Passenger Rail Is Inherently Political
I’ve been focused on the political and the media reaction to the 2012 Business Plan all week, meaning I’ve not been as attuned to the other discussions happening around the transportation blogs on the plan and the high speed rail project. But it’s apparently time to start paying some attention, given the debate that is heating up among transportation bloggers.
Over at Forbes, Stephen Smith has a post titled The Day the Engineers Turned Against California HSR. It calls out this blog directly:
The first signs of discontent came the night before the plan was officially released, from the commenters at Robert Cruickshank’s California High Speed Rail blog, who tend to be of a much more “technical” variety than Robert himself. Commenter Beta Magellan said that the blog’s “cheerleading’s really getting to me,” and that it “doesn’t help” the cause of high-speed rail (“cheerleading” was a word that a lot of commenters used). Joseph E. said that he may no longer read the blog, and Jack wrote that though he “love[s] this project to death,” he “just can’t see how it’s politically possible at this cost.” I’ll spare you the rest, but suffice it to say, these three readers were not alone in their skepticism.
I thought it was clear, but perhaps it wasn’t: I’ve always been a cheerleader for the high speed rail project. That’s why this blog exists. In early 2008, I saw a lot of unfounded skepticism and misinformation in the media about the project but no real pushback. So I started the blog with the intention of pushing out pro-HSR talking points and analysis that would show why the project is a good idea, as well as assess the project planning from the perspective of a supporter. I do not hide my pro-HSR bias. I try to ensure my commentary is based in fact and evidence (partly because the opposition usually isn’t) and allow people to decide for themselves.
Smith’s overall point was to suggest that rail supporters who emphasize the technical aspects of things have decided that HSR doesn’t make sense as a project any more:
Everyone, that is, except the engineers. I don’t mean actual engineers, but rather the “technical” transit activists that Alon Levy has identified before. Technical transit activists stand in opposition to the “politicals,” which include most mainstream transit advocates and the majority of transit blogs, especially the (relatively) well-financed ones. They tend to be the most boosterish, and view funding rather than competence as the main obstacle to good transit. The technicals, on the other hand, often come from math and hard science backgrounds (Alon is a math PhD and Richard Mlynarik is a pedigreed hacker), and are much pickier about which projects they support.
He’s referring to an important post from Alon Levy back in June titled Politicals vs. Technicals: the Primary Division of Transit Activists. I’ve been meaning to write about it since then, so now is a good time to do so.
Alon correctly identified this blog as a classic example of a “political” transit blog and myself as a classic example of a “political” transit advocate. And he understood that while we don’t place the technical concerns at the forefront of our analysis, neither are we blind to them:
Conversely, being political does not mean ignoring everything other than the effort to get projects built. Although the politicals are less picky about what projects to support (Bruce McF once referred to the position that only true high-speed rail be funded, rather than medium-speed lines such as the since-canceled 110 mph Ohio Hub plan, as another form of HSR denialism), they often do care about alignment and regulatory choices. For example, opposition to security theater on trains is universal. The difference is that they subsume them into the main political fight, treating them as less important issues, or just believe that truly incompetent decisions such as airline-style security will not happen. Insofar as the government’s statements on train security send mixed signals, they may be right; on the other hand, the FRA’s self-reforms are half-baked.
But there’s a deeper set of points I want to make here, and the title of this post suggests where I am going. Passenger rail projects are inherently political. Since we live in a democracy, decisions about what to build and where to build it are ultimately political decisions that are made in a political process. Technical considerations such as ridership, design and cost play a big role in that process and in making those decisions. But politics can also override those considerations.
It drives “technicals” crazy when that happens. The classic case is the BART to SFO extension. It was a political project that didn’t necessarily fill the top transit need in the Bay Area, but got done because a lot of people with power wanted it done. The design was politically influenced – expensive tunnels to appease NIMBYs, a bizarre wye into SFO that has made it very difficult to actually use the extension easily, and a financing scheme that is best described as Byzantine, producing such outcomes as a $4 fare to go from Millbrae to SFO station (a distance of maybe a mile).
But here’s the thing: even a well-designed, affordable project that will have sky-high ridership isn’t going to get built if it does not have political support. High speed rail survives because it has that support – from the state government and from the US Senate and the White House. And polls suggest Californians still support the project.
“Technicals” believe that this support is eroding, or will erode, because of design and financing problems. Alon Levy is suggesting that he’ll oppose the project because of cost overruns:
Unless they cut the costs, I don’t see how I can continue to support the project. The initial construction segment, useless as it is on its own, is fine; the question is whether it stakes the territory for a very expensive future extension, or for one with reasonable cost. Since I doubt they’ll be able to get any additional money until they connect to the LA Basin except from the federal government and even then it will be a small number of billions, I think it’s the latter option. But the rest should be scrapped and restarted unless the construction costs drop dramatically. I would peg the maximum that the project can cost before it should be canceled, on the outside, at $60 billion or so in today’s money. This assumes timely construction – waiting decades with rapidly depreciating track hosting limited service makes the situation worse. The only consolation I have is that no matter what, the other projects they could spend the money on if CAHSR is canceled are even worse. And this says more about those other projects than about CAHSR.
Here’s the issue, though: Alon’s concern with cost is not really a technical concern. It’s a political concern.
In Yonah Freemark’s post on the business plan he led off with this important chart:
In short, California HSR would cost just 0.18% of the state’s GDP over the next 22 years. That’s pocket change. Even at the high-end estimate of $98 billion it’s still a tiny fraction of a $42 trillion GDP (total for 22 years). And considering the green dividend, which suggests HSR may pay for itself, the cost of HSR is even more clearly affordable. Interestingly, the green dividend is something that “technicals” as well as econometrists have never really paid much attention to, at least from what I can tell.
So why would a cost overrun on HSR risk Alon Levy’s support for the project? Because he is making a political judgement that cost inflation is bad. Maybe he feels it’s bad politics, maybe he personally thinks that higher costs are inherently bad. It’s his right to make that conclusion. But let’s keep in mind that’s a subjective, not objective, standard.
Look again at Yonah’s chart. The state of California could easily absorb $98 billion over 20 years to build HSR. That’s about $2 billion a year. Some may argue that the state is “broke” or that spending on HSR necessarily takes away from other spending priorities.
But that too is a political conclusion. The state government may be “broke” but the state as a whole remains incredibly wealthy. Billions of dollars are routinely left on the table, untaxed, sitting in the bank accounts and asset values of the 1%. There is nothing at all stopping California from getting that money. It’s not easy, given the obnoxious 2/3 rule, but it can be done.
And even if the HSR project were to die tomorrow, California would still face a health care crisis, a jobs crisis, a housing crisis, and an education crisis. Over $10 billion has been cut from K-12 education alone since 2009 and killing the HSR project won’t bring that money back or solve the state’s structural revenue shortfall.
There’s nothing “technical” in assuming we can’t go get more money. In fact, we’re going to have to do that in order to build even half of the transit infrastructure we all agree is needed. I would submit to the “technicals” that transit is doomed under the current situation, unless and until we consolidate and expand the current level of public support for transit.
In California, that support is both wide and deep. Voters in Los Angeles, Santa Clara, Sonoma and Marin counties all approved tax increases in 2008 to fund passenger rail – and did so by the 2/3 margin. It didn’t happen because the proposals were as technically strong as they needed to be, and in fact LA County’s Measure R includes money for idiotic and wasteful things like a $1 billion freeway widening in La Mirada and the widening of the 405 through the Sepulveda Pass.
Those initiatives, and Prop 1A for high speed rail, passed because Californians understood the big picture. They saw gas prices soaring. They saw freeways choked with traffic. They saw a better future through transit and rail and they voted for it in huge numbers.
The big picture, which I keep referring to, is one of economic crisis stemming from dependence on expensive oil. That isn’t just a reason to continue supporting HSR. It’s an explanation for why the project will continue to have support and life. And it’s why, in the end, people are not actually as sensitive to costs as they say they are. If the public can be convinced a project is a good idea, they will support it, even if the project isn’t perfect or necessary. And they’ll support it even in the face of rising costs.
Many “technicals,” as far as I can tell, espouse a neoliberal politics. That means they prefer technical or market-oriented solutions to problems of public policy, believing that data and markets can make better decisions than politicians and voters. They seek “efficiency” and dislike waste. Subsidized operations offend their values.
Thing is, neoliberalism doesn’t actually have a political base. People do not support transit because they see it as efficient, they support it because they think it would benefit them and make their lives better. There was a good discussion across the political blogs over the summer about neoliberalism’s lack of a political base, with this from Crooked Timber being a good example:
Hence, it’s a problem if neo-liberalism doesn’t have a theory of politics. This not only means that it can’t think about long-term change in any coherent or useful way; it means that neo-liberals have difficulty thinking about the interactions between short-term policy proposals that they like and the political conditions that might make these and other proposals achievable, and sustainable after they have been brought through.
All theories are flawed – but they provide a necessary guide to action. Lefties have a clearly discernible theory of politics, which has to do with collective action, and the building and sustenance of mobilizing organizations. Netroots-style partisans also have a theory, which has to do with the expansion of party structure and organization, and the punishment of politicians who deviate needlessly from the party line. But neo-liberals – not so much, apart from a historical belief in the power of technocratic discussion to reshape politics. This not only means that they are less effective than they should be, but that they may push for policies that do long term political damage. Neo-liberals’ dislike of labor unions in the 1980s was doubtless partly justified – but they didn’t seem (as best as I’ve read the debates) to be at all interested in the question of whether strong unions helped alleviate inequality, sustain the political conditions of embedded liberalism.
In other words, neoliberal approaches to policy don’t actually produce the public support for anything to get done. Perhaps that’s one reason why so many of the people Alon Levy defines as “politicals” are typically progressives. We are interested in building a political base for what we want. We I don’t really care a lot about “efficiency” or even “cost” because we know there’s an enormous pool of untapped financial resources under the control of the 1% that can fund what we want, and we know that all “efficiency” has accomplished is high unemployment and government services that don’t deliver what they once did.
(Note: edits above were made because I shouldn’t speak for anyone but myself here.)
And we I also don’t care a lot about those things because in the end they just don’t really motivate people to act. After all, most people who criticize or oppose HSR in California do so because they either live near the proposed route or because they have an ideological opposition to passenger rail (and in some cases it’s both). Most of us who support HSR can make a strong evidence-based case for it. But we also back it because our assessment of the big picture is that HSR is essential for California to prosper in the 21st century. And we suspect that it will survive politically because more Californians agree with us than with the critics.
Political support can also open the space to solve technical problems, and of course to solve financial problems. Us “politicals” may make decisions and support things that drive the “technicals” nuts. I get that. But we also create the room and the ability for the “technicals” to get anything done at all. They’ll have to compromise at times for the sake of politics, and while that can be annoying, that’s also the price we pay of living in a democracy.
I don’t intend this post as any kind of attack on the “technicals” – I want a well-designed project as much as anyone. When the bullet trains finally roll from Transbay Terminal to Union Station, I want them to be able to achieve high speeds and get me there in a short amount of time in comfort. We all want that, and good planning and design is essential to how we get there. And I’m the first to admit I’m neither an engineer nor a planner, and I’m happy to listen to ideas on how to build the project.
But let’s not forget this is an inherently political project. It is going to happen not because it is cheap on its own, but because we know it’s cheaper than the alternatives (why spend $170 billion on freeways and airports when one can spend a lot less on HSR?) and because we know that the underlying need for sustainable transportation in this state is strong.
Your whole argument seems to rest on the idea that Californians are willing to pay whatever it takes (let’s call it $65 billion in 2011 dollars) to build this thing, so who cares how much it costs.
But there’s one big flaw in your argument: The money has not yet been appropriated.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
November 5th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
There is absolutely an upper limit on what Californians are willing to pay. I do not know what it is. I don’t think anyone knows what it is. But I don’t think it’s $74 billion or even $98 billion, especially when the alternative is closer to $170 billion.
True, the money has not yet been appropriated. But what I like about the business plan is it shows how we get there from here. It won’t actually take that much more federal funding to get from the Initial Construction Segment to the Initial Operating Segment. From there it will snowball – private money steps up, voters become willing to open their wallets more, or some combination of the two.
Ultimately I suspect we will see a very different federal funding picture by the end of this decade – something closer to the system that built the interstates – but we’re certainly not there yet.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 8:24 am
Robert, the amount of total funding currently required for an IOS is 2010$21.4 billion or YOE$27.2 billion, both excluding money for the ICS. This requires about YOE$21 billion of non-1A money.
As for the alternative, the reason they escalated it from $100 billion is that they’re assuming that since HSR is going to be constructed more slowly than initially planned, so would the highways. So, if they can delay the highways, why not cancel them? Why does California need to spend money on transportation and not UC or its Prop 13-choked public schools?
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 2:48 pm
If the state’s population grows, it’ll have to provide them a way to get around.
If the price of oil keeps rising, we will have to find an alternative.
Both are as essential to the economy as funding K-12 education. I continue to reject the premise that to tackle one priority means we necessarily abandon the others.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 3:32 pm
If you can repeal Prop 13 and raise the state income tax, you’ll be my personal hero.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 2:56 pm
:-) Let’s be clear: raise the upper-bracket state income tax. Some other states have “cleverly” raised income taxes on people making less than $30,000 / year while lowering income taxes on people making upwards of $1,000,000 / year. *That* is simply bad policy.
paul dyson Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
“Getting around” is mostly about what people need to do every day, work, school etc., not one end of the state to the other. We are not in desperate need of this system, there is plenty of airport capacity, what we need is regional and urban systems that people would use every day.
PD
joe Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 8:52 pm
Airport capacity is a huge problem which is why for profit airlines and CA airports support HSR. Airlines want a system to funnel travelers to/form their airports and free up limited gate space for longer, more profitable trips.
Yes, HSR doesn’t help me bring my 6 year old to grade school every day.
Wow I’ve been quoted. I’m the most grammatically challenged enthusiast here and he picked mine??
“I” don’t mind the cost of HSR in California, I would rather my taxes go to this project than roads and airports. I like most other supporters were just taken aback at the final number presented. It seems that the political will hasn’t diminished as I originally thought.
I have also noticed a marked decrease in postings by our anti-train pals Morris and Liz.
Oh and Cheerleaders 4tw!
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
November 5th, 2011 at 4:59 pm
Yeah, there’s no doubt there was some sticker shock. But it seems project supporters still back it anyway. And that’s very politically important.
Stephen Smith Reply:
November 5th, 2011 at 5:13 pm
You call it “the final number presented,” I call it “the latest number presented.”
Tony D. Reply:
November 5th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
And there will perhaps be a “latest number presented” for the $170 billion alternative as well.
VBobier Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 5:56 am
Yep, It will most likely go in only one direction, UP…
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 3:01 pm
Railroad costs have been coming in below estimates lately, thanks to the recession. Bids have been below estimates generally, New York City excepted (and it *is* a special case).
Highway expansion costs still seem to be escalating, though highway repair costs are also running below estimates. I’m not entirely sure why, but I think current highway expansion programs involve a *huge* amount of fancy bridge work, for which there is a smaller supply of talent than for “ordinary” heavy construction. And perhaps current highway widenings are taking expensive land, relative to earlier widening, because the highways are so huge already..
I like the bridge theory of cost escalation, because prices in all heavy construction seem to be very much based on the number of bridges (and tunnels). Though prefab bridge segments save a lot of money, and long straight viaducts can often be done with prefab bridge segments.
This is an interesting, though-provoking article. I might just analyze it this weekend and publish my first blog post somewhere.
joe Reply:
November 5th, 2011 at 9:38 pm
And I read it on troll.usenet.org.
By the way, at what point does the future become too expensive to invest in? Be it HSR, roads, airports..whatever. At some point in the future does progress just stop?
synonymouse Reply:
November 5th, 2011 at 7:59 pm
BART to SFO and Stilt-A-HSR certainly are birds of a feather and some of the same functionaries were involved in both. For them there is most definitely no price too high.
The existence of a private sector is what makes our local political machine so profligate. If there were essentially no private enterprise, such as in classical Fidel Cuba, the government would be grimly aware of revenue limits. I think Pelosi-world will have to morph all the way to Hugo-world for this lesson to be learned.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 5th, 2011 at 8:04 pm
There’s an island called Cuba on your planet too?
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 5th, 2011 at 8:19 pm
Alternately, at what point does a country, a culture, give up and die?
As a steam railroad enthusiast and a general throwback character, I am also an amateur historian of the Depression and WW II eras. The latter was, as some have suggested, the ultimate “economic stimulation” that finally ended the Depression. It did come with huge deficits, however, that in terms of ratios to GDP dwarfed much of what we see now, but I don’t think many people worried too much about that–not when you considered the blackened, nightmarish alternative world that could follow. You look at the glimpses we had of that world, of the concentration camps, of what we now call “ethnic cleansing,” and you should get chills to realize just how close we came to a modern dark age.
I think we face a similar situation today, but this time the enemy is not a military power or collection of military powers that can be defeated in the normal sense. Rather, it is the end of the cheap oil era and everything that depends on it. Armed conquest of oil lands only delays the inevitable; alternative energy supplies, or alternative ways of powering cars, have severe limitations compared with gasoline and diesel engines, and in any event I think we have long been at the limit of regular automobile performance. This performance is limited by engine operating temperatures, which are currently at limits for metal engines (to go higher calls for engines of ceramic materials, which don’t take too well to all the mechanical stresses involved), and to the limits of driver ability (How many auto drivers would you trust at much higher speeds than what we drive at now? How many are trustworthy at even lower speeds than we drive at now?)
No to HSR? And while we are at it, no to light rail, to long distance rail, to railroad electrification? To call for that is to call for us to fight more oil wars, to call for that is to also feed terrorists and others who have various reasons, both real and imagined, to hate us. To call for that is to condemn us to scrape and scrimp to get ourselves to where we need to go, to threaten the delivery of freight including food, to condemn us, as we age, to attempt to use a vehicle which we may be unfit to operate.
The alternative to this and other rail projects and a general turning away from the status quo is to support a position that is unsustainable. The question really should be, do we alter our land and ourselves to this oil-constrained world in a way that is pleasant and civilized–borrowing a lot from the best of the 1940s era–or do we let ourselves devolve into a world that resembles not that of the Mad Max films, but that of modern Haiti?
In short, is this something we can afford not to build?
StevieB Reply:
November 5th, 2011 at 8:44 pm
I guess you did not hear that The John Birch society announced “So vast are the newly discovered reserves and so powerful are the new technologies in discovering and exploiting them that some are estimating total energy independence for North America by 2035.” Citing a National Petroleum Council report this week the article contends that oil shale in Canada and natural gas in the USA have in the last 4 years changed the energy outlook and offer supply for decades. Conservatives poo-poo the idea of oil scarcity.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 5th, 2011 at 9:04 pm
Whooee!! Those guys should quit smoking that other stuff, or drinking that bad stuff, or whatever they are into. They would do well to look at one of their own responses:
“Yes, the US oil industry is experiencing a boom. Oil went from $20/barrel in 2000 to near $100/barrel now. That massive increase in oil price made many previously uneconomical oil fields economic. So they are now drilling the up. That should not be surprising to anyone.
“However, to draw such grand conclusions from this is folly. You don’t seem to understand the basic tenet of Peak Oil . . . Peak is is NOT about ‘running out of oil’. It is about production slowing due to geological AND ECONOMIC factors. Although domestic production has increased, domestic consumption has been flat. Why? Because people can [not] afford the oil.
“And all this new production is not bringing prices down . . . it can’t. This production is only possible BECAUSE of the high prices. If oil were to drop to $40/barrel, this production would dry up because it requires high prices to be economical.
“Peak is not a ‘myth’, it is a fact. The only fact needed to prove that peak oil will happen is that oil is a finite commodity (which it is). So unless you believe in abiotic oil nonsense, you too are a peak oil believer. The only argument is to when it occurs.
“So all your hyperbole is frankly embarrassing. It is misleading rhetoric. You’ve got the standard sophistry such as conflating oil with natural gas. You ever try to fill your car with natural gas?”
And of course, one of the problems with oil is that it is a true global product, in a true global marketplace, in the hands of true multinational, global enterprises.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0–Q9_KmAY
StevieB Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 1:25 am
It is not just the extreemists at The John Birch society but Clifford Krauss at New York Times and Daniel Yergin at the Washington Post that have excited oil enthusiasts with tales of new north american energy reserves. Who is the general public to believe when major newspapers publish long articles on petroleum increases? The US is addicted to plentiful oil consuming more than any nation and continuing consumables is just what the public wants to hear.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 3:08 pm
Right wingers went off into fantasy land a long time ago.
I think Reagan’s claim that cutting taxes would raise government revenue was the first clear sign of mental illness. But now they deny global warming, deny evolution, believe in abiotic oil, and have mostly turned to listening to charismatic snake-handlers and awaiting the rapture (not that there’s anything wrong with snakes).
And in economics! The competent economists — of several schools – have been pointing out that the “neoclassical” economists (who dominate most big businesses and most governments) are aggressively ignoring reality in favor of their fantasyland mathematics. Now, I think fantasyland mathematics is *fun*, but mistaking it for the real world is a really bad idea. And these neoclassical “economists” are largely responsible for providing the intellectual excuse for the idiotic deregulation, gambling, and thievery which led to the current Great Depression.
It’s just a fact of our current situation that right-wingers (I refuse to call them “conservatives”, because they aren’t conserving anything) are delusional. It’s rather hard to deal with, though. Especially when right-wingers infest both parties.
VBobier Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 6:03 am
That should be Tar Sands I think, some are against the pipeline for It, It will only delay what has to be done and that should be started in 2012…
Jonathan Reply:
November 5th, 2011 at 9:34 pm
California will always carry on.
$98 billion seems a lot today, but not so when there will be an additional 15 million Californians by 2033 joining us in funding this project. We wouldn’t need HSR, if the population growth never materializes. Even with HSR in revenue service , it is likely that airports and highways will be even more congested due to unmet demand (or induced demand when congestion is relieved).
We can’t have a vote for those future Californians in 2033 to decide if we need HSR. That’s why we need to go to work in building it today.
wu ming Reply:
November 5th, 2011 at 11:22 pm
when one retires, goes on a fixed income, realizes one will not live long enough to suffer personally from a defunded future, and begins to spend most of one’s time complaining about these goddamned kids and their music.
VBobier Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 6:05 am
I’m already on a fixed income and It isn’t really adequate, not unless I don’t have 3 meals a day and only have 2 or maybe 1 a day.
“And polls suggest Californians still support the project.” You are citing polls from April 2010 as “still”??? How about the Probolsky poll, or Senator Simitian’s intentionally unbiased poll? They both concluded that Californians don’t want HSR anymore, and they had strikingly similar numbers. Simitian’s poll further asked about support if the cost and source of funds were uncertain. 2 to 1 said no to the project under those conditions. Remember, folks, his is that Democrat-dominated district.
Any CA politician thinking about a future election should do a similar survey to cover their butts.
Oh, and citing BART SFO as an example of why it’s okay to have politically motivated projects is mind boggling. Just for you, Robert. Share them with your friends.
joe Reply:
November 5th, 2011 at 9:37 pm
Prop1A passed 2:1 in all three counties feeding his district. Opinion polls are awesome – especially the ones that support a politician’s predilections. He’s getting his money’s worth.
Joe opposes HSR as planned yet he is an avid supporter of public transport and wants HSR done right. That means he gets to do nothing in 2012; Sends CA to re-plan and give the 2012 money back – blame someone else.
Joe also supports Caltrain to reduce congestion and major employers rely on Caltrain to attract employees and meet EIR guidelines for their expansions. Good luck. It runs a deficit, it has no dedicated funding and needs a Billion to electrify.
If Joe is running against this HSR project and, out of the other side of his mouth, talk up rail and Caltrain – fine. That is the exact do nothing politician who is at risk in 2012.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 8:17 am
Prop 1A passed 52-48 nationwide. Do not ever forget that.
And Caltrain needs $100 million to electrify, going by Auckland/Sables d’Olonne costs. Going by CAHSR writ large costs, make it $250 million before the overrun. $1-1.5 billion is pure graft.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 8:26 am
Statewide, not nationwide. I wish they’d had nationwide HSR pass 52-48.
joe Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 6:44 pm
Pretty large margin considering Prop1A’s HSR system services a subset of the State.
wu ming Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 9:51 pm
a pretty big subset, though. SF+peninsula+SJ+central valley+LA+OC is the vast majority of the state’s population, and when you bring the phase II merced-sac and LA-SD legs, it’s nearly all the people in CA.
Arthur Dent Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Don’t forget that people voted for the language and promises and safeguards that were in Prop 1A. They did not vote for any rail, any speed, anywhere, at any cost and in any timeframe. The latest business plan does not describe Prop 1A as approved by the voters.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 3:34 pm
I honestly have no idea about the legality of what’s going on; I’ll leave it to the lawyers to thrash out. I’m talking about the politics of it. My guess is that if a repeal ballot prop goes on the ballot in 2012, it’ll win by a small margin. (And my guess is that Robert knows this, which is why he’s so adamant about securing political support no matter what. If he were confident he’d win 75-25, he’d act differently. For the record, the same is true of me if I were in his position.)
Tony D. Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 6:20 pm
Hopefully it’s not just a repeal ballot but rather redirecting the $10 billion to transit, commuter rail improvements in NorCal/SoCal (Caltrain, ACE, BART, Metrolink, Surfliner, etc). Moving folks regionally should now be the priority; state connectivity to come later.
Joey Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 6:31 pm
Local and regional transport certainly do more to ease congestion, reduce emissions, and ease the burden of rising gas prices than intercity transport would.
joe Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 6:42 pm
How does local transportation reduce congestion on Hw 5?
paul dyson Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
There isn’t that much congestion on most of 5, only weekends. The worst parts would benefit more from regional rail than intercity.
Joey Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 10:01 pm
Urban freeways have much more of a congestion problem.
synonymouse Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 9:06 pm
If Prop 1A were threatened by a revote I am sure PB-CHSRA would be rolling out cheaper and varied alternatives. Too bad it takes that level of revolt to bring them back to earth.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 9:58 pm
If a repeal proposition goes on the ballot, they could write the entire anti-HSR campaign using verbatim quotations from C4HSR’s technical and strategic Thought Leaders extracted from right here on this interweb blog thing.
It’s comedy gold! And electoral gold!
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 3:10 pm
No. The support for passenger rail projects in general has been on a straight upward trend for well over two decades now. No repeal ballot would pass.
Something which claimed that it was redirecting the funds to other passenger rail projects *might* pass. A straight-up repeal would fail.
joe Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 6:51 pm
People voted for the Proposition, which starts a HSR system between LA and SF.
The anti-rail, pedantic, red tape, inefficient, and imposible interpretations of the Proposition’s conditions are exactly what voters think is wrong with their government.
wu ming Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 9:54 pm
politically, barely any voters give much of a damn about the details, they voted for a goddamned bullet train, one of them fancy ones like they got in france and japan. of those i know who voted for it, the only concern i hear is “why haven’t they built that damn train yet?” not quibbling over the routing or business plan whatevers.
then again, i don’t know anyone with a backyard abutting the route like nearly all the people making a stink about the HSR.
Derek Reply:
November 5th, 2011 at 9:43 pm
“With only six billion dollars committed, the project faces at least a 60 billion dollar shortfall.”
Ah, so the Probolsky poll was a push poll!
“If an election were held today to stop the proposed high speed rail project in California, would you vote yes, in favor of stopping California’s high speed rail project or no, against stopping California’s high speed rail project?”
I vote yes for high speed rail! Wait, I mean I vote no!
StevieB Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 10:55 am
Yes will usually get more votes in a poll than no. When the poll question starts with a paragraph describing the detriments without any benefits and asks if you are against this then the yes votes will be high. When the question is about something that most of the public has very little knowledge of then the listing of detriments will lead to an overwhelming vote in the direction the poll was designed for. I would expect a poll listing the benefits of high speed rail without listing detriments to have a much different result.
Arthur Dent Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 12:55 pm
From what I understand, Sen. Simitian’s poll simply asked if it were on the ballot again, how would you vote. The followup question asked if the cost and source of funds were uncertain, how would you vote. No positive or negative spin involved. That’s about as unbiased as you can get, while still giving him a sense of how his district feels based on the reality of the situation a couple months ago. 2 to 1 said no. (Not yes.)
StevieB Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 5:35 pm
So half those polled said they would vote for the project again but about 17% changed their minds when it was phrased to show doubt about funding. We can only speculate on how many would have said yes if the question were phrased to ask support if they knew that the cost of highways and airports to transport the same amount of people would cost twice as much. It would certainly be more yes than no.
joe Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
HSR opponents could NOT get their push poll’s language on the ballot.
Off topic, but an item that may be of interest to Synonymouse by virtue of similar age (and to me for, well, you can guess):
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32346&sid=c5bfa9423ca3a22cca4654e5d1c98683
synonymouse Reply:
November 5th, 2011 at 10:40 pm
Thanks, D.P.
The locomotive seems so much smaller than in photos of glory days. The tank looks great.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 5:49 am
Your welcome on this one.
By the way, the engine does look smaller because it is slimmer. It’s missing several inches of insulation on the boiler and the boiler jacket. Depending on the locomotive, that can be a layer of up to four inches, or eight inches for the boiler diameter. That’s the difference between what the “glory days” photos look like and the engine under overhaul now.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 6:08 am
She’ll be her fat boilered beautiful self when they get done.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
(1) I know many types of insulation are thinner than in days of yore. Are they using more modern, thinner insulation? Though I also know that asbestos is out, so some of the replacements for that are thicker than the asbestos was.
(2) What tracks are they planning to run this on? Railtours? Santa Fe Southern? Railrunner tracks? Heritage railway projects usually are more interesting when they actually run, and there do seem to be enough tracks in the area, but some of them have *very* modern signalling, which could be a problem.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:47 pm
(1) It’s my understanding that modern locomotive boiler lagging is either a calcium-based material that looks like the block asbestos, or it’s a high-temperature version of the fibreglass insulation used in many homes. In the case of some insulating materials being thinner than the traditional asbestos blocks, or in the case of not being rigid such as the fibreglass, a wooden skeleton or blocking is added between the boiler and the jacket to maintain the historically correct profile in the jacket.
(2) I’m not sure about where they intend to run the monster, but the two leading candidate routes I’ve heard about are the state-owned commuter line to Santa Fe, and, ironically, on the main line of the BNSF. The latter is the engine’s home road, of course, and the BNSF has been open to outside steam operations in the past, notably some of the excursions with ATSF 3751 out of San Bernadino (and one long trip years ago that took that engine to Chicago!), and virtually the entire excursion career of SLSF 1522. Indeed, in 2000, SP 4449 (the last surviving Daylight engine) ran a special for BNSF employees in a special black paint scheme with BNSF markings!
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=146050&nseq=470
Look out!! It’s Stilt-O-Rail on the BNSF, and in rust-prone steel, too!!
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=158773&nseq=452
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:58 pm
Who can blame us steam fans for loving these beauties so, especially when they look (and sound) as good as the classic 1522?
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=362728&nseq=1
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=145918&nseq=11
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
Older sister 3751 (built in the 1920s, and modernized twice in the 1940s), looking like she should, except for those !!@#$%&!! Amtrak diesels cut in behind her!
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=362507&nseq=2
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=323739&nseq=40
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 6:53 am
http://www.facebook.com/NMSX2926
http://nmslrhs.org/video%20etc/2926.wmv
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 3:38 pm
In other steamy news, the Strasburg Rail Road has been picking up a lot of freight business lately (and it often moves behind steam!), but modern cars are hard on track and on the line’s lone bridge. This bridge recently had to be replaced, and it’s interesting to see what this ancient short line road did:
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32309
Original bridge of stone and steel:
http://members.trainorders.com/mgoldman/NW%20475%20Bridge%20V%20TO.jpg
New bridge:
http://www.rypn.org/forums/download/file.php?id=3024
I wonder how much this cost the Strasburg?
Thanks for more images, but otherwise… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Completely agree that this blog is toooo political. It’s become absurd.
Further, the PRO argument for HSR has been toooo tooo centered on gas prices or oil. It is completely unbalanced. There are several other reasons with just as much merit. Or more. The problem with citing only that one argument – upon gas prices or oil – is that when that issue goes away, the PRO argument lost its legs and is left seeking support from elsewhere. Followers are confused. And skeptics then point to supporters as being schizophrenic or flip-floppers.
There is another new message board created for HSR. It might offer balance, but sparsely watched yet.
http://carail.yuku.com/directory
VBobier Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 6:26 am
Some say their for HSR done right, Question is: What is HSR done right? Is anyone here even remotely qualified in building a railroad, picking what amounts to the right route and the right form of the right of way support(piers[stilts], fill, etc, It depends on how firm the ground is) and of course grades up and down? Politics be dammed, It’s the economic health of a railroad and of the area the railroad goes thru that should come first, not politics.
BMF from San Diego Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 7:54 am
There is room for discussion located between Politics and Final Engineering. Such as Funding, Cost, Planning Phases, Project Phasing, Alignment, Implications to Wildlife, Tunnels, Station Locations, Service Pattern, Vehicles, Maintenance Facility Locations, etc.
That said, and with a bit of humility… Robert has encouraged me, and I’m sure others too, to write a blog post or two. For me…, my life has been a bit too filled to follow-up. Also a working thought…, I feel that some of the merit worthy material has more longevity than 1-3 days…. which is about the period a blog post here is at the top. It seems an investment in time on a post would be too short-lived. And the humility part… perhaps a blog that is updated every 1-3 days is best appropriate for the politics of the project, and not particulars about the project itself?
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Picking the right route on a large scale is a very difficult problem of economic prediction.
In the matter of grades, curves, right-of-way, and heavy construction, we actually do have a number of people who have a decent layman’s grasp of the issues. Though some of them think they know a lot more than they actually do.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 8:01 am
I’m always open to other posts on more technical topics if people want to submit them.
But keep in mind the purpose of the blog posts is not to be a neutral and dispassionate discussion of the HSR project. I founded this blog as way to bolster the project by providing analysis, discussion, talking points, and other things of that nature. People are always welcome to have a more wide-ranging discussion in the comments.
As to gas prices and oil, I believe it is central to everything. We are in an economic crisis primarily because we oriented our economic, financial, land use and transportation systems around oil. When oil was cheap this was somewhat workable. When oil became expensive the entire system blew up. Oil wasn’t the sole factor but I do believe it to have been the primary factor. And unless we develop alternatives to using it, the rising price of oil will continue to choke the economy and undermine any potential recovery.
I don’t quite know why people are so resistant to thinking about this. Perhaps it calls into question too much of the way modern American society is organized.
BMF from San Diego Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 9:21 am
Oil and gas will have its peaks and valleys as an issue. In those valley’s… then what?
IMO, when Oil/Gas is cited in these blog posts, the same discussion should cite other angles that support development of HSR. It need not be exhaustive. Just not silent.
The argument for HSR should not be schizophrenic.
StevieB Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 1:03 pm
All politics are local and the price of gasoline is something that the public can relate to because it directly affects their lives. When high speed rail proponents talk about better transportation between regions of the state facilitating business communication and commerce it is a vague benefit that is far from immediate. The benefits of concentration of population and business around stations while reducing sprawl will take generations and people want immediate benefits. Few take the very long term benefits of inter-city rail into consideration and look solely at the costs. That is why it is important to educate the public about benefits and relate it in a way that they can understand it affecting them. Oil is something people understand because most Californians buy gasoline and see the price is rising.
BMF from San Diego Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 3:26 pm
I never said people don’t understand it. What I said was that Oil/Gas as an issue… has its peaks and valleys as an issue. Meaning… in those valley’s, people care less. And when they do, the argument for HSR is weaker.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 2:49 pm
I provided a good short form of the argument on Thursday:
At least, I thought it was good.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 3:20 pm
The “valleys” are higher every time, so it doesn’t really matter; gas is never going to be cheap enough again for gas prices to NOT be an issue.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 3:19 pm
I agree that we should include arguments other than the price of gas & oil.
But that argument is NOT going to go away, because we’re at peak oil, and gasoline cars can’t be improved much, having hit some theoretical limits. (Small thermal engines are inherently inefficient.)
Although I do think battery-electric cars are coming, long-distance electric cars will not be affordable for the masses. Short-distance electric cars for driving around town will be affordable for the masses (and popular). Long-distance electric cars will be affordable for the top 10%, businesses who need them, and car enthusiasts who spend all their spare money on cars. But driving from Bakersfield to Fresno will be considered an expensive and undesirable operation in a gas car, and one which only the rich can afford to do in an electric car.
Therefore, we need long-distance electric rail.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
If you have decided to trade in the thermal engine car, gas, diesel, CNG, whatever, for an electric car with shorter range, driving someplace with a car you don’t have isn’t an option. Driving a 100 miles and then recharging makes for a very long trip. Unless they figure out how to shove a few hundred kilowatts into your car fast.
From Wikipedia: Gasoline contains about 35 MJ/L (9.7 kW·h/L, 132 MJ/US gal, 36.6 kWh/US gal) (higher heating value) or 13 kWh/kg.
Diesel is denser, about 40 kW per gallon.
I think that from the perspective of the “technicals,” what they want to see is a system that works as efficiently and effectively as it can. Even though that idea doesn’t work when trying to pass a ballot measure in an election, but we shouldn’t ignore their comments and their willingness to contribute.
Transit is a product/service, and voters have expectations in the outcome of their investment. Arguments for cutting traffic and greenhouse gases work to pass the first measure to fund the initial construction, but the outcome has to be something that will be well used. It won’t be well used if the system doesn’t take people from point A to B efficiently, and arguments for cutting traffic and greenhouse gases alone don’t be very effective in converting drivers to transit riders on a regular basis.
Likewise, there are many people who are willing to pay more for better schools, but that better school is an expectation. If the school performance doesn’t improve, then it could threaten future investment. The only major difference is that there’s no alternative to publicly funded schools for the majority of the folks, but in case of transit, most people aren’t taking it because they have access to automobiles.
So as a transit advocate, I closely look at details to make sure the outcome is as effective as it can, and oppose projects that look good from the pure political perspective yet likely won’t produce good outcomes in terms of attracting riders. I think most of us are that way in varying degrees. I support certain projects that are opposed by my peers that otherwise are in agreement on other projects.
Today most riders still give a benefit of doubt on supporting new rail projects, but no longer so with buses, which is and will be the main workhorse of transit with or without HSR. To confront the continuing decline of bus service over the years, we need to participate actively to make sure that the bus system is to be made more efficiently. Not only a better bus system would attract more riders, it would also generate more support for transit. Today there’s a lot of people saying that big buses are running empty through their neighborhoods, and they think that bus is not worthy of investment.
That attitude will eventually come to rail if somehow it fails to meet its performance goals. Today, all the light rail systems in California have extensions actively planned or under construction except VTA in Santa Clara County. The reason is that it lost political support because commuters find the light rail system to be slow and ineffective. Of course the same folks that got the light rail built in Santa Clara (including Rod Diridon) have worked or are working on other projects (including HSR) that also criticized by us the “technical” folks.
I still think that most people still support HSR, but not unconditional. I think us the “technical” folks can help them achieve a compromise that can deliver HSR despite a number of funding and technical constraints. My question to you is would you ignore us (and never question them) and expect that all those big picture arguments are enough to get continuing support to HSR?
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 8:11 am
And I agree that the details matter, and acknowledged that in the post. I did think about VTA light rail as I was brainstorming this post, and although I didn’t include it, you’re right that it shows the dangers of too strong a focus on the political over the technical. Although from what I can tell, the main issue there was an attempt to keep costs down. Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know enough about the reasons why the routes were chosen, but it is clearly an example of a system that did not get the technical aspects right and suffers politically for it.
As for HSR, I think we all want the same things – a system that is fast, reliable, goes where people want to go, and can get built in a reasonable amount of time without breaking the bank. Both myself and other HSR advocates have been regular participants in the planning process, making arguments for or against alignment and design choices based largely on their impact on the possible operations of the system.
One reason I have been skeptical of the “blended” proposal for the Peninsula is I felt it was a bad technical solution that was being done for solely political purposes that would undermine the quality of service – fewer trains, running slower, in mixed operation causing delays. And yet I understand that a short-term “blended” system to get trains from the Initial Operating Segment up to Transbay Terminal is probably a political necessity that I am grudgingly willing to live with.
My theory is that NIMBYism on the Peninsula is a product of a certain time and that once the current NIMBY generation leaves the stage, which will be around the time that gas prices become intolerably high and the “blended” HSR system is operational, there will be a new political space to finally build the Peninsula segment right. That people will look back at 2011 and say “wow, they made stupid decisions for stupid reasons, let’s just build a 4-track corridor and get it right this time.” I’m young, I’m willing to wait the NIMBYs out.
In any case, I should be clear that I’m not saying “politicals” have it all right. We need a project that meets the big picture in a way that is technically sound. I’m just not sure that “low cost” is necessarily part of the “technically sound” definition. There is an upper limit on what is reasonable to spend to build HSR. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t think it is $98 billion. The upper limit is probably some combination of the cost of doing nothing and a point where the spending actually gets so far out of whack that it undermines other priorities. But I don’t think we’re anywhere near either one, especially since funding public sector services isn’t a zero sum game and there is so much money going untaxed.
VBobier Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 8:27 am
No low cost is not always desirable, speed is important, but safety is more important, If that means the cost goes up here and there to maintain the desired speed, then so be It, hang the cost and build It already, It doesn’t mean the whole system will or should be expensive, but then nothing built, nothing gained.
StevieB Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 1:35 pm
I agree the Alain Enthoven generation on the peninsula is over 80 now and in 15 years when high speed rail construction there is scheduled to begin will be smaller. There are signs the incoming generation is more amenable to transportation options other than private automobiles.
Andy Chow Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
My feeling on the “blended” approach is the opposite. I think given the current political environment, I think it is important to get HSR into SF, even with operating constraints. If and when HSR requires to have those constraints to be removed, let the future generation to decide.
While I hope that the future would be more open to greater public expenditure, one thing that I think would be hard to change is able to have up or down vote on individual projects. Public spending has become more like consumer spending as ballot box budgeting is becoming more often.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Tearing down skyscrapers, much less iconic ones, is difficult and very expensive. They won’t have anyplace to put the new train station. They had the opportunity in the 90s and let it pass.
joe Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 9:13 pm
Peninsula residents live near high paying job centers. As gas prices rise, most, IMHO, will expect their property will appreciate with increased incentive and demand for living near work. location, location, location.
Also, good public transportation into the peninsula will draw jobs away from the area’s high cost of living and operating costs. Ignoring that the pie grows bigger, they recognize HSR can reduce their dominance.
High real-estate and job migration are incentives for the peninsula to oppose regional transportation.
Their incentive for improving transportation is keeping their quality of life as car density increases and local corporations struggle attracting and maintaining talent. The EIR for stanford hospital was approved by palo alto because it offered private subsidies for public transportation and 3.5 M for menlo park traffic mitigation. Plans for google and facebook expansions rely on free caltrain/VTA passes and private shuttles to mitigate car traffic.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 3:24 pm
“Keeping costs down” is a classic way of ending up with a badly designed system. You don’t want to gold-plate, either, but many of the worst designs, necessitating grossly expensive fixes after the fact, were driven by “keeping costs down”. Others were driven by NIMBYism, and others by YIMBYism (“detour it so it stops in my town of 200 people!”).
The issue of high energy prices is interesting. I am still a committed supporter of this investment in improved mobility and I think it is an enormous waste of money as well as a geopolitical mistake to spend $300B every single year on foreign oil, much of it going to countries hostile or indifferent to the US (Venezuela, Russia, Saudi Arabia). That said, however, there have been some recent changes and developments that should lead us to reassess our energy policy.
There are two recent editorials that should be required reading. In “Oil’s new world order,” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/daniel-yergin-for-the-future-of-oil-look-to-the-americas-not-the-middle-east/2011/10/18/gIQAxdDw7L_story.html) Daniel Yergin argues that because of new technology and the discovery of new reserves, we’ll be able to obtain most of our energy supply from the western hemisphere in the coming decades. Mr. Yergin writes about the deepwater oil fields off of Brazil, tar sands in Canada, and shale gas in the continental US. These are still largely dirty sources of energy and there are environmental risks with the three sources but Daniel Yergin writes that there is a large energy supply waiting for us.
Last Wednesday, David Brooks had an editorial in the NYT, “The Shale Gas Revolution” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/opinion/brooks-the-shale-gas-revolution.html), with abundant natural gas supplies in places like the northern plains states and Pennsylvania. Again, there are very real environmental hazards with fracking but this energy source produces about half of the carbon emissions as coal and is becoming extremely abundant.
Clearly, I think renewable energy and greater efficiency (including improved passenger rail and more extensive transit) are better policies but electricity from natural-gas fired power plants produce about half the carbon emissions as coal. Additionally, if we can move to electric vehicles powered in part by energy derived from natural gas, we’ll significantly improve our geopolitical position and stop spending $300B per year on foreign oil.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 7:08 am
It will improve travel safety, too.
Big car pileups aren’t restricted to the US:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS8mUp0mVhs
BMF from San Diego Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 8:00 am
Nah. Latent demand for driving will replace anyones shift from driving to riding. What rails do is provide more capacity. Capacity cannot be created in other modes to to insufficient land, demand for parking, and higher costs.
VBobier Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 7:09 am
And then there’s Canada, Foreign, Yes, Hostile, No, Our own pipeline through Alaska needs replacement as oil is corrosive I’ve read and I’ve not heard much on that since. Plus there’s the proposed Natural Gas Pipeline in Alaska that was supposed to go next to or near to the current pipeline…
Ben Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 7:18 am
With the tar sands pipeline, I’m concerned about the amount of emissions from this source of energy and the water required to produce each barrel of oil. Again, I think greater efficiency (such as the President’s decision to raise CAFE standards to 56 mpg) and more renewable energy are clearly preferable. That said, however, we are going to unfortunately still need oil for a long time. I rather get it from the Canadians, eh, that from Saudi Arabia or Venezuela. It takes little or no oil to transport crude via pipeline, compared with the amount of oil required to bring it by supertanker from the North Sea or Middle East. Additionally, as we saw with the Deepwater Horizon disaster, if something goes catastrophically wrong, it is easier to fix when it is oil obtained near the surface-level on ground than 5,000 feet below the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico.
VBobier Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 8:33 am
Canadians I trust too. So true, Anything within reach is oh so easier to fix. 56mpg is laudable, but some will choose to stay with what they already have, but then I can’t afford a new car and I don’t see Myself living in reach of HSR or any type of rail, My income is not adequate, so I’m stuck in a 1999 time warp.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 3:27 pm
Tar sands are net energy negative according to some studies — which means it actually costs more energy to get a barrel of oil out of the tar sands and delivered, than the energy contained in the barrel of oil.
This shows how ridiculously oil-dependent our society is, that it values energy in the form of oil over other forms of energy. We have *GOT* to get off of oil. Luckily, solar panel efficiencies are skyrocketing and prices are plummeting. Luckily, batteries are improving at a tremendous rate. We CAN get off of oil.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 8:15 am
Switching to natural gas and electric vehicles (which, for the record, have little benefit over gas-powered vehicles once you take charging inefficiency into account) is like smoking 1 pack a day instead of 3 when you’re pregnant.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 9:11 am
Charging is relatively efficient. If I remember correctly mid 80s outlet to wheels. But getting it to the outlet has it’s inefficiencies and the plant producing the power has it’s own. You have to do a well to wheel analysis on each option. For instance batteries are more efficient than making hydrogen and using the hydrogen in a fuel cell to make electricity… but then making hydrogen from electricity is a last resort kinda thing…
AndyDuncan Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 9:30 am
I agree that electrics are not the solution to congestion or city planning or road construction costs or any of the other issues cars cause outside of emissions, but even when powered by 100% natural gas-generated electricity, they’re much, much more efficient well-to-wheel than CNG vehicles. Burning natural gas in a turbine is tremendously more efficient than burning it in an ICE.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/greendorm/participate/cee124/TeslaReading.pdf
Alon Levy Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 5:02 pm
The Tesla is an unusually fuel-efficient vehicle. If you look at a well-to-wheel analysis of the Leaf or Volt, it looks very different. Those have no advantage over a Prius, which itself consumes about 33% less gas than a non-hybrid of equivalent size. So it’s actually worse than what I said – it’s like going down from 3 packs a day to 2.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 5:28 pm
They also conveniently forgot that converting the DC from the battery pack to AC for the motor isn’t 100% efficient and the motor itself, while it’s close to 100% efficient, isn’t. If it was it wouldn’t get warm.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 3:49 pm
OK, so that’s an unfair way to argue, Alon. When shown that an electric car is in fact more efficient than a gasoline car, you say “Well, that one’s an exception”.
The fact is that charging inefficiency is relatively small, contrary to your claims. I’ve run through the list of efficiency loses. In an electric car, the main losses are in battery efficiency (which I suppose you could call charging/discharging), which runs about 80% efficient, 20% lost, and in fossil-fuel-to-electric conversion (which can be avoided completely, but is in any case much more efficient in a large plant, and more efficient in a plant which can run off less-refined fuel).
The other losses are minor: line losses, transformers, AC-DC conversion, DC-AC conversion, all of these can be done with upwards of 90% efficiency overall, if you use good equipment. You can also use stupidly bad equipment (most computers use junky rectifiers) if you want to lose lots of energy in order to save a few pennies, but why do that?
In a gasoline car, the main loss is in the internal combustion engine, which is absurdly inefficient, on the order of 20% conversion, 80% loss to heat. After that, the main losses are in oil refining, which is quite inefficient as well.
In a serial hybrid, again the main losses are in the gas-powered electric generator. Small electric generators are more efficient than an ICE because they can run at optimal speed, but they’re still horribly inefficient compared to a large thermal plant.
Because of the inefficiency of the ICE, a Tesla is much more carbon-efficient per mile than an ordinary gasoline car even when powered by *coal*. And of course, it can be powered by non-fossil-fuel means. (I get all my electricity from renewable sources.)
The Volt is generally considered by electric car enthusiasts to simply be badly designed; carrying around a heavy and inefficient ICE *and* a large battery is not the best way to do things, and GM rarely gets anything right.
I’m curious what the problems are with the Leaf design, which seems generally pretty good, but I’ve heard it has a questionable charging design. And I know they failed to thermally manage the battery, which causes significant losses in the winter (they’re fixing that for next year’s model).
I am actually very suspicious of your claim that the Leaf has the same well-to-wheel efficiency as the Prius, which would require both exceptionally good Prius design and exceptionally bad Leaf design. Which may be the case; I suspect the higher curb weight of the Leaf accounts for a large part of it. But I’m still suspicious. If you’ve got a study, I’d like to see it.
But in any case, the Tesla designs are the future of electric cars, pretty clearly, and the other manufacturers are playing catch-up, so they’re the ones to use as a comparison point. Battery weights will drop (are already doing so), which increases efficiency as well.
On the whole, I agree with Andy Duncan. Battery-electric cars do nothing for congestion or city planning or road costs, and are far less efficient than running a full train (even on diesel), but they sure are more energy-efficient and carbon-efficient than fuel-powered cars. Of course their capital cost is much higher than fuel-powered cars as well (and although it will go down, that capital cost will remain higher).
Electric cars should not be considered substitutes for electric rail, they should be considered *complements*. How am I going to get to the intercity train station with all my luggage? That’s right, I’ll take my electric car. Or perhaps an electric taxi (electric drive is practically ideal for most taxis).
StevieB Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Switching to natural gas electric plants from coal fired plants is a green argument in favor of high speed rail. Natural gas is an improvement over coal while we await other alternatives to our dependence on oil.
wu ming Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 10:00 pm
yergin’s an idiot, and has been pilloried for years now at the oil drum for his repeated failed predictions of new oil production and drops in the price of oil since the long rise of prices and production plateau beginning in the early 2000s.
brooks isn;t even worth responding to, he’s up there with tom friedman in the conventional wisdom talking points + made-up anecdotal “evidence” dept.
Once again, as has been pointed out numerous times but is still often ignored by the Ayn Rand-disciples and neo-Hoovers, the cost of not building high speed rail is not zero.
Alarming state report predicts $294 billion shortfall for transportation over next decade
San Jose Mercury
http://www.mercurynews.com/traffic/ci_19273015?source=rss
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 6:58 am
Of course, you know what will happen–the anti-tax, anti-rail crowd will use this as another excuse to kill rail service, claiming we NEED roads but that rail is a luxury item “nobody will ride”. . .
A fellow named Paul Sprague makes just these arguments in his following commentary:
“Still want to go with that high-speed rail system that nobody is going to ride on? Tying the state gasoline tax to inflation? What if there is little inflation, like now? Looking at proposing a 64% increase in the gas sales tax during a recession, right…. Just like water, you save-they raise the rates because their not selling as much water-you don’t, they fine you. In this case, you purchase green=less gas burned=less tax revenue=potholes and as to what the fine will be,higher taxes of course. More possible fixes-More carpool toll lanes? Makes sense doesnt it? Jam up the other lanes with vehicles sitting there idling burning more gas= more tax revenue. Or maybe its just another way to tax those nasty rich folks-those 1%. Hiking registration fees? Didn’t we just do that? I like the vehicle mileage fee, but of course the only way they could do that is to track your vehicle which would equal how many privacy issues which would sure make it all the way to the Supreme Court…..LoL This shortfall is comprimising drivers safety in L.A? Thats a laugh. The only thing comprimising your safety in L.A. is the 75% who drive 85+. So, bottom line-they are asking for another $760.00 a year out of your hide, but of course there must be a last question-who’s hide?”
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 3:52 pm
Road worshippers. Luckily they’re dying out, as you have noted — it’s a generational thing, and nobody under a certain age thinks like that (unless they’re paid to).
Unless I read this whole thing too fast, I would say there’s one huge distinction that is left out.
Political blogs came about as a method of advocacy and about “what should be done”.
Professional blogs came about as a way to highlight “what shouldn’t be done”.
So in essence, this blog has followed the class pattern: people advocating for something big and amorphous, followed by others highlighting particular things that they want.
In come the “technicals” and they start pointing out that such and such isn’t really feasible. The advocates don’t really see the difference. And then along come the guys like Morris who are just trying to use the technical commentary to undermine the project.
What’s unique is that we have people like Elizabeth and myself who don’t have either goal. Liz wants to see what in the financial plan we can destroy, and I want to see what we can salvage and fix.
This is no different than any big tech company or federal agency works. Someone at the top pounds the drum and the mice come running to it.
But moreover, is this blog about convincing anyone? Maybe, but they aren’t posting comments. Instead it’s about using this adversarial process to create a killer product. Alon Levy doesn’t need to support the project and neither does Richard…just the technology because if they believe in it, they don’t need a bunch of white elephants built.
Does Robert and Beta Magellan (or Bruce McFadden or_______) need to support the project, yes, but that is because in politics, even losing is preferable to not playing. Today’s failed candidate or initiative is tomorrow’s winner.
Same goes with Elizabeth, JimSF, Donk, Drunk Engineer, Jack….
And this sort of a hashing out process between sides is…”political”…. but not a red-vs-blue political….but the type of fights which have burnished American enterprise from the beginning.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 8:18 am
One thing to keep in mind is that 9 times out of 10 my intended audience is not other bloggers or commenters. Instead it’s usually members of and staffers in the state legislature and Congress, the media, other HSR supporters who aren’t usually active on the blog, and political activists who only pay occasional attention to the HSR project but rely on this site to get an understanding of where the project stands and what they should think about it.
For example, I like Elizabeth Alexis a lot on a personal level. I think she’s very smart and easy to talk to. But I am also not really interested in trying to change her mind. I don’t think it’s possible and I also am not convinced it’s the best use of my time. Instead I prefer to argue indirectly with Alan Lowenthal, and focus on keeping organizations like the LA Times inside the pro-HSR tent.
I do appreciate the technical arguments about what is and isn’t feasible. We’ve gotten into those weeds before. But my assessment of where this blog exists in the overall landscape is that someone else will do a better job of advocating for the right alignments, designs, and so on (and I’ll happily tout those here) – my place is to keep beating the drum for HSR and show why its critics are usually making arguments that are unsupported by the evidence.
RisenMessiah Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 12:58 pm
What surprises me about this comment isn’t your intent– it’s that you are using an old and less-than-effective strategy to do it, especially going forward.
There are simply too many blogs out there to replicate something along the lines of Dean for America in 2003. Arianna Huffington realized this when she created her eponymous website. She realized that what would draw eyeballs is giving certain writers a podium to showcase their talent (and then just never pay them…)
Whether you realize it or not, you have created a similar atmosphere here with the commenters. Even if this isn’t your desire, recognize that as we witness the slow, agonizing death of net neutrality it’s your biggest asset. As accommodation, I recommend a couple changes:
Create a separate blog roll for other transit activists who post here, including, yes Richard and Elizabeth. What’s important isn’t their opinions per se, but that you set up a much more interconnected web of discussion. That makes it harder for Comcast to push you out in a couple years because you won’t pay their price. Viewership is leverage.
Focus on developments. Among political staff, knowledge is power. I’ve stopped reading countless political blogs because I can predict what they will say. This place is very different because you provide updates on the project itself. I realize you don’t have time to roam the halls in Washington or Sacramento, but guess what, neither do staffers!!!! Saying something unique consistently and having good dirt is paramount.
Slow down. If you only can manage writing 3 quality posts a week as opposed to 6-7 mediocre ones, always lean towards quality. Staffers, journalists, and the like are always short on time. Make the ten minutes they spare count.
Lastly, earned media is a waste of time. The major newspapers with maybe the exception of the Chronicle have almost no real journalists left. Dailies now routinely scour blogs for sources…not long ago it was the other way around!!! Getting editorial support in elections is worthwhile, but you would way better served offering yourself to local NPR stations for an hour every week or every month and just taking calls or giving your perspective. I love being able to listen to radio programming or Board meetings while reading the blog… and I bet others do too.
In short, I don’t buy the Technicals v. Politicals bit. It’s a distraction from the fact that no one seems to understand the changes in mass media and communication that are happening. Bloggers, once thought to be the vanguard, no longer are.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 1:27 pm
In New York, the technicals are for the most part not bloggers. The head of IRUM is a member of the Midtown community board, NJ-ARP is New Jersey’s local NARP branch, etc.
RisenMessiah Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 2:59 pm
Right…but they also don’t comment on the blog either. Unless that’s not what you meant…..
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 3:54 pm
NJ-ARP is dead. Hasn’t said anything for a few years. I’ve never even heard of IRUM.
I think these people are making themselves irrelevant by failure to communicate. NJ-ARP used to be a moderately effective advocacy organization with a strong technical competence and, and now it’s… nothing.
wu ming Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 10:03 pm
the audience on nearly all online discussions is predominantly lurkers one does not see, not the foils in the debates one does.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 10:09 pm
Robert, are you–and we, the commentors–getting to the intended audience? Is there any evidence they are listening, perhaps acting, on at least some of the suggestions here?
Robert, it’s kind of weird you say that the technicals are neo-libs. A few are; most aren’t. The technicals have the same average political view as the politicals (i.e. left-of-center), but much higher standard deviation. If you read my posts on consensus, or Richard Mlynarik’s rants about American foreign policy, or Drunk Engineer’s posts about police brutality and the TSA, you won’t see much neo-liberalism. And Stephen Smith is a libertarian rather than a neo-lib; while there are commonalities, there are important differences, just as there’s a difference between socialism and Saul Alinsky, or between Keynesianism and Marxism.
My technical activism comes from the opposite end: it’s a rejection of a self-justifying bureaucracy that equates “build nothing” with “continue to build highways” and that thinks progress equals megaprojects. Once you think in terms of the political (rather than economic) ideals of trust and consensus, you can see exactly what it so wrong with what’s happening today. People have no trust in government, nor do they have any reason to trust it. Government officials spend 2-10 times more on infrastructure projects as they have to, and when they’re called on it, they lie. They have agency turf battles that make transit less user-friendly, and to cover up those turf battles they spend billions of dollars on gratuitous viaducts, caverns, tunnels, and what have you.
It’s precisely this trust that people care about, and it’s eroding when HSR becomes the equivalent of $600 toilet seats. Of course there is money for transit, but it’s either wasted or not given to transit because people can’t trust that it can be used wisely. I view it as part of my goal to showcase how good transit can be done, so that it doesn’t look so expensive for the benefit provided.
Richard is completely right that it’s a public-to-private wealth transfer. A fundamental tenet of risk perception theory is that people are most concerned about risks they find morally reprehensible – and this collusion between government and government contractors offends me. Just because it’s greenwashed doesn’t mean it’s any better than subsidizing oil drilling, paying military contractors $1,000 per day, or bailing out financial companies that then use the money to pay the executives who caused the financial crisis multi-million dollar bonuses. No wonder that when Republicans talk about the ingenuity of individual business leaders, they talk about Mark Zuckerberg, the Google guys, and Steve Jobs; they have to go that far out of the industries that give money to the GOP, such as oil, to find people who’ve actually innovated rather than just sucked public money.
Remember that before the ARC cancellation, Greater New York was on track to spend almost as much money as Greater Paris on train tunnels. Paris is getting 130 km of tunnel, New York was getting 13. Although honesty about high costs is an important first step (indeed, notice the outpouring of support from quarters like the LA Times after the HSRA admitted costs had doubled), a necessary second step is making sure that costs are not high. It’s those high costs that are dooming many projects, such as future phases of Second Avenue Subway, or the full Subway to the Sea.
The other issue is one of priorities. Transportation is what I write about; it’s not what I think is the most important investment. Being able to get to New York in an hour is nice, but I’d much rather be able to get health care without worrying about $2,000 ER bills, have more job security, live in a country without massive poverty, and so on. Most of the GDP, even most government spending, is and should be things that aren’t transportation; and most transportation funding isn’t and shouldn’t be intercity. HSR is a small expense in the grand scheme of things, but pool many small expenses – a hundred billion here, a hundred billion there – and you’re starting to talk about real money.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 8:27 am
Is it the high costs that are dooming the projects, or the shrinking pool of funding for all transit that is making it harder to justify high-cost projects? I don’t think we do ourselves favors by accepting rules that are stacked against us. As transit advocates we should be expanding the pool of funding for all transit, from hiring bus drivers to building bullet train infrastructure and everything in between. It’s a losing game to play within the artificial limits being set on us by right-wing politicians.
You’re talking about choices for investments – transportation, health care, jobs, etc. My argument is that we don’t spend nearly enough on any of them, and that we need to be spending a LOT more on all of them. I don’t see a zero sum game here. In fact, as we saw in the Great Depression and with subsequent projects, big infrastructure can actually help deal with those other issues because it creates jobs, savings, and tax revenue that we desperately need.
Ironically, I am not primarily motivated by transportation. If someone gave me $100 billion and held a gun to my head and said I could only spend it on one thing, I’d spend it on universal single-payer health care. But there is no gun to our heads, we have the ability to get much more than $100 billion to play with, and we can spend that money on any number of pressing priorities.
Elizabeth Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 10:16 am
The Swiss Transit department made a presentation a year or two ago in San Francisco. As far as I could tell, the public transit subsidies for all of Switzerland are in the neighborhood of the subsidies for transit in the Bay Area. The problem is more of how we spend money, not the amount of money. Spend it poorly, less support, less money, less service, less support. Spend it wisely, more more support, more money, more service.
VBobier Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 10:28 am
I Looked and I found this here, is this what You’re referring to? There are two videos there too.
Elizabeth Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 12:16 pm
Yes!
Here is the full thing: http://www.mtc.ca.gov/library/AnnualReport-09/MTC_AR_2009_Final.pdf
He gives total transit subsidies at $1.5 billion.
The 2009 MTC report http://www.mtc.ca.gov/library/AnnualReport-09/MTC_AR_2009_Final.pdf gives Bay Area transit subsidies at $1.3 billion.
Brian Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 1:14 pm
So you are officially endorsing Swiss level gas taxes?
And repealing CA zoning codes wholesale and replacing them with the Swiss ones?
Then waiting a decade or two for those the change transit economics?
Or just defunding transit and embracing the long recession, as high oil dependence and the unsustainable economic costs of suburban infrastructure maintenance permanently destroys our prosperity?
Elizabeth Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 2:13 pm
I am so tired of hearing excuses. The cost of driving in Europe is not so different once you consider the much higher fuel efficiency of the small diesel cars most people have.
The poor station design at Millbrae is not about zoning codes.
We may not have all the stars aligned but neither did Switzerland which has a minor detail called the Alps in its midst. We are not even pretending to play in the same league.
Transit advocates who turn a blind eye to incompetence and worse do more damage to the cause than the Howard Jarvis people.
Peter Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 5:16 pm
Wow, a comment by Elizabeth I can wholeheartedly agree with!
StevieB Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 6:48 pm
European taxes on gasoline costing an average of 60% of the retail price result in a gallon of gasoline in Europe costing about double the cost in the United States. Diesel is subsidized in several European countries but not in Switzerland. The effect is Europe’s diesel days could be ending.
Regardless of the fuel efficiency of European diesel cars they would not pass California smog emission inspection so they are not a solution we can consider. While increasing fuel efficiency of US automobiles can extend the supply of oil the steady increase of the number of automobiles on the road in California prove the need for alternative modes of transportation.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 7:15 pm
The European carmakers sell diesels in California.
StevieB Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 8:04 pm
The diesel cars sold in Europe would not pass California smog emission standards. Volkswagen and Mercedes make special diesel emission systems for California, are there any others? The Volkswagen Jetta EPA’s fueleconomy.org website’s rating for the 2011 edition is 30 mpg city and 42 mpg highway. Are you tempted?
Peter Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 11:43 am
Uhhh, no. There are cheaper, equally efficient, gasoline cars available on the market already.
HSTSheldon Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 7:42 pm
Peter,
Sorry no. There are no gasoline cars of equivalent weight, size etc. that can do what diesels do from a fuel efficiency perspective. I challenge you to list one car model available in Europe were the gasoline version gets the same mileage as the equivalent diesel version (performance etc.) in the same platform. Gasoline engines, while improving are simply not yet there when compared to diesels. The TDI engine in the Jetta that I drive gets over 42% brake thermal efficiency. The closest gasoline rival is the 37% in the Prius and that can only be achieved with the help of electric assistance.
egk Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 7:08 pm
yes, quite the surprise.
Of course much of the swiss rail network is private (and even state-owned operators are run like businesses). The reasons I’d like to see HSR work in CA is that having a profitable industry is a real incentive to make something efficient. This, of course, is influencenced by my observations about what happened in Germany once it was clear that rail did not have to be a money losing public service. And this was primarily because of HSR.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 11:22 am
SBB may be run like a profitable business (because it is), but it’s resisted the trend toward privatization of the EU. SBB’s leaders say their current system works and oppose infrastructure/operations separation as was done in France and Britain.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
And because Switzerland isn’t in the EU, they aren’t obliged to do infrastructure/operations separation. :-)
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:53 pm
Oh…. to be clear, the Swiss rail system is certainly NOT cash-profitable overall, only perationally. Projects like Rail2000 and the Gotthard and Loetschberg Base Tunnels were funded by government subsidies. And indeed, branch line operations are often canton-subsidized. It’s not so different from anywhere else.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Elizabeth, the Alps *HELP* transit performance in Switzerland because it’s easier to cross repeated mountains by electric train than by car.
The cost of driving gas or diesel cars in most of Europe *is* higher than in much of the US, too, even *after* figuring in more efficient cars — you clearly haven’t looked it up.
The Milbrae business? Absolutely agreed with you. That HAS to be fixed.
blankslate Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Switzerland’s population of 7.9 million is about the same as the Bay Area’s 7.5 million, so the fact that they spend about the same on transit doesn’t seem very notable.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 3:37 pm
No, but the fact that the Bay Area is centered around a large, dense city (much denser than Zurich and Bern, almost as dense as Basel) and still has less than half of Switzerland’s transit mode share is notable.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 4:15 pm
How hard is it to build an apartment building next to the railroad station in a typical Swiss suburb? OR even the bus route?
StevieB Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
What is your point on comparing the public transit subsidies of Switzerland and the San Francisco Bay area? The population of Switzerland is about 7.8 million and the Bay area 7.1 million so I would expect them to be similar.
Elizabeth Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 2:28 pm
That is exactly why I am comparing them.
The point is that Switzerland with a similar size, similar population, and similar subsidies has much better public transit.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
And yes, the Bay Area seems to do particularly poorly on measures of transit efficiency.
As I have said elsewhere, it seems to have a particularly dysfunctional political culture.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 2:53 pm
My response is: so?
I’m all for cost savings if we can get it without compromising our other objectives. But I also don’t see why inefficiency and waste is necessarily a bad thing. The US is still the world’s richest country and California is one of its richest states. We can afford to spend more money than we already do, even if some of it is done wastefully.
My argument is that wasteful spending on a worthwhile project is better than not doing the project at all.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 2:56 pm
There truly is no hope for you.
Joey Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 3:20 pm
This attitude is why our current transportation system sucks.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Our current transportation system sucks because we only apply rules about cost savings and avoiding wastefulness to trains, whereas freeways are entirely exempt from those same rules. We have poured hundreds of billions – probably trillions – into a transportation system where people are dependent on cars and oil to get around, which helped create our present economic crisis.
And people don’t see that as at all wasteful, but hold rail to different and much more exacting standards.
Joey Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
I’m not saying that highway spending shouldn’t be cut, or that transit spending shouldn’t be raised in the long run. I’m saying that given current attitudes toward building transportation, our transit systems will continue to suck no matter how much money we pour into them simply because we’re spending money on the wrong things in the wrong places.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 4:58 pm
For all the rules about cost savings, ESA is still in progress, and so are the 7 extension, the Fulton Street station, and the Calatrava PATH station. It’s fairer to say that rules about imagined cost savings and overruns apply only to useful train projects, while not applying to useless ones. Sunrail doesn’t threaten Robert Poole’s ego; he’ll still be able to claim trains are a waste of money. Only FLHSR is. Guess a) which one he went after, and b) which one would’ve made money.
Stephen Smith Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Alon, I think your conspiracy theory about Bob Poole is a little out there. I’m not doubting out that Florida HSR would have made a mockery of Reason’s position on HSR, but I do not believe anyone at Reason knows enough about passenger rail to be able to have made that determination. I think a much more likely reason why he went after FLHSR rather than SunRail is that FLHSR was much bigger and more high profile project.
Stephen Smith Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 12:12 am
Wow, can you believe people pay me (in money!) to write? Sorry to everyone whose eyes were scarred by that. But I stand by my point – you’re giving Reason too much credit. They just went after FLHSR ’cause it’s big.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 11:24 am
It was big to the feds, but Florida was on the hook for much less money – $270 million vs. $1 billion. In fact the reason Florida got close to 90% federal funding for HSR was that Mica and Crist pushed for Sunrail and then claimed it was like matching local funds.
Of course, it could just be that FLHSR was high-profile.
Elizabeth Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
Robert,
If it was just that everything cost 25% more, that would be one thing. We pay 3x the price for 1/3 the quality. The system is not working. There are many convenient scapegoats (NIMBYs anyone?). When you demonize critics, you perpetuate the problems.
Spokker Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 4:14 pm
You can demonize NIMBYs while criticizing the current HSR plan. NIMBYs don’t get let off the hook because the CHSRA is incompetent and corrupt.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:56 pm
Not consistently, Elizabeth. In Minneapolis or Denver, they’re not paying 3x the price and they’re not getting 1/3 the quality — they’re paying maybe 2x the price and getting perfectly fine quality.
It’s not that there’s some generic US problem. If the price seems to be skyrocketing and the quality seems to be dropping on a particular project, or all projects in a particular area (New York City, San Francisco), look to the specific causes.
Arthur Dent Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 6:31 pm
Hmmm. Let’s think. What do the Big Dig and CA HSR have in common?
Beta Magellan Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 11:47 am
Although I don’t know enough about the history of American transportation politics to give any definite answer, I’d say the under-performance of American transit projects between the late sixties and early eighties went definitely played a contributing role to shrinking federal funding—if BART cost so much more than anticipated or the first Portland light rail line wasn’t getting as many riders as projected, what point was there in giving more money to such proposals? Although I think mid-century transit planning suffered as much (and probably more) from inexperience with than strategic misrepresentation (for light rail, at least, projects now tend to be less over-budget and often surpass their marks with ridership) and a pro-car mindset definitely played a huge role (not just the ideological aversion to urban transit but also the thoughtless expansion of auto infrastructure), if projects like BART were seen as successful, cost-effective investments at the time of their completion (and from what I understand that wasn’t how most people thought of BART at the time) it would have definitely kept funding from getting as low as it did.
I think you’re getting the idea of “more” money wrong, too, and I’m saying that as someone who leans social-democratic. While we have a real private splendor/public squalor problem in this country, being left-of-center doesn’t mean you spend all your energy asking for more without being concerned with cost-effectiveness. I grew up in Milwaukee and got to meet a few of the old socialists, and for them equitable distribution or resources went hand-in-hand with efficient distribution of resources. We don’t need to spend more on health care, for example—we can spend less and get more out of each dollar, like every other first-world nation in the western hemisphere. Even when there is often a case for more—I’d say urban transit expansion’s a prime example of this—it should go hand-in-hand with more efficiency.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
I’m not saying just be profligate and wasteful. I am saying that costs should not be the top priority.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 3:47 pm
But if we look at health care as an analogy, they are, both for policy and for politics. The Democratic Party had been making empathy-based arguments for universal health care since the Truman administration, but after Medicare and Medicaid all progress stalled. For decades, Bob Shrum inserts the phrase “Health care is a right, not a privilege” into the campaign speeches of all candidates he worked for – all of whom lost the primary or general election.
Then in about 2006 the punditry discovered that American health care is also more expensive than rest-of-first-world health care, and suddenly the tune changed. Part of it is that there had just been a surge in costs that made the difference impossible to ignore; maybe individual pundits like Ezra Klein had a role to play, though I doubt it (at the time he was still an upper-mid-tier blogger). Maybe part of it is that the Democrats got a hyper-competent Congressional leader in the form of Pelosi. And then the Democrats sounded more competent about this than the Republicans, and won the subject. And nothing the Tea Party and the Koch Brothers did forestalled the bill, no matter how precarious it seemed at times.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
The tune may have changed, but we still didn’t get any improvements. As many have pointed out, Obama was hell-bent on entrenching a system with many private insurers, all generating paperwork and forcing doctors to do extra paperwork, with the attendant vast wastes of money.
I generally believe that the “health care reform” we got was driven by the impending bankruptcy of every health insurer; it’s a bailout for them. They’d been jacking up premiums to the point where people were just dropping health insurance, and so had entered a death spiral. When right-wing “Democrats” kiled all proposals for single-payer or an NHS, and then killed a public option, and instead made a law forcing people to pay money to the private insurers, their moment of doom was averted. But the outrageous costs we pay and the bad service we get for it… that’s not going to change.
So yeah, in a sense, the money is the driving force, but I think it’s not the driving force in the way you think it is. :-P
Alon Levy Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Robert, you’re at odds with a lot of people writing on those subjects when you say “we should be spending more.” Consensus among liberal pundits is that the US is spending too much on health care. Even most conservatives agree, with some contrarian exceptions like Mankiw, only they ignore the successful examples of universal health care in other countries and try to come up with an ideologically friendly counter-plan. What is more, even government per-capita health care spending in the US is higher than in most other countries, though not nearly by the same margin as private spending.
Spending is a zero sum game, but economically and politically. The Great Recession won’t last forever. Any infrastructure building plan is going to outlast the recession, triggering real tax hikes, spending cuts, or interest rate hikes in the future. It’s fine if the infrastructure is cost-effective; it’s not fine if it isn’t.
And this is equally true politically. The amount of government spending is controlled tightly by the political acceptability of deficits. Some deficits are more politically acceptable than others – for example, military waste is acceptable to many right-wingers – but in this political climate, HSR is at least as controversial on the right as extending jobless benefits, and far less useful as stimulus per dollar spent. The unemployed tend not to fork over much of their benefits to international consultants. If a few billion dollars are enough to showcase workable HSR then by all means the administration should spend them, but if they’d eat $20 billion out of a $50 billion jobs bill that Obama’s going to run for reelection on, there’s no point.
What’s more, I have a feeling that “Jobs, jobs, jobs” is a much better slogan. (And I’m not just saying this about HSR, by the way – I’ve been practically begging the Occupy organizer I know to talk more about jobs and urban transportation and less about corporate personhood and how both parties suck.) HSR, if it’s not a white elephant, could also be a slogan to rally people around, but only after it opens.
And this dovetails to what I said about trust. Suppose that Amtrak were trustworthy and enjoyed a high reputation for doing good work and being forward-thinking. If it started posting ads about how in 10 years people in New York could get to Boston and Washington in an hour and a half, it’d be believable, and thus exciting. The pundits love shuttling back and forth between New York and Washington. Ordinary Northeasterners, too, would be very interested, if Amtrak promised to keep prices affordable, more like Regional than like Acela fares. And GOP politicians trying to impugn Amtrak would just seem callous and against travelers having good options.
Of course, in the real world, Amtrak has impugned itself, it’s losing passengers to the buses almost 1-to-1 with the passengers it’s gaining from air shuttles and cars, and its proposal for Northeast HSR is 10 times costlier than it should be. Although all numbers can be treated as horror stories, in light of costs of other projects, both transportation and otherwise, it would be much easier to sell a $10 billion plan than to sell a $100 billion plan. Passengers don’t give a crap about agency turf battles; on the contrary, I personally am reminded by how awful they are every time I have to buy an MBTA ticket at the cafe since Amtrak bullied the MBTA out of the Providence station booths and every time I take the subway to Penn Station and need to change concourses to get my Amtrak ticket.
You’re wrong if you think the goal is to lower transit funding. It’s not. People who are against transit funding don’t talk about efficiency. The conservative thinktanks have already established that efficiency won’t contribute to their goals because it’ll just make people trust government more and want more public services. My goal is to raise transit funding or keep it the same, but vastly increase the benefits to passengers by doing good works. I want to be able to go to Boston and have better than two-hourly off-peak frequency, and to be able to go to New York on a train that takes less than 3:15-3:45 and is late less than half the time. And just throwing money to Amtrak and the MBTA is stupid when it can be done in a way that doesn’t transfer gobs of public money to Skanska, Cambridge Systematics, and PB.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
What is more, even government per-capita health care spending in the US is higher than in most other countries,
Countries with universal coverage…. cover everybody. In the US the government covers the old, who tend to be sick and the poor who tend to be poor because they are sick….
Alon Levy Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 11:27 am
Per capita is per capita, not per person eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. For about the same per capita cost as in the rest of the first world, the US government is covering only 30% of the population.
David Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 5:31 pm
“Any infrastructure building plan is going to outlast the recession”? I would not bet on that. Japan has been in the situation we’re facing for twenty years, and deflation has been institutionalized. I see us (and Europe) heading down the same path with nothing in sight to end it.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:40 pm
And Japan’s infrastructure building plan is still going. :-)
Dan S. Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 9:20 pm
But there’s no real problem with Robert or anyone being at odds with a segment of the blogo-pundit-ocracy. Good for him! Anyway I think he’s right on about this. I mean if the way to measure the technical success of a transportation project is straight-forward, then why do you suppose we have so many awful transportation solutions in America? Well, here’s my answer — it’s because no one in America really cares. Okay, I’m exaggerating. But basically Americans are in love love love with their cars and want to marry them and don’t want their money going to public transportation projects. They want a big car and a back yard with a grill and two-car garage (minimum). If someone wants to run some buses for the poors I guess that’s fine, but don’t spend any money on cleaning them or replacing the seats. It’s not exactly realistic or responsible but it is the result of our Pioneer culture. (And a lot of very powerful interests making sure it came out that way.)
When I think about how to get America to a place where it’s making good, smart transportation investments and decisions, I think we have to rally the people first before it really starts working. But in the meantime if we can trick them into building HSR in Cali then we’re doing a good job. The Occupy Wall Street movement is maybe our best bet, as it at least acknowledges that our system has been hijacked by market fundamentalist forces fighting a proxy battle for the uber-rich. (Hey what’s that sucking sound?)
So many people feel the most important part of building HSR is “doing it right,” and there are lots of good and lots of bad ideas about how to do that! But another perfectly valid point is that building an imperfect system is still a lot better than doing nothing. When Americans feel just as comfortable hopping on a train to go to work as they do sliding their posteriors into their fake-leather bucket seat equipped hermetically sealed cup holder kudzu embodiments of self worth and individualism, then we’ll have a much better opportunity to have a useful discussion about efficient transit spending. The people will be much more active in demanding it, and the guys in the backrooms will have to deal with more daylight shining on them. In the meantime, the politics of being a 3rd-tier project set the rules for the game, and that means that perfection is not on the table.
Anyway, Alon, I’m certainly not arguing with your standpoint either. But if Robert is fighting the transit fight a bit orthogonally to you, what’s the big deal?
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 9:49 pm
Robert isn’t “fighting the transit fight”.
All he’s doing is fighting for the private profits of a few large corporations, fighting to ensure that public transportation is never a mainstream widely-supported and successful undertaking (but is rather regarded as a welfare operation), and fighting to ensure that high speed rail will be regarded in the USA for decades to come as an unaffordable unworkable one-off half-assed crazy Californian Big Dig boondoggle.
With innumerate “friends” like this on the left, it’s obvious why the right always wins.
Daniel Krause Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 5:55 am
These same large corporations make insane amounts of money buidling highways and airports as well. But as is typical with those that are obsessed with contactor waste, you choose to only focus your ire on the rail projects you see as wasteful. As I have suggested before to those obsessed with the transportation-contractor complex, how about starting an organzation that focuses on reforming the transportation funding system generally so that it is more efficient overall for all projects and for all modes.
And the anti-contractor crowd doesn’t want to take the time and effort to form an organization, how about picking on road and airport projects that facilitate our oil addiction and gobble up our land? How about railing against the forthcoming I-5 expansion from San Diego to Oceanside, a project that is going to be over $5B to facilitate the ongoing hypersprawl in northern San Diego County and destroy views (and likley severly impact the habitat) of the various lagoons one passes over currently on the already 10-12 lane freeway? I can guarantee this is a monumental waste. Instead the anti-contractor crowd hates the Transbay Terminal, Central Subway, all BART projects, and now CHSR. In the meantime, the highways and airports keep churning out more destruction and induce more development that is bad for society – and not a beep from the “technicals.”
Donk Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 6:41 am
If CARRD was a real organization instead a bunch of NIMBYs, they would do just this.
Joey Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 7:11 am
There’s definitely some hypocrisy with regard to which projects get criticized, but that doesn’t mean we can turn a blind eye to contract profitmongering in transit projects.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 9:22 am
Daniel wrong as http://transdef.org/RTP/RTP.html usual.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 9:22 am
Daniel wrong as usual.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 11:39 am
Daniel, you should read what I’m writing (and who I’m linking to) about the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement disaster or about the notion that adding freeways has any congestion-reducing effect.
I write more about transit because that’s what I know better, but you can see me propose transit lines and expansions, which are usually different from what the developers and power brokers want. What you will not see me propose is freeway widening.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 10:04 pm
This is a most interesting comment!
“Well, here’s my answer — it’s because no one in America really cares. Okay, I’m exaggerating. But basically Americans are in love love love with their cars and want to marry them and don’t want their money going to public transportation projects. They want a big car and a back yard with a grill and two-car garage (minimum). If someone wants to run some buses for the poors I guess that’s fine, but don’t spend any money on cleaning them or replacing the seats. It’s not exactly realistic or responsible but it is the result of our Pioneer culture. (And a lot of very powerful interests making sure it came out that way.)”
Thankfully that seems to be changing, but in the meantime the naysayers, most of whom are older, have the politicians scared. They will die off eventually (hopefully?), but we do have to worry about having enough time. . .
“. . .if we can trick them into building HSR in Cali then we’re doing a good job.”
Shades of Shinji Sogo! He was considered the “father” of the Shinkansin in Japan–and he tricked the Japanese Diet into financing the first modern HSR line by deliberately misleading them as to its initial construction cost. He reasoned they would never approve of the project with real numbers, hence the deception. He would pay a serious price for this, but he did get the line built, and it pays dividends now.
I’m not certain you want to copy this today–for one thing, it’s too easy to be called out on it compared with before–but at the same time, an initial line, even with problems, would be a start. Improvements–including finding better ways to get more honest contractors–could come later. What may be argued is that we need a new line here, in the USA, one that is visible here, one that operates here, one that gets oodles of riders here, one that puts the lie to the naysayers here, by being ridden by good, old USA citizens–here.
“Anyway, Alon, I’m certainly not arguing with your standpoint either.”
And neither would I; Alon, you know too much, you speak too well, you know more about a number of things than I do. And I don’t consider myself to be an idiot! But like Dan and I think Robert, too, I worry that we have wasted so much time NOT building this thing, or something like it.
There were certainly inefficiencies and problems in WW II as well; in fact, Harry Truman made a big part of his Senate career investigating contractor abuses in the WW II era, and in some interviews he gave a decade after leaving office, expressed more than once his opinion that big business was inherently corrupt, and needed strict regulation to keep it under control that included setting limits on size with the Sherman anti-trust act. Yet even more than in this earlier ear, we have to ask, “Do we have the time?” We’ve spent decades dithering around on this oil question that at least partially drives this, and I’m concerned we won’t have the time even now, much less if we cancel the project and set it back 10 years or more.
Peter Baldo Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 5:41 am
Post WWII America – suburbs, office parks ,etc – was designed around automobile transportation. To make matters worse, these places are where the more affluent people (the kind HSR is trying to attract) live. It’s impossible to serve potential passengers efficiently and cheaply and conveniently when residences and businesses are distributed like this. We shouldn’t hold HSR to a standard we’ve made it impossible to achieve.
Delaying HSR will make it even harder to build right. More right-of-way alternatives will become built-over. Stations and routes will be even farther from central cities. Plan the thing right. Do the vetting, with governments and agencies and the public. Make sure it is convenient and attractive enough to attract riders, at all stops, even if that makes it cost more. Then get started. Americans change their minds every couple years. That’s something you can count on. A good project that’s underway will get funded and finished. One that’s been cancelled, won’t.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 11:52 am
Dan, one of the things I talk about (though not the only one) is exactly passenger experience. To me, it’s not just building a fast train. France has very fast trains whereas Switzerland has very few trains that go faster than 160 km/h, but more people in Switzerland use rail than in France. The key is that Switzerland gets the organization right, whereas France times TERs and TGVs to just miss each other.
What California is doing is even worse than what France is doing: at Gare de Lyon I bought a combined TGV-TER ticket to Monaco, but in California ticketing for HSR and connecting transit is going to be completely separate. Caltrain-HSR transfers will involve going up escalators, passing through faregates, and then going down escalators. The equivalent in the Northeast, Secaucus Junction, is underused as a result of this passenger-hostile configuration, whereas nearby Jamaica is a busy transfer hub because its transfers are cross-platform and timed.
What I do not want to see is people saying that HSR is great but the stations need more parking because who wants to transfer anyway. Nor do I want people to keep supporting commuter rail projects so hopelessly car-oriented that they build stations purposely outside of towns so that it’s easier to build surface parking, and pooh-poohing the alternative.
Much, though not all, of the cost overrun on CAHSR is oriented precisely toward making a more turf-oriented system. I would support a $65 billion system that was completely useful, which means it would consist of both HSR and S-Bahn-grade upgrades to Metrolink and Caltrain. If the increase in scope had come from things like adding a spur from LAUS to LAX carrying both HSR and local traffic, it would be one thing. That would just be forcing HSR to pay for good local upgrades. Instead, what we see is an increase in scope that’s oriented toward separating HSR and local operations – hence, Diridon Intergalactic.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 11:59 am
The equivalent in the Northeast, Secaucus Junction, is underused as a result of this passenger-hostile configuration,
It’s underused because there’s shitty service on the former Erie lines. NJtransit’s busiest non-terminal station.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 12:12 pm
There’s shitty service because there’s no ridership; there’s no ridership because it’s less convenient to transfer at Secaucus than to take a bus to Port Authority.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 12:39 pm
Yes it’s awful that people have the option of taking the bus to Times Square or the train to Herald Square. They should all have to go to Grand Central and get on the subway.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:38 pm
Erm, depends where you’re going, doesn’t it?
The Erie lines are actually plenty popular, judging by outlying station usage. Perhaps that’s mostly people going downtown, though, who go to Hoboken and catch PATH.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 5:12 pm
The Erie lines are quite popular if you are comparing them to OnTrack in Syracuse. If you are comparing them to the NEC, Port Washington branch or the New Haven line they have shitty service. At least thehy have weekend service, unlike the Montclair-Boonton line which closes down over the weekend.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
We should not be spending less on *health care*, we should be spending less on *overhead and wasteful expenditures* in our *health care system*.
The difference between the US and other countries is that we have a massively ineffiicent and wasteful health care “system”. In other countries most of the money goes on actual care which is actually useful, not on paperwork, insurance company profits, pharmaceutical company profits, advertising, medical device company profits, denying care, dealing with emergencies due to denying care earlier, et cetera et cetera….
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:44 pm
“Suppose that Amtrak were trustworthy…”
It actually is.
“and enjoyed a high reputation…”
It actually does. Compare and contrast airlines, Chinatown buses, Bolt Bus. :-P Amtrak has a much better reputation.
“for doing good work…”
It actually has this. Do you see people complaining about shoddy behavior by Amtrak onboard or offboard staff? Rarely. Do you see people complementing them? Often.
Unlike most other recipients of ARRA infrastructure funds, Amtrak completed its projects, mostly on time, and they worked.
After Veolia crashed a train, Metrolink promptly hired Amtrak *because they have the reputation*.
“and being forward-thinking…”
Oh, yeah, certainly not. Absolutely does not have that reputation. Not even slightly. “Backward-looking” might be more accurate. Perhaps this is your main complaint with Amtrak?
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
rrrgh, “complimenting”
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
“Ordinary Northeasterners, too, would be very interested, if Amtrak promised to keep prices affordable, more like Regional than like Acela fares.”
That would require larger subsidies.
Amtrak is quite successfully charging what the market will bear. And why shouldn’t it? It can fill up the trains. Now, it’s a political institution, and if Congress said “We are giving you more money and we want you to use it to cut fares”, Amtrak would no doubt do so. But that’s not the message Amtrak has gotten from Congress for the last *forty years*.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Nice comment, Alon, and I agree with pretty much all of it….
…but I think your perceptions are a little off from being in NYC. From upstate, I can tell that NYC has a *particularly* dysfunctional set of fighting bureaucracies when it comes to transportation, and a *particularly* dysfunctional political culture, and a *particularly* entrenched level of construction company (and, yes, union boss) corruption, and I think it *really* needs to be cleaned up in order to get better results. To be honest, I think Walder tried, and quit when he found too many people who were unwilling to change the status quo.
It is simply not that bad in, for instance, Denver, where there’s certainly *some* of that — they’ve got corruption and sweetheart deals — but not enough to prevent the projects from being fairly decent and good value for money. It’s even better in Minneapolis-St. Paul, which has excellently-designed projects and rides herd *hard* on its contractors. Culture, I guess.
California… well, the SF situation seems to be every bit as bad as NYC (or worse). The LA situation seems to be more like Denver (perhaps better, even). Sacramento’s somewhere in between, and the Central Valley is hard to assess. I’ll be blunt, I have greater trust in LA-area CHSRA board members than in Bay Area ones.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:08 pm
I would like to give the historical example of the Tweed Courthouse. Boss Tweed, running the Tammany Hall system, ran a very corrupt New York City government for a very long time.
And most people didn’t really mind! Because even though they knew that a certain percentage was going in graft, things got done, the system worked, the graft didn’t kill it.
It was when the Tweed Courthouse had spent twice as much as its original construction costs, largely in graft and corruption, *WITHOUT BEING FINISHED*, that it became too much for people, and they started really getting ready to throw out Tammany Hall.
That’s the key point. There is a percentage of graft and corruption which people will tolerate if they get a decent result out of it. But when they don’t get a decent result, or the corruption level gets too high, *then* people get fed up.
New York City is approaching the “too much graft for what we get” level. Denver is nowhere near. I don’t think CHSRA is anywhere near. (SF’s Central Subway, on the other hand…)
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Can’t have a corrupt subway when you don’t have a subway. Can’t a have corrupt bridge authority when you don’t have a bridge authority and just suck money from the state DOT. Can’t have lots of things in the wilds of upstate New York cuz ain’t enough people around to use ‘em or corrupt them.
Both levels of the 63rd Street Tunnel sat there gathering damp for 20 years and it didn’t seem to bother anyone. The lower level is going to pushing 30 years by the time it goes into service. There’s chunks of the Second Avenue subway quietly moldering away under Second Ave, they won’t be used until the completion of Phase II whenever that is.
Unfortunately perception is often reality. And with that, I am hereby proclaiming HSR (as currently designed/proposed) DEAD! At least in the Bay Area. Read today’s Mercury News editorial “A fine vision, high-speed is out of reach.” At this point resistance to the perception is futile, and I’m personally tired of resisting. What to do now?
Perhaps its truly time to think about doing regional HSR-light. Let’s think of NorCal and SoCal as two separate countries, ie Spain and France. Via a new proposition, split the $10 billion between NorCal and SoCal. Leverage the $5 billion in both regions with private and future fed funding; let’s say $10 billion each in the future. Electrify, modernize Caltrain from SJ-SF and same for ACE from SJ-Stockton. Electrify, modernize Metrolink in the Southland. Conventional rail could also be improved in the Central Valley and South Coast. When both regions become profitable, sections in the Central Valley could then be upgraded to HSR status, thus making statewide HSR a reality.
Is this going about this Backwards? Yes, but so what. As “cool” as it would be, I’m more apt to take conventional rail from Gilroy to SJ-SF then to LA (Southwest Airlines will continue to work in the interim).
Would this forfeit federal stimulus money for the proposed ICS? Yes, but so what. Construction jobs would still be created on the regional sections and future Central Valley line.
If there’s a miracle out there in terms of money or funding for the current scheme, great. But until (or unless) that money surfaces, HSR as currently envisioned is dead; ITS OVER!
VBobier Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 10:46 am
Sorry, But HSR is not dead and You proclaiming HSR is dead, won’t make It true. HSR will go on, light isn’t what Prop 1a said and ARRA money can’t be spent on light either, just on HSR. First build the CV route, then CV to LA, then CV to SF, then talk about expanding, this is what is laid out and so It shall be.
J. Wong Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 11:39 am
Why would anyone do HSR-lite? There is no market at least in NorCal. Yes, local transit could be improved, but it would not be HSR. There would never be any motivation to connect the two.
And you may be happy with air travel now, but it’s only going to get worse. It’s like the apocryphal story of the frog in the pot: Without your noticing air travel would gradually become intolerable and by the time you notice how miserable it is (price, comfort), it would be too late to build HSR.
Luckily, it’s already too late to redirect the Prop 1A funds. It’s also getting close to too late for stopping construction. The nay-sayers know this, which is why they’re getting more desperate. They will try to stop the start of construction first in the legislature where they will definitely fail, and then in the courts, where I expect that they will fail.
Starting in the Central Valley is the best way for achieving HSR. Once begun, there will be motivation to complete it, not because it will be a “train to nowhere” otherwise, but because people will realize how close we will be to connecting the south to the north.
And although it pains me to say this living in the north, the best path forward after that is crossing from Bakersfield to the San Fernando Valley to connect to the huge market there, which after having been too long will connect the north to the south. (And I for one will be taking the San Joaquin to connect to HSR just to avoid flying.) And I don’t say “finally” because with the momentum from that, the final connection to the Bay Area will be hopefully inevitable.
Beta Magellan Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 11:56 am
“Once begun, there will be motivation to complete it”
As was the case with the Cincinnati subway
J. Wong Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 12:11 pm
But notice I didn’t say because of “sunk cost” but because I think that people will see how truly close we are to completing the north-south connection.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:11 pm
Ohio… yeesh, don’t get me started on Ohio, the number of demented reversals of policy they’ve made, the degree to which they are willing to “settle” for half-finished things. Luckily for you in California, you have not developed the level of political dysfunction which has been endemic in Ohio since… well, I don’t know, really.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:09 pm
FYI, air travel is already intolerable for some of us.
StevieB Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
It took 8 years to change the California constitution to implement the current High Speed Rail bond act. How long do you expect to change it to your proposal? Calls to change the bond act are unworkable politically and only act to confuse the public.
Peter Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 5:20 pm
It wasn’t a constitutional amendment. It was a bond measure that changed the Code, not the Constitution.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:08 pm
The Mercury News has been running hit pieces against HSR from day one, IIRC. Ignore them.
HSR is not dead just as BART extensions are not dead. But to what level of utility and at what cost?
Unfortunately the pattern of contract runup seemed to coincide with the increase of public spending on transit.
The historical record on spending and the benefits in turn received is just appalling. When I think about the trivial sums that would have been required to save San Francisco’s major streetcar lines after the War in relation to the benefits we would have enjoyed over the years and today I am disgusted. They could not come up with the money to buy PCC’s at a miniscule fraction of the cost of BART’s beer cans. In the end what was saved of the legacy system was made possible in 1957 by a lease-purchase deal with St. Louis to get around the city charter.
Such short-sighted penny-pinching caused losses that are still resounding today, such as the inability to get rail back on Geary. But there was an awareness of cost-benefit that seems to be utterly lacking today. A tale of two extremes.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:13 pm
Nice comment. :-)
I don’t think there was serious cost-benefit analysis in the 1950s, though. Look at what they did with roads. Widen them (paying no attention to the costs)! Replace brick with asphalt (paying no attention to the costs)! Build expressways (paying no attention to the costs)!
Instead, the removal of rails was due to a fad. An automobile fad. Oh, and the GM Streetcar conspiracy, of course, though that’s a minor point.
Robert, I don’t think you’re being a cheerleader for high-speed rail, or at least you haven’t been recently. You’re being a cheerleader for the California High Speed Rail Authority, which is a different thing. If you were an advocate for HSR, you’d be outraged by the length of the construction timeline and cost increases—California essentially isn’t going to be getting the first phase of the system it voted for until the 2030s and at a price that could, if funds were spent competently, pay for the entire system. When it comes to CAHSR, CHSRA is its own worst enemy.
And that’s not unusual in transportation. I used to intern with a transportation advocacy group here in Chicago. Although most of our work didn’t touch on issues of agency incompetence, we didn’t shy from criticizing a bad project when one popped up. During my tenure that was Metra’s renovation of one of its commuter lines—although the renovation was necessary, it was bloated ($80 million for a station renovation; an proposed infill station on the same line unrelated to the refurbishment is budgeted at around $15 million) and designed in a way that would prevent Metra from expanding its service options (the line passes through a dense, growing urban area) in the future. Although our group’s letter was hardly the decisive blow, an outpouring of criticism forced Metra to modify the project and, while the final result isn’t perfect, it amends the worst flaws of the earlier proposal. Supporting transit didn’t mean rushing to Metra’s defense—it meant criticizing the agency was they screwed up and doing our best to force them onto a better path. That’s advocacy: thinking of the service first, not the agency tasked to carry it out. Lately, I don’t get the sense that you have been an advocate for CAHSR—you’ve been a publicist for CHSRA (and doing things like burying the lede behind a bunch of tangetially-related graphs during the $98 YOE-billion announcement doesn’t do much for your credibility).
It’s also worth noting that the Metra bombshell came from The Urbanophile—a blog. Luckily, it generated enough noise to leave Chicago transit-advocacy echo chamber and end up influencing people in power. Although you wouldn’t know it from this blog—which treats every announcement from a pro-CHSRA official or politician like a tablet off Mt. Sinai—smart people at the ground level are a resource for transportation, since they’re not stuck in the endless loop of bureaucratic self-justification. It would do HSR good if critiques from people who are supportive but critical of this endeavor were given a wider audience. Elsewhere in the comments you talk about “beating the drum” for HSR—what good does that do when incompetence threatens to march HSR off a cliff? At some point, you need to seriously look at the direction the project’s heading.
StevieB Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 7:38 pm
If funds are forthcoming sooner then construction will be completed before 2030 and the cost will go down. The plan for an initial operating segment in 15 years assumes no additional federal funding for the next several years.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Robert’s actually been quite good about advocating a good design when the CHSRA comes up with something really stupid.
He’s editorialized against security theater, and against oversized free parking garages. Might be time for another pair of such editorials.
I think he’s been quite right not to sweat other details, since everything about alignment ends up being a discussion among a dozen municipalities, where it’s more important to get as many as possible on board than anything else. (Kings County was simply unwilling to accept ANY design, thus rendering them hopelessly irrelevant.)
Another critique, this time from the well-known academic viscerally unhappy with California’s railroads:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-white-railroaded-20111106,0,7483888.story
Very generalized skepticism, with nary a mention of the grotesque tweaking and machinations that has generated the Rube Goldberg with which we are currently stuck. Tolmach is lightyears ahead of this guy.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:25 pm
That’s Richard White, and he’s been debunked by Robert before. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “Very generalized” == doesn’t actually know what he’s talking about.
It will only get more expensive the longer we wait. We could have built the same system for $40 billion back in the 90s. But we procrastinated. We could have built the same system for $50 billion back in the 2000s. But, we procrastinated.
Fact is: When it comes to $100 billion projects expanding and maintaining highways, nobody complains despite the fact that the noise, pollution, environmental destruction, etc. are MUCH worse than a two-three rails going through a freaking corn field or something.
The whole debate regarding doubts on whether it should be built is stirred up by big media. If you ask most Californians; and not the incredibly tiny, libertarian, red-neck, Tea Party minority; you’ll get overwhelming support for the project.
However, this does not distract from the fact that the authority is making some horrible decisions when we know that there are better and more cost-effective routes. We also complain about CHSRA’s weakness, always ready to cave for the NIMBY governments slowing down construction and travelling time of the proposed network.
See, Forbes guy. There is a difference between constructive criticism and non-sense, circular NIMBY hypocrisy.
Joey Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
The issue I have is that if we abandoned the current plans and started from scratch with some minimal amount of actual oversight, it would almost certainly result in considerable cost savings, enough to offset the loss of federal funds.
StevieB Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Abandonment of the current plans would set the project back 10 years. The almost certain result would be increased costs.
Joey Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 7:54 pm
Inflation would increase costs, yes, but considering how out-of-proportion current costs are now, I still think it would result in net savings. Perhaps plans wouldn’t have to be abandoned entirely, but they would have to be extensively reworked. And again, oversight is key.
VBobier Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Like It’s been said already, It’s too late, It’s 2012 or give back the ARRA funds, which can only be spent in the CV and only on HSR, For ARRA money there is only one of two outcomes that are allowed:
1. ARRA/Prop 1a money gets spent on Construction of HSR in the CV in 2012(Desirable Outcome)
2. or return the ARRA money to the DOT and return to squabbling among ourselves like brats.
I’d rather see 1. instead of 2.
Tony D. Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 6:30 pm
Like I said previously, if there’s a future “Lotto” to be won for full HSR funding, then I support the current scheme. If not, I say give up on 2012 and ARRA funds and hit the RESET button. Again, not suggesting JUST repealing Prop. 1A, but rather altering it to spend the bond monies regionally. And when I say HSR-light, I’m referring to electrified, grade-separated commuter rail in the 100-120 mph range, ie competely revamped, modernized Caltrain, ACE and Metrolink.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:26 pm
There are not “better and more cost-effective routes” through the Central Valley. Which is the only section where routing is finalized. So just end it with that canard.
The 5 freeway widening project in La Mirada is not “idiotic and wasteful”. This is an obvious bottleneck in the highway system, where it goes from 5 lanes in Orange County to 3 lanes in LA County. Once it hits the 605, the freeway widens again. This widening project will have more bang for the buck in terms of reducing traffic congestion for more people than perhaps any other transportation project in the state.
Our transportation system should be multi-modal. Rail or bus is not the only solution for everything. I am generally against freeway widening also, but sometimes it does make sense.
Peter Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 7:39 am
That’s what people thought about the 101 widening between San Jose and Morgan Hill. And now traffic sucks there again.
Nathanael Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 4:33 pm
Road expansions:
(1) One-lane road to two-lane road (one each way): huge expansion in capacity
(2) Addition of turn lanes to two-lane road: substantial expansion in capacity
(3) Conversion from two-lane road to four-lane boulevard: significant expansion in capacity, but makes it much more dangerous
(4) Conversion from four-lane boulevard to two-lane-each-way expressway: large expansion in capacity
(5) Addition of third lane each way to expressway: capacity increase, but less than you’d think. You’d think 3 lanes would carry 50% more cars than 2 lanes, but they don’t, it’s more like 40% IIRC.
(6) Addition of general-purpose expressway lanes beyond the third one: worthless, never worth the money. The fourth adds maybe 20% capacity, the fifth maybe 10% capacity, and down from there. This is because weaving action (lane changes) removes most of the capacity from the additional lanes.
Cutting all the freeways down to three general-purpose lanes each way (with possible entrance-exit and barrier-separated express/HOV lanes as well) would not meaningfully reduce capacity, but would save an AWFUL lot on maintenance.
Anyway, my point is that yes, the 5 freeway widening project is idiotic and wasteful. It would probably be worthwhile to narrow that highway down where it’s more than 3 lanes each way. Hey, maybe they could run a rail line down the median after they removed the unnecessary extra lanes — that would actually add capacity. :-)
In the debate over CAHSR, I believe myself, like Robert, is more of “Political” than “Technical. In fact, most of my technical knowledge are from Clem’s and Richard’s websites. My view on CAHSR is, only by building it, i.e. real concrete pouring, then there exist a platform for cost cutting. It is much easier to kill a concept than real concrete.
One thing I felt uncomfortable with is many “Technical” is the portraying of CAHSRA, and large engineering firms such as PB, HNTB, etc… as the “Bogeyman” i.e. a lot of accusation, but with little and mostly circumstantial evidence that they are “corrupt”. I believe no commenter in this blog, including more technical minded people such as Clem and Richard, has the full knowledge of the many regulations and constraints CAHSRA needed to deal with. Moreover, CAHSRA’s job is not to fight for regulation change, its job is to design and build a CAHSR system that fit into existing laws. So accusing CAHSRA of not seeking waivers to enable cheaper solutions is like “killing the messenger”.
Like I said before, it is easy to kill the project with no concrete poured, as the detractors always have the falling back option of canceling the project. With “something” built, at least most people can agree on “building CAHSR” while also seeks for ways to cut the cost.