Fast Train To Prosperity
Yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle had a particularly ridiculous anti-HSR op-ed by Alain Enthoven and William Grindley in which the California HSR project was accused of telling a false “story” to voters in November 2008. Unfortunately for them, their facts and interpretations are flawed, resulting in an op-ed that is not credible.
The system cost estimates have nearly doubled: The California High Speed Rail Authority estimated in 2006 that the total cost to develop and construct the entire system – San Francisco to San Diego – would be about $45 billion. By December 2009, the estimate was $42.6 billion for just the San Francisco to Los Angeles to Anaheim segment. And the $50 fare more than doubled to $104.75.
Here, as with their whole op-ed, important information is omitted in order to cast the HSR project in the worst possible light and present a distorted view of the truth to the public. The estimate in 2006 was in 2006 dollars. That estimate is still $45 billion for the whole system. In December 2009, however, as a result of federal mandates, a new estimate for SF-LA-Anaheim of $42.6 billion was reached because the dollars were changed to “year of expenditure” dollars. The estimate takes into account expected inflation, although given that we are currently experiencing price stagnation, or even weak deflation, it is possible that the final costs will come in well below $42.6 billion.
The key point is that the cost did NOT suddenly soar. Instead the costs were adjusted to reflect different accounting assumptions. And it’s still a far sight cheaper than expanding freeways or airports, estimated to cost at least $80 billion, to handle the passengers that HSR will carry.
Besides, what would you rather have – an agency that is honest about cost projections or an agency that hides them? The CHSRA has always been open about its cost projections.
As to the fare, the $55 cost and the $104 cost are possibilities. They are not guarantees. It depends on whether fares are kept low to encourage high ridership, or whether fares are higher in order to pay private investors – even though the system will break even under either fare scenario. If people want a lower fare, they are free to demand it. Nothing has been decided, although the op-ed misleadingly claims it has.
The ridership estimates are preposterous: By 2009, the 70 million passengers advertised on the 2008 ballot measure had shrunk to 39.3 million riders by 2035, the train’s 15th operating year. The Boston-New York-Washington corridor is, by far, America’s most favorable site for high-speed rail. In 2008, eight years after inception, the combined ridership on all segments of the high-speed Acela train route was 3.4 million, about 6 percent of the population of the states it serves. If the California rail project were to achieve in 15 years what Acela attracted in eight, it might draw 6 percent of all California’s residents – about 3 million riders.
This is the “nobody rides trains” argument dressed up in numbers. What’s left out is the key fact that the Acela is a quasi-high speed train that must share tracks and has a top speed that is a fraction of what California’s will be. The California HSR system will be building, for the most part, dedicated tracks that are capable of much greater speeds, meaning more trains can be put into service. That makes it plausible that the system can operationally support these ridership estimates, as do other HSR systems around the world.
Of course, as is standard practice with HSR deniers like these guys, other HSR systems around the world are assumed to not exist. So we never hear about them, and never hear that California’s ridership stacks up well against those systems.
Nor do they mention rising oil prices, which will be another factor pushing riders to HSR systems. In countries where HSR has been built recently, such as Spain, riders have flocked to the trains, moving away from cars and planes. This factor, like the others, is studiously ignored by the op-ed authors.
California taxpayers will have to subsidize operations: If high-speed rail did even twice as well as the Acela train, it still would not repay investors a cent. Taxpayer subsidies would violate the authorizing law and the promise not to raise taxes.
As you can see, this is something they just assert, without any actual evidence. The CHSRA’s projections indicate the system will be self-sustaining, as are HSR systems around the world. There’s nothing wrong at all with subsidizing operations, it’s a good thing to do for transportation, and we in fact already do it for every other form of transportation out there. But it’s not necessary for California’s HSR system, and as we know it’s illegal under Prop 1A. Still, if someone wants to question the claim that HSR won’t require subsidies, they need to actually bring some evidence. You can’t just assert something without evidence and expect us to take it seriously.
Adequate funding is improbable: Voter-approved Proposition 1A requires that, before the bond proceeds are spent, the California bond funds must be matched by other public and private sources. The authority’s 2009 business plan offers the following funding sources: Prop. 1A bonds $9 billion; federal grants, $17 billion to $19 billion; local government $4 billion to $5 billion; private funding $10 billion to $12 billion, for a total of $42.6 billion. With rising national anxiety over soaring debt, it is practically inconceivable that the federal government will provide anything near the $18 billion the authority needs. Virtually every local government in California is struggling and is seriously threatened by the estimated $475 billion shortfall in state public employee pension funds. There is also danger that the authority will start building without enough money to finish the project.
This is partly misleading, and partly a lie.
Misleading: It is entirely conceivable that the federal government will provide the $18 billion we need. That’s $1.8 billion a year over 10 years, and that is within the range of possibility for an annual federal appropriation. If the new Transportation Bill includes $50 billion for HSR, then California will easily get what it needs from the feds.
Sure, deficit trolls might succeed in gutting federal spending over the coming years, but there is no widespread public demand for austerity. The public has embraced the stimulus, and still prefers deficit spending in order to create jobs. A coalition of Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans have blocked this in Congress, which is a serious political problem, but it’s not as if the public has no appetite for this kind of spending.
As to the lie, the authors are making it sound like the Authority would just leave things half-finished if they ran out of money. They cannot do that. Any money spent on the HSR project must go to something with “independent utility” – meaning it can still be used even if the rest of the system isn’t built out yet. There aren’t going to be tracks that dead-end in the middle of nowhere. Californians will get improved rail service from this no matter what happens.
Job creation is of the wrong kind: The authority claims the project would create 160,000 construction-related jobs and 450,000 permanent jobs. The skilled high-paying jobs to make the trains and rails will be in Asia or Europe, not in California. The California jobs will be low-tech earth moving.
This is also not true. Siemens plans to build HSR trainsets right here in California, at their Sacramento plant, if they won the contract. China has indicated a willingness to build HSR trainsets in Fremont at the old NUMMI plant. Alstom has a facility on Mare Island near Vallejo, and Talgo is setting up shop in Wisconsin.
Of course, low-tech earth moving jobs are needed too; notice how the op-ed authors condescendingly believe those jobs are simply irrelevant and of no value.
California doesn’t need high-speed rail between San Francisco and Los Angeles: With 10 airports and six competing airlines, we don’t have to worry about one strike or terrorist shutting down the whole system. The improved public transportation we do need is within metropolitan areas to speed the commute to and from work.
Of course, this ignores the fact that as I mentioned above, travelers prefer trains to planes when given the choice. It also ignores the threat of rising fuel costs. It also ignores the fact that the airlines themselves want HSR so they can get out of the short-haul shuttle business and open up airport slots for the more profitable medium-haul routes. Just ask JetBlue.
Overall this is a stunning bit of HSR denial to appear in the SF Chronicle, as it is so lacking in basic facts, credible evidence, and sensible arguments. But what is more concerning is how easily these kinds of lies can become seen as commonly accepted facts, especially when they’re not being rebutted.
Which, as you all know, is the job of this blog.
In the end, HSR is an essential element of California’s 21st economic prosperity. Whether it’s HSR deniers like Enthoven and Grindley, NIMBYs on the Peninsula, or those who actively seek to deny others the opportunity to have prosperity by shackling them to a failed 20th century oil-dependent transportation model, it’s obvious that some Californians don’t want us to have economic prosperity in the 21st century.
Thanks for the rundown. You’re doing a yeoman’s duty.
These anti_HSR types are always assholes…aren’t they, asshole?
Note that each Amtrak’s Acela Express trainset features just 44 first and 260 business class seats. Afaik, the design does not permit the operation of full-length trains consisting of two coupled trainsets. The platforms at some of the 14 intermediate stations probably wouldn’t be long and straight enough, anyhow. The FRA’s buff strength requirements forced Bombardier to add so much weight to the superstructure that scheduled maintenance intervals had to be shortened from 400,000 to just 20,000 miles on account of the active tilt mechanism. The cumulative upshot of all of these decisions is that tickets are relatively expensive, even though legacy tracks and OCS severely constrain feasible line haul times.
In addition, congestion on the NEC limits Amtrak to operating just 15 Acela Express train per day (each way) on the NYC-DC section and just one more on the Boston-NYC section. This constrains seat capacity. However, the NEC is also used for multiple standard-speed services operated by Amtrak as well as state-level transit authorities. Economy-class seats are offered on these.
By contrast, California HSR will feature dead straight 1/4 mile platforms at all stations (i.e. support full-length trains), run on dedicated tracks for at least the vast majority of its routes, at sustained speeds of up to 220mph for hundreds of miles, won’t be subject to FRA buff strength requirements nor require active tilt mechanisms.
Given the high fixed costs of depreciation, the plan is to exploit the infrastructure aggressively by running fairly large numbers of trains each day. Inevitably, filling those seats will require a sophisticated pricing strategy comparable to those perfected by air carriers. Only a small subset of trains will deliver premium express service tailored to business travelers, all others will stop more frequently and feature large numbers of affordable economy class seats.
Bottom line: evaluating the ridership projections for California HSR on the basis of real-world ridership data for Amtrak Acela Express makes no sense. Both the performance envelopes and the business models are completely different. Apples and oranges.
Alan Figgatt Reply:
September 4th, 2010 at 9:39 am
“Note that each Amtrak’s Acela Express trainset features just 44 first and 260 business class seats.”
I think they made a mistake when they brought the Acelas as fixed 8 car consists for the entire 20 trainset fleet. They could have brought 10 additional coach cars and built the maintenance facilities to handle 9 car consists. Then they could have run longer consists with an additional coach car for the peak load trains in the early morning and late afternoon. 65 additional seats is not a big increase in capacity, but would provide revenue that Amtrak loses with frequently sold out Acelas. But the Acelas were the first attempt at more modern HSR type trains in the US and there were a lot of compromises made because of the regulatory & corporate structure and the political support was all that deep nor solid to buy the cars in the first place.
Amtrak will be increasing capacity on the Acelas by modifying the café cars to provide, IIRC, 28 revenue seats at one end of the car. The café car stand up table area with stools looks nice in pictures, but people don’t linger there much in real world use. The current café car layout is a poor use of space. Since Amtrak can’t order a small number of new Acela coach cars because there is no active production line, they are modifying the café cars to expand the seating capacity & thus revenue of the Acelas by a bit.
Hopefully the CHSRA will look at the usage patterns for NEC and European HSR trains when selecting the layouts for the cafe and possible lounge cars. Make the car design flexible so they can change the layout once they get operating experience.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 4th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
I think they made a mistake when they brought the Acelas as fixed 8 car consists for the entire 20 trainset fleet.
The plan back in the 90s was to use the Acelas to build ridership and then buy Acela IIs and probably Acela IIIs to replace the whole fleet on the Northeast Corridor. Just like the Metroliners were supposed to be followed by Metroliner IIs. The plan in 1965 was to have us flitting back and forth between NY and DC in under 2 hours by 1980…..
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 4th, 2010 at 10:54 am
The platforms at some of the 14 intermediate stations probably wouldn’t be long and straight enough, anyhow.
The major stations on the NEC have platforms that are 16 cars long. Not all of them at every station but at least some at major stations are that long or longer.
The cumulative upshot of all of these decisions is that tickets are relatively expensive, even though legacy tracks and OCS severely constrain feasible line haul times.
Tickets are relatively expensive because they can charge that much and still fill up trains.
In addition, congestion on the NEC limits Amtrak to operating just 15 Acela Express train per day (each way) on the NYC-DC section and just one more on the Boston-NYC section.
The only serious track capacity constraint is between Kearny NJ and Sunnyside, (Queens) , NY. and then only during rush hours. That goes away in 2017 and track capacity constraints don’t reappear until 2025-2030. The limit on the system is cars and locomotives. Which is why at Thanksgiving and to a lesser extent Christmas, Amtrak runs “extras” with NJTransit equipment. Rumor on the foamer boards is that the new Silverliners that SEPTA is buying will be certified for service from Union Station in DC to New York. SEPTA isn’t going to suddenly get the urge to start running commuter service between New Brunswick and Aberdeen, it’s so that Amtrak can use them for NY-DC service if the need arises.
Bottom line: evaluating the ridership projections for California HSR on the basis of real-world ridership data for Amtrak Acela Express makes no sense. Both the performance envelopes and the business models are completely different.
Normal people don’t care if the train goes reallllllly realllllly fast or if it tilts. They care about whether or not it gets them there faster than driving or flying. The meme is “Americans won’t ride trains” Americans along the NEC and in Illinois ride trains because it’s faster than driving or flying.
Californians take the train because it’s more pleasant that driving. I’m sure Spokker can come up with examples of where it’s faster than driving.
Nathanael Reply:
September 6th, 2010 at 2:32 am
Unfortunately, the track capacity constrain between Kearny NJ and Sunnyside, Queens, NY does not really go away in 2017. Only some rush hour NJT trains will be moved to the new horrendously expensive station. Amtrak and NJT will promptly fill up all remaining tunnel capacity with more trains as fast as they can buy them, because there is sufficient demand for more trains. Amtrak is already specifying that it will need an additional set of tunnels under the Hudson River thanks to the misdesign of NJT’s project; perhaps 2025 is their planned date to need the additional tunnels, but they’ll probably be needed earlier since Amtrak is consistently underestimating demand. :-P Of course failure to provide service can suppress demand.
So why didn’t Enthoven and Grindley compare California HSR to succesful HSR systems around the globe? Amtrak Acela!? You’re right on Rafael; big time apples and oranges! I guess we can expect more of these naysayer/obstructionist opinions, filled with lies and slander, until the day our HSR system is up and running. Oh well, at least it’ll make for interesting threads/blog debates.
YesonHSR Reply:
September 3rd, 2010 at 8:42 pm
Just made up self opinions and fear mongering…love the part where someone “outs” them about being Nimbys that they O soo forgot to mention ..this sinkkey little smear game these people play
D. P. Lubic Reply:
September 3rd, 2010 at 9:03 pm
From an earlier post the other day:
What struck me most silly about this were the comments that moving dirt didn’t pay well (gee, that’s most of what you do to build a road), that terrorists couldn’t shut down an air system (wow, I wonder what happened to all those airplanes in the days of the middle of September in 2001?), and that even the rails would be made in Europe or Japan (hey, where do the freight roads buy their steel?)
Darn it, it looks like we still have a long, hard slog ahead of us. . .although I wonder how old the writer is, could we be seeing the generational factor again?
Alain Enthoven was born in 1930, which makes him 80, in the cars-are-the-future demographic (current age range 60 to 90);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Enthoven
Couldn’t find much on William Grindley, but he did “retire” from a company call Pacific Strategies in 2006, so I would be inclined to say he is over 60.
http://www.svrt.org/meeting.php/id/172/
How do they do it? These people (including Wendell Cox and Randall O’Toole) get paid good money to tell lies and be bad guys, while we’re good for nothing. . .for some reason, that doesn’t sound quite right. . .(with apologies to Red Skelton). . .
Can this be added to the CA4HSR Myth, Fact page Robert? We’ve been over the fare scenario, total cost, Acela Express comparison, no-need, subsidies, etc. Might as well just add that to the CA4HSR page as a nice reference page for the non-starting arguments.
YesonHSR Reply:
September 4th, 2010 at 9:36 am
There is so much misinformation and lies being thrown out about this project ..its mindboggling..reading a link from the PA on line I read a rant nimby comment(parent) that this is all housing developers pushing this and mentioned names..Roberts was one of them!! so robert is an evil HSR backer PLUS their other fear monster in PA ..A condo developer!!
D. P. Lubic Reply:
September 4th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Hey, have we hit the big time yet? First we’re accused of being part of a conspiracy to flood the comments section of a newspaper as rail supporters, now Robert is a condo developer, and of course I’m a Communist.
I really ought to get those green fatigues, a beret, a beard, and some cigars. . .if only I had already taken up smoking those cigars “from Brother Fidel”. . .(cough, cough, gag, gag, cough, ugh). . .
I hope it’s acceptable to repeat a comment I made in response to Enthoven and Gridley’s article:
“Lets look at this another way: The Acela route between Boston and Washington DC is 456 miles long and although top speed is 150 mph, the average speed on the route is about 70 mph. New York City is half way between.
The California High Speed Rail route from San Francisco to Los Angeles is nearly the same length (around 450 miles), but even allowing for a stop in San Jose, the trains will make the 2 hour – 43 minute trip at an average speed of about 165 miles per hour.
My question to you is this—– If the Acela trains could increase their average speed from 70 mph to 165 mph, and if they could then make the trip from Boston to Washington (including a stop in New York City) in 2 hours – 43 minutes, then how many millions more would rush to board the trains each year”
Alan Figgatt Reply:
September 4th, 2010 at 9:03 am
I don’t think we will see average speeds of 165 mph between Washington DC and Boston for train service in any of our lifetimes. The corridor is too dense with many major cities and stops in-between: DC, Baltimore, Wilmington, Philly, Trenton, Newark, NYC, Stamford CT, New Haven, Providence, Boston. The NEC can be upgraded, but presents a lot of existing construction and ROWs that are not going to thrown away. I think the best that can be achieved – and this only if the powers that be get serious about upgrading the NEC more aggressively than the NEC Infrastructure Master Plan calls for – is 2:15 between DC and NYC for the current Acela stops & a close to 2 hour WAS-NYP one stop between express service. Maybe get down to 2:45 between NYC and Boston, but that would require selected & expensive re-routing of the Shore Line route in eastern CT to make use of pieces of the I-95 ROW and working with Metro-North & CDOT to fix up the New Haven line to allow the Amtrak trains to run > 70 mph for much of the route. Also they have to get rid of the 39 trains per day limit (total, not round trip) between New Haven and Boston because of the swing bridges.
But I think even 2:15 between DC and NYC and 2:45 between NYC and South station in Boston would lead to a dramatic increase in ridership. Those travel times will handily beat taking a plane from downtown to downtown and beat driving by a comfortable margin except for those well outside of the cities.
I also think that looking at just the Acela ridership numbers for the NEC is missing a large part of the picture. The Northeast Regionals travel at 125 mph and qualify in my opinion as HSR, just not all that fast HSR. If they fix up the NEC to where the Acela class trains can run 2:15 between DC and NYC, the Regionals would be running under 3 hours. I have been traveling on the NEC on a regular basis over the past year and normally take the Acelas from DC to NYC in the morning because I can buy the tickets in advance and am on a tight schedule. But I take the Regionals back in the evening because I don’t know when I am going to be done for the day, the Acelas tickets are expensive for same day travel and coach even on a Regional is still a LOT more comfortable than coach on a modern airplane. Ridership on the NEC for the Acelas and Regionals (not including the Keystone service and long distance trains) was 10.9 million for FY2008. I think those numbers could easily double if Amtrak were to achieve even modest improvements in run times (compared to CA HSR) and increase the capacity of the NEC and their fleet to run enough trains.
The California HSR program has a huge advantage in that it is starting with a mostly clean sheet of paper, except for perhaps the Caltrain corridor and the corridors in LA itself. Between the cities, they can put down entirely new tracks and bridges and tunnels built for real HSR. The NEC is compromised by tracks and curvy ROWs that were mostly laid down in the 1800s, some as early as the 1830 and 1840s. Much of the DC to New Rochelle NEC infrastructure was built in the early 1900s by Penn Railroad and is in dire need of replacement. Comparing the NEC to the planned CHSRA system does have a lot of apples to oranges aspects to it.
Per Endhoven and Grindley, “we don’t have to worry about one strike or terrorist shutting down the whole [air travel] system “. Right. It is inconceivable that a labor strike or terrorist attack could shut down the entire air traffic system in California, and certainly not the entire country! None of us could imagine such an event and it has certainly has never happened.
Oh wait…
Spokker Reply:
September 4th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Hahaha, good catch.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
September 4th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
I declare, this makes the two of them look like senile old fools. Sadly, some people will be even more foolish to listen to them, including politicians with backbones that would be an insult to a jellyfish, and brains to match.
“Any money spent on the HSR project must go to something with “independent utility” – meaning it can still be used even if the rest of the system isn’t built out yet”
I’m still getting my head around the independent utility of that HSR box in the transbay terminal building.
Nathanael Reply:
September 6th, 2010 at 2:37 am
Funded from a different pot of money, wasn’t that? Not from the CAHSR bond money.