that time to go from Boston to Washington DC; 8 hours, 440 miles. Leaving mid-day on both ends of a round trip is $1060!
That borders on the criminal!
If it weren’t for American automobile manufactures and big oil, the US could have the same as Europe. But, then, we don’t really want civilized anything in this country.
Why not follow the interstate highway system as a right-of-way? It’s already bought, paid for and there!
15
@Mr. Reeee
Amtrak trains have "portholes"? What trains have you been on?? The fastest, Acela, has windows like every other European and American train.
2
Yes, why not follow Hwy 5, Gov. Brown?
1
Mile for mile, the California HSR project costs about the same as building a new four-lane highway ... and is inconsequential over the long-term compared to the costs of a new or expanded airport ... Transportation projects are expensive in California because there are so many people already living in any place where it makes any sense at all to build a new transit corridor ... those are just the realities on the ground ... abandoning this project now is about as short-sighted as it was for Chris Christie to abandon the ARC tunnel project on the grounds that it cost too much ... you'll notice the need for that tunnel still hasn't gone away ...
3
@Brian Grantham
Initial construction costs might be similar, but ongoing operating costs of the highway are a fraction of HSR.
And there's no getting around flexibility of car travel for these kinds of distances – you'll need your car at the other end. Remember California - especially this part of California - is very different from the crowded cities of the Northeast. Our urban centers are sprawling suburbs with wide roads, little transit, and acres of free parking at every destination.
It would be much better to put all that money into subways/mass-transit systems in the handful of core urban areas where the car really doesn't work - the Los Angeles basin, San Francisco and around Silicon Valley. This would have an order-of-magitude larger impact for the vast majority of Californians.
This is an immoral waste of money for a traffic corridor that is currently well-served at an even higher speed by some of the most frequently scheduled air transport on earth.
2
The Republicans are supposedly concerned about the "costs and disruptions" of this transformative $100 billion investment in our future.
Too bad they didn't feel that way about the $1 trillion invasion of Iraq, or the $2 trillion corporate tax giveaway.
The fact of the matter is that Republicans hate any form public transportation and want to see the government fail. We need to ignore the naysayers and the defeatists and build our future transportation infrastructure.
28
The NYTimes once editorialized about manned flight, "...We hope that Professor Langley will not put his substantial greatness as a scientist in further peril by continuing to waste his time and the money involved, in further airship experiments. Life is short, and he is capable of services to humanity incomparably greater than can be expected to result from trying to fly....For students and investigators of the Langley type there are more useful employments."
Some jurisdictions required early motorists to be preceeded by someone carrying a red flag. Others required drivers to get out of their vehicles and physically touch the stop signs at intersections.
Early opponents to rail transport opined that steam locomotives would cause cows to stop giving milk or birthing calves.
So there's opposition to high speed rail in California? Surprise! But once the trains are running, smoothly, efficiently and rapidly carrying passengers north to south and back again, they will have become accepted and valued parts of the state's infrastructure, just as Japan's Shinkansen bullet trains and France's TGV have.
1
First, it would have been helpful to learn what sort of "bullet" this train is intended to be for those of us unfamiliar with the project. Is it a conventional rail project that is just fast, like Acela, or a maglev, or something else? How long will it take for one to travel from LA to San Francisco on it? How long does it take one to drive today? How much road traffic would it diminish? How much in highway construction and maintenance would it save over time? How much in live safety would it save owing to fewer highway travelers?
Second, should the current US president loose re-election, or choke on a cheeseburger before 2020, it would be nice to see the US congress appropriate precisely the sum he has demanded for that silly wall to help fund this sort of long overdue infrastructural project in California.
Third, Republicans can always point to these sorts of projects as being riddled with cost overruns and delays because THEY unendingly undermine and litigate them, causing innumerable delays and cost overruns. It's prophesy turned sophistry.
Lastly, it's about time "the greatest country in the world" wakes up and realizes it can't make it through the 21st century with 19th century infrastructure.
10
@gd
Can you give us a few examples of the Republican litigation involved in this project? Compare and contrast to the left leaning (to be polite) environmental lawsuits in the works and contemplated.
4
Well put!
1
@J
Well George S and J, I wasn't referring to this project in particular. You might have noticed that I started of asking questions about the project -- I was speaking in general terms about non-highway transit projects. Moreover, while there are plenty of special interest group lawsuits nationally, I was thinking more broadly about lawmakers arguing endlessly in committees or on the floors of houses on congress across the country -- this is pre-litigation litigation -- lawmakers in endless arguments about potential law before the lawsuits can begin. In this case, one side wins, simply through delay. That was my thinking.
Please do some investigative reporting on the cost per ride, should the first segment be opened. Then, do a running total of the operating losses as they grow each year. What do the increased debt and deficits look like in five years, ten? Create a chart showing operating income each year and total costs. The growing gap will be frightening and provide evidence for not throwing good money after bad.
For a rough idea, given the low number of riders in the Central Valley and the high cost of building the system ($100 billion and climbing), daily operating costs and debt service, the average cost for each passenger to ride on the Fresno to Bakersfield route could probably be more than $5,000. What could High Speed Rail charge for the average ticket? Perhaps $50 to $100 to be competitive and recover part of the cost? So where does the balance of $4,900 to $4,950 in subsidies come from? Taxpayers? A bigger deficit for California, HSR going bankrupt and selling the system for a dime on the dollar to private investors?
Your investigative reporters could do the gap analysis and the results would show this Catch-22 that seems to be ignored: the more passengers using HSR, the more it loses!
California already faces economic disaster because of its pension programs and billion-dollar shortfalls to fund them. The added debt from HSR could turn California into the next Venezuela.
9
@Tom Gable
Um, your argument would be a little better if you demonstrated knowledge of basic economics.
If a rail system with X passengers has costs of 5000X, then each passenger costs $5000.
If the number of passengers goes to 2X, the result is NOT doubled costs. Rail costs much the same to operate with X or 2X passengers.
So doubling the number of passengers means losing less money. Duh!
@Tom Gable When the Federal Government first sponsored a mail route to California in the late 1860s, they got back something like 28k on a million dollar contract. They did it for something other than to make a dollar.
We live in a world where every one thinks we can quantify in dollars and sense the value of things. If the rail line was embraced rather than resisted, and the cost subsidized to the point where it became beloved and self sustaining, what do you think that would do to the value of California? And how would you quantify it?
"The strategy of concentrating first on the section from Bakersfield to Madera puts off tunneling through mountains, which Mr. Kelly said could cost anywhere from $4 billion to $13 billion."
And given that the mountains to the south and north include the most seismically active terrain in the country, leaving these until last might also mean not having to repair or redo tunnels and other structures before the line is complete. But sooner or later, they will have to spend that $4 to $13 billion again.
3
Just returned from Spain. Took the HSR from Barcelona to Madrid. Pure heaven. The Spanish only built this in 1990's. Makes travel uncomplicated. Can't wait to have this in California.
7
@apple95014
And I remember Spanish trains from Barcelona to Madrid around 1980. The train took most of the day, was cramped and smelled bad.
Yes, infrastructure investment is high... Spain nearly went bankrupt because of its investments, in 2008. But the train is still there, and runs daily, and pays _public_ dividends to the economy and to the environment every time a passenger gets on (instead of driving, instead of flying).
Right-winger's fallacy is that they always compare public investment to perfection (it's too expensive! there's corruption!), while comparing private investment to no investment. But huge amounts of private investment are wasteful and corrupt (much of it covered by tax breaks, generous bankruptcy provisions, and corporate manipulation and looting), but somehow we are supposed to believe that private investment is always better than public investment.
A day spent in Europe demonstrates the opposite.
2
When something is useful to people, it's expensive, when it's desirable to the military, Congress can't vote for it fast enough. American infrastructure, like American social spending, has been hijacked by the oligarchs and the military-industrial complex they serve. I hope this project breaks through this particularly intractable wall.
9
$100 billion is about 1/6th of the federal "defense" budget. For one year.
2
@The Poet McTeagle
That defense budget benefits and protects the nation as a whole - and this $100 billion and climbing train project benefits whom by comparison?
5
Tens of billions of dollars to connect Bakersfield to Madera. That pretty much says it all.
7
I’m 1000% for railways infrastructure, but it’s a bit too late for the U.S. if you check when Europe started.
A better investment would be the electric car implementation.
Just my gut feeling.
Perhaps California should solicit donations from those of us, nationwide, who believe a proof-of-concept on the West Coast could alter the conversation elsewhere (in lieu of Congress partially funding). One thing I know: if Gavin Newsom cancels this project, I'll never vote for him in a presidential election. Moving people off cars and planes and onto modes of public transit is about protecting our planet for future generations. We cannot afford yet another leader who would compromise that for political expediency.
1
Remind me again how much the airlines, oil companies, auto manufactures etc receive in subsidies, tax breaks and other incentives.
Here is a project for the public good, public transportation so of-course the GOP and Trumpists are against it. However if we don’t spend it on building The Wall they are ready to shut down the government.
7
The GOP excels at telling us to trust them: tax cuts for the wealthiest will raise take-home pay; sports stadiums with luxury boxes will bring jobs to our cities and more military spending will increase our security. But infrastructure, according to the Republicans, is a waste of taxpayer money. I don’t know if the LA to SF train is worth the cost, but I do know I can’t trust the current GOP to evaluate its merits. Unfortunately for the USA, even credibility is a partisan issue.
3
Its time that we demand that our politicians focus exclusively on improving the quality of life of its citizens. Infrastructure, education, housing, and health care does that. Military adventures and obscene pentagon budgets, tax cuts for the wealthy, and corporate welfare do not.
2
Someday someone somehow somewhere will some what explain the astronomical costs associated with building "roads"
And of course with why everything always gets delayed, weather aside, is an integral part of of this scenario.
The point of the train is to bring workers to LA and Silicon Valley from all over California; from affordable housing to unaffordable housing, just as places on the East Coast and in Japan feed workers into Manhattan or Tokyo via train.
California's human population will increase by at least 10 million over the next few decades whether we like it or not.
Jerry Brown's "boondoggle" is sensible long-term planning for a more crowded planet. He's thinking farther than the next election.
7
The Republican Party favors breaking the bank when it comes to tax giveaways for the rich, military boondoggles, and destroying affordable healthcare. Rest assured, their opposition to this project has nothing to do with fiscal prudence; it has EVERYTHING to do with their desire to make sure the people never see government programs as the solution to anything. Their opposition is pure partisanship and cynicism at its finest.
1
The San FRancisco Area is completely unaffordable for all the people making less than 200k per year. Recently the NYT ran an article that 111K is the poverty line in this area. This train is more for moving the work force in and out of these totally unaffordable areas from the Central Valley where the work force already lives. There are many construction workers living on the western edge of the Central Valley that drive 2 hrs in and 2.5 hours home from the far western side of Silicon Valley. This daily migration of 10s of thousands by auto is unsustainable.
3
As a person who has often traveled around the world where virtually every country has high speed trains and who has lived in California (and suffered the terrible traffic there), it is incomprehensible to me that folks do not want a high speed train corridor from SF to LA (and, eventually, San Diego, Vegas and Phoenix).
The US already looks like a 3rd world transportation system. Why would we not want to catch up?
2
That $100 billion is money that could go toward share buybacks and tax cuts for job producers.
This reminds of the train to the plane boondoggle in New York city. It cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, and it is barely used. California is a car culture state. Nothing will change that, including high speed rail.
3
The US may technically still be a Superpower, but they've proved nearly incapable at pulling off large scale infrastructure projects.
In the past 10 years China spent $360 billion to build 22,000 km (13,670 miles) of high-speed rail. China also built a $2.8 billion 300 mile rail system in Kenya in a record 2 years. China also built a nearly 800km rail system linking Ethiopia with Djibouti in a little over 4 years. Perhaps California should hire China?
3
First, I do question the cost. One hundred billion dollars does seem like a lot of money for this project. Beyond that, I cannot support this project and other HSR initiatives enough.
The rest of the developed world has trains running at 200mph or more all over the place. Here, we're lucky when the Acela hits 150 mph for a few seconds here and there.
Just imagine the changes a real high-speed rail system would make.
Let's just take two routes: Boston to Washington DC and NYC to Montreal.
Today, NYC to DC is at best, three hours. HSR would make that about 80 minutes. That is less time than the A train takes to go its entire route. How many cars would be removed from I-95 lowering pollution and traffic? How many shuttle flights between NYC and DC airports could be eliminated? That would not just be great environmentally, but it open up a pile of landing and takeoff slots for long haul flights improving their reliability.
NYC to Montreal is currently an insane 11 hour ride. A similar length train- Berlin to Munich takes under four hours. The economic boost to both cities would be tremendous if travel became so easy with HSR.
Yes, HSR is expensive, but it is an investment that pays itself back many times. It is also environmentally friendly.
We used to have the greatest intercity rail system in the world, it is time to build it again...at 200mph.
2
I agree, and would point out that the busiest air route in the country is LA - SFO. The train would be competitive with this route.
1
@David
David, how can it compete in terms of speed and cost? It seems that even at today's $100B estimate, which is surely to grow even it is completed by 2033, how can it compare in practical terms?
One year, $150 billion, of Trumpublicans tax cut for the rich would pay for the entire project. We need modern infrastructure more than the rich need more money stashed in the Cayman Islands.
3
How is it that we, as a nation, did such a fine job of laying rail across the breadth of the land 150 years ago but struggle to get anything done now?
Yes, I realize it’s more complicated on every front, but the glacial progress by comparison is just mind-blowing.
You know what would save the project from a future governor’s pen? Finishing it.
2
Keep on leading CA! $100B - that's about 4% of your current state budget over the next 10 years. Heck, with 30M autos on your roads you could raise $3B over ten years with just a $10/yr increase on autos.
The trains will help center the cities which in turn leads to more organized and local investment in public transit.
Millennials will want to live there, businesses will want to be there (people can get work done on a train) and, best of all, the model has been proven to work in other parts of world. The only downside is that LA and SF may lose their number 1 and number 3 spots for the worst traffic in the US.
3
Plenty of people already want to live there. A railroad (or a stadium) is a wildly expensive and inflexible bit of PR.
I see an unfinished train route that will be graffitied. Skateboarders will be doing tricks on the elevated tracks. Homeless will set up camp up there. And of course racing cars.
1
Whatever cooperation underpinned large infrastructure projects in this country in the past is clearly missing now. Everything is tainted by partisanship except apparently the need for ever skyrocketing military budgets and pointless wars abroad, and welfare for rich individuals and corporations. Meanwhile roads, bridges, dams and airports crumble.
1
If you want to talk government boondoggles, think superhighways and airports. If the United States had invested in railroads fifty years ago, our current weather disasters might have been somewhat less, and we would not have to sit in long lines of traffic going nowhere. But American's love of their automobiles matches their love of their guns and the fossil fuel billionaires are smiling in their air conditioned palaces in the desert.
3
In nearly every other industrialized country on earth (and even many countries far less developed), high speed rail is a fact of life. Only here, in the United States of Idiocy, is it politicized to no end, just as other useful things are politicized (healthcare for all for example). SF and LA are at an appropriate distance for high speed rail, but HSR will also boost other cities in the struggling central valley like Fresno, and make commuting more viable. This will in turn open up new potential for housing near HSR stations, which will mitigate housing affordability. The article should discuss the relationship between transportation improvements and housing, which it doesn't. Saying its a boondoggle because people currently fly or drive misses the point--to deal with future demand we need alternatives, and we can't continue to expand freeways and airports. HSR is necessary to California's future sustainable growth, and there is simply no way to dispute that. Futuristic technologies like hyperlink are unproven and currently conceptual, and would likely take even longer to develop. So don't listen to Republicans--if they had it their way, the interstate highway system would never have been built.
1
I just hope they build trainsets in CA. This will give CA ability to sell these types of trains in the US. But knowing how politics works it wouldn't surprise me if they select a company that paid off politicians instead of using an experienced HSR train manufacturer. For sure there aren't any HSR train manufacturers in the US, so they will have to lure a foreign company for this job. The French and the Japanese are probably the best. They need to be forced to establish a factory to build trains. And they should bring in experienced tunnel builders from Italy or France to build the tunnels. Funny as it seems, there are very few tunnels in the US, most roads are built by paving, not boring. Just drive through Europe though, huge number of tunnels.
Mr. Nagourney looks at all the factors dragging down the California highspeed rail project but one - the role of private contractors. There were three periods in this country when we were able to build mass infrastructure. When the railroad companies in the 19th century got free federal land and exploited a mass and unregulated low paid immigrant labor force for their own profit; post WWII when we were flush with cash and returning GIs needed work, and; the other when we had government architects, engineers, construction crews and programs like the CCC in the 1930s under the New Deal that built bridges, roads, parks, libraries across the country. We all have the results in out states and please look at them and compare the beauty and quality of design and construction. Now infrastructure costs far more to build in this country than any other including Europe, putting us farther and farther behind the rest of the developed nations and even the emerging economies. The move to more and more private contractors for public projects in recent decades is driven by large campaign contributions by contractors to politicians . As someone who oversaw bid processes for small public projects, contractors are always the same connected players who low ball bids at the outset, then drive up costs, maximize profits at the public expense and submit constant overages. It’s all a game - at the country’s expense.
There is any number of reasons why large public works projects are prohibitively expensive outside of the scale of the actual project.
For example, cost of materials will fluctuate (planning vs. real cost upon purchase). Unforeseen circumstances once construction begins (generally sub-strata). Bureaucratic delays which do add to the cost. Increased cost for the purchase of land and so on.
But, perhaps the biggest difference in terms of cost is how these projects are built today, as opposed to the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s and/or Hoover Dam.
All projects are now put out for competitive bids (or so one is told, because the process is hideously corrupt behind the scenes) and all awarded contracts tend to be open ended, even when the bid comes with a dollar amount.
In other words, The Big Dig in Boston and its legendary cost overruns are the rule, rather than the exception.
Previous to this, all projects were directly controlled by some kind of governmental entity, including the hiring of workers and the purchase of materials.
Since the Reagan Revolution, that is no longer the case.
Every single project has not only gotten more complicated, the costs will rise because private entities do not have the same interests as the governmental ones that hired them.
HSR is a great form of transportation and a national network should have been considered decades ago.
I hope California succeeds in completing it, but the bidding process first needs to change.
3
To the anti-rail lobby, every project is a boondoggle. Every. Single. One.
It's their "NO COLLUSION" - the talking point they repeat ad nauseam.
Nice of you to put in the headline!
5
Why doesn't Governor Brown take a page out of the Trump playbook and just have Mexico pay for it?
5
It’s nice of Californians to rebuild the ruins of Palmyra here for all the world to come visit. Disney I’m sure can do something clever with those abandoned unfinished sections, especially those tall flared column capitals - the California Liberal Order.
1
They could fix all the overruns by awarding the building contract to a Chinese company !
1
@L.A., Chinese built the first railroads here in California as well. It would only make sense.
So when does it opens??
2
If one has driven between the great metropolitan areas in California and flown airplanes, the value of super fast trains is obvious. Airplanes traverse the greater distances in an a hour flight time but two to three hours overall. The auto takes the whole day. There are great things to see in the state that require autos to enjoy but most people are just going between two points and the time required is great. A fast rail system would be a great improvement.
8
@Casual Observer Indeed, if you want to travel from LA or SF to Wasco. There is, however, about 99% of the state that is not served by this but will be paying for it.
Please show us the detailed budget proposals, with risks highlighted. I have always wondered how politicians determine budgets for large projects, besides making it up as they go. $100 billion is a lot of money.
4
Taxpayers insist that the lowest bidder be given jobs, which results in estimates that are too low and run over before they are finished. In addition, nobody can predict all the challenges to finishing jobs on time. New endeavors are rarely accurately predicted. The statistical basis for estimating times and costs include those that are done quickly and under budget and those with great unexpected costs, and are accurate with great numbers of previous experiences, for average only. People will live with this system for centuries, so taking it slowly and carefully is more important than doing it fast and cheaply. It’s the kind of project that needs the attention and support that only a state can provide, and Republicans tend to want things that cost nothing but make enormous fortunes for businesses. They are not people who care about long term benefits but worry about keeping what they have for themselves very much.
I love these large public works projects. BUT...this seems to me a waste of money. Even in Europe they rely more and more on air travel...wouldn't it make sense and be a lot cheaper to enlarge airports in LA and San Fran and add some type of air shuttle service? I'm sure this will be as earthquake proof as engineers can make it...but even with that...in a big quake it will be heavily damaged. Seems to me that enhanced air travel is the way to go.
5
Back in the day, my 20-something friends and I would scrounge up some cash and fly from L.A. to S.F. on the long-defunct PSA Airlines for $12.50 one way. It left both airports every hour on the hour. We could fly to S.F. and blow our money then turn up at the airport when we were broke and fly home. That was when the Feds subsidized airlines. It might be cheaper for the taxpayers to get back into the airline subsidy business than to build HSR but then Congress would have to approve. And even monkeys would fly free then.
@Tom. I am not sure which Europe you are talking about. Most major European cities are connected by high speed trains - and they are all full since it is a faster mode of transportation than air.
Air travel has extreme greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel usage. High speed trail powered by electricity can be zero-emissions depending on the source of energy.
1
"The 800-mile line from Los Angeles to San Francisco is scheduled for completion by 2033." - When I bicycled from SF to LA, the distance between them was roughly 450 miles. I suspect you are referring to the mileage of the total system including service to Sacramento and San Diego if phase 2 were built?
Also, it's hard to tell from the map whether this would serve airports, especially LAX and SFO? That would be critical.
6
@JF
The final segments of the routes have still to be determined (yet more delays) but none of the initial plans from the Rail Authority show the trains going to either airport.
4
@JF
I saw the same thing, and thought the mileage was about double what the distance is between the two cities. No matter how crooked the path, it shouldn't be 800 miles!
1
I am a Californian who enjoyed the railways of Europe but I am appalled at how my tax dollars are being wasted on this project. The difference between Europe and California is that European trains actually go where people want to travel. I can’t understand what type of advantage there would be to make an initial connection between Madera and Bakersfield. Who in Madera wants to pay high speed rail prices to go to Bakersfield and vice versa? For those who want to make this trip, wouldn’t driving be more economical? Wouldn’t the project enjoy more funding and the economy in small towns be more stimulated if the initial stretch was from San Francisco to Fresno or LA to Bakersfield? I like Governor Brown but this shall be forever known as Brown’s Folly.
12
@Jia Li
Also ignored as always in this is that once one gets from Madera to Bakersfield how will you get around? Even if there was tons of public transit in those respective areas, it assumes people will stay there, not be bout for some farther point. In short, you'd still need a car.
That is why HSR works best between major population centers, like SF and LA where there ARE enough public options to get around without a car. But these in between points? Forget it.
8
Projected costs (which the article admits will undoubtedly rise) are rough equivalent of 40 nuclear power plants...which could provide clean, dependable and non-carbon based power for generations. That makes too much sense though, so undoubtedly the project will be completed using construction engineers' dictum that sunk costs don't matter--it's only what's left to finish the project that should be considered.
4
Clean and efficient nuclear fission, so long as one totally ignores what is actually being done. Nuclear fuel boils water more efficiently than any other but that’s all that it does. The steam turns a three phase electrical generator, the same as does falling water in an hydro electrical dam system, or as giant windmills can do. Once the fuel is used, it hangs around being hazardous for ten thousand years, so it cannot just be ignored. The books continue to rack up expenses until it can be safely discarded. The real costs of nuclear power will be being paid for longer than the great pyramids in Egypt have been around.
7
This is a very one-sides article, quoting mostly Republican politicians like the Fresno mayor and mostly low-tax/small government policy analysts, like Joe Nation. Nothing is said about how transformative this train and paired regional transit will be for the Central Valley population: it will open up job-creating coastal cities to people living in less expensive cities of the Valley. It will tie the economies and creative endeavors of Los Angeles and The Bay Area. It will bind the knowledge makers at universities from Davis to Merced to San Diego to industries throughout the state. The future does not belong to clogged interstate highways, but to alternatives to congestion and the squandering of land and habitat to accommodate auto-mobility.
50
@voltairesmistress That is a fantasy. No one believes or presents this train as for commuters. It is political bacon Brown used to get the central valley bigwigs on the side of Democrats. (Lifelong democrat and Brown supporter)
3
@voltairesmistress
I fully agree. If people think this is just a matter of moving people from SF to LA (and eventually Sac to San Diego), they've looking at it through a narrow,short-term lens. This is about linking the economies of this vast state, getting people to work. I'm disappointed, to be honest, that Brown hasn't made more of this fact and argument, stressing instead that he likes trains. That will not win over the doubters. Of course, you can never win over the Republicans.
@voltairesmistress Thank you for pointing this out. The article could have gone in depth with examples from the rest of the world, greatly mentioned in the comments. It is sad that the comments section does more to enlighten and broaden a topic such as this in the Times then the article itself.
My wife and I went to China in April to visit our granddaughters. Our son, who lives in Zhuhai, wanted us to see the sights in Guilin. The trip between Zhuhai and Guilin took three hours by high-speed train. To have driven the same distance would have taken 7-9 hours. I can hardly wait for the high-speed rail project to be completed in California.
38
@Caliteacherguy
Perhaps we institute virtual, slave labor and totalitarian, oppressive government here too.
1
@Caliteacherguy - The train in California could probably be built very quickly, if they could hire workers for $3 an hour, and execute opponents.
4
This project will not be finished in your lifetime, if ever. They are 100% over-budget building the easiest 100 mile segment. And when they "discover" that ridership between Bakersfield and Fresno is not financially viable, the appetite for spending another $100 billion is going to be zero.
1
It's a shame that there is so much discordance in wanting to build this high-speed train. If you go to Japan or France, you'd be amazed at the speed and time-savings their high-speed trains have.
Perhaps, if the USA had 1 high-speed train to start,then others would follow. This would save lots of people time and gas, when you could go from 1 major city to another in a very short time!
13
@Majortrout - These are relatively small, densely-populated countries. The longest run in France, Paris to Marseilles, is about 400 miles.
1
@Jonathan
400 miles is also the distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
I would love to see this project succeed, but I don’t think it will.
To begin with, if completed it would be one of the 10 longest high speed rail lines in the world, so expect massive over runs in funding. The time for SF to LA would need to be under 3-4 hours to make it competitive with commercial flight, which is doubtful. Next up, what do riders do when they step off the train in the famously car-centric LA? Uber? Rent a car? Flying has the same problem, which makes the train even less differentiated. Finally, yes, they left the hard part for last: the right of way through the dense sub- and ex-urbs of 2 major cities built of some of the most expensive real estate on the planet.
So we end up with a super expensive, slower than air and marginally faster than car solution that will require subsidies for the foreseeable future. Sorry, but not a winner.
14
@QED, you mention that "the time for SF to LA would need to be need to be under 3 - 4 hour to make it competitive with commercial flight..." That's not necessarily the case. You need to consider the total travel time. When I fly to SoCal from SFO I need to arrive at SFO 2 hours before my flight. Depending on traffic, the trip to SFO from my home might be 1 hour. The flight is roughly 1.5 hours (gate to gate) and then add .5 hours for baggage claim. So, the total travel time is about 5 hours. Trust me when I tell you, I would rather travel by train than fly. No TSA, no cramped seats on the flight. I can get up and walk around. No checked baggage. I will take high speed rail any day.
6
@QED Then we choke to death in car traffic.
It is quite possible to build safe super fast trains that surpass flight travel in ease and time given airport delays. We went to the moon. And other Western nations do this. Its called using eminent domain and gas taxes for the greater good. America wants it to be 1950's forever.
@QED It’s true the distance is on the high side for HSR. 200 Miles seems like the sweet spot, Brussels-Paris for example takes only 1h24 minutes by Thalys and is so successful airlines no longer fly that route and even use the train as a leg.
California will need to aim at very high speeds to make it a success, at least averaging 150mph+.
I have no knowledge of real high speed rail in the US, i.e. with no crossings (only bridges and tunnels) and unlike e.g. Acela, traveling faster than regular trains in Europe. It would be a much needed first!
1
I’ve been to Europe and Japan and rode High Speed Rail on both. I am conflicted HSR. It was extremely convenient for me using it once in a while and from downtown to downtown. Ridership was rather low - I’d say 30% capacity. Ticket cost was high.
I would prefer investments on electric buses on exclusive roads with fewer traffic lights in major cities.
5
The problem with this is not the government overseeing such projects. PPPs (Public-Private-Partnerships) are often way more expensive for taxpayers (e.g. the constructions of new highways). The problem is that these incredibly huge projects are an once in a lifetime thing for bureaucrats in a certain area of the country. How often do you build a new airport or a new train route? They are simply not experienced enough. What you need is a central agency overseeing all public projects of that size in the country. That makes it possible to centralize know-how and procurement power and to eventually bring the costs down and the projects in time.
19
@Max California has one of the largest economies in the world, and CalTrans is extremely experienced with large projects, including some highly-incentivized quick-action bridges. Nonetheless, the bay bridge et al were way over budget and late, and had major quality issues. I don't think "bigger" or "more experienced" will result in "better"; better would come from an analysis of the issues, like why and how these projects are used as political pork and bureaucratic perks.
4
PPP is private profit - public risk. I rather see private only or public only.
2
While not getting into the specifics of this project we should note that almost every advanced and foresighted country is building effective public transportation systems. Only we lag behind with our obsession with individual transportation (cars et:al) with the attendant problems of congestion, high accident rates and crippling personal & social costs. We tweak a 20th century transportation system while countries like China pursue 21st century solutions.
17
@John Chastain
Our dwindling national wealth still allows this person-centric thinking. Its also why we have no national healthcare.
America: every man for himself!
@John Chastain Such as? Where is China building a fast train this long through empty landscape? Even China with vast reserves and its desire to employ Chinese would balk at this project. It's immature to say "high speed rail is good in all possible situations."
Actually the car is a pubiic transportation. It would be hopeless without the hugh public investment in freeways, bridges, and roads in general. It just requires that upfront personel investment. Of course its toxic. Oh well.
1
Only in America could so much opposition be made to a project that will take polluting cars off the road at a time when freeways are jammed and the state is being ravaged by climate change. California is rich, and for the sake of its future, it needs an "all of the above" approach approach to green transit; high-speed rail, EV charging stations; and a massive investment in solar throughout the valley.
32
@purpledog You've never seen the central valley or even outlying areas; no one will live there and commute.
Cars come off the road when people live closer, not further from jobs. The trivial solution would be to build apartments near jobs, if that's your goal.
It's always better not to need the energy than to build infrastructure that needs it and more infrastructure to produce it.
6
@Wes Correct Wes, which is why making your house more energy efficient is better economically and perhaps, for the environment that getting solar panels.
I am a supporter of high speed rail, but this project makes little sense to me. The distances are too great, the population density too low and the topography too difficult. The conditions in the western U.S. are unlike Europe, Japan and other places where high speed rail has thrived.
High speed rail for the eastern U.S. is a very different proposition. Population centers are much closer together and the topography is gentler. The Boston/New York/Washington corridor may be the ideal environment for high speed rail (even the inadequate Acela does well there), but there are others in this part of the country.
My greatest concern with the California project is that it may be such a spectacular failure that it makes high speed rail an even more difficult proposition to sell in the places that it could work.
32
The distance from Fresno to LA isn't "too great." Nor Stockton to the Bay Area.
Those are the real winners in the CAHSR project. Because trains are not planes. They make these things called "stops" between end points. It's not just about SF-LA and never has been.
I just took a train from Bari, Italy to Rome-- which is further than San Francisco/LA by over 30 miles. CA is larger than Italy by a long shot, but their entire country is criss-crossed by rail. They have mountains, and rivers-- even volcanoes! Not to mention historical areas that are cut off from any kind of development.
And Boston to Washington is also a longer trip (though your confidence in the differing topographies is admirable).
@Joel
Whining about problems without providing alternatives never solved anything. America is better than these low expectations. If China and Japan can make these high speed rails work financially, we need to figure out why our richie rich ridden politicians are preventing us from figuring out to build high speed rail networks that make sense financially. The financial analysis in this article is grounded in 19th century assumptions. America is already way too undereducated to make good economic decisions which is how our traitorous government has been elected by well meaning folks. We can't keep letting the richie riches call all the shots based only on their own financial planning. Japan does it and makes money. China does it and makes money. What's wrong with our financial systems and who controls them?
I'm a Californian who supports the construction of high speed rail. I've seen & ridden on HSR in Europe; it really is an efficient way to get around. Yes, it's expensive, but so was building the interstate highway system. We must keep building & improving the country's infrastructure if we want to continue to be a First World country.
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@Nina More than $100 million per mile of track is a problem. Even at $10 million per mile it would be expensive. The cost of this project has exploded to the point where it will not pay for itself.
3
@Nina So any high-speed project is good? How expensive and inefficient would be too much?
This project has no plan for completion. Are you OK with California's current budget cutting millions for disabled caregivers and child health, but spending billions on bridges to no-where that will cost even more for local cities to tear down?
It's people supporting Brown and any HSR that are destroying California's future. The best thing a Democrat could do is avoid 30 years of the Democrats' being seen as promoting this utter waste of resources.
1
When the USA constructed the highway system we had a Republican president, who from his WWii experience knew that only a strong, richly funded government could undertake such an important protoect. I still "like IKE." Where has our moxie gone?
2
Success of this project will all depend upon ridership.
We should not support useless public projects like Alaska's bridge to nowhere. But if studies show a strong demand for the California bullet train at a reasonable cost-benefit ratio, why not complete it, especially since it is well underway.
Don't be surprised if the trains require operating subsidies. Most rail passenger service in the US and elsewhere does. The tradeoff is measured in reduced auto congestion, air pollution, commuting time and increased productivity.
15
@David Gladfelter
From various articles in the LA Times, which continues to do a great job of watching this all, no real expert can predict what ridership will be as far down the road as when this entire thing will open up. Even predicting a few years out is very hard. 2033, even if it does get completed by then (and given the history of delays even that seems optimistic)? You'd be as accurate using a crystal ball and Tarot cards.
The one thing that "progress" thus far has shown is that the costs continue to balloon, and there is zero possibility that it will not continue to do so. Whatever the final cost PLUS what labor (unionized, of course), operating and maintenance costs will be in 2033+ is anyone's guess, but all of that will have to be factored into the fares, which will have an impact on ridership as well.
5
If we really want to reduce auto congestion, pollution and commute times then lets put fast and efficient public transit in the metropolitan and suburban areas where it will actually achieve those goals.
How much congestion is created or commute time wasted by those going from LA to SF compared to how much in the LA or San Jose metropolitan areas themselves?
4
@David Gladfelter No one claims this will reduce commute times or costs. No one. People are constantly claiming this as a benefit. Indeed, the reason there are no plans for this in the congested bay area or LA is because it is expressly NOT cost-effective and will not reduce congestion.
An operating subsidy is a hostage situation: by putting in millions, you get some value out of your billions invested. It makes sense only if some idiot before you wasted the billions.
This is not high speed rail. Even if this project is finished, it will be cheaper and faster to fly from LA to SF. California government should focus on water issues. Several desalination plants could be built for the money being wasted on this project. I am so happy I moved out of California. I wish egotistical politicians would stop focusing on their legacies and work on solving everyday problems that aren't very exciting.
18
@Janet H. "Even if this project is finished, it will be cheaper and faster to fly from LA to SF."
But the train would stop in various cities along the way and be of use to the people in those cities and vicinities. That is something a flight from LA to SF would not be able to do.
2
I think it's great. It helps a great deal to connect inland with the two major cities. It should be the future. I trust Jerry Brown to do the right thing. He's always been a bit of a visionary.
23
This is infrastructure for at least the next 50-100 years at and the high initial investment should be seen in that perspective, i.e. multi-generational. It makes no sense to fly distances under 500mi, not even with the unfair and ecologically inexplicable advantage given to the airline industry of zero taxes worldwide on jet fuel.
46
@Liz
And 19th century technology will save us? This will inflict another pointless, massive tax burden on future generations.
@Liz Why doesn't it make sense to fly shorter distances? Airlines are preferred for distances over 300 miles (like the CA HSR). Also note this is how anyone with means does it: there are 7K airline planes, but 160K private planes, running 24M hours/year.
Airplanes are re-targetable infrastructure. If Detroit or the Bay Area goes bust, so goes all that rail infrastructure. The planes, however, just fly to the cities that need them. If you have the space, the cheapest thing to build is an airport: a big flat area with paved runways. If you don't need it, make it into something else.
Please stop with the virtuous-infrastructure dreams. This is political pork, pure and simple.
Which century's technology do roads represent?
What has happened to us? We seem to have lost our spirit.
If we'd listened to the naysayers, there would have been no Erie Canal, no Hoover Dam, no interstate highway system.
Now, bullet trains zip from city to city in countries all over the world, and we can't even fix the IRT.
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@Josh Hill - All built when costs were much lower, and there were many fewer lawyers.
@Josh Hill
Part of the problem is that is train is not "high speed" as advertised, and will NOT solve the primary transportation problem between the population centers as planned. It is not a matter of having lost our "spirit" but of failing to make this a workable effort from the get-go.
3
@Josh Hill This is simply stupid. Any "spirited" idea gets money while people die for lack of health care? NO country ANYWHERE has a HSR with these operating parameters.
We can't fix the IRT for the same reason we can't build the California HSR: it makes no economic sense, and the politics are all pork.
I’m all in favor of public transportation, but the distance on this project is too great.
There’s a sweet spot for the length of high speed rail links. A line from slightly outside Los Angeles to Las Vegas would make tremendous sense (if be politically impossible).
However, the same too-expensive, look at the cost-overrun arguments being used against the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART). The area could not function without it now.
I’m old enough to remember the pre-TSA days when you could jump on a plane in Burbank and step off in Oakland 40 minutes later. Now those were the good old days. I’ve also driven I-5 so many times I could, and probably have, done it in my sleep. An autonomous vehicle train wouldn’t need to be very smart.
8
@William Bates. " I’ve also driven I-5 so many times I could, and probably have, done it in my sleep." You made me smile, but upon reflection, a little terrified for you.
1
Very few passengers will ride end to end. Don't focus solely on the end points. That's airline thinking.
Remember that this os bond funded, sothe state is obligated to pay for the funds drawn upon and any unused funds cannpt be used for any other purpose. So it does make sense to finish what you have started so that you get some value from the expenditures. Repurposing for an adaptive reuse only realizes a fraction of the value.
5
Would have been nice to have mentioned how long the ride will take and what economic benefits will be derived along the route for local communities.
16
Mass transportation is established and popular in most other developed countries. We should have planned, funded and built this properly long ago. Trying to piece meal the project has effected the route and construction and will negatively impact costs for what should have been a boon to California and example to the rest of the U.S.
15
Meanwhile, China, Germany and Japan have built high-speed rail networks using technologies like the Magnetic Levitation Train. Shanghai's connects the city's international airport to its metro system, at speeds of 268 mph - faster than one-third of the speed of sound. American infrastructure lives in the Dark Ages by comparison.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170125-a-high-speed-getaway-like-no-other
114
@Brian The terrain is far more forgiving and the routes far shorter and they connect big population centers as well as airports. No comparison.
1
@Brian- you can't compare these countries to us.
Different rules. different terrain. China's labor costs are about 1/5th the cost here,plus they have cash laying around while we have trillions in debt. Europe is a hodge podge of countries; all had rail lines for the last 150 years and relied on rail for their primary mode of transport. the U.S. is vast, wide , not small like England or France, hence the reliance on cars and planes for transport except for prior to WW2 where rail was the primary mode of transport. Cost and topography/geography. We lose on both counts. If the realistic cost was more in the $10-20 billion range then fine but i guarantee by the time this is all over, if completed, the cost will be more like $200 billion. Outrageous!!! Americans also have to be retrained to think differently- no one is attempting to do this: ride public tranpsort , not automobiles. Instead, most cities are encouraging sprawl and road building for cars, nothing for public transit. Eugene Oregon is one city that claims to be progressive and hip , but they allow free parking in downtown, no shuttles for downtwon visitors or the public, and have cut back on basic bus service while building mega- single line bus-type lines that services only a small portion of the community while cutting service county wide. Priorties are askew. Projects supported and profitted by the sand/gravel and construction industry, same can be said of this California boondoggle.
1
A number of Chinese people have had their lives ruined by being forced to make way for these mega projects without just compensation.
For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Luke 14:28
4
@Mark
Jerry Brown, that's who.
2
“The project seems to make even less sense today,” said Joe Nathan, a professor of public policy at Stanford University.
Because?
Seems strange to include this quote without pairing it with the professor’s rationale for his statement.
40
@JBC
Good point. From what I've read the basis is in large part how the total cost (which has already more than doubled and growing) simply is not financially recoverable. Setting aside construction costs, operating and maintenance costs cannot be covered under any reasonable fare that people would actually be willing to pay, again meaning the taxpayers would be on the hook to prop it up. Finally, since the train is not really high speed along most of its route what real advantage will it have to compel people to pay to ride it? HDR is a great idea BUT is has to be situated in a place that actually makes sense.
3
total boondoggle!!! The train cannot compete with air travel and takes 4 times as long to get to the destination. This is an example of California politicians putting their dreams over reality. It just makes ZERO sense.
13
You obviously haven't tried to get in and out of the Burbank airport - takes longer than the flight.
1
@James The Grand Trump Wall is another initiative that puts dreams over reality. So, it is not just the California politicians with such dreams.
@James Four times as long?
Are you including getting to an airport two hours before you actually take off? Are you including the time it takes to get from the airport to the city center? Are you including the time you wait for any checked bags?
If high speed rail is such a boondoggle then why is the rest of the world building it at an alarming pace?
1
“It would change my life,” he said. “I would be able to go places faster. I could get on a train [in Fresno] at noon and be in San Francisco at 3 p.m.”
Google says Fresno is 192 miles from San Francisco; or 3h52 by car today, or, 4h22 by train today.
This train seems more analogous to a slowly inflating balloon, than a bullet. And a pricey Mylar balloon at that.
17
This same trip on electric bicycle would take less than seven hours on an electric bike. We should focus more on the life changing journey of fitness. The speed of transit is meaningless and, as with all things Californian, ridiculously over priced. Really, who needs to get to Fresno in "record, life changing" time. On a good day it takes approximately one hour to drive from my community to Santa Barbara, 25 painful, stop and very little go miles.
We need, in no particular order, less gridlock locally, affordable housing, water and a moratorium on endless real estate "development", which leads to all the above problems. Sadly, the lobbyists for growth continue to prevail.
2
@David L. McLellan
The truth is that three hour time is not correct.
If the train has an average speed of 115 mph, the 192 miles would take an hour and forty minutes. If the average speed was 125mph it would be about ten minutes less.
Currently, a train is averaging just under 45mph.
One could leave Fresno at Noon and they'd be in San Francisco by 1:30pm.
It is time to build coast to coast high speed rail and not waste money on a stupid wall along our southern border. High Speed Rail works. Walls don't.
142
@John Warnock
John, current and near-future techology might provide top running speeds around 150 mph. At that pace, the 2800 miles from NYC to LA would take almost 19 hours. Of course, with stops and more realistic conditions, the average speed would be more like 100 mph, and the elapsed time more like 28 hours. I am not sure that "works" for most people.
5
@John Warnock
My bet is you have not taken an economics class. Just a hunch.......
2
What is the business rational and plan for this project? The economy is San Francisco is booming regardless of this project. The fact that there is no private funding for this project should be a red flag. I wouldn't count on much federal money either given our track record over the last 50 years for new infrastructure. Shouldn't California invest in new sources of water instead?
This may prove to be a political and economic albatross for decades to come. Better to cut our loses now. Last I heard, California is earthquake prone and overdue for another big one. Let's continue to frack along the fault line and double down by building a new $100 billion project through the mountains too. What could go wrong?
9
Methinks it be a boondoggel.
8
@Dr. Mandrill Balanitis With Jerry involved we call it a Moondoggle!
What do the candidates for governor think about the project?
California is gridlocked with traffic, even the I-5 and Hwy 99 corridors through rural Central Valley. HSR is one way to economically reduce congestion. A new freeway between LA and SF would cost more, destroy more farmland than HSR, and create more smog into one of the country's most polluted air basins. Yes, it costs a bundle. Lawsuits by conservatives who never support public projects delayed HSR by almost 10 years allowing inflation in land and materials to drive the cost overruns. Wealthy residents of Palo Alto used environmental laws to scuttle the elevated design between San Jose and San Francisco.
HSR employees earn a middle class income in our desperately poor area and pumps millions more in support of local industries and material suppliers. Transit systems everywhere need public funds, and the private rail in Dallas may well go belly up like the private freeways Orange County, CA built. Civilization was never free, and we need to get cracking into the 21st Century transportation.
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@Keith
"Lawsuits by conservatives...". Try lawsuits by liberal environmental groups which have been on-going and likely may accelerate - unlike the train!
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-high-speed-rail-court-201707...
2
@Keith Oh so you see HSR as a jobs program, a strike against the wealthy?
Transparency is good for all - I hope this article helps by informing and causing California residents question the project in constructive ways. Same should happen in Hawaii - that project is, as I feared it would be, a disaster.
5
High speed rail doesn’t make sense in California. How does one get around in sprawling LA once you get there via train from SF?Money should be spent improving public transportation within the cities first. This is just a vanity project.
22
@Ken Erickson
Los Angeles has built & is building a Metro link train system to get around in the city.
@Ken Erickson Actually, there is already a robust rail system for getting around in LA and Orange Counties. The HSR will mostly utilize existing rail paths that existed long before they were surrounded by sprawling suburbs.
''Faced with reduced resources, the authority has altered its plans, and is now focused on finishing a 119-mile stretch of track from Bakersfield to Madera by 2022. '' - There will be successive Democratic State and Federal governments that will fund the entire line to completion.
Governor Brown knows this, and which is why he is dragging republicans into the future. Not only should there be high speed rail in the state of California, but throughout the entire nation.
The rest of the world has shown the way.
19
Just Do It. The FED GOV gave up good investment money by lowering taxes. WE must invest in the future or we will pay many times over. This means that the PEOPLE MUS contribute to the investment via taxes AND INDUSTRY MUST also contribute since it will enhance their business to make more money than they ever dreamed of making. DJM
3
@DJM-Consultant Don’t blame Republicans. California’s economy is enormous and controlled by Democrats. Just raise taxes.
100 billion dollars is less than 1/6 of what the US spends every year on its military. By 2033 when the line is scheduled to be completed, you will have spent over 9 TRILLION dollars on your military. Trump is proposing to spend 25 billion on a WALL,
and Republicans chant and applaud. A wall is what China did over 1000 years ago. A high speed rail line is what advanced civilizations do in the 21st century.
Looked at another way, how much of California has to burn every year for you to understand that the cost of this line is completely justified by the cars and planes it will displace?
23
@John David James: California fires are caused by DROUGHT -- not by "too much automobile traffic".
1
@Concerned Citizenjust what do you think is causing these droughts?
What's stunning is the level of economic illiteracy on the part of the commenters to this article, mainly those that think "world class infrastructure" is worth an infinite spend. Silly, to say the least. It also reflects a naivete as to why such overly expensive and non-economic projects get built. There is no sense of cost benefit, nor even perhaps more rigorous measurements such as IRRs or NPVs, however broadly measured, this this train to the center of the earth, at least in terms of the financial black hole that it is, that remotely could make sense of this folly of a project.
This most likely will never get finished, and were it to, the costs likely will be in the $300-400 Billion range. It is clearly a sop to construction unions by Democratic politicians, that will be long gone before its obvious that this is an economic disaster. Any one with a remote sense of economics or numbers would know this.
Hence, once the tax windfall of Silicon Valley option tax money dries up, CA residents will either face a sizable tax increase for this craziness, or, more likely, the "courageous" CA politicians will ask for a Federal "infrastructure co-investment", ie a bailout.
Sad, very sad that so many commenters here, those in favor of this monstrosity, don't see the evident path of this project.
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@SDF Hoover Dam.
@redsox09 - Built in the 30s with no environmental regulations, no lawyers, and workers who made 50 cents an hour.
"the costs will likely be in the 300-400 billion dollar range"
You mean like the "3 billion dollar" wall?
Yes ,but those little countries are not spending trillions chasing a phantom in the Middle east. Meanwhile Los Angeles freeways are a complete disaster and those drivers are just trying to get across town,a town with a homeless catastrophe. They don't need to get to San Fran ,the homeless are already there ,tens of thousands,good luck.
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@Alan Einstoss Yes this Trump’s fault but not Obama’s. Proves how irrelevant Obama already is in the pages of history. He will be remembered as much as Zachary Taylor.
If Jerry Brown wants to convince the doubters, easy. Just fly them over to Tokyo for a week. Ride the Shinkansen down to Osaka. They will fly home full of enthusiasm, wondering how they ever could have opposed this project.
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@Mr. Adams
how about he flies them to the Northeast Corridor on Amtrak so they can see what will actually happen
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@Mr. Adams, in Japan cars and gas are fiendishly expensive, people live in tiny homes along train routes, and daily rail ridership in Tokyo is more than that of LA in 10 years. In short, CA and JPN are polar opposites re. mobility and lifestyle.
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@Mr. Adams HSR depends on engineering perfection - straight, level rail lines that Japan mastered 40 years ago but the US never has. It's the same reason we can't build nuclear reactors any more, but Japan can: we don't have the organizational discipline. For us, big projects are about political pork.
Remember, all the metal for the new SF bay bridge came from China, except for the bolts. The bolts came from PA and were found to be flawed (hydrogen embrittlement). Fixing that cost billions, and the resulting strength was much weaker.
Maybe let's just spend a billion on the education system so we're capable of doing basic mathematical evaluations necessary for cost-benefit and readiness analysis?
How can it cost $100 billion? That's scary, very scary.
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@waldo $700 billion a year on defence. That's scary.
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The people who don't want it are dumb. Europe has been decades ahead of us with affordable transportation systems . The trains are plentiful and safe and we don't hear of 2hour or longer commutes home for people daily from work to home. We in Delaware need to have a train from our bigger city of Wilmington ,De to Rehoboth beaches. Instead the traffic jams are just getting worse and promises of new roadways never coming because of the cost.
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@D.j.j.k. You think HSR in Europe is 'affordable'? All my European friends fly, it's much cheaper
@ann By flying often and many times a month your friends are causing more green house gases and carbons in the atmosphere. Planes are the number 1 polluters.
We keep on hearing how CA is the world's 8th biggest economy, so why the tumult? If CA prioritizes this over their other problems - eg affordable housing - so be it, but let them pay for it. And speaking as a former SoCal resident, I can't think of anyone who is excited about making the trip from LA to San Diego any easier.
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It will be vigorously supported by Republicans once one of their moneybags gets the private/public partnership. Until then- no dice. BTW, there was a big conflagration on the other side of the country for an 800 m revamp of the subway in NYC. Sounds cheap. Infrastructure is expensive, and worth it. But can we not turn infrastructure into welfare for the rich? Come on people, these rich folks are desperate to impress their grandchildren-age girlfriends.
The train is supposed to run in a tunnel bored beneath the Angeles National Forest, much like water that flows to LA from the Eastern Sierras in two big conduits. It crosses many fault lines including the San Andreas. It can be done, but the upkeep will be even more expensive than the construction price over the life of the line.
Boondoggle.
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If this gets built I doubt future generations will view it as a mistake. Just the kind of infrastructure investment we need: Mass transit of the future. Go for it.
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@Epistemology Just as so many Europeans and Japanese view the high speed rail systems in those countries view them as a mistake. France is so ignorant they continue converting rail lines to high-speed service. Soon, all the spoke lines from Paris will be silly high-speed rail and passengers will have much less time to read magazines as former 6-hour trips take only 2 hours.
Yes, we need to build more highway infrastructure because it has worked so well in the past.
China can build one of these at five times the length within a few years. Why can we not do the same?
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@Casey Penk
Perhaps China does not allow pesky things like environmental law suits to delay every phase, does what the Central Committee tells it, doesn't care about eminent domain and can thus simply put tracks wherever it feels like, and so on. It is NOT an apples to apples comparison!
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@Casey Penk - Because the authoritarian Chinese government can seize your home, bulldoze it, and throw your family into the street without warning or compensation. The process here is a wee bit different, fortunately.
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@George S - Not to mention the workers making $3 an hour.
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Wonderful vision. I hope the builders succeed, and prevent the weapons-dealers from derailing this project.
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As the ant heap that is California continues on the insane path (along with the rest of us) of ever more growth and population expansion in a finite space, the rest of the country is "reaping" the benefits. The train is just another symptom of the real problem. Idaho is now the fastest growing state. Many of the immigrants are Californians, tired of crowding, long commutes, disappearing open space, huge taxes and parts of the state looking more like a third world country than the u.s. Is there a point when anyone in this country on the national scene, will say what many of us already know, that this can't go on forever and infinite growth on a finite planet is not only incompatible with longterm human happiness and prosperity, but physically impossible?
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I was hoping to hear more about the privately funded n high speed rail in Texas. What are their costs per mile? What is cost benefit analysis in Texas vs California? How much progress is the private rail making vs the public project?
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@Troglotia DuBoeuf
The projected all-in cost of the Dallas to Houston high-speed rail line is $15 - $18 Billion, including the rail cars. This is for a distance of about 250 miles, or about $60 Million per mile. The CA rail line project is currently projected to cost about 3X as much per mile, without the rail cars, etc.
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@Troglotia DuBoeuf - Differences in cost between the two projects likely have less to do with government vs. private. Rather the difference is more likely due to the challenges of California’s topography (Texas is pretty darn flat), working around more densely developed infrastructure and development, the seismic issues, and the simple fact that labor costs more in California.
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$100 Billion sounds like a lot, until you realize that we spend $700 Billion PER YEAR on the military.
Let's get our priorities straight, America.
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And the billions in federal direct and indirect support for highways and air transport. Somehow we can afford this.
Trump and GOPs oppose it because means major reduction in fossil fuel use (car and plane) and because they want fed funds to be spent on private corporations instead
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@Ron Clark You do know this is a California project in a Democrat state.
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@Ron Clark. I don't think so. California and the u.s. as a whole are net oil importers even after BHO oversaw the biggest expansion of drilling of hydrocarbons in decades that brought us to the 1970 levels. There is already plenty of incentive to "drill baby drill". The u.s., even with projects like all the mass transit projects even contemplated, will never be oil independent. There are too many of us, driving too much.
Don’t forget the massive direct and indirect federal subsidies to highways and air transportation.
Beware: Dragados is a Spanish company. What Spain's large contractors have tended to do in recent decades is to place low bids in order to win projects for themselves, and after they have begun work on them, they claim to run into "unforeseen cost overruns". This happened in the recent expansion of the Panama Canal, for example. In other cases, the cost overrun may be intentional and may constitute corruption, like the case of the Sagrera AVE train station in Barcelona, which is under investigation.
So, keep a close eye this whole project, make sure that all of the studies and planning are sound (between Lleida and Zaragoza some sinkholes opened up near the AVE line while it was under construction), be really careful with money (make sure every dollar is justified), and make sure the job is fully completed (the Girona AVE station still doesn't have an approved plan for dealing with emergencies and it was flooded twice before measures were taken to prevent that from occurring again).
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@Jim: with any public works projects, it is common and reasonable to figure cost overruns of 80-100%. So if they say it will cost X billion dollars -- double that, to be safe.
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This spring I spent 5 hours traveling 20 milestone per hour on a 7 lane freeway. There was 100 milestone of gridlocked cars 14 lanes across. California shouldn’t have done this 50 years ago. It has the best climate for mass transportation. Add in a massive series of bike paths and functional bus schedules and it’s willl be well worth it.
The cost of millions of cars, the air we breathe, people’s time, massive roads has got to be much more
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Costs and delays go up while the project's time, energy, and resources are diverted to addressing the critics rather than accomplishing the goal. Who would have thought?
It is interesting that while other countries have high speed rail that is popular and prized by the people, and the US expansion and industrial era were built on rail, that we want to make ourselves great again by - increasing congestion in the air and on the roads because it has been working so well.
It is also interesting that the same who find fault with public financing are often behind public financing for stadiums private sports teams. Or ready to spend billions more on military hardware the military says it doesn't need.
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Was looking at a large photo about a forest fire near the Autobahn outside Berlin in Potsdam yesterday. The fire stood out, but evern more for me, was the six lane highway with nary a ripple or sign of rough pavement. Our so-called advanced nation falls far short in health care, infrastructure, education and other areas.
Still, I have to question if the money might have been better spent on the San Joaquin Valley line upgrading it to 125 mph, eliminating the steep grades and loops in the mountains between Bakersfield and Los Angeles. Time will tell whether this project is completed.
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The high speed rail should use Elon Musk's hyperloop.
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California says it can go it alone and doesn't need the rest of the country or need to follow the rules that the rest of the States follow. They call themselves a Republic, so let them pay for it all.
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We need high-speed rail and some state must lead the way. And some state must lead the way. It's a big state with densely populated cities located on a long coastline. Why not California?
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Fifty year financing is reasonable for a project that will last at least two hundred years. $100 billion only sounds like a lot of money. California has a three trillion dollar per year economy and is growing fast. The four hundred miles from LA to SF is almost exactly equal to the lengths of HSRs that I've ridden from Madrid to Barcelona and from Seville back to Madrid. Its effect could well be transformational. Let's stay on course.
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@Bill U. Who decides? Does Gov. Brown get to decide what the next two generations will be spending their money on?
How about the multi-trillion dollar national debt to countries like China? Did your children or grandchildren get to vote whether they would be enslaved to today's military fear-fantasies?
The constitution has a requirement for annual budgets. Sure, things take longer to build, but it's anti-democratic to blithely decide that future generations should pay. If it's worth it, we should be able to pay for it ourselves.
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@Bill U.
And the 400+ miles between SF and LA is similar to the Shanghai - Beijing line which I've ridden a few times. Fast, convenient, quiet, comfortable.
But, you know, billionaires need their tax cuts, the Pentagon needs its funding raised, and *those people* are just a bunch of takers, so we're gonna take away their handouts. Oh, and we just don't have the money for these train boondoggles. [Love the Erie Canal references of other commenters.]
The world is burning up, as California knows. We need to hugely decrease our dependence on fossil fuels or die horribly. I don't know the energy costs of this project versus alternatives, but in general public transportation beats private. And don't count on driverless cars. The software is nowhere near ready, and anyway they will help only when they can be an electric fleet that's publicly owned and summonable -- essentially public transportation pods.
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Compare the price of this train, which will serve the people of California and kinda sorta make the United States look like a first world country, to the Navy's new littoral combat ship (still working out the kinks at 250 million dollars per copy.)
Public transportation actually serves the greater economy, while defense spending serves defense contractors and the legislators they can purchase.
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@Avenue Be There's so much waking up to do in this country, but a critical moment for our species will be when we wake up to the fraud that is the military-industrial complex. The notion that the DoD keeps us safe is demonstrably false. We're one of the most insecure countries! What is needed is a Department of Peace. Much cheaper, and much more effective.
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An LCS are a lot more than $250 million a piece. About $365 million right now.
@Avenue Be Very apt comment by Avenue Be on why military expenditures are expenses which degrade in value over time. In contrast, innovative high speed trains are INVESTMENTS - THE MONEY SPENT ON THEM KEEPS INCREASING IN VALUE LIKE BUYING CALIFORNIA PROPERTY.
Excuse my all caps but the media and Republicans keep ignoring the difference between long term infrastructure investments which increase in value by creating more income for folks who use the bridges, railroads, etc., and miltiary investments which just cause a lot to keep up a use - providing a constant drain on our Treasury.
For some reason (money?) one party gets this (hint, it starts with a D); the other party (starts with an R) doesn't get it. Another way of thinking about it is capitalistic: Investing in high speed trains is a capital investment which will have a return to the public who pay for it in service and saving time/gas/convenience. The military expenditures are cash flows - they go one way - out to make rich people richer. There's a reason by the Koch/Mercer/Ultra Rich Republicans push to increase our military which is already larger than the next 5 militaries (including China's) PUT TOGETHER. We could never use all our weaponry ever without blowing up the biosphere. So let's invest more wisely - like China and Japan and the European Union. Let's invest in some sharp, highly desirable high speed rail.
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Oh, don't let crooks use any excuses to enrich themselves. We don't need this right now. The government should spend money on fixing highways, bridges, and subways. Let's say it can be done, but how many people will benefit from it?
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Spending money on this bit of infrastructure will pay in spades. It is about time we had some leadership.
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Only in la la Land can this boondoggle even happen.
Quoting that SBA employee to go from Fresno to SF - without mentioning whether it's for business or pleasure. It does appear that he was referring to pleasure since he will arrive in SF by 3:00 pm - a little late for shop talk.
What the opponents need to do is count all the BTU's that is energy - no doubt much by fossil fuel - expended to build this railway and compare it to what it would potentially save.
I am an engineer with 40 years in the oil patch - my hunch is it will be basically a trade off.
This will be a memorial to as the POTUS calls him, the Moonbeam governor - concrete pillars - tunnels just sitting there.
And in a few thousand years, when archaeologists will discover these remnants ,- they will probably say this was the period when California finances started going down a hole from which it never recovered.
It's amazing what powerful politicians can do with public money.
And thank God, I live in Texas where ours have more accountability.
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@Neil - "the Moonbeam governor -
Puts the idea of a engineering rational unbiased response into question, no?
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@Neil Indeed: Thank god you live in Texas. No need to experience the state that our "moonbeam" governor, along with the States other liberal leadership, has grown into a global economic success.
Gerrymandering is the only reason that conservatives have so much power in Texas. Even in Texas, the cities are primarily blue regions in a sea of ignorant red.
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I wonder if people remember that there was massive tax payer opposition to the building of the Erie Canal. This is the way it always is.
In the meantime Trump wants to spend 25b on a border wall. We are spending billions a year just on maintenance of the currently border fence. How much do we spend on a single cruise missile? On a single B1 bomber?
It's time we invest in our future. In time high speed trains pay for themselves as did the Erie Canal many times over.
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No one should appropriate a dime for that wall. The campaign promise was for Mexico to pay for it. Has everyone forgotten?
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@PNBlanco
B1 bombers cost a lot and nobody likes bombers. Therefore a high speed rail line is a good idea no matter what the economic case.
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@PNBlanco Good point; there was opposition to the Golden Gate Bridge as well!
China keeps building it’s infrastructure- here it’s a boondoggle- talk about stuck in the past. Our freeways are lined with huge apartment complexes feet from traffic yet anything that might alleviate our congestion is considered frivolous. The big concern should be water.
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Another boondoggle in my home state. This is just a pet project to support the ideology that rail is some how superior than the current transportation network. You can already take a bus, direct, on existing highways. Also, flying is far cheaper and faster.
This money should be spent on local transportation projects to include rapid bus transit on existing infrastructure. This is much cheaper and just as efficient. BART could be expanded according to the earlier plan. CA is not dense like NYC. It is a combination of dense areas with significant sprawl. This makes walkability an issue. You basically need a car to get around in Silicon Valley (light rail is limited).
I like public transit, but these pie in the sky plans that cost billions just impede real progress at the local level toward sustainable options. This money would be better spent on the northeast with an Amtrak upgrade.
I hope they cancel this prior to spending too much money to connect the less populated Central Valley. Kicking the can down the road with taxpayers footing the bill.
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In the 15 years between now and the HSR train completetion, the total salary of all 32 NFL team will be OVER $100Billion ....and then their is the profit by the owners and other costs/salary. Lets not consider the other pro-sports teams.
So I say, this train, these jobs, this technology is NEEDED and affordable.
Oh if only we had started all this nation-wide as part of the recovery from the 2008 Great National Recession.
Never wait to invest!
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@Louis J: but I am not compelled by government taxes to pay the salaries of football players!
Those are private businesses, who pay salaries out of the huge profits from ticket sales and merchandising and the ad times bought for spots during the games.
Now, I think Americans are idiots for spending this kind of money on stupid sports, but its' their choice.
On the other hand, if the state builds a billion dollar train.....that cost falls directly on taxpayers ALONE.
2
Have the Koch brothers helped to whip up opposition to this project? It cannot be good for the asphalt, tire, automotive or oil industries.
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@Tom Jay In a word: yes. With the number of republicans in CA dwindling, they're grasping as straws, citing any controversial issue to inflame their voter base. Currently, the much-needed increase in gas tax is in their sights. Politicians assume that people vote with their wallets and they won't be around in the future when bridges start collapsing.
They don't really care about the issues. They're just a vehicle for more dirty politics.
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@Tom Jay
Follow the money.
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The Brown Streak is a vanity project that will die with Governor Brown. So many important project such as dealing with homelessness and wildfires go unfounded because 78 year old Brown wants to bring back the railroads of his youth. High speed trains work in France, Japan and a few other countries, but those countries had cheap right of ways to build on. Eminent domain to acquire 100,000 houses near San Francisco and Los Angeles will be prohibitive. The $10 billion already spent for concrete trackbed in farm country will become a monument to government folly.
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@Rick
World's biggest skateboard park.
2
Why not use the phone?
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@Paul Easton Congratulations for the fewest words to make the biggest point!
I admire your confidence in readers!
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"And a central question — how is it going to be paid for — remains unresolved."
Economic Analysis
France and California have comparable population densities ( 116 /km2, 98/km2
France has an excellent passenger rail system, but its system, the SCNF , also has a debt of $ 41.2 Billion.
The European, and PRC experience is that you can have excellent rail, but it you must be willing to subsidize it with tax payers money
There are important distributive effects to high speed rail (e.g.real estate prices shot up in Bordeaux , after it could be reached in 2:05 hrs from Paris as wealthy Parisian bought weekend homes) but space limitations do not permit to address those .
---------------
PARIS (Reuters May 21, 2018 ) - The French government plans to absorb about 35 billion euros ($41.20 billion) of national railway operator SNCF’s SNCF.UL debt burden of around 47 billion euros as part of planned reforms to SNCF, French business daily Les Echos said on Monday.
-----------
" La LGV Bordeaux-Paris, six mois après : la hausse des prix de l'immobilier doit encore durer"
https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/economie-social/la-lgv-a-bordeaux-paris-...
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@Woof
Also, the French government does not fund inter-city bus service; so rail is the only alternative to driving.
People should just try to travel less and use the internet more. Less polluting.
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@Paul Adams
Indeed.
“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées
6
Will someone explain who needs this thing? What is it for?
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@Paul Easton
It is so people in LA can conveniently travel to SF for a crab salad. Likewise, people in SF will benefit from being able to conveniently travel to LA for a taco.
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@Paul Easton
And who needs a WALL at ? dollars !!!!!
5
FL governor rejected funding for the Florida train because the NIMBY constituents Our train in Florida succeeds because of the real estate development. https://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/business/just-construction-brightline-ap...
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@Working doc
The train along the I-4 corridor would have saved hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity because just like the Long Island Expressway, the I-4 corridor is one long parking lot.
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It's time for the U.S. to have a 21st century rail system. California has always led the nation in innovation starting from its major role in constructing the most difficult segment of the transcontinental railroad. There are always the Luddites and naysayers, but then as now they've been on the wrong track when it comes to progress.
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We don’t even have a 20th century rail network. Japan has had high speed trains for decades.
I believe it should be built and paid for by Mexico, or should I say taxes levied on illegal aliens. Is that so much to ask?
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California's terrible urban/suburban sprawl is impossible to retrofit with a functioning public transit system. We in the east are simply lucky to live in towns and cities that developed before mass car ownership ruined urban planning. For California I think the only hope is electric self driving cars - the urban planning damage is done, and is undoable. Each time I visit San Jose I think of how beautiful it could have been, given the friendly climate, and the relative lack of hills. People there should be walking and cycling en-masse. Instead they're one per car, blasting along 6 lane suburban strips of hell, racing from one red light to the next.
A high speed train in the central valley will not even start to address California's transportation problems.
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It might help reduce traffic to airports?
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@Sean:
Superb comment, and merits being an Editor's Pick.
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@Sean Exactly how are self-driving cars going to reduce congestion? How am I to walk or bicycle from Oakland to Cupertino?
You're really suggesting that we should take the most dynamic, productive economy in the country and --- ignore the congestion problem because the cities were designed with cars in mind?
Is BART not a public transportation system? It extended to the tri-valley and Fremont and soon to San Jose. Shouldn't you recommend continuing that and better connecting to CalTrain?
As far as I can see, the urban and transportation planning in evidence is working, albeit slowly and unfortunately in competition with boondoggles like the HSR and Republican opposition at the national level.
1
If these people had been in control when the interstate system - the economic engine of the 1970s and 1980s - was proposed, it never would have been built. Guess we're going to leave 21st century transportation innovation to Japan, China and the EU. Sad.
Then again, suburbs and exurbs wouldn't exist. But gentrification would be out of control...
8
Most railways don’t work currently because we constantly deny funds for the necessary work and maintenance. Fund transportation. Fund big infrastructure. The same critics never wanted our great highway system. Better than tossing dollars at the DoD’s military ventures....
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