Roelof van Ark Lays Out SF-LA Rationale
CHSRA CEO Roelof van Ark took to a right-of-center blog, Fox and Hounds Daily, to mount a strong defense of the proposal to begin building the SF-LA high speed rail line in the Central Valley. Van Ark pushed back hard against the argument that the Borden-Corcoran route was a “train to nowhere” by pointing out that it was merely the first construction site of a much longer route, and comparing it to other infrastructure projects whose first segments aren’t remembered but whose value is widely acknowledged:
Do you know where construction began on our nation’s interstate system following the signing of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956?…
Just like that stretch of Interstate 70 through St. Charles County, Missouri – the first construction to begin on the interstate highway building project in the ‘50s, ultimately, the first piece of high-speed rail infrastructure built in California will be but one piece of that statewide system. And the next generations of riders will not be concerned, as they speed from one part of our great state to another, with which few miles were the first to be built.
This thinking makes a lot of sense, although there is one rather significant difference: the Interstate Highway Act fully funded the construction of that system, whereas so far the federal government has failed to fully fund construction of an HSR system. The uncertainty over future federal funding is driving the battle over which segment of the route should get built first – if there was more assurance regarding the funding, most of these problems, from the segment choice to the various arguments over vertical alignment, would be much more easily resolved.
Van Ark also framed the decision-making on which segment should get funded as largely the dictate of the Federal Railroad Administration:
Our partners at the FRA have narrowed this decision for us, telling California that we must use the entirety of the federal funding awarded thus far in a single stretch of track in the Central Valley – not in the Los Angeles of San Francisco areas. There are many reasons that this makes sense. Spreading the money throughout the state in a number of smaller projects would risk the funding being swallowed up into existing transportation systems such that we don’t see a substantial new benefit from the work. And of course, it is our Central Valley where California will experience true high-speed rail at 220 miles per hour on new tracks dedicated to the bullet trains alone.
This too is a sensible way to frame the issue. Van Ark correctly notes that it wasn’t the Authority which chose the Central Valley, but he makes a very good defense of the location anyway.
But our task at hand is not to build stretches of rail track. It is a misconception that the world’s fastest trains will ever run on a few miles of track or that we will ever operate service for paying passengers between points such as Los Angeles and Anaheim or Fresno and Bakersfield. Our task at hand is to build a statewide system.
This is probably the best part of the op-ed, and likely the most important. Van Ark here is making a pre-emptive defense against the “train to nowhere” argument by pointing out that California is indeed connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles, two of the nation’s most prominent and important urban centers – and that the segment that the CHSRA board will approve tomorrow just happens to be the beginning of that overall system. Any claims of a “train to nowhere” are therefore deliberate smears that willfully ignore the fact of the overall system destinations.
It’s a good defense of the current project rationale by CEO van Ark – and given the criticism the Borden-Corcoran construction site is getting in the Merced area ahead of tomorrow’s CHSRA board meeting, it’s a defense that is quite timely. I’m agnostic on exactly what segment the board votes to build first, primarily because I agree with van Ark – we’re in the business of building a statewide system, and as long as track is being laid and stations being built, I’m happy.
There’s another, even more significant difference between the Interstate system and CAHSR: CAHSR is more than just a giveaway to the construction industry. It actually provides economic and transportation value, unlike the Interstate system, which sucked off money from cities to build superhighways through the Dakotas.
morris brown Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 12:09 am
And the Interstate Highway system didn’t provide economic value and transportation value. Boy, you just have to kidding or are completely out to lunch on just what the benefits of that project were and are today.
There is absolutely no credibility in your statement Mr. Levy. Drive across the country sometime and learn.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 12:24 am
Chances are that I already have black spots on my lungs, and I’ve only lived in New York for four years. That’s the legacy of the Interstate system.
Spokker Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 12:41 am
Some of the same complaints about CHSRA are applicable to the national highway system.
In 1939 the Bureau of Public Roads commissioned a study that found that there was not enough interstate traffic to justify building toll-financed highways between major cities (No one will use it! It will never pay for itself!) However, the study, unsurprisingly, recommended that the highways be built in the name of national defense.
When the Interstate Highway System was authorized to be built, there wasn’t actually any money to pay for its construction. Sound familiar? Funding materialized in a later bill.
YesonHSR Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 8:57 am
Actually before the interstate highway system the nation was moving toward a toll road network. If you look at an old 1954 1955 map of the USA you will see the only 4 Lane Divided Hwys are new toll roads in a few states and a couple of sections of the US highway system in metro areas. If it would have been left to develop we probably would have had turnpike’s connecting major regions and none of the four Lane interstates out of the middle of nowhere used by the trucking industry and of course paid for and maintained with their toll money. It would have been a much better outcome for the United States in the urban areas and possibly even a much larger passenger rail system than we have now.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 4:16 pm
By the time the hinterland was beginning to drool at the Interstate funding terms you could drive from Boston to Chicago or Chicago to New York or Boston to Philadelphia or DC or DC to Chicago on mostly interstate grade toll roads. There were a few missing links here nad there but they were already planned and designed. It’s all still there and still collecting tolls with some minor exceptions.
Spokker Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 1:00 am
“benefits of that project ”
One problem with the Interstate Highway is that the benefits that accrue to society are widely disproportionate. As early as 1969, one study pointed out that 80% of the residents displaced by freeway construction in Baltimore were black (remember, this was in the 1960s). Land near freeways in urban areas declines in value and are blighted. The money spent on highways was money not spent on urban transportation networks.
Those who benefit tend to be suburban. Those left in cities tend to bear the environmental costs (not to mention the siphoning of cultural, economic and social resources by the highway system from cities to suburbs). With the feds pitching in so much federal money, did states really have a choice?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Yes, when the rich white people in suburbia said no, they weren’t built. I-278 in New Jersey comes to mind. And the one in LA that has been planned for decades.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 4:34 am
Then was then, now is now.
That change wound up burning up most of our oil supply, and is placing us in the control of other governments with that resource who do not like us. It also lead to congestion problems and environmental problems. A very great deal of this is from a transportation system that is out of balance.
Oh, our out-of-whack transportation system is now a threat to our food supply. In an example right down the street from my house, there is an apple-processing plant that ran for 80 years, but is now closed because we covered over too many orchards with subdivisions. It provided up to 500 seasonal jobs, and of course paid taxes. What about those jobs, and the apples, too? And nationally, food prices have gone up, including meats, because grain prices have gone up, and part of what made grain prices go up was the diversion of grain from feed to motor-fuel alcohol.
Could we really afford to drive the way we do if we had an honest accounting of the costs?
We are long, long overdue for a change.
YesonHSR Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 8:59 am
Classic Reason Foundation type statment…huge benifit for some
Spokker Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 12:46 am
“unlike the Interstate system, which sucked off money from cities to build superhighways through the Dakotas.”
With the feds footing 90% of the bill, it’s no wonder that states bought into the program, put in their 10% (which some states could barely afford anyway, state and local debt caused by highways has been rising since the 80s), and neglected urban transportation systems.
Victor Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 8:23 am
Of course the Interstate Highway system caused some towns like Yermo to shrink starting in 1968 from 20,000 to about 1500-2000 as of 2009(Yermo CA is next to the I-15 fwy, Yermo then was the size of Modern Barstow CA), It caused the town of Amboy on the I-40 to vanish and cities along the Central Valley shrank as people traveled on the I-5 instead of on US99 which could have been made into a fully divided freeway back then for less than building the I-5 through the valleys farm fields.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 9:23 pm
One thing I find interesting (and at the same time, enraging) is that if you want to see some of the more interesting aspects of American history in modern film, you have to go to a cartoon.
Big, noisy, and dirty steam engines that seem like rolling earthquakes–you have to go to “The Polar Express.”
A variation of the National City Lines case–that’s the subplot of the combined animated-live action film, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”
And this one, from what you describe, could be Yermo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8it0akHNXDY&feature=related
I have question for those who often post here who are opposed to the project for various reasons. And Robert, this might qualify as a topic for a future blog post, if not now then certainly after construction begins.
The question is basically this: Once construction is begun, is there ever a point in time when your opposition to building the project goes away due to the already sunken cost?
We are at a point in time where relatively little funding has actually been spent, with most of what has been expended being spent on engineering and environmental studies. Relatively little meaning relative to the cost of the entire system, since I realize that many millions have already been spent. But there will come a time in the not too distant future where several different parts of the project are actually being built. The Transbay Terminal $400 HSR/Caltrain box probably being first, and the Central Valley segment with federal funding being second.
Assume that both of these have construction started in the next 12-18 months, and many millions of dollars are being spent daily building the system. After having expended say $1 billion would you still be advocating that all work be stopped? What about after $5 billion? $10 billion?
Is there ever a point at which the project becomes so close to being finished that you come to the conclusion that it is more economically sound to just complete the project than stop work? You can assume for the sake of argument that the project will end up costing within ~20% of the CHSRA estimates, though even if it ends up costing more, the same questions will likely come up down the road.
If your answer is that “opposition to the project will never stop, no matter how much is expended”, then what is the rationale for taking that position? I would think that at some point holding that position (total opposition) becomes more of a religious philosophy than one rooted in transportation and economic realities. As Robert has repeatedly pointed out, if HSR is an option then there are many foreign countries where a similar system generates very high ridership, notably Spain. The economic realities in the US/California may be considerably different when the system starts operating, with the cost of fossil fuels being a primary concern. What if gas costs $10 per gallon when the train starts running and the economics favor HSR versus air or car travel by a very large margin? Would your opposition then change?
If the system were completed and started operation, would you be advocating for shutting it down using all legal means at your disposal?
RT
rafael Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 9:56 am
For reference: a lengthy adjudication process on the controversial Stuttgart 21 rail project in Germany just concluded that it should go ahead because cancellation would already be too expensive, especially with regard to rights of way already sold/acquired.
Unfortunately, the process has not really brought proponents and opponents, who favor a refurbishment of Stuttgart’s existing head-end station, any closer. The demonstrations against the project will continue until at least the next regional election.
synonymouse Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 11:17 am
Those who oppose the CHSRA dumb-down will react to its imposition the same way we did with BART to SFO. In colloquial North Beach Italian there is an expression that goes something like “e fa”. It’s short for “it’s done”.
If Kopp-Diridon-PB succeed in trashing the Peninsula with aerial blight those residents with means will simply relocate to a place they are more comfortable with.
Dysfunctional planning, like the Tehachapi detour and Muni’s tunnel under BART, don’t come off without exacting a penalty. At some unpredictable point the subsidy load will become unsustainable.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 11:47 am
I would answer that if construction starts and the budget stays more or less the same, then all rationale for opposition will evaporate. Conversely, if the budget blows out, then chances are it will increase much faster than money is spent, at least initially, so there will be relatively little sunk cost. For example: when ARC was originally studied about ten years ago, the budget was $2.7 billion; at cancellation, it was up to $8.7 billion plus some unknown additional escalation, while only a small amount of engineering and initial tunneling funds had been spent.
I guess one of the biggest disappointments at this point is the fact that the federal government has not committed a solid dependable source of funding. It’s very irritating and frustrating we were so close with Oberstars transportation bill in our very own high-speed rail President and Sen. Boxer did not want to move on it due to funding issues in the midterm elections.. well we got the bad results anyway and now Oberstar is gone and although his intended replacement Mica sounds good for high-speed rail will there be any real money? The billion dollar a year only funding isn’t going to cut it after next year I guess we’ll see all this pan out the next 14 months. I’m kind of hoping for is a high-speed rail bill along the lines of what Sen. Kerry was proposing in November December 2008 I don’t know how far it would get in this Congress!
Dan S. Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 7:46 pm
I personally fear additional federal funding is off the table for the next 2 years, but that doesn’t make it a worthless exercise to try some outreach and get some jobs-sympathetic Republicans to consider HSR. Dems need to step up and fight for it though, and I’ve seen little evidence of their ability in this area.
I’m similarly disappointed that the Peninsula communities can’t commit a dependable source of funding for Caltrain.
On a larger point, though, Americans need to embrace taxation as a necessary component of a functioning state, especially one that provides services that they value. Spread the message: taxes are good. I wouldn’t mind paying higher taxes myself, and I really really wouldn’t mind the folks making more than I do paying more too.
Recommended:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/benjamin-r-barber/no-representation-without_b_790982.html
I really love how the President’s deficit-reduction committee report was largely a plan of tax-cuts! Wake up, you idiots! The way you cut a deficit is by RAISING taxes! (I’m speaking to all Americans now.)
YesonHSR Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 8:47 pm
But we still have the 2011 funding if it is not stripped out… and possibly money returned from Wisconsin Ohio but we surely are not going to get all of it. Now if Florida would return the money there would be like 2.5 or 2.4 billion.. though that would leave this is the only high speed rail program in the nation and the way things work it would be hard to get support. We must hope that somehow Mica is truly a high-speed rail supporter and can get some kind of funding through either the new transportation bill or a high-speed rail bill .. by 2014 at the latest because after that we needed about 4 to 5 billion a year. W we should have a much clearer picture in 2012 when the first system bids go out and are the Chinese really going to cough up that kind of money…
No doubt there was a HUGE opportunity lost in not spending the $787 billion stimulus on actual infra-structure projects. It was a once in a lifetime chance to get true HSR fully funded.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 4:50 pm
This is one area in which you can say Barrack Obama is “too conservative,” which in this case means “too cautious.”
Ho, ho, ho, ho, imagine the reactions you could get fromt the conservatives with that statement!
YESONHSR Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Yes a terrible lost opportunity.. with that kind of money we should have got the entire Federal commitment up front (20Billion) and showed what could be done . many complain that this ARRA was way to small for infrastruture and I agree, much of it is in aid and tax breaks..and even HSRs 8billion was less than say the 17billion for Medical IT advances!!!
Dan S. Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 7:35 pm
On the other hand, none of us would be here having this discussion if Obama and Biden hadn’t dropped a cool $10-bill on HSR. It just won’t be easy to overcome the fact that train travel has been erased from our national DNA.
I have written this for years so here goes again, Build HSR from Port of Long Beach/LA to Mohave Rail Yards and Port of Oakland/Richmond to South Stockton Rail yards. Move 15,000,000 containers a year in and out of the ports (make it a law no trucks in the ports) each year. Think of the list of benifits, reduced truck traffic in metro areas, guaranteed ridership, PROFIT (maybe) reduced pollution in metro areas, move jobs to rural areas workers now can afford a home and not commuite hours to work. Make locomotives electric and cover right of way with solar panels so it is a “0″ energy user. Make system remote control to reduce labor. Rail yard only release container if paid for freight bill. Use exsisting right of ways. Add passenger service night and morning if you want to lose some money.
Spokker Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Good plan.