Fear and Loathing in Bakersfield (and the LA Times)
I had a feeling the LA Times’ Ralph Vartabedian would be a problem for the HSR project last month when he tried to scare Californians out of building a better future. He’s at it again in today’s Times, casting the bullet train as a Godzilla monster out to destroy Bakersfield.
The problem here is that, as with all too many reporters, Vartabedian only looks at the costs of the project and does not anywhere assess the benefits. There is no doubt that the project has impacts to Bakersfield. As with any road widening or other big infrastructure project, surrounding homes and businesses are often affected.
But what matters is whether the impacts are worth it. Too often, California journalists just blindly assume it’s not when it comes to passenger rail. They don’t pay any attention to high ridership on existing trains nor do they pay any attention to high oil prices or high unemployment. Sadly, many California journalists, as with journalists around the country, have become inherently conservative in the sense that they see their job as to defend the status quo from change.
Vartabedian’s article is a classic example, full of scaremongering about the HSR project’s impact on Bakersfield:
Since it opened in 1893, Bakersfield High School has been the pride of this city and its academic cornerstone, the place where the late Chief Justice Earl Warren graduated and students call themselves the Drillers in homage to the region’s oil patch.
It has withstood earthquakes and depressions, but perhaps it will not survive the California bullet train.
The train’s proposed routes are taking aim at the campus, potentially putting a bulls-eye on the Industrial Arts Building, where future engineers, ceramic artists, auto mechanics, fabric designers and wood-workers take classes. Even though freight trains already lumber not far from the campus, these elevated trains could rocket by on a viaduct at up to 220 mph every five minutes, eye level with the school library and deafening the stately outdoor commons where students congregate between classes.
“Obviously we can’t have a school with a high-speed rail going over the top of the building,” said Principal David Reese. “What kind of distraction would that cause our students?”
This is bullshit. Sorry, but we have to tell the truth here. Bakersfield High will survive the bullet train. It’s OK if a building has to be moved or rebuilt. That happens all the time at schools, especially older ones.
Don’t believe me? I attended a high school in Orange County that was actually the second campus – the original one, a classic 1920s-era building, was deemed structurally unsound in the early 1960s. It was torn down and replaced. In the 1990s, the new campus lost a significant portion of its land to a freeway expansion. This was while I was a student there, and it had no effect at all on our education or our ability to enjoy our high school years.
If all of Bakersfield High were being targeted for demolition then I could understand Vartabedian’s scaremongering. But it’s not. Anyone who says so is being disingenuous. And Vartabedian’s article, by implying the school may not survive the train, is misleading his readers. BHS will be fine.
Vartabedian’s article assumes that Bakersfield cannot adapt to HSR and therefore all it will bring is pain. Nowhere does he discuss the benefits of HSR – the jobs it will bring to a county with 13.7% unemployment, the new economic opportunities that come with being just an hour from downtown LA (closer than many Inland Empire cities, factoring in traffic). Worse, he implies that those who might have their properties taken would not receive compensation for it:
Officials at First Free Will Baptist Church believe it will lose some of the 22 parcels it owns in east Bakersfield, damaging its outreach mission and a school for 70 kids, no matter which route is selected.
“This area is in decline,” said Pastor Mark Harrison. “We have a failing economy. There is a lot of vandalism here. There is graffiti everywhere. We are overrun with gangs. It is a violent area at night. If you want to see hopelessness, look at the youth in this area. We like to think of our church as standing for hope.”
Not far from the Baptist church, the bullet train could take aim at a window of the Full Gospel Lighthouse Church, said Pentecostal pastor Todd Matthews. When he received a note warning him about the potential destruction of his church, he put the paper in his shoe, invoking biblical scripture to destroy the rail plan under the feet of God.
“We distribute food and blankets to the homeless at Martin Luther King Park across the street,” said Matthews, who worked in the Kern County oil fields for 29 years. “This property is our promise from God. If they offered us $10 million, we would not take it.”
While I support the missions of these churches, you know what would help more than blankets? Jobs. HSR brings jobs and lots of them to Kern County. Nothing else on the horizon has the potential to provide as much job creation as HSR does. Not just short-term construction jobs, but lasting and long-term jobs that stem from saving on oil costs. Other mid-size cities along HSR routes, like Ciudad Real in Spain, have seen significant job growth as a result of the trains. That is Bakersfield’s future.
Vartabedian’s article, however, implies that the present is just fine. 13.7% unemployment and a large jobless population is just fine, he says, as long as it means the Industrial Arts building can be saved.
Most students likely don’t mind. I’m sure they like the Industrial Arts building just as it is. But they too want jobs. They’ll want to be able to stay in Bakersfield, raise a family, and send their kids to BHS and become Drillers just like they were. Right now that’s going to be hard to do. Bakersfield is cut off from the mainstream of the global economy. Just over the Grapevine is a central node of that global economic network. It’s too far and too expensive to access it by car.
A bullet train makes all the difference, opening the SoCal job market up to Bakersfield residents and bringing the global economy over the hill to Kern County. It’s hard to imagine anything more important to the city’s future.
Yes, HSR will have impacts. But those can be mitigated and dealt with, especially if the benefits are worth it. For whatever reason, Ralph Vartabedian has no clue what those benefits are, and has no interest in finding out. And for whatever reason, the LA Times seems content to let him mislead their readers that HSR offers only downsides and never any upsides.
*Explicitly* what mitigations will their be for the impacts in Bakersfield (other than future outreach)? The main concern is that this is not spelled out anywhere. In addition, if it isn’t listed, it likely isn’t counted – so what are the mitigation costs?
From EIR –Section 3.12 pg 49
3.12 SOCIOECONOMICS, COMMUNITIES, FRESNO TO BAKERSFIELD SECTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
Between Shafter and Bakersfield, the BNSF Alternative would pass the small, unincorporated community of Crome, a cluster of about 20 homes located 5 miles northwest of Bakersfield in the northwestern quadrant of the intersection of 7th Standard Road and the Central Valley Highway. The HST project would relocate the Central Valley Highway to the south through this area displacing several buildings currently fronting on the Central Valley Highway (including one building associated with the only church in the community). The new SR 43 right-of-way would pass very close (within as little as 20 feet) to some remaining homes, with the HST tracks about 100 feet east of the residential area. Because of the displacements, and noise and visual impacts, this effect would be considered moderate under NEPA and less than significant under CEQA.
The BNSF Alternative would enter the northwestern portion of Bakersfield at-grade; from approximately Palm Avenue to the new downtown station, the alternative would be on an elevated structure ranging from 50 to 80 feet above-grade. This alignment would pass through three districts of Bakersfield: Northwest, Central, and Northeast. In several areas, the alignment deviates from the existing transportation corridor, to accommodate turning-radius requirements of a high-speed train and to incorporate the downtown station. In these areas, the substantial acquisition of right-of-way and redevelopment of properties for the BNSF Alternative would divide established communities—particularly the formerly unincorporated Greenacres area of the Northwest District near Rosedale, and the mixed-minority residential Northeast District, which has large populations of African-American and Hispanic residents.
In the Northwest District, the BNSF Alternative would depart from the BNSF right-of-way just south of Rosedale Highway and rejoin the rail right-of-way after crossing the Kern River. The alignment would cut through an existing suburban development in Bakersfield’s Northwest District, displacing 122 homes and 10 non-residential properties, including a gas station/minimart, an art studio, 2 health centers, and 2 churches (Chinmaya Mission and Korean Presbyterian Church). This alignment would alter community social interactions and community cohesion, and would change the physical character of the community. These impacts would be substantial under NEPA and significant under CEQA.
In the Central District, the BNSF Alternative would displace only one home and no churches, but it would displace approximately 100 businesses—a mix of office and industrial uses, retail services, and medical clinics, as well as the Industrial Arts building on the Bakersfield High School campus. The school’s historical importance, combined with the critical nature of the educational services it provides, makes it an important community resource. The displacement of this facility—as well as numerous businesses—in the Central District is considered a substantial effect under NEPA and significant under CEQA.
In the Northeast District, 116 homes and 173 non-residential properties (including a mix of retail and industrial businesses and several churches) would be displaced by the BNSF Alternative. Christ First Ministries would be displaced, and a portion of the parking at Iglesia de Dios would be taken. In addition, the HST alignment would pass very close to the building that houses the Bethany United Methodist Church and Centro Cristiano Agape. The BNSF Alternative would roughly parallel East Truxtun Avenue and would result in the displacement of a swath of older homes and businesses several hundred feet south of this roadway.11 It would bisect the building that houses the Mercado Latino Tianguis (Mercado) at 2105 Edison Highway. Because of its size and location, the Mercado building would most likely be demolished, redesigned, and rebuilt to avoid the support columns. This could mean closing or relocating the building for approximately 1 year, potentially affecting the livelihoods of 118 merchants and temporarily removing a facility of substantial cultural importance for the local and regional Hispanic community. Together, the displacement of the Mercado and the displacement of a substantial number of residences and businesses in the Northeast District of Bakersfield would be a substantial community effect under NEPA and a significant impact under CEQA.
Risenmessiah Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 12:17 am
One suggestion might be to pull the EIRs from construction of the Glenn M. Anderson Freeway in Southern California from the late 80s and early 90s. In that case you have plenty of properties blown up to make way for a new freeway in the heart of Los Angeles County. At the time, with the economy doing poorly and the riots a recent memory, I think many people were quite glad to get bought out and move.
But there’s another consideration: even if neighborhoods stay intact physically…gentrification can effectively destroy their identity anyway. Being underneath the tracks will actually help keep minorities in their homes because it will make these areas less attractive to developers.
Wad Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 12:48 am
Risenmessiah, a Century Freeway precedent is great if you want this high-speed rail project done and ensure it will never be expanded.
That’s what the 105 Freeway did: The consent decree you described was a Pyrrhic victory for highway builders, because it ensured that L.A. could never build another highway again.
Remember the case dragged through litigation for decades. Caltrans had to give away the family silver to get the freeway built by mitigating like crazy. It established a model for local training and hiring preferences. It gave the community a mass-transit sop in the form of the Green Line — which gets high ridership in spite of doing everything wrong. Then it also was designed with the then-state-of-the-art seismic safety and congestion-management strategies. You’ll see that the 105 Freeway has all flyover interchange ramps (no cloverleafs) and straight-diagonal entry and exit ramps wherever possible. These made more property-takings necessary and in turn drove up the materials and engineering costs. Now, communities has to fight to stop highway construction, they just point to the Century Freeway consent decree and insist on the same or better.
What would an HSR consent decree look like? Local training and hiring. Buy California/County/City. Some kind of HSR agency physical jobs presence, such as a local office or maintenance plant. Then, the communities will insist on 2 lane miles of highway on SR-99, I-5 or even a new highway for every track-mile of HSR rail built — all coming out of the HSR budget. And while they’re at it, why not co-locate an engineering project like a canal or a wildlife preserve within the right of way. And let’s finish it off with an astonishingly wide right of way for the sake of safety. Again, all coming out of the HSR project budget.
California has billions to spend on HSR. Trillions, though, I’m not so sure.
Risenmessiah Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 7:01 am
So what you are saying is… a tunnel is probably cheaper….
Wad Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Knowing the Central Valley, it’ll be a tunnel on an 80-foot-high viaduct. :>
RisenMessiah Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
A tunnel on a viaduct? Wait, I think I’ve seen that done before: http://bit.ly/vcpfxE
Risenmessiah Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 12:29 am
You might want to see if you can find EIRs from the Glenn M. Anderson Freeway project in Southern California. Lots of homes were acquired and demolished because of its construction in the early 1990s. At the time though, I don’t think there was much in the way of mitigation. Most homeowners, with the riots and recession clearly in their minds, took the money and relocated.
Another way to look at it is that gentrification displaces far more minority homeowners than public works projects. Being underneath the rail line would actually be a good thing in this regard. Developers keen to exploit transit-oriented projects will stick to locations near the station and leave other neighborhoods alone.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 5:38 pm
What are the motivations you ask?
No project will cite that in an Alternatives Analysis phase for a couple reasons. The main one is that too many alternatives exist in early stages and motivations are case specific.
The trend in recent anti-HSR articles from the LA Times is sure disturbing.
Risenmessiah Reply:
October 23rd, 2011 at 11:56 pm
Not surprising, given that the Times was all too supportive of UP’s Phillip Anschutz’s new Staples Center. With Farmers Field out there, you can imagine that AEG is looking for the right type of coverage….
Peter Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 8:30 am
Uggh, AB 900 and SB 292 are dangerous modifications to CEQA. I can only hope that they are hardly ever used.
RisenMessiah Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 10:08 am
I think they are going to be used all the time. That’s the nature of the beast in legislation. The designation exception always becomes the rule. I suspect that really what needs to happen is some sort of Constitutional Convention to realign the state from this sort of patchwork approach to something a bit more uniform….
Why did the CHSRA not study a UP alignment through Bakersfield, like it did for Fresno? With only one large radius curve it seems like it would have less impacts. The station could still be built close to downtown at F St/Chester Ave.
Arthur Dent Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 12:04 pm
PB has a track record of saving the obvious for last. That way they get to do the work twice. Or more. This is factual, not flippant.
Bret Reply:
October 27th, 2011 at 2:36 pm
When the discussion was originally had regarding station location, the City of Bakersfield pushed strongly to locate the station downtown, and preferred that location over the potential locations near the airport or at F St. and Golden State. Now they are trying to find a way to “wash their hands” of that decision since it’s going to affect BHS.
Off topic, but going to link here where it is somewhat more findable than in the midst of the 300+ comments on the last one. For those who were wanting a forum, especially to divert the eternal Pacheco vs Altamont debates, I’ve set up one here: http://cahsrforum.com/
Risenmessiah Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 7:04 am
Eh, I’m not sure a forum would be that nifty. I do think there has to be some sort of better organization for comments and tag clouds…but the reason Altamont and Pacheco keep coming up is that people feel strongly about them….
Paulus Magnus Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 8:41 am
There has been some popular demand for it, hence the creation.
RisenMessiah Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 10:13 am
Oh I know, and I don’t think you were wrong to do it…but I think the major problems with forums is this:
This blog is sort of like a news and opinion show where Robert is the host and there’s 20-30 panelists who all chime in…or a sort of High Speed Rail Squares. I never expect Richard to say nice things about the MTC…nor do I ever expect Clem to ever give up the hope of Altamont… it’s part of the humor.
It’s conceivable that you could form a private Facebook group with all of us…that would be neat…but then when would I have time to do anything else?
Andrew Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Thank you Paulus. I’ve posted…er, pasted my personal Pacheco vs Altamont hit parade on your Alignment forum. I expect there are a bunch of people ahead of me waiting to have their postings approved. Much appreciated.
Andrew Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
OK, Paulus kindly posted my submission, so as a plug for my post and for Paulus’s very promising forum, here’s the link:
http://cahsrforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 1:49 pm
Have fun talking to each other, guys.
Joey Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 2:57 pm
Oh, we will.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 3:39 pm
You’re welcome to join in as well Richard. This just helps keeps things a bit easier to read and organized compared to the current hash that results from being blog comments.
Is tunneling out of the question? I remember when BART did the whole city of Berkeley. It seemed expensive and disruptive at the time, but now, with inflation and all, it looks like money and effort well-spent.
It should be possible to get a station into Bakersfield downtown without permanently wrecking the city. The same can be said for other cities along the route. HSR should be a source of pride, not a permanent blight. It is the authority’s job to make sure that is the case. For Berkeley, the extra expense of tunneling was well worth it.
Mike Brennan Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 8:33 am
How about gold-plated tracks through Bakersfield too.
Peter Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 8:36 am
Nahh, gold is too soft for trains. ;)
joe Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 9:15 am
CAHSRA says Bakersfield to LA – 54 mins.
It’s like arguing a college education is “Gold-Plated”.
The City could pay back the expense many times over with increased tax revenue. Teh State would surely benefit from increased opportunity within California.
If it runs to city center the city will find ample opportunity. Business could expand offices to Bakersfield. LA keeps it’s center of gravity as a major city by expanding its influence to incorporate Bakersfield.
Beta Magellan Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 11:51 am
So, tearing down homes and community facilities for the sake of business development is a good thing when done with rail? Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure HSR-builders are capable of making the same mistakes as highway-builders and shouldn’t be given a free pass because they’re running electric vehicles.
Getting back to the original question, it is probably doable to serve downtown Bakersfield with much less disruption but at the cost of slowing down all trains—from what I understand much of the demolition is due to the wide curve radii required by trains bypassing Bakersfield at high speeds. So, at this point I’d say the options would be to slow down all trains to stop at Bakersfield’s downtown, or to have a beet field station east of Bakersfield (or north in the off chance that the Palmdale alignment survives).
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 12:20 pm
According to Wikipedia the 2010 Census found 111,132 households in Bakersfield. If I did my arithmetic right there will be 239 houses affected by construction. Not all of them will be demolished, taking 20 feet off the back end of your 100 foot deep lots still leaves the house in place. 239 divided by 111,132 is 0.002150596. Two tenths of one percent of the houses in Bakersfield. The horror of it all….
Arthur Dent Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 12:47 pm
taking 20 feet off the back end of your 100 foot deep lots still leaves the house in place
Priceless.
A new wall – possibly a very tall one – will replace their swingsets & BBQs with 220 mph trains slipping through. They’ll hardly notice. Damn NIMBYs. Don’t you just hate it when they overreact?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Compared to the view of the 100 car freight trains rumbling through that they have now. I’m sure the diesel fumes lend a bucolic charm to the swing set that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. And the way the horns drown out conversation does wonders for the BBQs they host.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 1:17 pm
You know, there are a lot of serious people who argue that American colleges are gold plated, what with enormous sports facilities and buildings and other institutions that are geared toward the pride of donors rather than the needs of students.
Wad Reply:
October 25th, 2011 at 11:59 pm
@Joe, interesting you brought up “college education as ‘gold plated’”.
The high-speed rail project is our generation’s equivalent of the Master Plan for Higher Education, which has manifest itself in 9 UC campuses, 23 CSU campuses and about 110 community colleges.
Think of how the colleges transformed California, and how HSR will do the same.
There are many similarities to draw between the colleges and HSR, but here is the key one: Californians took both on, with high costs and unknown payoff, even knowing there wasn’t a need to undertake the project.
Remember, when the Master Plan was crafted, California was still primarily a manufacturing and agricultural economy. A high school diploma was good enough for a good standard of living. There was no need for a college education, and the schools would churn out degrees with no place for students to apply them.
California would have gotten along fine without the colleges and saved the taxpayers a ton of money. However, deindustrialization would have still occurred, and agriculture in California only needs machines and migrants to function. The colleges saved and enhanced California’s economy.
Mike Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 8:47 am
BART tunneled through Berkeley because the residents chose to tax themselves to pay the incremental cost of tunneling. And yes, it was absolutely money well spent. Unfortunately, the price tag to tunnel through Bakersfield is probably too high for local residents to be willing to absorb … just my guess; if Bakersfieldians want a tunnel, they should certainly be looking into this option.
Elizabeth Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 8:49 am
This is one of the problems with the incredible cost escalations of transportation projects in the US far and above inflation. It makes solutions like these not really doable.
joe Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 9:05 am
Yes – a problem. Hey college tuition out paces inflation. I somehow do not think that expense is one you’ll forgo for your children.
It’s far more cost effective to buy into existing infrastructure with a low interest mortgage in an established community than to pay taxes to extend this benefit elsewhere.
Solutions to make transportation livable – extending infrastructure – since construction rises more than the cost of inflation, is not really doable.
Oh and if CA does decide to spend money on new infrastructure, please look at the socio-economic class and education levels so you spend it wisely. There is a report at CARRD with all the details on how it just isn’t economical to build HSR in the CV.
.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 6:51 pm
I will not forgo that expense, but I’ll fight for making college more affordable. It’s the same with health care: I’ll pay the 16% of GDP if it’s necessary, but I’ll also fight to bring American health care costs down to 8-10% of GDP, as is normal in most other developed countries.
And what’s more, this line is not only good policy, but also good politics. Bob Shrum has been feeding Democratic candidates lines like “Health care is a right, not a privilege” for decades, to no avail. The momentum for reform, partial as Obamacare is, only started gathering real steam once the inefficiency of America’s current health care system became impossible to ignore.
Mike Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 9:12 am
Incidentally, it might be worth considering WHY transportation project costs have grown at rates exceeding inflation. It’s probably not the cost of labor. Perhaps materials costs have grown at rates exceeding inflation; certainly production of steel, concrete, timber, etc are subject to more stringent environmental regulation which would tend to increase their costs. But materials are also sourced in a global market now, which would tend to drive prices down. “Process” costs are higher, with the need to comply with local, state, and federal permitting requirements in ever-expanding ways. Finally — and this is probably the biggie — project scope tends to be greater than in the past; we want stuff designed to a higher standard and with more community and environmental mitigations.
So folks who are concerned that transportation projects not have an undue impact upon communities and the environment should probably celebrate today’s higher costs, as they reflect projects that are more sensitive to those factors.
RisenMessiah Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 10:25 am
It’s also because the pot of federal money has grown and grown. One of the principal reasons for the seemingly unshakable economic downturn is that the total pie of GDP is shrinking nationwide as our population gets older and has to rely more on assets than income. Individuals generally make more money until about age 50, and then on average their earning potential goes down.
Given that the plurality of workers in this country are Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1964… you would expect to see the U.S. economy stumble right around 50 years after half the Boomers turned around 50 and suffered falling productivity. And what do you know, if you calculate the year that would most likely occur you get… 2007.
In the end, the unit cost of all federal expenditures is going to shrink even if they provide the same level or service. Thus, there’s going to be a powerful redistribution of wealth away from speculation and back into commodities and labor, because you won’t be able to sell Washington prescription drugs or fighter jets at 200% mark up any more.
It’s the same issue for federally-funded transportation projects: there will still be enormous value in building transit options…but PB is going to find itself having to not sell as much extra concrete to cover its costs….
wu ming Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 1:40 pm
materials being sourced globally drives them up, because asia is competing with the US for the concrete, copper, steel, etc.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
Great. Now account for the other 90%.
US public works contracts are out of control because the political system is set up for public failure.
Them gubmint bureaucrats can’t keep costs under control! Now, write a blank check made out to “Heroic Titan of Private Industry”. Win-win synergy! Heads you lose, tails they win!
Having a dysfunctional public sector, having private parties completely seize control of public works planning, and engendering distrust of collective governmental action (except when it involves profitable dropping of munitions) is a century old and very deliberate and very successful political tactic.
Better to believe it’s the big bad Chinese using up all “our” copper.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 6:54 pm
Off topic: I’m reminded of a passage in Earl Swift’s book, which explains how Thomas MacDonald built a road network from scratch in Iowa by breaking the contractor monopolies and going to county officials and teaching them modern road construction techniques. In the very early 1900s, public works was a filthy corrupt business – think of the depiction in Oil!, if you’re read it. It got somewhat better; the cost overruns from the 1920s to the 1960s were the result of other things, such as hubris, government incompetence, or building wrong routes for political reasons (e.g. Sixth Avenue Subway).
Peter Baldo Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 10:41 am
Inflation is a wondrous thing! When BART initially went in, the cost was several hundred $Million, a price that seemed staggering at the time. Berkeley’s subway alone cost $20 Million. The money was borrowed, and repaid over succeding decades, over which time the initial construction costs seemed more and more like a bargain, and the tax base to repay them grew bigger and bigger.
Now, a BART extension will cost in the neighborhood of $1 Billion, and there’s no tunneling under the bay or through the Berkeley hills, and no subway under Market Street! A simple grade separation will cost $50 Million. And it’s probably still money well-spent.
HSR seems similarly pricey. But, over the years, a well-designed system will be seen as more and more of a bargain! Since construction is funded by 30-year bonds, at low current interest rates, the costs of construction will become more and more affordable to the taxpayers paying off the bonds. Certainly money shouldn’t be wasted, but doing it right is well worth the expense.
Joe Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 11:21 am
LA’s station is 54 minutes from Bakersfield. The Study done in Germany on HSR’s statistically demonstrated the positive economic impacts of a HSR stop.
Bakersfield’s growth will add to the tax base just as adding infrastructure in LA or SF. It will help LA by increasing the economic sphere of influence and provide more workers/consumers for LA based business and residents.
I fully expect the next attack on HSR will be runaway gentrification. Bakersfield’s economic benefit will price currents residents out of their comes. Hipsters will move in and ruin Bakersfield.
Andre Peretti Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 1:07 pm
“Bakersfield’s economic benefit will price currents residents out of their homes”
This situation is common in some cities 100 miles or more from Paris. Long-distance commuters have higher incomes and can pay higher prices than the locals. Parisians tend to “invade” the best locations.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 1:37 pm
Andre, that’s certainly true in the French context, but there are no desirable (by the standards of LA/SF conurbation dwelling elites) anywhere in California’s Central Valley. Fresno isn’t Tours. People in LA don’t buy holiday homes in Manteca. The exodus of commuting high salary capital from SF is to places like Mill Valley or Palo Alto or Santa Cruz, not Tracy.
I wouldn’t live there if you paid me to.
RisenMessiah Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
When did Manteca or Tracy score a HSR station????
The most likely candidates for the “Tours effect” are probably Stockton and Merced (and someday Tahoe). Bakersfield and Fresno are much more desirable for the “depot” effect of industries and businesses locate in remote areas to absorb housing and land costs while still giving them quick access to large urban areas….
Wad Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 7:19 pm
One of the long-term trends of a statewide HSR network could be the effect of “urban plantationing.” This is where money made in an urban area is used to buy farmland, but kept as an active agriculture concern. However, it won’t mean the new owners intend to run them as family farms.
Usually, a couple will buy the farmland, and at least one of them will have a professional job in the big city. The other will stay behind and mind the land, or else just buy the expertise to keep the farm enterprise going.
This is what happened around the Bay Area in the 20th century. The money made in San Francisco, the East Bay and Silicon Valley bought up agriculture in the hinterlands. The most obvious example was the vineyards in wine country, but then over time branched into other high-value agriculture, such as cow and goat dairies and later organic fruits and vegetables.
This could repeat itself throughout the Central Valley, especially if entrepreneurs or professionals with the means wish to buy a farm as a hobby and maintain their day jobs.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 8:46 pm
Have any of you ever visited the Central Valley of California on Planet Earth in the late 20th or early 21st centuries?
Yeoman family farmsteads? Hilarious!
San Francisco based lawyer and venture capitalist power couples setting up hobby farms in Bakersfield? LA entertainment movers raising horses recreationally in Visalia? Are you nuts?
Drunk Engineer Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 9:16 pm
Careful, your parochialism is showing. It is hardly uncommon for people to (semi-)retire from the overpriced Bay Area lifestyle to less expensive parts of the state. And believe it or not, there are some places in the CV (Sierra foothills areas come to mind) that are pretty darn nice.
And even Los Banos isn’t that bad….
Alon Levy Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 9:44 pm
I know nothing of the profile of people who move from the Bay Area to the Upper Central Valley. However, people who move from California to Arizona and Nevada tend to be poorer than the average. If you want I can look at people who move from the SF and SJ metro areas to various CV metros tomorrow.
datacruncher Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 10:46 pm
“LA entertainment movers raising horses recreationally in Visalia?”
Not IN Visalia, but entertainment types like Anjelica Huston own ranches east of Visalia near Three Rivers.
http://www.architecturaldigest.com/homes/features/archive/huston_article_102005
while other entertainment types like writers, designers, etc have also been buying there.
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/sep/11/home/hm-threerivers11
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 11:19 pm
Wassaic…..
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081029/BIZ/810290331/-1/NEWS
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 11:22 am
Grotesque levels of innumeracy are the fraudsters best friend. Luckily for them, there are millions of you.
50% or 200% or 500% cost blowout in 4 years? Obviously due to NIMBY delays and inflation! Truly a wondrous thing.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 1:16 pm
Maybe the Ron Paul-libertarians are right and we really are seeing 12% inflation per year. If only we could go back to the hard money era of 1929-33. Unfortunately, the majority can just vote itself more money and take from the productive heroes who they leech from. Nothing that seasteading wouldn’t solve.
RisenMessiah Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 1:57 pm
See the problem with all this hard money fantasy crap is that it overlooks two, oft-disregarded historical realities.
1) Hard currency really doesn’t matter if your government allows you to purchase land using paper currency as the United States did for nearly it’s entire history until 1976. Andrew Jackson, listening to Western advocates like Thomas Hart Benton tried to reverse this policy and instead triggered the worst depression (arguably) of the 19th century.
2) Inflation can no longer be controlled by interest rates, because the 1872 Mining Act allows all American citizens to stake claims on public land. Now every time there’s a flake of gold in a river there will be pandemonium as people try to get to it. Mining companies, meanwhile, won’t allow a reversal of the Act because it would require them to pay severance fees….
Beta Magellan Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
Looks like someone’s sarcasm detector’s out of whack…
RisenMessiah Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
Nonsense… Richard is always being sarcastic… :-)
Alon Levy Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 6:57 pm
I was hoping the seasteading reference would make the sarcasm obvious. I was debating including a line about how awful women’s suffrage is, but I don’t know that everyone is familiar with Peter Thiel’s antics.
For the record, I’m a Krugmanian Keynesian.
Robert can object to Ralph Vartabedian’s reporting, but the the LA Times editorial page, is still pro HSR. Whether that will ever change is up in the air, but articles like this certainly cast more and more doubt about why this project should be allowed to proceed.
The LA Times has a circulation of over !,000,000 on Sundays and carries a large influence.
In 2008 when the Times came out for Prop 1A, it no doubt was the reason why the measure passed.
Soon we shall see the new business plan, which according to Lynn Schenk is the Authority’s last chance to make sure the project will be built. Of, course, all of a sudden we don’t know what will be built, with all this talk of a “shortened” project and certainly no more funds on the horizon to extend the proposed ICS or even bring it up to HSR standards.
joe Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 9:08 am
There is NO inconsistency in LA Times Editorial support for HSR AND Ralph Vartabedian disparaging HSR in Bakersfield.
In fact I’d expect the goal is to get Bakersfield to balk and have the HSR system start and build out around — LA!!
Wad Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
True dat.
The editorial page and news desks in most newspapers are separate and independent, and neither side leans on the other to write a certain way.
Although, if your paper is edited by Jill Stewart, that’s another matter entirely. :>
“While I support the missions of these churches, you know what would help more than blankets? Jobs.” BRILLIANT!
A bit off topic but nonetheless relevant to ridership :: I traveled on the Surfliner last night from LAX -> SAN and it was standing room only (or sitting on the floor in my case). I’ve taken that route many times and have never seen it that busy. We happened to be on one of the older model train sets without dual levels and I think that exacerbated the problem. The ride was rather chaotic and we found out that Amtrak guarantees “rides” not seats. Reminded me of some of the local trains in Europe that become absolutely packed at peak times. Due to some work on the tracks south of San Juan Capistrano we had to board buses at IRV and were driven directly to SAN. It was a bit of a mess.
francis Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 10:35 am
I remember it being standing room only 4 years ago on the Surfliner… not sure how they manage to keep growing ridership. At least the bar car didn’t run out of beers!
wu ming Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 1:47 pm
this sort of thing is why taiwan built its HSR line, because everything else was nearing capacity.
Some relevant documents from previous discussion are :
1) Some maps of proposed alignment in Bakersfield (CARRD excerpt): http://www.calhsr.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/West-Bakersfield-Impact-2.pdf
The train would go through churches (see list) and schools and slice neighborhoods in half with retaining walls and viaducts.
On the last page of the document, you will see it going through what looks like open fields – this is supposed to be http://www.commonsensebakersfield.com/ and then some buildings which are a series of new medical buildings, including a hospice facility.
2) The Bakersfield city council comments are also worth reading. Methinks they are preparing for battle: http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/high_speed_rail/DEIR-EIS%20Packet%20to%20HSR%2010-13-11.pdf
3) The original study that ended with recommendation for downtown station. (http://www.kerncog.org/docs/hsr/HSR_Terminal_200307.pdf At that time the thinking was, “”Right of way acquisition appears relatively simple and displacement of businesses would be minimal.”
4) There is a major freeway project that is relevant to this discussion (speak about cumulative impacts) http://www.bakersfield.com/news/business/growth/x43486044/Future-freeway-route-through-Bakersfield-gets-update There are 3 routes on the table – two of which look very bad for neighborhoods. The third would have significant conflicts with HSR. Project home page: http://www.bakersfieldfreeways.us/project_centennial_corridor.html
morris brown Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 9:50 pm
Comments by the public and staff from the 9/28/2011 council meeting can be viewed at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vPppbGssYw
This is all relevant to the EIR, but the ICS which the Authority is now proposing to build will be well short of Bakersfield, unless they suddenly change their plans.
BTW, the Authority has just posted the agenda for the Nov 3rd meeting on their website.
Jarrett Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 10:39 pm
Thanks for pointing out the double standard the city and many communities have along the route. Freeway and road binges are perfectly ok, even if they slice through farmland and established neighborhoods while dumping more vehicles onto local streets. HSR is evil, however. It doesn’t matter that the structures are much smaller than freeways, the noise impacts less, and the traffic impact much much smaller. The same thing exists along the Peninsula; busy, noisy at-grade roads are necessary through neighborhoods but trains must be tunneled deep underground and out of sight.
Yesterday’s Times story was so-bad-it’s-funny bad. The article failed at what it was intending.
The writer probably thought this was an opportunity to interpret the story as “Big-city train threatens the way of life of Dogpatch” and forced the angle. He even quoted a fire-and-brimstone preacher in the center of the story.
I’m wondering if a quote from a farmer saying “The choo-choo’s done gonna make my moo-cows go dry” was cut from the bottom.
He raises the point about Bakersfield High School, built in 1893, and CHSRA wanting to take the Industrial Arts Building. Well, the high school is still going to be there. As for the Industrial Arts Building, if it gets knocked down, the school will get money to build a replacement building. The train authority never said the program had to disband.
The campus already sees trains rumble by. So the people are familiar with the concept of trains. And a viaduct means trains won’t kill the students. Besides, I don’t think the design actually calls for the train to be literally embedded atop the school’s structure, as the principal thinks.
A point left out of the article intentionally: Bakersfield is no dogpatch. It’s the 9th largest city in California and has seen double-digit population growth in the past few decades. There’s a reason the train has to go there: Because the ridership is there.
In other news, in this case for the political junkies, TEA Party and Occupy Wall Street see common ground:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/for-tea-party-and-occupy-wall-street-movements-some-common-ground/2011/10/18/gIQAkIg07L_story.html
Whom do Americans hate more? Corporations or Congress?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-do-americans-hate-more-washington-or-wall-street/2011/10/19/gIQA3Do83L_story.html
More opinions on the Occupy crowd:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/occupy-wall-street-protests-and-the-decline-of-the-west/2011/10/10/gIQAst1NaL_story.html
D. P. Lubic Reply:
October 24th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
One more item–and that’s enough political stuff for one day!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/why-occupy-wall-street-wants-nothing-to-do-with-our-politicians/2011/10/21/gIQAc2wT3L_story_1.html
About the generational shift–it looks to be global, or at least shared with Great Britain and Japan (which is where it was noticed first):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/25/end-of-motoring
Precisely what benefits do you see for High Speed Rail?
“Even though freight trains already lumber not far from the campus, these elevated trains could rocket by on a viaduct at up to 220 mph every five minutes, eye level with the school library and deafening the stately outdoor commons where students congregate between classes.”
Nope, Nope, Nope
Passing through town, these trains will not be traveling 220, closer to 150-160. The tracks in Bakersfield will be elevated 60-80 feet past the campus, the library is not perched atop a 6 story building on campus, so it certainly won’t be eye-level, and trust me, I work down the street from BHS, the rumbling freight trains and horns are much more disruptive than the 4-5 seconds that an HST will be passing the campus. Scare tactics!