Senate Kills Jobs Bill – What Does It Mean For Transportation Bill?
The US Senate embraced Hooverism today, refusing cloture and effectively killing a jobs bill. This comes even after the bill was significantly watered down over what the US House had approved, which itself was a much-watered down version of the bill they approved in late 2009.
The reason given for this act of madness, which may succeed in throwing the country back into recession, was concern over the deficit. As many economic observers, including Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong have argued, the best way to deal with the deficit is to put people back to work. Slashing spending is only going to accomplish exactly what it did in 1930 and 1937 – making the economic situation much, much worse.
For high speed rail advocates, the question is what this means for our efforts to secure long-term federal funding for HSR. I’d argue it’s a mixed bag.
On the pessimistic side, it suggests that the US Senate is now in thrall to Hooverism and won’t be in any mood to approve a massive expenditure on transportation projects. Even though Hooverism failed spectacularly the first time around and was replaced by massive investment in transportation infrastructure that we’re still using today, the Senate in its infinite wisdom appears to have believed we should try the same thing again, despite the fact it didn’t work before. Which as you know is the definition of insanity.
On the optimistic side, I’m not sure this is doom for a transportation bill and HSR funding in 2010. The transportation bill would be funded through taxes, so it wouldn’t add to the deficit. And there might well be more support in the Senate for spending money on infrastructure than spending money on people.
Still, the inherent risk-aversion, disconnection from reality, and latent Hooverism of the Senate would indicate it’ll be an uphill climb at best to get a transportation bill done in 2010, even after all these new Hoovers lose their re-election bids in November. I’ve heard some reports in recent days that the White House may prefer to do a transportation bill after the next presidential election – which would put that to 2013.
That’s clearly unacceptable, but it speaks to the political context we find ourselves in. We can and will push back against this, and neo-Hooverism won’t last forever. Let’s hope there isn’t a double-dip recession, but if and when there is, Hooverism will again be discredited and we’ll be in a good position to get HSR funding done.
What about partially funding the transportation bill with taxes imposed on oil companies. Using oil company money to reduce our reliance on oil sounds like a good approach in my opinion…
YesonHSR Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 10:06 am
Good idea as most consider “oil” companies as the “bad guy” I think the Transportation bill will not be that much of a problem..its not thought as just spending money plus it has many lobbies and backers from bolth parties..its the funding thats stopping it now. I think it will come late 10-early 11 and it will have HSR in it thou maby not 50 billion and the overall bill may not be as aggressive as Oberstar once had hoped ..but it will come as it was hard to get this last temp funding thru..Obama needs to really be pushed on this ..its him..as hard as its to believe is hold this back for now
How about a tax on oil imports directed to oil-free transport?
Even 1 cent a gallon on imported petroleum (no WTO worries, its an unscheduled commodity), in an infrastructure bank system with leeway to bond against the tax stream could fund a substantial amount of non-fossil-fuel transport infrastructure.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 17th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
1 cent a gallon on all gas sold in the US is about $1.5 billion a year, which is trivial.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 17th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
That would kinda sorta keep the MTA in duck tape, bailing wire and bubble gum.
rafael Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 5:12 am
Considering the perils of domestic oil production, I’d say keep it simple and slap a tax of on every barrel of oil that enters a US refinery, regardless of source. You’d also have to levy taxes on imports of unfinished gasoline, perhaps other refined products. Natural gas is a different animal, but it would need to be looked at as well, for balance.
For starters, figure something in the range of $5-10/barrel equivalent and then slowly, predictably and irreversibly ratchet that up even further each and every month, for a decade or two. The oil age won’t end because the world runs out of oil, any more than the stone age ended because we ran out of stones. The oil age will end because we choose to end it and, even then the transition will be incomplete and take decades.
Use the additional money first and foremost to make folks on the Gulf coast whole again, to the extent that is even possible. Figure out a way to supply sufficient oxygen to bacteria chomping away at the oil that is dispersed in the water column, so fish and seafood stocks can recover as soon as possible.
Longer term, use the money to help get algal oil off the ground and especially, to structurally reduce domestic demand for the stuff. More efficient and/or electric cars, trucks and buses are a good start, but no more. You’re going to need to diversify mobility to include (electric) trains, dynamically routed sharecabs, (electric) bicycles and walkable neighborhoods. That takes decades of committed urban and transportation planning.
Compensate by cutting other taxes. If you want to cut the deficit, stop wasting blood and treasure on futile land wars in Asia. There’s a reason they call Afghanistan “the graveyard of empires”. Remaining a superpower isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You cannot defeat terrorism with military might. Been there, tried that. It doesn’t work.
Would taxes on oil hurt growth? Perhaps, but look at what unbridled growth has wrought in the financial and real estate markets, on the Gulf coast etc. Laisser-faire economics is a recipe for lining the pockets of the already-rich while sticking John Q Public with massive liabilities once every couple of decades. US politicians play along because big corporations tend to make generous campaign contributions.
Missiondweller Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 9:47 am
I respect your opinions on rail issue but you’re off the mark on economics.
You wrote, “Perhaps, but look at what unbridled growth has wrought in the financial and real estate markets, on the Gulf coast etc. Laisser-faire economics is a recipe for lining the pockets of the already-rich while sticking John Q Public with massive liabilities”
I would just point out it was the real estate fiasco was fueled by GSE’s like Fannie & Freddie, and CRA requirements that were disconnected from reality combined with politicians who said and generated policies like “I want to roll the dice with Fannie & Freddie”. They sure did, and created liabilities over $100 Trillion we’re on the hook for. That’s not market economics. That’s chrony capitalism.
In Finance, we had a very agile system that was more than happy to take advantage of the government sponsored enterprises market dislocations and innefficiencies created by the above wrongheaded policies. Combine that with government’s decision in the late 90′s to kill Glass Steagal which worked quite well for the previous 60 years in regulating banks and you had a recipe for disaster.
These things didn’t come about because of unfettered capitalism. They came about due to market distortions created BY THE GOVERNMENT ITSELF.
Rafael Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 10:30 am
It was financial deregulation (no more Glass-Steagal, as you mention, plus other changes plus rubber-stamping by the remaining regulators) that allowed retail lenders to originate far more loans than normal bank capitalization rules would have permitted. Wall Street firms had no such rules, this led to a massive additional supply in mortgage lending – driving loan quality down as every retail lender was scrambling for market share. For the most part, it was new market entrants rather than established banks that went looking for subprime borrowers. Fannie & Freddie were then allowed – no, encouraged – to jump on this supposed gravy train in a misguided effort to reduce their dependence on public funding.
So yes, government is in part to blame for the financial meltdown, but mostly because it got out of Wall Street’s way and let ‘er rip. That’s called unfettered capitalism.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
The CRA isn’t what you think it is. It’s a law saying that a) banks have to lend to borrowers they deem credit-worthy regardless of where they get their mortgages, and b) banks that choose to open branches in a neighborhood must lend to people in the neighborhood and not just take deposits. The important bit is a), which reversed a New Deal-era tradition of refusing mortgages to anyone, no matter how credit-worthy, if the property was in a neighborhood the government considered a slum.
And if that doesn’t convince you that it wasn’t the CRA, consider this: the bubble began in the 2000s, decades after the CRA went into effect. And the biggest growth in lending in the bubble was in unregulated shadow banks, rather than Fannie and Freddie or the established, CRA-regulated banks.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Alon, bringing up facts again. . .
The FHA/VA rules were even more complex than plain vanilla redlining. They wouldn’t lend to you if the neighborhood you were looking at wasn’t “right” for you.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
Bleh. It’s easier to debunk the CRA myth than to explain to a drive-by troll why a tunnel crossing the LI Sound at its widest point is not the brightest idea in the world.
The reference to Hoover is inaccurate and pointless. There is no question that extremely conservative, laissez-faire free enterprise ideology was in full force when the Depression occurred. And that Hoover’s apathy and contempt for the plight of the working class only served to worsen and lengthen the Depression by three more years.
What FDR did accomplish was to prevent the collapse of the government and to experiment with regulations that would bring economic stability. Without Roosevelt and the New Deal the US probably would have drifted towards a fasciist regime, sympathetic to the Axis. Both the Red Scare and McCarthyism show that the US has a tendency towards movement to the right rather than to the left.
But circumstances today are quite different. In the thirties public employee unions were illegal. After 3 years of Hooverism wages were quite low. The government could afford the WPA. A similar approach today would require employing millions. There is no way the government could afford to pay them union scale. One-third of SF city employees are making six figure salaries. It may take a triple-dip to deal with that nonsense.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 5:28 am
WPA workers were all part time, no more than 30 hours a week. The 40 hour week didn’t occur until after World War II. Until then it was typical for the work week to be 54 hours to 60 hours Monday through Saturday.
rafael Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 5:38 am
“There is no question that extremely conservative, laissez-faire free enterprise ideology was in full force when the Depression occurred. And that Hoover’s apathy and contempt for the plight of the working class only served to worsen and lengthen the Depression by three more years. ”
Replace “Hoover” with “GOP Senators” and you’re up to date. Conservadems are no better, they gleefully sign off on ever more war appropriations while cutting unemployment benefits and sitting on their hands while states – which by law must nor run deficits – are forced to cut back on social services like education and postpone urgently needed maintenance of civilian infrastructure. There is a legitimate medium-term concern regarding US sovereign debt, but a big part of the problem is that a lot of federal dollars are spent ineffectively.
It may be true that public sector employees in California enjoy pay and conditions that are out of whack with what the private sector can now afford. Reversing that may make sense but will be very difficult to achieve, especially if Jerry Brown is elected Governor. However, public sector workers in the Golden State did not cause this global recession – greedy bankers and real estate speculators did.
In a severe economic downturn, the wages of public sector employees are actually one of the pillars that keep the entire house of cards from collapsing altogether. Would it be preferable to have more of them for the same payroll overhead? Considering the army of unemployed workers, perhaps, at least from a social equity perspective. However, it wouldn’t inject any additional money into the economy and, you can only cut someone’s salary up to a point before you have a riot on your hands. Public sector employees have mortgages, too.
The nonsense here is the belief that the federal government should behave just like a private person facing a downtown, i.e. tighten its belt and wait for better times. Government is the spender of last resort, that’s how you recover. You do have to spend intelligently, though, i.e. focus on areas that will make you more competitive in the global market. That means infrastructure and skills training/education plus reduction of future risks to physical assets, e.g. an major earthquake on the San Andreas or Hayward faults. It does not mean waging land wars in Asia.
TomW Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 8:52 am
Government spending cycles should run opposite to private buisness. In bad times, they should spend mroe to help boost he economy; in good times there is less need for this (and cutting spending also reduces overheating).
Rafael Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 10:33 am
In theory, that’s exactly what should happen. Unfortunately, voters almost never force governments to run budget surpluses – or even genuinely balanced budgets – whenever there are good times. Instead, taxes are cut but spending stays the same or goes up, rain or shine.
wu ming Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 11:24 am
voters don’t really have a say. CA state republicans are the ones who demanded that surpluses be given back as tax rebates in ’98 and ’00, as their pound of flesh for finally allowing the budget to pass. then when the dot com buggle burst, they were the same ones calling for cuts to “live within our means.”
this is not being driven by voters, because voters do not vote on budgets.
wu ming Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 11:24 am
heh. buggle = bubble. i kind of like the word buggle, tho.
rafael Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
I was referring to the federal government. The states are constitutionally bound to balance their budgets, so they cannot really engage in counter-cyclical deficit spending.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Sure states can. They just float a general obligation bond. Arnold did it in 2003-04. It’s a very fiscally sound and economically sensible way to deal with a severe recession.
Heads up: California May Start High-Speed Train Bidding Process by 2011
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-18/california-may-start-high-speed-train-bidding-process-by-2011.html
Presumably, that means late 2011. LA-Anaheim, SF-SJ and Merced-Fresno-Bakersfield are first in line for construction. Even so, the timeline is aggressive, given that CHSRA has not yet secured sufficient non-state matching funds nor completed the environmental reviews. Those are among the necessary conditions for submitting a request for prop 1A appropriations. Even then, the state legislature still needs to actually approve such a request in the context of its infamous annual budget mess before any bonds can be floated on the markets.
The tendering processes for the infrastructure will take months. Apparently, the idea is to get cracking on that even before 100% the funding ducks are in a row, on the reasonable assumption that plenty of HSR vendors will want a slice of the California project. CHSRA’s ARRA funds must lead to signed, sealed and delivered contracts no later than Sep 30, 2012 – with actual construction beginning very soon after that.
TomW Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 8:55 am
Train manufactuerers often have to bid for unfunded (or partially funded) projects, so nothing new there. The tender will probably specify that any bid price be valid for one year (or similar), and that the order can be placed at any time in this period.
Actually, it is in some ways better that this is unfunded, as the manufactuerer knows that the lower the bid, the greater than chance it will get funded.
My prediction: $1.5-2.0m per train vehicle, and the winning bid to be a minor variation on an existing train.
Rafael Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 10:36 am
A 200m (8 car) HSR trainset rated at 350-360km/h (~220mph) will set you back around EUR 25 million, i.e. $31 million. That’s almost $4 million per car, though you don’t buy this sort of equipment by the car.
The point is, it’s a lot more expensive than unpowered standard-speed rolling stock.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
The 700 Series Shinkansen cost about $40 million per 16-car trainset, in 2010 dollars. More modern trains are a little more expensive, if at all; none is as expensive as the $50 million/set 500 Series.
However, the Shinkansen trains have a shelf life of 20 years, compared with 40 years for European trains. The Japanese prefer to use cheaper, shorter-lasting equipment than the Europeans.
YesonHSR Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 9:55 am
This seems to take far too long before we even break gound..its already been in some type of planning since 1996 at this point it will still be 9 years before we even can board..IF the President and the new Governor (Brown!) want to really put people to work this timeline needs greatly speed up! IT can be done look at the freeway interchange in SoCal that was fixed after the last earthquake in just 2 months
Yes this is much larger thou I would think you could with a major push get the service started by 2017
Rafael Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 10:45 am
There’s a big difference between restoring existing freeways after they’re damaged and implementing additional capacity using a technology that most voters are not familiar with. Riding trains also implies a change of lifestyle.
As for the timeline, spending 10-12 years on planning before breaking ground and another 5-6 years on construction is normal for HSR lines in democratic countries. Rome wasn’t built in a day. In this case, it’s taking even longer because Gov Schwarzenegger twice postponed the ballot initiative and also put CHSRA on a starvation budget in 2007. It doesn’t help matters that the political system at both state and federal levels is so ossified it cannot commit to fully funding a project like California HSR in spite of broad public support.
I expect the first trains could indeed be running between LA and Anaheim and between SF and SJ by around 2018/19. SF to LA will take longer because politicians are forcing CHSRA to prioritize the end sections plus, perhaps, the Central Valley test track. It’s the tunnels through Pacheco Pass, the Tehachapis and in Soledad Canyon that will take the longest to construct.
Peter Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 10:50 am
I don’t think you need environmental clearance to rebuild a damaged infrastructure element.
morris brown Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 10:33 am
Rafael:
I am surprised yo would give this the time of day. It is obviously a “fluff” piece, probably planted the CHSRA and has no substance.
My understanding is that you are giving the Authority one more year than ARRA funds allow. The deadline was Sept 2011, work to begin Jan 2012. Maybe something has changed; not that I am aware of.
rafael Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
The 30 Sep 2011 deadline applies to most, but not all ARRA grants. In particular, the $8 billion allocated for HSR are available until 30 Sep 2012. This is because HSR is considered “re-investment”, rather than regular recovery spending. See the text of the bill for details:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-1
TITLE XII–TRANSPORTATION AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
[...]
Federal Railroad Administration
CAPITAL ASSISTANCE FOR HIGH SPEED RAIL CORRIDORS AND INTERCITY PASSENGER RAIL SERVICE
“[...] $8,000,000,000, to remain available through September 30, 2012 [...]“
It is nice to see that others here are going to allow Robert to “rewrite” history. I find it still amazing that he continues on this false rendering of the 1930′s and how the country finally got out of the “great depression” I thought he was a historian also.
Spokker Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 11:08 am
How we got out of the Depression = massive government spending spearheaded by a central command economy.
That this was employed to wage a war is kind of irrelevant. Perhaps there are economic benefits from patriotism and a united nation, but I don’t know.
wu ming Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 11:33 am
it’s settled history for all but right wing ideologues and economists (who aren’t historians). when the new deal expanded, the economy improved. when it contracted in 1937-8, it shrank. when it expanded after that dumb experiment with belt-tightening and deficit reduction, it expanded again, and when the war added another level of direct government spending to the ongoing public works projects, it hauled us the last leg out of the depression. infrastructure built during that process then enabled pent-up economic demand to grow far faster than if those bridges, dams, schools and roads hadn’t been built.
which historians inform your explanation of the 30s-40s?
O/T: Further plans brewing which may or may not rule out a HSR yard on the old SP Bayshore Yard site in Brisbane:
BAYSHORE INTERMODAL STATION ACCESS STUDY
Project fact sheet (with handy little diagram)
Peter Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Note that the CHSRA is not a partner agency.
Rafael Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
It’s possible that CHSRA has decided to pass on Bayshore because it’s contaminated with petrochemicals and heavy metals. The cost of cleaning that up could be $100m+, though the law may permit higher residual levels for industrial workplaces than for the residential dwellings Brisbane is trying to get developed.
It’s equally possible that CHSRA simply hasn’t got a clue how vital overnight stabling is to running a passenger railway with routes in the 3+ hour range.
Between 6 and 9:30am, all HSR trains leaving SF need to be based on equipment that was stabled near the SFTBT. Caltrain isn’t going to have much – if any – spare capacity at 4th & King, nor is that facility slated to go into a trench so the tracks can be run-through. CHSRA will have room to stable 8 trainsets at the TBT station.
They’re planning the whole system for as many as 7-8 trains per hour during a 6-hour peak period on weekdays. Half of that would be in the morning, as business and other travelers head down to LA and Anaheim. Ergo, CHSRA needs capacity for at least 20-25 trainsets and preferably, twice that number (full-length trains). That leaves them anywhere from 12 to 42 parking spaces short right now, not counting the small number of spares any operator would want to have on hand just in case.
If CHSRA is going to pass on Bayshore it needs a squirreling strategy for stabling trains in multiple smaller yards elsewhere in the Bay Area. That implies revenue runs from SF down the peninsula late at night and revenue runs back up again first thing in the morning. Potential candidates include
- south San Francisco (currently UPRR marshaling yard)
- Dumbarton wye in Redwood City (currently UPRR marshaling yard)
- Santa Clara (currently UPRR marshaling yard + VTA property for future BART heavy maintenance/stabling/station combo facility)
- San Jose (currently Caltrain’s CEMOF)
- Gilroy (new yard next to station if site east of 101 is chosen)
- Merced or Fresno (wherever the HMF ends up)
In the Central Valley scenario, a small number of late night trains hailing from SF and SoCal would terminate there and simply continue in the same direction in the morning. In Merced’s case, the station would presumably receive more limited service during the day, since it’s on a spur off the main line in phase 1.
Completely O/T: I am currently in Italy, traveling by train from Rome to Florence, Pisa (day trip from Florence), Sienna (by bus, where I currently am), Bologna, Venice, Milan, and then back to Rome. I have only taken one high speed trip so far (Rome to Florence on an ETR 500), with my next one tomorrow. Italy’s high speed system is interesting interesting in a few ways — firstly, because Italian cities are rather small – major cities like Florence and Bologna are both under 400,000 population (Less than Fresno, though they are both pretty dense and serve as regional hubs. Secondly, for anyone who doesn’t know, the lines do not pass through any cities between the major stops, but rather have interconnections to the main line to serve these areas (if I’m not mistaken this is part of the reason why Italian lines are so expensive). I would like to see this solution implemented in California to serve downtowns while avoiding trains traveling through at full speed, but it’s almost certainly too expensive given the financial realities of the project (and in the one place where it was considered, Gilroy, that alternative has already been eliminated).
dejv Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
The major reason why new italian lines were so expensive is the terrain they had to dig through – AV/AC Bologna-Firenze has 74 out of 78 km in tunnels. The other lines were also expensive by standards of other countries, but not that much.
Robert’s pessimism is well founded. Regardless of our ideas about the economy the political winds have changed and barring extraordinary events the dems will lose a significant part of their working majority in both Houses. Transport Bill? 2013. HSR “gift” to CA from feds? Don’t hold your breath. 50 states in line with SHSR projects (slightly higher speed rail) sharing out the small available pot? Inevitable. LaHood being stone walled by the Class Ones? Equally inevitable.
What is to be done? Concentrate scarce resources on pre HSR projects such as LAUS run through tracks. Sort out institutional relationships. Merge ACE, Caltrain and CC and start building a single Northern CA Passenger Rail Organization. Cut Caltrain crew sizes to retain service, don’t cut service. Do the same surgery for So Cal, combine agencies, cut overhead, coordinate schedules, pool equipment, give taxpayers value for money. Put people to work with shovel ready projects on the corridors. Stop wasting money with redesigns of LA Anaheim and Caltrain. They won’t be built before the EIRs need to be rewritten. Start laying track between Bakersfield and Saugus, if you have any money left over.
PD
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
I should note that I’m not saying the pessimistic outcome is the most likely one. I’m certainly not pessimistic about this, and I absolutely do not agree that we should lower our horizons and settle for something less than what we approved in November 2008.
This is a very fluid political and economic situation. 18 months ago HSR and passenger rail as a whole were riding high. Now the politics are a bit more difficult. I would not be surprised if we soon saw another shift in our direction and soon. We should advocate and prepare for that.
Rafael Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
Given how bad things are in California (furloughs, teacher layoffs etc.), the interesting thing is actually that state politicians haven’t even tried to shelve the HSR project yet.
Granted, it’s not spending the really big bucks yet, but there appears to be a genuine understanding that California can’t afford to waste time in upgrading its passenger transportation infrastructure. Historical population growth rates are more likely to return than not. HSR, for all the pain and suffering it is causing and will cause during project level planning, ROW acquisition and actual construction, is the right technology for the job. Even GOP politicians “get” that, voters in many of their districts approved prop 1A.
Adding 3000 lane-miles of freeways and massively expanding the state’s airports simply isn’t feasible, there isn’t enough available land and the environmental impacts would be more severe. The modal alternative would get California further away from its AB32 goals for reduce net carbon emissions, not closer to them.
synonymouse Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 8:21 pm
State politicians don’t know how to deal with the hsr any more than they know how to put together and pass a budget. Same applies to Jerry Brown, who made some really dubious administrative decisions in Oakland. The Etheridge affair.
Like Amtrak the hsr will require operating subsidies. Look around – all the transit agencies are having chronic funding problems. The CHSRA will have to beg, hat in hand, just like Caltrain, BART, Muni, etc., etc. California has become a welfare magnet and the pressures to increase social spending are enormous. Transport doesn’t stand a chance against the education and welfare lobbies when it comes to spending.
The thrust of Tolmach’s critique of the CHSRA plan is correct. He is far from the only one disenchanted. I doubt very much Prop 1A could pass today.
wu ming Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
please name any high speed rail network worldwide that requires operation subsidies.
Joey Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 12:14 am
I heard that the Javelins in the UK were loosing money, but they’re a weird case for a number of reasons.
Rafael Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 12:51 am
Yeah, for the moment at least they’re delivering a high speed commuter service, not a high speed intercity service. Commuters service do not generate operating profits, they’re public services.
Once HS2 up to Birmingham and Manchester is built, the Javelins can deliver intercity service and wean themselves off the government teat.
Of course, I’m referring to operating subsidies only. The debt service on the HS1 is a burden UK taxpayers will need to shoulder, no different from a motorway. Chances are taxpayers will also have to foot the bill for a significant fraction of HS2, because HS1 is too short to generate enough profit to pay for it.
That’s different from what is expected for California HSR, for which the starter line will be a cash cow.
Paul Dyson Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
The Javelins are commuter trains and have nothing to do with intercity. In any case HS2 has about as much chance of getting started in the UK as CAHSR does here. There’s no money, the new government is in austerity mode.
I’d say we’d all of us have great difficulty sorting out the accounts of an organization like SNCF. Who knows what cross subsidies are going on, how very generous pension plans are funded etc. It’s silly to say that CAHSR will be a cash cow from day one, we really have very little idea what the fare levels will need to be to attract business, what the price of gasoline will be, and what the air competition will do. Nor do we know what the price of electricity will be, for example, or how much, if anything, the operator will be billed for maintenance and debt service.
PD
YesonHSR Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
In any case HS2 has about as much chance of getting started in the UK as CAHSR does here….GEE what a great upbeat attitude!!!!
YesonHSR Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 12:51 am
Tolmachs is nothing more than a state employee on the very welfare you bitch about fool..prop 1a did pass ..so suck A big sour egg
YesonHSR Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 12:59 am
NO we voted for HSR ..not some poor version of SPs Daylight..get out of your TRAC railpac old man brain..millions of people are NOT dying to ride the Starlate for 16 hours..no hsr NO money for 1950s trains
Paul Dyson Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Some of the money was voted for upgrades to existing services to feed the HSR system. Do you want everyone to arrive at the station by car?
You can vote for any program you want. But you still have to cut your coat according to your cloth. If you (the electorate) have already voted for three strikes, education spending mandates etc., and are willing to see enormous sums spent on public sector pensions, are willing to vote for countless measures to be financed by bonds until the bond interest soaks up the entire budget, and are unwilling to tax yourselves, then HSR will remain a dream.
PD
YesonHSR Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
there is 980 million for connections by rail..Im talking about the 9Billion for HSR..No HSR then this money should not be spent
Elizabeth Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Not the way this money actually works.
The marketing was that it was for transit connections.
The reality is that it is for BART (mainly) and they get it no matter what and for anything they feel like (pretty much**). I think they are planning to upgrade cars with it.
** from AB3034:
(d) Funds allocated pursuant to this section shall be used to pay
or reimburse the costs of projects to provide or improve connectivity
with the high-speed train system or for the rehabilitation or
modernization of, or safety improvements to, tracks utilized for
public passenger rail service, signals, structures, facilities, and
rolling stock.
(e) Eligible recipients may use the funds for any eligible rail
element set forth in subdivision (d).
Merge ACE, Caltrain and CC and start building a single Northern CA Passenger Rail Organization
I’d go further and add HSR and Metrolink to that list, and create a state-wide passenger rail operator.
What California is doing with HSR is building a state-wide passenger rail system for the first time. It should set up a state-wide rail operator to run all the standard gauge heavy passenger rail routes in the state, with integrated stations and ticketing. This would help smooth out many of the issues we’re seeing with HSR sharing a corridor with Caltrain and Metrolink, and help promote the growth of these and other HSR feeder services.
Currently there exists only regional rail operators, who don’t get in each other’s way and have little need to cooperate each other. That’s all going to change once HSR is built and it would be best to prepare for it.
Subway and light rail systems for getting around individual metropolitan areas should of course remain the responsibility of their respective cities. This includes BART. Long-distance Amtrak trains travelling through multiple states should of course remain a federal concern.
Jon Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Sorry, I thought I hit reply there… :-/
Rafael Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 1:01 am
A single statewide passenger railway would make it much easier to generate economies of scale on big-ticket investments such as positive train control and corridor traffic management. It would give California more leverage with FRA to write rules that enable mixed traffic, i.e. reduce the cost of delivering passenger service.
In addition, such a railway could use HSR operating profits to cross-subsidize the slower routes. That’s exactly why CHSRA hates the idea, it would make it much harder if not impossible to attract the private funding the Governor, state legislators and voters have insisted must be part of the formula. The holy grail of PPP will line private pockets and end up costing state and county taxpayers more in the long run.
For their part, county-level bureaucrats and voters are loath to give up control over “their” regional railway(s) to state-level bureaucrats in whom they have little or no trust. Largely because of the permanent political gridlock in Sacramento – a direct and entirely predictable consequence of the 2/3 rule – Californians identify more strongly with their region within the state than they do with the state as a whole.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 7:29 am
A single statewide passenger railway would make it much easier to generate economies of scale on big-ticket investments such as positive train control and corridor traffic management.
It makes it much easier to say one of the lesser used services, Caltrain for instance, really isn’t worth the effort during a budget crunch and to cut the service too. Or for the yokels out in the forests to complain that the state is spending too much money on them thar trains and why should people who never use them pay for them etc. Ask New Yorkers how well a state run agency that serves a majority of the state’s residents works out and think about how well that would work over a whole state. ( Hint the MTA gets screwed by the state all the time even though a majority of the state’s residents live in it’s service area. ) … do you really want people in LA to have a hand in determining how BART is run, or people in Eureka having a say in the budget for Metrolink?
Risenmessiah Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 9:09 am
You have to consider the alternative.
In Southern California, Metrolink effectively is run by Los Angeles County and the MTA but it has the power to make decisions for all the counties to which it provides service. The key here is understanding that if you strike the right balance, you won’t get what you have in New York.
Namely, local governments can keep their streetcars. Light rail can stay a local thing, run by local agencies. HSR meanwhile, will probably eliminate every system of commuter rail in the state with the exception of Metrolink and perhaps San Diego’s sprinter. The argument is going to be that this is bad…bad…bad….but think about it another way.
If you have BART feed HSR and you have locals continue light rail/streetcar in areas with higher density, I honestly don’t see what is lost. Sure it might be a more expensive option…but there’s already some feeling of inequity among the Northern California counties and the Metropolitan Transit Commission.
Secondly, there’s nothing really to stop HSR from pricing local tickets very cheaply and recovering costs on the longer distance routes. From the operator’s perspective a full train is happy train.
But folding Metrolink and BART into HSR’s organization could be very, very good. It would give Sacramento a tremendous amount of leverage dealing with local jurisdictions and force the state to adopt a more comprehensive transit approach.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 10:16 am
Cheap tickets on HSR between San Francisco and San Jose means the seat runs empty between San Jose and Palmdale where there are cheap tickets between Palmdale and Los Angeles. Not a very effective way to run things.
Risenmessiah Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 10:35 am
Not really.
For example:
Let’s say you are at the Transbay Terminal in San Francisco. You’d essentially have two option. The long distance train that goes SF-RWC-SJ-Fresno-Palmdale-LA-Anaheim-Riverside-San Diego. It would leave at around 7am to ensure that people can be in LA for meetings at 10am.
By comparison, You’d also have the local route which could either stop everywhere or curl back to Sacramento in the afternoon. Either way, you’d get to San Jose (just like CalTrain) before 9am.
Either way, you’d solve the problem of people all getting on at San Jose to take the express south (unless its the exact same price as SF TBT). Plus, as people disembark, new long distance passengers take their place.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 10:45 am
There is never going to as much demand for SF-LA as there will be for SF to San Jose or LA to Palmdale. All of those are going to dwarf Palmdale to San Jose. There’s going to have to be a hefty price differential between Caltrain or Metrolink and HSR to discourage local traffic. That’s what load management software is for.
Risenmessiah Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 11:19 am
Yeah but the missing part of your comment is time.
The majority of commuter traffic is only during hours that are conducive to such a thing. Statewide travel on HSR is never going to usurp that window. The guy in SF going to LA for a 10 am meeting isn’t competiting directly with the passenger who wants to be at the Googleplex by 8:30am, nor is he taking a seat away from the poor soul who wants to leave Palmdale at 7am to be in LA by 9….
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 11:41 am
But his derrière will be warming a seat between SF and LA precluding someone from warming it between SF and Mountain View or Palmdale and LA. The amount of people who want to travel between San Jose, San Francisco and points in between is never going to balanced with the amount of people who want to travel between the Bay Area and the rest of the state. You either have cheap seats between San Francisco and San Jose and Palmdale and Los Angeles with empty seats between San Jose and Palmdale or you have expensive seats between San Francisco and San Jose or Palmdale and Los Angeles to free up seats for people who want to go from SFO to Fresno or San Francisco to Bakersfield or Los Angeles to Gilroy…
Alon Levy Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Or you have more rush hour trains running just between SF and SJ or just between Anaheim and Palmdale, on the model of the Tokaido Shinkansen.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Or NJTransit, Metro North, LIRR, Metra, Septa to a degree, MARC….
Alon Levy Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Not exactly – those Northeastern trains have separate ticketing and fare systems from the intercity trains. What I’m talking about is literally having Kodama trains, built to HSR specs and running at full speed between stations, priced the same as all-stop intercity trains and slightly above low-speed commuter trains, and still affordable for commuting. The Tokaido Shinkansen’s Kodama fares are nearly perfectly proportional to journey length. JR Central manages to charge 480 yen for Kodama trains between Tokyo and Shin-Yokohama is 480 yen and 1,450 yen between Tokyo and Odawara, and still have enough room for intercity travelers to Nagoya and Shin-Osaka.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
San Jose isn’t Yokohama. Palmdale… well Palmdale is never going to be anything like a city on the Tokaido
Alon Levy Reply:
June 20th, 2010 at 9:07 am
Palmdale is much larger than Atami and almost as large as Odawara, and if it maintains even half its 2000s growth rate it will be larger than Odawara by 2020. Because of the low speed of the legacy commuter line and the highway congestion, Palmdale can potentially become exactly like Odawara once CAHSR opens.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 20th, 2010 at 10:21 am
If you want to paint the fast commuter trains blue and gold and put an HSR logo on the side ahead. Slap a Metrolink logo on the side of the same train it still gets to Los Angeles in the same amount of time.
Los Angeles is a big employment center. It’s never going to be Tokyo or Manhattan. Someday far in the future Palmdale may be vaguely like Odawara, Hamilton or West Elgin. It’s going to take a long time for that to happen. And the commuters aren’t going to particularly concerned about the logo on the side of the train.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 20th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
But those aren’t really fast commuter trains. Their function may be for commuting, but the trainsets are the same as those used for intercity HSR, the top speeds are those of intercity HSR, and so on. Sometimes the seats are unreserved, but that’s the only difference.
And sure, LA is not Tokyo. And the Japanese freeway system is not as congested as the I-5.
Jon Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
I was not actually proposing integrating BART into a state-wide system, although an argument could be made to do so. For example, no-one I know takes the Amtrak bus for the last leg when travelling between Sacramento and San Francisco, everyone transfers to BART at Richmond. An integrated system would allow you to buy one ticket from Sacramento to SF Civic Center, or wherever it is you’re going.
Regarding the pricing, even with an integrated system it would be quite possible to charge less for a ticket on an SF to Mountain View local train (former Caltrain) than an SF to Mountain View express train (HSR). Just stamp the ticket ‘local only’.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
So instead of stamping the ticket Caltrain you’d stamp it local only. Which is kinda obvious because you can’t use a ticket that reads San Francisco-Palo Alto to get to Fresno.
Whatever happened to JimSF? If nobody is using the bus to San Francisco why is there a bus to Emeryville and station in San Francisco?
Jon Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
I said, no-one I know takes the bus from Emeryville. This is merely an observation, not a claim that no-one takes the bus from Emeryville.
You could also stamp the ticket ‘Caltrain only’ and keep the current branding. Doesn’t really matter. Point is, you can price Caltrain-only trips different to HSR trips even if Caltrain and HSR are part of the same organization and share the same ticketing system.
Risenmessiah Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 8:44 pm
Don’t worry I wasn’t laying the idea of subsuming BART into CAHSR at your feet. The idea of a statewide transit agency has some currency around here, and I wanted to make it plain that probably the best idea in my opinion, isn’t to put CAHSR into such an entity alone, but with those cross-jurisdictional entities like BART as well. Local transit agencies within counties, would be left alone.
Indeed there are storm clouds on the horizon again, and the Democrats in Washington simply are paralyzed that it will come ashore before the election, so they are treading softly. Ultimately however, a thinner Democrat majority in Congress, a sour economy, and a Presidential election will make for a very ambitious “populist” agenda in 2011 and beyond.
But if the Republicans do somehow wrest control of Congress, look out in HSR land.
YesonHSR Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 12:49 am
HSR is across the “party” line…AKA Arronnnald..we will get funding at this point 15billion more..over 8 years about 1.6 a year ,even doable in the lame USA
Alon Levy Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 3:58 am
Arnold’s a RINO. The only way he became Governor is because the recall’s tight schedule didn’t allow for a primary; in a primary he’d never survive the hardcore Teabaggers.
Risenmessiah Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 8:33 am
Arnold? I was talking about Washigton and (I believe) Robert was too.
Ever since passage of the 22nd Amendment, there’s often more than a hint of game theory when trying to determine the position of the two major parties in Washington. Robert’s correct in assuming that continued economic malaise is good for people arguing the stimulus was too small. But implicit in that is the understanding that timing is also crucial; if the market bombs in October look out below. Lyndon LaRouche might be able to win a seat in Congress…
The President meanwhile already has expended tremendous political capital and there is a real limit as to what you can expect between then an now. The silver lining is that since Obama is up for re-election in 2012, if he gets a Democratic majority back, he will swtich his focus from the long term stuff (like health care) to short term items (like infrastructure). But had he not focused on the long term stuff at first, he would be more susceptible to the type of challenge the Republicans will heave on him two years from now.
synonymouse Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 9:48 am
IMHO we are already in the double dip – it began with the tanking of the euro. But pump-priming, infrastructure spending won’t cure a recession cum depression; it simply tempers the pain and helps to dampen social unrest. The downside is you run up public debt, a real problem when you are already running a huge deficit.
Economic downturns are probably more cyclical in nature and are rooted in speculative bubbles bursting and overproduction.
The CHSRA has allowed LA to commandeer the project and to turn it into a kind of BART to Palmdale. They want to sprawl another LA in the high desert enabled by water stolen from Norcal.
Risenmessiah Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Good rebuttal…I’ll unpack your comments one at a time:
I think the smart money has already known this for a while. Once gas prices started to drop early in May it was a pretty good sign that the recovery had stalled out.
Your comment is accurate if you are talking about evolutionary infrastructure expansion. Building a freeway to nowhere is meaningless if sustainable growth is not at hand. But recognize, the Depression era building projects and HSR aren’t evolutionary expansion of infrastructure. It’s a fresh start. HSR isn’t Windows 7…it’s Leopard.
Are you related to John Madden? That’s true but completely overbroad, and a bastardization of real macroeconomic theory. Economies are like plants…or if you will forest. There’s a certain climate that ensures what sort of forest you get and you can’t change it…but changes to the soil can influence the type of growth that can form.
It’s the same situation today. Our financial regulation system sucks (at least nationally). Our transporation system sucks. Our education system sucks. You know why? Because people trot out the “cyclical argument” and then people are duped into thinking that when the economy recovers we have fixed the fatal flaw.
All the overpoduction of which you speak is all the product of poor (and largely racial motivated) decisions made about our financial system, our education system, and our transportation. Our human, physical, and capital infrastructure. I’m not interested in living in a country in decline; one that is going to cede military and economic superiority to somewhere else just because we don’t have the guts to build trains or rein in “overproduction”.
Don’t forget to return your copy of “Chinatown” by midnight…Seriously? Of course the major land barons want to build another L.A. and has that ever worked? Palmdale needs jobs to make that happen, as its going to be a bit tougher to buy a start home without one. Meanwhile, the City ought to start dusting off their plans for Palmdale International, but won’t because it needs LAX to drive construction of the light rail line through Crenshaw. Secondly, the peripheral canal is going down, so there’s a limit to the type of gamemanship there about stolen water. Sure Stewart Resnick and the Kern Water Bank Mafia “want” to build more houses, but it’s not as Southern California has an adequate supply of water to begin with….
Thirdly, the LA to Palmdale route is important. there’s no alternative option except the tunnel you like through Castaic. And even then, it’s an uphill battle because of Disney’s decision to develop in Santa Clara.
Still, both parties realize that the economy is backsliding into rececssion again. The GOP just wants it to crash fast, so that the Democrats can be left holding the bag and lose elections. The Dems are trying to figure out how to let the air out slowly, and then promise a new approach in January…..
Why does the American economic system “suck”? Look around – the polls say most Americans still want drilling no matter how much environmental damage. Cupidity and stupidity – the core of Reaganism.
One factor that may have figured in the end of the Depression with the onset of the wara; Overall productivity would have gone up with a huge chunk of the labor force pulled out and put in uniform and the rest of the populace called upon to work like hell to defeat an implacable enemy.
After the war the US was on top of the world with a monopoly on the bomb and the rest of the world’s factories either in ruins or worn out.
Risenmessiah Reply:
June 21st, 2010 at 7:48 am
Nowhere did I say the economic system sucks. I said the education system, the nation’s hard infrastructure system, and the financial regulation system sucks.
The US is a sports franchise of great players in a creaky old stadium with a decaying farm system.
The US is a family of English gentry with a marvelous manor house packed to the gills with triumphs that is falling down for lack of repair and owned by genteel poor unable to keep up the bills.
The US is a movie studio that made a bunch Oscar winners decades ago and is still waiting to be told how to make a great movie that is also a box office hit.