California’s High Speed Rail Project is Part of Realignment
It’s all too common to hear people frustrated at California’s fiscal morass claim it is all because of Proposition 13. Without a doubt, the voter initiative that capped property tax increases has been the most important event in the state’s history since the election of Hiram Johnson. But as Governor Jerry Brown knows first-hand, Proposition 13 wasn’t the cause of the state’s fiscal and political nightmare. It was the Legislature’s (and his) reaction to it.
As a result, Brown had the foresight to avoid the mistake of his recent predecessors in the Governor’s Office. Instead of looking at the state budget as a revenue or spending problem, Brown has proposed a strategy of “realignment” that would shift more state responsibilities to local governments. At first this might seem to be nothing more than a political ploy, but it’s actually not. Just as defining the relationship between the states and Washington is the central question of a federal government, the same is true for states and local government.
And that’s where high speed rail comes in.
For the first time in a generation, the state actually has a project that puts statewide priorities and assets ahead of local ones. And that is why opponents are so hopping mad. For example, the campaign director for Proposition 13, Joel Fox, will happily tell you the motivation behind it wasn’t just stopping higher taxes. It was also about the miscalculation that conservatives (like Ronald Reagan) made about adopting a full-time Legislature in Sacramento. But as Fox might be reluctant to admit, it was Prop 13 that made the full-time Legislature (and the initiative process) the behemoth it has become. Now counties, school districts, cities, and the like are heavily dependent on the state apportioning money from its taxes as opposed to using local sources.
In other parts of the country, property taxes are much higher, but counties and cities aren’t necessarily better off. That’s because in the West, property usually was not valuable without improvements like roads or irrigation. In the South, Midwest and East, the opposite is true. Most cities there had ample rainfall to grow crops and many cities were settled on the fall line where rivers became no longer navigable. Thus, states have engaged in all manner of tax policy that often pay little heed to effects on local jurisdictions.
That is the core of the anti-HSR movement. Why spend money on some new project when there isn’t enough to go around already? It’s a great question rhetorically. But it’s not logical. For example, someone living in Modoc County is eligible to attend a University of California school. They are able to drive on state roads, and are protected by state law enfoecement regardless of wherever they go. They can visit state parks and beaches. And they can receive unemployment or food stamps. But they can’t enroll their child in Siskiyou County for school. Nor can they vote in another county, nor can they purchase a car in another county and not be charged the reciprocal sales tax rate. And perhaps, most tellingly, they can’t get a library card outside their home county as well.
So it’s no surprise that as counties fall short of attracting financial resources for burgeoning problems like air quality, homelessness, epidemics, and even home health care, the state has stepped in and sacrificed all its signature assets like the UCs and state parks to save those held hostage by their local Board of Supervisors. But as Governor Brown knows all too well, counties have become too reliant on statewide funding. And cities are not that far behind.
So like Alexander the Great, Brown has responded by slashing the Gordian Knot in two. Dismember those functions that belong at the local level, and fund what the state should do properly. Like bridges, prisons, universities, mental hospitals, beaches, aqueducts, and the like.
Still it’s natural for a resident of California’s far-flung counties to ask why high speed rail confers a statewide benefit to them specifically. This is especially true if you live outside the Bay Area or L.A. and won’t live anywhere near a station. Why is HSR like unemployment benefits, the UC system, state parks, prisons, and not like libraries? In a word, capacity.
HSR frees up capacity on existing roads and railways in the San Joaquin Valley to ship more freight. It lowers the amount of jet fuel needed to produced at refineries and allows more to be put towards lighter fluid, gasoline, and other consumer products. But it also increases efficiency, allowing the state to spend less money on mobility and more on education, law enforcement, and vaccines. And it reduces the amount of subsidy that the state has to pay for highways and train service that rely on gas or diesel.
Make no mistake, the argument for “realignment” is far from academic. Governor Brown has the highest approval rating of any politician in the state. Most Californians acknowledge there are structural problems that must be fixed. But because we live in demographically (and hence politically and socioeconomically) divisive times, it’s important to recognize that realignment is happening everywhere. The Baby Boom generation’s influence and its core of native-born, white Americans is dwindling and leaving behind a system that is dysfunctional by design. Realignment, and by extension, HSR, is the ultimate solution not just to high unemployment or skyrocketing gas prices but to California’s seemingly broken government.
High speed rail is not, as Robert suggests, the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Hoover Dam or some sort of Depression Era sop. It is the Salt River Project, a development that will change how the country lives and works forever. And though it will always be vulnerable to human shortcoming, it’s important to recognize that there’s no turning back. There’s no point, as others have pointed out, to attempt to convince voters why it cannot be done. Instead, as Jerry Brown’s approval ratings show, the focus must be on what is possible instead of what’s not.
Tom McNamara is correct re: alignment.
But please remember that corporations are NOT people, and Prop 13 should reflect that.
VBobier Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Yes, 13 should, but by design, doesn’t, It was sold to people on the sly as a way to limit money going to state government coffers, it failed to do that as the state never received much in property taxes, not in 1978, nor in 2012, what it did was impact counties and cities. Have lots of patched and pot holed roads? That’s 13 right there, some just didn’t want to pay their share and used seniors to get 13 passed, we all bought it: hook, line and sinker. Barstow CA recently got some of their roads repaved, how? ARRA stimulus money I gather, otherwise Barstows roads would still be crumbling into ruin. That was a bandaid, not a solution, there are some efforts that hopefully will be on the ballot that may help to rectify this somewhat, otherwise there’s a lot more cuts coming and no, cuts to HSR isn’t in the cards as the state is obligated to go down this path, partly cause of ARRA/DOT funds and partly cause of Prop1a and AB3034, HSR will help CA to be a more prosperous place, otherwise there’s a dim and more expensive future for this state.
@ those who hate HSR: It’s what the Doctor ordered, now take yer medicine and quit whining or suffer in agony forever.
Nathanael Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 5:50 pm
I always thought the really bad part of Prop 13 was the constitutionalization of the 2/3 rules for raising *any* taxes. That made it impossible to have good state government.
The property tax restrictions were asinine and poorly written, but they weren’t the deadly part. They could be left in place without trashing the state completely.
But giving a 1/3 minority in one house of the legislature the ability to refuse to raise ANY tax at all — income tax on billionaires, estate tax, severance taxes for oil — prevents the legislature from functioning. That has to be repealed, unless you go the route of simply submitting the state budget as a referendum every year — which might be the only way to go.
Tony d. Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 8:37 pm
Should be 55% majority to raise taxes.
VBobier Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 10:44 pm
Agreed, but seniors & the disabled still need to be taken into account, as this was an issue back then.
Alon Levy Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 1:19 am
In a democracy, normal decisions are made by majority. The decisions that require a special majority are those that change basic civil rights, or that change the character of the state. When you say that raising taxes needs a special majority, what you’re implying is that taxes are a violating of civil liberties in a way other things aren’t. It’s perverse that denying gay people the right to marry requires a simple majority, but raising taxes requires a special majority.
Jon Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 11:55 am
+1
Derek Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 10:10 am
Another bad part of Propositon 13 is the Big Government aspect of the state telling the counties how to tax.
Out of curiosity, do you even read what serious non-ideological opponents write about CAHSRA or is it all copypasta?
Incidentally, it really isn’t going to free up any capacity for freight in the San Joaquin valley. The only place it might is on the Anaheim-LA spur.
Nathanael Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 5:53 pm
“Out of curiosity, do you even read what serious non-ideological opponents write about CAHSRA ”
There aren’t any. The only serious non-ideological case which can be made against CAHSR is to claim that California will depopulate due to global warming, and I haven’t seen anyone making the case.
I can’t speak for the blogger, but I read what serious non-ideological *critics* write about CAHSRA, but that’s different — these are people who actually *support* the high-speed rail project, but want to modify it. Usually they have very high standards for bureaucratic competence, meaning they must never have worked in your average American corporation. Often they are utterly obsessed with some minor aspect of it.
Sobering Reality Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 8:46 pm
Says the HSR ideologue…
Emma Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 9:29 pm
I don’t know. Is rationalism and supporting a cost-effective solution an ideology? Then so be it. I’m an idealist fighting for a better California, today. Not in 2040.
Emma Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 9:44 pm
If it was for me, CHSRA would be SF-FJ, LA-SD (through LOSSAN), LA-SB by 2025 since construction would start on all ends at the same time, not one section after another. Some of the tracks would be upgrades while others would be strictly dedicated to HSR. The “Central Valley extension” would be constructed through revenue from the other 3 segments. Each segment by itself would provide additional revenue even halfway through construction.
Looking at the new numbers, restructuring the CHSR plan and shifting priorities should be a no-brainer. Apparently that’s not the case for the CHSRA.
Joey Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 9:55 pm
I’m not sure if LA-SB has enough demand to justify making it such a high priority, especially given the difficulty of much of the alignment (though you could cut off about half of it by building a new HSL from Santa Clarita to Ventura).
Paulus Magnus Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 10:02 pm
According to TRAC (or another group), the through trains between SD and SB or SLO have the highest fare recovery ratio and passenger levels, around 70% and 400 passengers per train.
Joey Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 10:11 pm
There’s a lot more traffic on the SD-LA section than north. There are currently six daily runs between SB and LA (same as San Joaquin) and two which continue north to SLO.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 10:31 pm
I’m aware of that. But the through trains do open up a lot more travel options. It’s rather reasonable, I think, to upgrade the line to SB, at least up to 90mph.
Joey Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 10:44 pm
It’s perfectly reasonable, I just don’t think it should be a particularly high priority.
Elizabeth Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 7:42 am
From what I have seen from travel surveys, SB and SLO may not be high speed priorities but one should consider them. For example, it is unclear why you would put the north LA station (Burbank/ Sylmar) north of Burbank junction.
Elizabeth Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 7:43 am
I mean Santa Barbara
Donk Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 11:37 pm
I think Emma was referring to San Bernardino, not Santa Barbara. This is the one of the highest performing Metrolink lines and is on a relatively straight corridor, and therefore is deserving of upgrades. Once this is upgraded to HSR, maybe then we can talk about building an LA-IE-SD route.
Emma Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 1:01 am
^ That one. The Los Angeles to San Bernadino of course.
Tom McNamara Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 7:59 am
Actually you have it backward. The line to use for HSR would be the Riverside Line because it doesn’t have many stops and would connect you to Riverside within using BNSF’s Cajon Pass line.
Thing is, if you look at the documents, PB wants the inner San Bernardino Line for HSR and the outer part from Riverside. Unlike Cal Train, where you are talking about homes being razed, much of the inner line is banked inside the 10 freeway…expansion really isn’t an option.
And then on the other hand, you have to remember that Metrolink is done “on the cheap” meaning that individual cities are responsible for non rail upgrades within their jurisdiction.
What would make sense is BART actually, but that’s a verboten concept.
VBobier Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 10:49 pm
The CV needs to built first or It never will be, as other areas are a bit selfish & tend to ignore the CV, hence I5 in the CV where It is today, which ignored the CV cities in favor of finishing the I5 in the CV as quickly & as cheaply as possible.
Joey Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 10:55 pm
Proof? No one so far has seriously advocated I-5 except a couple of nutjobs.
VBobier Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 1:18 pm
Yeah, I know, but I’d thought I’d mention the fact that the I5 fwy was built this way & mention the cold awful truth(to them at least). Some want to build Gold-plated-pseudo-HSR on the ends 1st(LA-AN & SF-SJ) & repeat what happened when the I5 fwy was built, that’s to give the CV the shaft by not building in the CV. Cause when the I5 was built the CV cities didn’t benefit much from the I5 as It was a bit far away from them for the most part(with some exceptions like maybe Bakersfield, maybe)…
VBobier Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 4:28 pm
If You can get a few billionaires like Warren Buffet to help HSR with a few spare billion dollars each, then sure, why not? It would be okay with Me.
Tom McNamara Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 8:09 am
Paul,
You live in Orange County. You should know all about the pitfalls of the CHSRA:
The reason there is so poor oversight over construction is because Governor Schwarzengger deliberately sought an entity that would be influenced as little as possible by public sector unions and their avatars (The California State Legislature, in his mind.) As a result, now we have another “privatizing profits, socializing losses” process but the actual design, concept, and need are right on.
That’s why Brown supports it.
If the take the approach that is popular south of the Orange Curtain, HSR will never happen (as we saw in 1982). But neither would we have UC Irvine, soon to be the anchor of almost all economic activity in the County not named “Disneyland”.
As you might know, it was a decision also to take community colleges in Santa Barbara and Irvine and elevate them to UC status. Did it burden the state with more expense…yes…yes it did. Is the architecture there often ugly? Yes, yes it is. But do you think that people in both Santa Barbara County want to a) go back to the way it was b) think the costs outweighed the benefits?
The rub is PB is the way it is because federal contractors since WWII have learned that Washington is very poor at financial oversight given the expansion of population and the standard of living in the US. But that’s changing in the defense industry (as people in Bircher-land know) and soon it will be the same in transportation.
But that’s still reinforcing my point. Don’t come to the debate without alternatives. Right now, opponents still haven’t articulated one.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 8:36 am
But I do have alternatives. On a mild list of them (mix and match as deemed cared for):
1. Kill the Authority and the current CV plans. Sell the right to build as a franchise with a traditional charter permitting construction between San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento and requiring service to certain other cities like Bakersfield.
2. Electrify every foot of railroad in the state. Even with a Tejon tunnel and upgrades for 110mph service on all Amtrak CA routes, that’s cheaper than the current CAHSR plans. It also means major gains in manufacturing jobs due to locomotive and catenary production.
3. Make major investments at the Ports of Hueneme and San Diego to build large world class freighters. Shipbuilding is a major job producer and an area greatly neglected by US industrial policy (this can be spun as jobs while greening up LA/LB by having some sort of green diesel (with pollution fees at those ports for non-compliant ships) or nuclear powered freighters; federal funds can also be gotten through DoD as gator carriers can easily be built there as well). That should help spur UP investment in LOSSAN-North and of course provides major job gains.
4. While at it, shoot those idiot NIMBYs opposing the new BNSF yard in LA. Or put a special tax on them to fund some sort of electric or hydrogen switcher for the yard.
jim Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 9:14 am
2. Can the Surfliner route north of LA actually support 110 mph running for any significant portion of its length? Or the San Joaquins between Merced and Oakland.
Tom McNamara Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 9:53 am
No. Paul stole some of synonymouse’s peyote again. Although you could design it on paper, you would never get it through.
Tom McNamara Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 10:08 am
That idea worked so well in Texas. Plus, you have to remember that cities in California have constitutionally granted powers, so you would be left with a greenfield system where it’s possible.
2.
Freight rail is profitable. Why do they need federal money to make electrification happen? Secondly, there’s not enough carrying capacity to do this on existing lines. Is this just a bailout in reverse?
That’s not going to happen for two reasons: a) with defense contractors realignment to the Beltway, it’s much more attractive for them to build ships in Norfolk. b) It’s much easier to ship your stuff to Brazil, Europe, Israel, Egypt, and zee Saudis from Norfolk. Even Hawai’i is FAR from Asian buyers and those guys pale in comparison to the cash that the aforementioned states have.
NIMBYs, it’s not just for kids anymore…
Paulus Magnus Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 9:52 pm
SWA threw up legal barriers and challenges until the state of Texas withdrew the franchise. They are no longer opposed however.
Federal law and eminent power granted to railroads trumps state granted constitutional powers and in any event, a greenfield alignment isn’t a bad thing.
Because freight rail:
1. Isn’t profitable enough, only UP made a sufficient return on capital invested last year.
2. Does not have a terribly large reason to care about electrification since higher fuel prices are to its advantage thanks to greater fuel economies than trucking and electrification does not provide sufficient other private goods to warrant its major capital expense.
3. Does not have a reason to care about the externalities which the state wishes to reduce/gain by wide scale electrification.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean here.
a) Which is why we have a lovely thing called congressional pork. GOP and Dems will both salivate at the idea of bringing home billions of dollars in defense spending. As it is, there is already some USN shipbuilding of freighters in San Diego, so this wouldn’t be terribly unusual or anything.
b) Yes, and for most of our major trade partners, it is easier to ship from CA (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, and Singapore). In any event, ships can relocate, it really isn’t a major deal where they are built, except for the question of who gets the jobs.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 10:29 pm
2. Does not have a terribly large reason to care about electrification since higher fuel prices are to its advantage thanks to greater fuel economies than trucking and electrification does not provide sufficient other private goods to warrant its major capital expense.
Who has the link to BNSF study that says electrification makes sense at 4 bucks a gallon ( I assume wholesale ) for diesel?
b) Yes, and for most of our major trade partners, it is easier to ship from CA (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, and Singapore).
They don’t care about whether it’s “easier” or not they care about whether it’s cheaper or not. If you are shipping a container of really cheap shit from India to Chicago going via the Suez Canal is shorter.
http://www.searates.com/
Paulus Magnus Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 11:24 pm
Absolutely nobody. They’ve studied electrification we know, there’s a price point where it makes sense (obviously), and supposedly Buffet or someone said $4/gallon (but bear in mind that railroad diesel is significantly cheaper than what you or I pay at the pump), but I’ve never been able to track down where that particular number originated (although I know I’ve been guilty of repeating it). The study itself is of course company confidential.
They’re about equidistant in shipping times actually and shipping via LA avoids some major piracy issues (with associated insurance costs) as well as Suez Canal fees plus allowing greater economies of scale by not being limited to Suezmax size containerships.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 12th, 2012 at 12:05 am
The diesel fuel railroads use is sold to them at wholesale prices. It’s not like they can back up a locomotive to a Hess station and buy a few thousand gallons. Anyway they use dyed fuel.
There was a powerpoint, with explanations of the costs and that dual mode locomotives, while a possibility ( they got price wrong btw ) that there is a price point where electric train, at least on the mainlines, makes sense. If any one has it, a link, Bruce M would. Nothing that I can find in a few minutes of Googling. I did stumble across this.
http://steelinterstate.org/
Why they have a drawing of a NJTransit ALP46 hauling freight in Washington State is an interesting question. I digress.
There is no Suezmax unless you are shipping oil. You can’t ship oil to Los Angeles to fill gas pumps Chicago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suezmax
If shipping to West Coast ports instead of Gulf Coast ports and East Coast ports was so cost effective the Panamanians made a very bad decision to add a bunch of locks to the canal. So did the Port Authority – it’s gonna cost a few billion to raise the Bayonne Bridge high enough that New Panamax ships can fit under it.
Emma Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 4:13 pm
I like this guy here. Who says that you must have HSR to relieve the highways? A good, electrified rail network where Metrolink, Pacific Surfliner, San Diego Coaster, Caltrain and whatnot are able to increase frequency and quality of travelling would provide even more relief to highways. Especially if you consider that most people who use highways do so to travel locally, not from SF to LA.
On top of that, we could finally transport more cargo through freight rail which means fewer trucks on our highways = less traffic congestion. Didn’t Switzerland require all cargo to be transported through freight rail?
One fix though. Adding above and below grade structures, you could easily increase max. speed to 90mph (~300Km/h). But we all know how politics works. They won’t give up fighting for their prestige project until everything is leveled.
Joey Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
Minor correction. 90 mph is 144 km/h, not 300 (maybe you just typoed). And large sections of LOSSAN (Santa Ana-San Juan Capistrano save perhaps a minor realignment at Laguna Niguel and San Clemente-Oceanside) could conceivably support 125 mph simply by raising the superelevation and bringing cant deficiency in-line with the FRA’s updated rules.
Emma Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Yes this is a typo. I meant to say 190mph. Building HSR in LOSSAN so that all benefit makes sense in any way. Why isn’t CHSRA considering this? Because of the NIMBYs, because there is no political will to do the EIR? Or is it because they are too proud of the mess they have already achieved and don’t want to give it up now?
paul dyson Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 8:54 pm
No need to go so fast, reduce journey times by going slow less often, especially around stations. And over 150mph or so you burn too much fuel, cease to be green.
Alon Levy Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 7:20 pm
Didn’t Switzerland require all cargo to be transported through freight rail?
No. It levies taxes on trucks. It also aims to boost the competitiveness of freight rail to the point that all trans-Alpine cargo will be carried on rail, including rolling highways. This is a far cry from requiring all cargo to be transported on rail.
Emma Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 9:36 pm
Well but it is a step in the right direction that we don’t even bother to consider.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 10:07 pm
No need for 190mph trains. An average speed of 86 mph gets you 90 minute service between LA and San Diego, which should be achievable at a 125 mph speed limit or even 110mph.
Alon Levy Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 10:49 pm
125 mph, yes. 110 mph, I’m not so sure, especially with diesel. In Britain, the ECML and WCML achieve those average speeds with a top speed of 125 mph, and very straight track (on the ECML) or Pendolinos (on the WCML). The 125 mph diesel GWML averages more like 75mph between London and Bristol.
Emma Reply:
January 12th, 2012 at 12:24 am
The section will be electrified of course. Don’t get me started with Diesel. We need to build a catenary system in order to go “green” and to allow for speeds above 120mph.
All the rationalizing about why the LOSSAN section doesn’t need a catenary system is holding California back.
O/T: Tulare County supervisors unanimously oppose high-speed rail
http://www.fresnobee.com/2012/01/10/2677787/tulare-county-supervisors-unanimously.html
Nathanael Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 6:54 pm
They just wrote themselves out of relevance. Bad move.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 7:07 pm
Kings County is going around trying to get other San Joaquin Valley governments to follow them down the path of abandoning a shot at 21st century prosperity. Not sure what’s more ridiculous – that or the fact that Tulare County supervisors agreed to do so.
joe Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 9:09 pm
Another example of Tom’s thesis. My guess is they incorrectly think HSR money could be redirected to County needs and State facilities which are large, well paying employers in these counties.
Why not play along and propose to bypass the counties and minimize impact – save costs too? Yeah it would hurt if implemented but like Brown’s gambit on Taxes or Education Cuts, the residents have to be offered an adult choice with consequences.
VBobier Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 10:58 pm
DOT money would go back to the DOT, there will be no redirect, as has happened in other states, If County/City Governments think so, then their delusional & ought to be committed to a mental hospital.
Mike Brennan Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 7:40 am
The reasoning of the County Supervisors is absurd.. it costs too much money. They aren’t the one’s paying the bills, the entire state is. Voters have spoken and their move is rather irrelevant. Better to work with the state on this project to make it fit their needs than to oppose it. Side note.. Funny how the Fresno Bee lists those entities that oppose the project and none of those that are for it.
It’s worth noting that Prop 13 was originally made possible when the California Supreme Court ruled that according to the state constitution, school funding had to be equalized statewide.
This created the climate of hysteria and lunacy which allowed Jarvis and company to successfully push their really terrible amendment.
But anyway, the original court ruling stands, so the state government still has to be in charge of handing out school funding statewide.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 7:08 pm
The Serrano decision played a role, no doubt, but the main factor was rising property tax bills due to the ’70s property value inflation. Serrano was just one justification used by an electorate wanting to vote themselves a tax cut.
VBobier Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 11:03 pm
They/We sure didn’t think It would/could the hurt cities & county budgets, just reduce the state of CA budget. In fact I think that’s how It was sold to people back then, at least in part.
Railway Gazette International
Government to go ahead with High Speed 2 plans
10 January 2012
UK: In a statement released on January 10, Secretary of State for Transport Justine Greening confirmed that the government would press on with the first phase of the planned 540 route-km High Speed 2 following an extensive public consultation.
Noting that this was ‘one of the largest national consultations ever undertaken by the Department for Transport’, Greening said that 54 909 responses were received, and added that the project ‘generates strong feeling both for and against’. Costed at £17bn, HS2 Phase I envisages around 190 km of new line between London, Birmingham and the West Coast Main Line near Lichfield, designed for operating speeds of up to 360 km/h.
The government expects total expenditure for both phases to total £32·7bn at 2011 prices, of which around 50% is comprised of government ‘optimism bias’ contingency applied to major infrastructure projects. DfT expects the project to generate benefits of ‘up to £47bn and fare revenues of £34bn’ over a 60-year assessment period.
By following in the footsteps of the 19th century railway pioneers, the government is signalling its commitment to providing 21st century infrastructure and connections, laying the groundwork for long-term, sustainable economic growth’, Greening concluded.
The press conference video held by Diane Harkey today on her AB1455 is available on CalChannel.
You can view the press conference at:
http://www.calchannel.com/channel/viewvideo/3222 (about 20 minutes)
Btw. Richard reminded me of something. Is the Sacramento extension still on the table? I mean, people didn’t even bother mentioning that extension, LOL.
Joey Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 9:46 pm
It was never taken off the table, but the way things are looking it’s not going to happen for quite a while. Also no word on how it could possibly be funded, especially if operating surpluses from Phase 1 (which the Authority seems intent on minimizing) go toward paying back private debt.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Honestly, I suspect that, if anything gets built, Sacramento to LA will be the first line built and opened.
VBobier Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 11:08 pm
That’s impossible, SF-LA will and under the law has to be built first, where to start is not as far as I know not specified in either Prop1a or AB3034, Just by the DOT money & redirects of DOT will never happen & hasn’t ever happened, Sac to LA will come later.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 11:14 pm
Nope. Prop 1A merely mandates that funding for Phase 2 not interfere with Phase 1. If the Bay Area continues to be a bunch of whiny bitches, it’s quite possible for Sac to go first (as another example to demonstrate the point, if OCTA ponied up the money, Irvine could be done prior to reaching SF).
Donk Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 11:41 pm
Plus, once they build Fresno-LA, there will be no Prop 1A money left. So who cares?
StevieB Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 8:13 am
Fares from Phase 1 will be sold as a thirty year concession so any operating surplus will go to the concessionaire as his profit. The proceeds from the sale will be used to finance additional construction so when the concession is sold a second and third time more money will be available for additional segments.
Are we really sitting here listening to a lecture on how HSR is part of Jerry Brown’s “REALIGNMENT”? No shame any more, the propaganda isn’t even thinly disguised? (Why should it be, CHSRA, Governor Brown, and their minions like Robert and Tom have figured out that they can say anything they like without being unduly burdened by truth, fact, or logic.
Two words come to mind when I see the headline… HSR is part of California’s/Jerry Brown’s Realignment:
Newspeak
Dystipia
We’re not even pretending otherwise anymore. congratulations.
peninsula Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 10:34 pm
Dystopia
VBobier Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 11:12 pm
Sorry utopia was never promised, nor a part of life, the near future says oil & gasoline will get more & more expensive, HSR must be built, oil is finite & not endless, one day It will all be gone…
Tom McNamara Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 8:21 am
As someone, like Mr. Cruickshank who was born during Brown’s last stint as governor, I think it’s important to speak to the nexus between “realignment”, specific initiatives, and the guy’s support of unions.
It’s not something that’s talked about in the media, and I wanted to explain that this is not a reluctant act by Brown. His administration is a real, tangible, and imperfect demonstration of public sector management.
By contrast, if Whitman had won and said she was embracing a “SixSigma” approach to state government, CNBC et al. would be doing documentary after documentary on it..about the “triumph” of good management.
Nevermind the fact that “SixSigma” is probably among the top five reasons that our nation is in the proverbial shitter…. And never mind the fact that the public sector provides different services and goods than the private sector and takes a longer term view.
I’m equally eager to read your post about “Why NIMBYism is solution for the future” or “Max Weber Agrees with PAMPA”
Analogies and examples – -
First, precisely how will CHSRA benefit Modoc County? People from all over California can attend state universities – regardless of county of origin or location of college. People from Modoc County would have a lengthy drive to get to Modesto to take CHSRA – and by that point would probably just keep driving. I doubt even the optimistic projections of CHSRA have many Modoc folks in the mix. More importantly, as merely state initiatives – yet, dependent to a large degree on federal support – CHSRA and other state HSR programs were jeopardized from the outset from a lack of a national program and the need for national support in Congress.
Second, your analogy with the Salt River Project and Hoover Dam is inappropriate. Salt River provided reclamation water that private resources of the era were unable to accomplish. Same goes for the water and electricity resources created by Hoover Dam. The reality that you fail to acknowledge is that HSR is simply one player in a larger transportation mix. There are three major north-south highways – albeit overcrowded – and 4 or 5 airports in both the LA and SF areas. CHSR has to offer speeds, frequencies, convenience, and cost benefits to the travelling public that equal or outweight the other transportation options.
As a longtime advocate of rail transportation, I am angry at CHSRA for its disingenuousness and near-complete failure to address, honestly, the issues and constraints impacting the development of a modern passenger rail system in California. Instead, CHSRA has gone down the route of Flash Gordon fantasy, glitzy websites, and the collapse of yet another rail initiative for this generation.
Howard Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 1:11 am
A CHSR transit district would provide an additional “fair” funding system where only those areas of the state that high speed rail serves would pay additional money to fund its construction. The district would only include counties that CHSR goes through or to (initially only Phase 1 counties but Phase 2 counties added later to pay for Phase 2 extensions). District revenue for CHSR could include a CHST impact development fee, an oil extraction severance tax and/or a regulated pollutant tax. This way Modoc County residents would not need to pay any more than the Prop 1A bond money to CHSR (same for Del Norte, Imperial and Mono County residents).
Modoc County residents would drive to Sacramento and ride the high speed train to get to downtown Los Angeles because of traffic and parking cost. Maybe after CHSR gets extended to Sacramento the old San Joaquin’s trains can be moved to a new “Sacramento’s” route between Sacramento and Redding. Modoc County residents could then drive to Redding, take the “Sacramento’s” train to Sacramento and then ride the high speed train to get to downtown Los Angeles.
StevieB Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 8:29 am
Do Modoc County residents pay more to the State of California than they receive in services? It is more likely that the tiny county is subsidized by the more wealthy counties using the progressive California income tax.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 9:25 am
Well lets go down that path of every body paying for what they use/get from the state. How about raising gas taxes in the rural counties to cover the subsides they get from the drivers in urban counties?….. Taxes go do infitesimially in the donor counties and there’s big whopping increases in the reciepent counties… the ones that complain they are paying for things like HSR…. which allows the people in places where there is HSR to make more money so that they can pay more taxes to cover the subsidies to places like Modoc county…
Alon Levy Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 1:16 am
People from all over California can attend state universities, but often they have to leave their home regions. Modoc County doesn’t have any UC in it. The nearest UC, Davis, is approximately the same distance as the nearest HSR station in Phase 2.
One thing HSR could do for Modoc County is make it feasible to build a low-speed rail connector, like this. The population of Redding is far too small to justify modern low-speed rail* to Sacramento today. But the possibility of a fast connection from Sacramento to SF** and LA would make the market large enough for the investment to make sense.
Of course the line would not serve stations in Modoc County, but it would come close enough that people could drive. The same is true of other major infrastructure. Modoc County has no Interstates, and Alturas Airport is a general aviation airport, with no scheduled commercial traffic. We’re talking about a county whose population puts it on a par with some individual housing projects in New York – it’s somewhere above Queensbridge and somewhere below Co-op City, Starrett City, and Stuy Town. Not everything has to serve it directly.
* Modern low-speed rail has roughly the same average speed as what passes for high-speed rail in the US. Full-fat projects such as CAHSR and the canceled Florida HSR are much faster, but the Acela, Regional, and various Midwestern and Southern proposals branded as HSR are not.
** Yes, I know, Altamont is better. Not the time or place to discuss this.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 9:34 am
The population of Redding is far too small to justify modern low-speed rail* to Sacramento today. But the possibility of a fast connection from Sacramento to SF** and LA would make the market large enough for the investment to make sense.
Redding had 10,322 Amtrak passengers in 2010. 103,220 passengers a year would work out to 284 passengers a day rounded up to the next even whole number. 142 inbound and 142 outbound. Two car loads in other words. So for twice a day service you need an RDC to wander through. Or a 25 passenger bus 6 or 7 times a day. How much money do you have to spend to make the train faster than a bus?
Alon Levy Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 1:12 pm
Redding’s Amtrak service is a single Coast Starlight train that can be hours off schedule. As was the case in Illinois, increasing frequency (and reliability) to the rest of the state could lead to ridership gains higher than the increase in frequency.
Now, even that would probably be too low to justify the upgrade, if everything stayed the same. But things will not stay the same. HSR on LA-Sac means that people from Redding can get to Sacramento in 2.5-3 hours and then change to a train that gets to LA in another 2.5 hours. Electrification would even allow a one-seat ride. Suddenly people have a reason to get on a train.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 1:49 pm
See what a simple gravity model comes up with – not much. The population of Shasta county is 173K.
Low end estimates for ridership, for the full system, is one round trip per person every two years. Even at one roundtrip ride per person per year – keep the math simple 365.000 one way trips a year – you are looking at 500 people in each direction every day. Ten buses. Or two trains with 250 passengers a piece. Or four trains with 125 passengers. Three car trains at 125 passengers and there would lots of empty seats.
There aren’t enough people in Redding to justify 150 miles of electrification. There aren’t enough people in Redding to justify electrification to Chico about 70 miles away. Electrification speeds trips with lots of stops. there won’t be lots of stops between Redding and Sacramento so the advantages of electrification are even less.
Or another analog. It’s dragging rail all the way to Rockaways if the Rockaways were in Albany or Greenport. Or Wilmington if there was no Philadelphia. Keep in mind that metro Sacramento begins to peter out at White Plains, New Brunswick, Stamford, Hicksville….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:California_population_map.png
Alon Levy Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
The only advantage of electrification is through-service at high-speed south of Sacramento.
Anyway, let’s you do a gravity model with the cost function proportional to travel time, with population exponent 0.9 and travel time exponent 2, and express things in millions of people squared per hour. I’m not doing any adjustment for mode share, which means the numbers are higher than they should be at short distances like LA-SD or (even more so) Sac-Chico. Although LA-SD is the largest travel market, as predicted by this model, it’s not necessarily HSR’s strongest market, because the distance is too short for HSR to attain its full speed advantage over cars.
LA-Bay Area at 2:45: 682,817
LA-Sac at 2:30: 304,305
LA-SD at 1:30: 1,038,764
Bay Area-Sac at 1:18 via Altamont: 513,029
Sac-Redding at 2:00: 7,477
LA-Redding at 4:30: 8,796
Bay Area-Redding at 3:18: 7,457
Sac-Chico at 1:00: 36,333
LA-Chico at 3:30: 17,665
Bay Area-Chico at 2:18: 18,648
Anyway, if you’re willing to believe rail will get the same mode share on Sac-Chico as on LA-SF, then the north-of-Sac market is substantial. But even if not, it’s worth sending a train every two hours up there.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 3:59 pm
The only advantage of electrification is through-service at high-speed south of Sacramento.
So you are sending a mostly empty very expensive HSR train set onto 150 miles of slow rail. Or spending a lot of money to make it faster than a bus. And unless you want to spend a lot more money, not much faster than a bus.
Derek Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 4:12 pm
If it’s mostly empty, the price is too high.
Peter Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 5:22 pm
A two-car DMU three or four times a day would be more than sufficient to link Redding to Sacramento. There is REALLY no need for one-seat rides for Redding, Red Bluff, or Chico passengers to destinations south of Sacramento.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 5:30 pm
And how much does it cost to upgrade the line enough to make the DMU faster than a bus?
Peter Reply:
January 12th, 2012 at 5:20 am
I dunno, how much does it take to speed the line up by 10 minutes?
Emma Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 4:19 pm
This is not a race. It is worth because you are saving gas money, it is more convenient, no expensive parking, and most stations would be close to Downtown or connect to public transit that can take you to major areas within minutes.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 4:28 pm
Alon, by 2020 (or 2030, I forget which) LA-SD is expected to take 3 hours by car. 90 minute trip times by HSR should definitely prove sufficiently superior even though the distance isn’t terribly far.
Emma Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 4:37 pm
That is 90 minutes through the Inland Empire. Small rail upgrades on the LOSSAN corridor would achieve the same thing even if the speed limit is 120mph.
Alon Levy Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 7:06 pm
Fair enough. But here’s another drawback of applying a pure gravity model: at short travel times, access and egress times start becoming much more important in the cost function. Part of it is accounted for in the 0.9 exponent (which, I’m pretty sure, is there to make the number neutral if you split the region into little metro areas, each with its own access and egress times), but not all, not when it can take an hour to drive to the train station where you get that 90-minute train service.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 7:41 pm
It’s not going to take an hour to drive to the station – bus or train – in Redding. Redding is the saem size as the Bronx give or take a few square miles with a population 50% bigger than Co-op City. How lonjg does it take to drive across Redding? Even during what passes for their rush minute?
Alon Levy Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 8:53 pm
That doesn’t apply to Redding. Obviously. It applies to LA-SD. As we all know, driving across LA takes 10 minutes, according to the show where torture always works when the main character does it, but sometimes it takes longer.
Tom McNamara Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 7:32 am
Very plainly:
In Modoc County people are going to use gasoline powered cars longer than the rest of the state.
If you know anything about gasoline supply, you would know that Alaska, Hawai’i, California, Washington, Oregon and Nevada do not have connecting pipelines to the rest of the US that imports most gasoline through Houston and New Orleans from places like Venezuela and Nigeria.
As easy to reach gas deposits in Alaska or Cailfornia are exhausted, the next closest place to get petroleum is Saudi Arabia. Although the Middle East isn’t going bone dry tomorrow, complete reliance there would make gas really expensive and the only way to lower the cost would be to get less people in urban areas to drive. And because it costs more to get gasoline to Modoc County….
Tom, I think you’re getting the policies of the East exactly backward. The system of property taxes is not about making statewide decisions at the expense of local governments; it’s about giving local governments maximum power. In New England and the Mid-Atlantic suburbs, where property taxes are the primary source of revenue for local government, schools are handled locally, with very little outside interference. (For example, it’s the Southern and Western states that have statewide standards for textbooks; historically, this was meant to ensure Southern schoolchildren would learn a whitewashed version of the Civil War.) This is where you get public schools whose per student spending rivals that of private schools, and whose districts are so desirable that people pay a premium to live there. The suburban counties near New York rank at the top of the nation in property tax burdens to pay for all of that.
The flip side is that this causes extreme segregation and NIMBYism: proposals for school integration invariably fail, because of white upper middle-class hysteria about being in the same school district with people who are not white or upper middle-class. The states with the highest economic inequality in the US are in the Deep South or in the Northeast; there’s a reason for that.
The reliance on property taxes also means that, unlike in California, Northeastern local governments have an incentive to maximize residential property values. Californian cities try to annex commercial and industrial land that they can tax; Eastern cities try to keep themselves as desirable to suburbanites as possible so that they’ll have a high property tax base.
Tom McNamara Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 7:40 am
Your skipping a step:
Counties in the 13 original colonies predate the Constitution. The reason that the local levy is so important is that the county used to do everything and slowly this concept of state government expanded.
In the South and the Midwest, property tax became important because it was a way to shift costs to poor blacks and homesteaders. And because an acre of cotton or wheat is as valuable as the next acre of cotton or wheat.
In the West though, where mining was important … railroads knew that taxing mines akin to how it was done in the East with farms was going to limit their horizons. So they created a system that is more heavily dependent on income and sales taxation. Now that mining isn’t a big player anymore, people out West are addicted to cheap property taxes and aren’t eager to change.
Alon Levy Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 1:07 pm
The entire concept of local governance is far newer than the US Constitution. In 1789, there was no universal education. The split between how the North runs its school system and how the South does is from the late 19th century. Because universal education in the US came from a series of populist demands for schooling (rather than by top-down imposition, as in France), it was done on the local level, with local school districts setting the curriculum and coming up with funding. The South was similar, but had more state control, in order to ensure that textbook publishers, which were all Northern at the time, would not tell Southern children that the Civil War was about slavery.
Tom McNamara Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
No.
America’s county’s derive originally from pre-Hastings England’s shires. A good place to look is Virginia, which has county governments and cities as separate entities. This is contrast to the township model that was big in New England.
In short, Jefferson was a big proponent of the county system and it took off with westward expansion. Where you are getting a tad confused is that in California (for reasons that have everything to do with water) schools are not a county function but a special district. That in turn has made local government less responsive to them because, county and city leaders aren’t really in charge of them.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 4:44 pm
This is contrast to the township model that was big in New England.
So much so that Massachusetts has dissolved counties. There are no counties in Connecticut or Rhode Island.
aw Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 6:28 pm
Really? The Census Bureau thought those states had counties as recently as the 2000 census. Arguably, Rhode Island is small enough that it doesn’t need them. The county I live in is twice the size of the entire state.
Alon Levy Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 7:14 pm
They have counties, but no county-level government. Where county seats still exist, they’re named places on a map, without special significance. Government below the state level is done directly on the town or township level.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 7:31 pm
There are state administrative districts that are co-terminal with what used to be counties in Connecticut and Rhode Island but there are no counties in either state. On the other hand Hawaii doesn’t have any municipalities. Everything is run by the county or the state. One school district covers the whole state. Or Hawaiian municipalities provide all the services counties normally do, take your pick for your point of view. Alaska and Louisiana don’t have counties either but they do have intermediate levels of government analogous to counties.
Alon Levy Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 8:52 pm
In the Mid-Atlantic, where county governments do exist, schools are not a county function, either. There’s no Westchester County school district – God forbid, putting Scarsdale and Dobbs Ferry in the same district as Yonkers and Mount Vernon. School districts are about as big as the incorporated communities, which are smaller than townships. For example, Dobbs Ferry has its own school district, distinct from those of Tarrytown, Irvington, and other villages in the same township. I believe that the same is true of New England school districts, but I don’t know this for a fact.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 9:49 pm
Ah New York. There’s been multiple fads for consolidating school districts. There’s the Union Free districts. Not that the staff is un represented by a labor organization but that the district doesn’t charge tuition and it’s unified. Then there’s Central districts. And plain old districts. As opposed to common school districts.
New Jersey is good at it too. More school districts than municipalities and there’s usually one or two, with a paid board, that don’t have any students. And there are county wide school districts in New Jersey. They usually specialize in particular needs. Almost always started out as vocational districts for the kids who weren’t good prospects for the conventional high schools and has broadened out to other areas.
… then there’s Arizona. Phoenix doesn’t have a school district. It has school districts. Many of them….
very neatly gets around Brown vs. the Board of Education and resulting decisions….
Northeast is also the place where you find that everyplace is part of an incorporated municipality of some sort. E.g. there are no unincorporated areas. Even the in the wilds of the Adirondacks everything a town.
Today’s conversation is getting a bit abstract, don’t you think? What with a $2.7 billion decision looming soon, on a $65+ billion project? Personally, I’d be interested to hear what folks think about the Governor’s January budget statement on HSR and whether it signals an opening to rethink that Authority’s approach to the project.
I had assumed that the January budget would show the full $2.7 billion Prop 1A appropriation for the Central Valley. Instead, it says, “The Department of Finance is conducting a comprehensive
review of the Funding Plan. The Administration will propose a complete capital outlay and
support funding plan early in 2012.” Likely this signifies nothing of significance …. but could it indicate that the Governor is holding back for as long as possible and reserving the opportunity for a change-up (e.g., seeking USDOT authorization for a delay; rethinking the “what” and “where” of the ICS)?
Relatedly, DiFi’s recent letter seeks “a rapid reassessment of the route, decisions regarding the stages of construction”. This probably also signifies nothing; she’s probably just looking to create public validation that the project is legit. But, who knows? Taken together, these two hints from the Governor and DiFi make me feel that there’s a 20% chance that there will be a switcheroo of some sort proposed.
And, if there’s any validity to this, and if I were are knowledgeable and passionate as many of the participants here, I’d be putting together a real, workable proposal for how the Governor might switch up the project. That is, a proposal that can work politically, legally, and technically. One that will make the HSR project successful, not one that will kill it.
FWIW, that’s what I’m thinking this morning.
paul dyson Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 10:00 am
Spot on Mike, in the real world these realignments take decades. There are multi billion dollar decisions to be made in weeks, or months. What’s extraordinary to me is the HSR proponents who believe that HSR is a guaranteed economic panacea, even though the system will not be generating any meaningful quantity of passenger miles for two decades. Statements such as “High Speed Rail is profitable” are absurd. It would be more honest to say “High Speed Rail between established major rail travel markets usually makes an operating profit”. Running trains between Fresno and Bakersfield, or even Fresno and L.A. will never pay for the infrastructure, and will be lucky to repay OpEx. The proponents, who originally campaigned on the premise that private capital was waiting to swoop in and fund this, now are betting on an endless stream of federal (borrowed) money to build the system. And the system, once built, will be just another transportation option for which people will have to pay fares. Meanwhile the “competition” (which you should never overlook when planning investments) is stretching their 737s and tweaking their hybrid cars to squeeze more efficiency from existing systems.
Having seen the CHSRA report on Tejon/Palmdale and seen the cost estimates casually increased from the $6 billion range to the $15 billion range for that segment I am back to where I was 10 years ago, i.e. that such funds as are available for passenger rail investment should go into two regional systems (Sac, Stockton, San Jose, SF and L.A. – San Diego etc) where air travel is not an option and thousands more journeys can be converted from the automobile. When this is done HSR would then have modern systems to plug into on the European model.
Emma Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Exactly!
Tom McNamara Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 10:30 am
Nah it’s smart politics to break it out. You don’t need to have the appropriation from the bonds be in the main budget bill. Too much work when it doesn’t change General Fund spending. Brown is going to come up with a request that dovetails with all other Democratic strategy nationwide.
I’m betting that what will get proposed is funding for Merced to Fresno because Costa is switching districts and because Obama wants to use the “it’s a choice, not a referendum” tactic nationwide.
The message in CA will be: blue counties and CD’s get lots of nice stuff which they want, red counties and CD’s get what they want “nothing but tax cuts for the wealthy”. Where do you want to live?
jim Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 11:26 am
While I think it’s most likely that Brown will request the bond appropriation as is, there is some wiggle room in the language. Brown may be looking to renegotiate. California is in a good position to negotiate: LaHood can’t pull the ARRA funding away from California and give it to another state. The ARRA funds had to be obligated by 30 September 2011. They can’t now be deobligated and reobligated. If they’re deobligated, they go away. It doesn’t matter if California makes LaHood personally angry. He’s leaving in a year or so. His hurt feelings won’t affect later funding possibilities. And Chris Christie (along with Lautenberg and Menendez) showed that LaHood can be rolled by a determined Governor with two Democratic Senators backing him.
Mike Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Jim, I also think that it’s most likely that Brown will stick to the program (80% likely, in my gut), but that small probability that he’ll change course is very intriguing.
Good point about the obligation deadline having expired, though. ARRA dollars are not just obligated to CHSRA, but they’re obligated to the specific CV ICS, right? I wonder if this means that LaHood’s hands are tied and there’s no ability to re-interpret the “what” and “where” of the ARRA-funded construction project.
Anyways, if Brown IS going to change plans, who is he going to be listening to? Will Kempton? I’d much rather that he have the chance to see a real, legit alternative approach from some of the folks here on the blog. Of course, any such plan needs to deal with the realities of Brown’s situation, namely that he’s got powerful pressure from labor and DC dems to not tank the project. A delay, or a re-evaluation, might be acceptable to Brown, but killing the project outright (or indirectly) will not be.
VBobier Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 1:36 pm
Brown listens to what Brown wants, He’s been like that for Years. Brown change? Surely Ya must be joking.
Mike Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 1:48 pm
That’s actually my point: Brown will make his decisions based on what he needs and wants. His needs and wants are political, financial, and legacy. He doesn’t care about the specific details of what this train is or how it gets built; he just cares that the politics be favorable, that the finances be workable, and that it leave a positive legacy in his name. If he is concerned that the current path is not going to meet his needs, he’ll want an alternative. He’s not going to work out the details of that alternative himself. Someone, probably someone who he already knows and trusts, is going to suggest an approach and Brown will embrace it as his own if it solves his problems and meets his political/financial/legacy needs. (All this on the off chance, of course, that there’s going to be any change at all.)
jim Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 2:43 pm
they’re obligated to the specific CV ICS, right?
It depends on how the obligating document is written. Does anyone know where there’s a copy? If it’s written in such a way that it starts with a long contextualizing section describing the ultimate California HSR system, then specializes to say something like “It is the purpose of this agreement [assuming the document is a Cooperative Agreement] to enable California to construct an initial segment of the system.” and then buried deep in the document a description of the initial segment as beginning at this point and proceeding in that direction to this other point and then …. If it’s written in such a manner, then it would be clearly within scope to amend the description to start at a different point and proceed in a different direction.
Mike Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 2:58 pm
I was unable to find the obligating agreement in the Federal Register. Where’s Elizabeth when you need her; she’s got every CHSRA document under the sun.
Elizabeth Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 3:39 pm
You called?
http://cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/funding.aspx
You will note from the series of amendments that the agreements morph with whatever the facts on the ground are. The FY2010 has a provision that $300mm has to be spent in the Merced – Fresno but everything else is very fuzzy.
Mike Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 4:53 pm
Well, this is interesting. The most recent ARRA agreement is an amendment to an earlier agreement, and it begins by stating “Initial Central Valley Section: Fresno to Bakersfield (Kern County) of the California High-Speed Train Program, is deleted in its entirety, and the following is substituted therefore.” What this looks like to me is that the Authority has the agreement with FRA that it needs to obligate (i.e., protect) its ARRA money, and that agreement can be gut-and-amended over and over again to plug in whatever project FRA and CHSRA can agree on. So I’m going to assume that on the federal end it IS possible to entirely change the project that receives the ARRA funds. It would still have to be a valid use that is consistent with the statutory requirements of ARRA, but it wouldn’t have to be the CV ICS as currently envisioned.
datacruncher Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 6:00 pm
I had not previously seen the DOT letter (dated 1/3/12) at that link clarifying their position on starting in the CV.
http://cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/assets/0/152/302/9f61175c-f0a9-4bc6-87bd-4e541d558038.pdf
Mike Reply:
January 12th, 2012 at 8:48 am
The letter is clearly just PR. It boils down to: “We had our reasons for deciding to commit ARRA funds to the Central Valley. We still believe those reasons to be compelling. (PS: I hope you find this letter to be useful in beating back your critics.)” The obvious corollary to this is that that those reasons, or FRA’s interpretation of them, can change, and then the decision could change. There’s no claim that FRA *can’t* change, just an assertion that it doesn’t want to. But joe is right; California has great leverage at this point and could, if it wanted to, get a different decision from FRA.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 1:02 pm
There’s all sorts of stuff laying around that has a Record of Decision but no funding. A FONSI for reelectrifying the NEC could be had in weeks. Poof there goes 2 billion dollars. And if foamers are to be believed, cuts 15 minutes off Acela and Regional timetables between NYC and DC.
Mike Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 1:25 pm
Okay, but Jim’s point (if I may speak for you, Jim) is not about the necessity environmental clearance but rather about the agreement between USDOT and CHSRA that obligates ARRA dollars to the project.
jim Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 2:51 pm
Yes. I no longer know (after the three card monte that followed the Wisconsin and Florida reallocations) how much of the California money is ARRA and how much FY10. The FY10 money is reallocatable. If it doesn’t go to California, then LaHood can give it to some other project. But the ARRA money, if it doesn’t go to California, will simply not get spent. That’s what gives California bargaining power, since LaHood doesn’t want to see that money go unspent.
Mike Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 3:08 pm
Which (like a broken record) brings me back again to the question: how should Brown use that bargaining power to solve his HSR problem (in the off chance that he feels that he has an HSR problem)?
synonymouse Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 10:27 pm
After the disgusting performance in re the Detour don’t be taken in again by any rumors of adjustments or deviations to the wretched details of PB’s deceitful crusade.
May these pandering bozos hit nothing but schist and new faults while poking around looking for the Lost Dutchman in the Tehachapis.
The State Senate Transportation committee had a hearing yesterday on SB22, LaMalfa, a bill that would have killed the funding for the HSR project. It was voted down on a 3 -6 vote strictly along party lines.
The video of the meeting is now up on CalChannel:
http://www.calchannel.com/channel/viewvideo/3230
Chair DeSaulnier made quite clear that this was only the beginning of hearings on the subject and in a rather strong statement said, essentially the Authority was dreaming if they thought their current proposal would pass through the legislature.
morris brown Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 3:59 pm
@morris brown
This Hearing on SB22, is now also posted on YouTube
http://youtu.be/pw61wVQAfeU 24 minutes…
Most interesting to note near the end, emphasis of trying to keep the Fed Funds, but redirect them elsewhere.
AT the very end DeSaulnier is saying to the Authority, you are not going to get what you propose.
joe Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 8:10 pm
Then they shine a flashlight in a shoebox and snap the lid shut to capture the light.
Sorry, Morris, I don’t think you stand a chance against the machine statewide. The Tejon charade reaffirms that the influence peddlers are still firmly in charge and digging trenches. PAMPA’s best approach is to focus locally and demand a solo BART subway. This requires a serious grassroots effort with local political consensus, pr money and taxation scheme to raise the extra cash for the subway. It would flush out the power brokers’ true intentions and demonstrate to them that Stilt-A-Rail has a real problem on the Peninsula. Absent that, I would just sell out and re-locate.
It is hard to pull up stakes but California is truly ****ed. Kudo to Mayor Rizzo of Bell, who was the smartest guy in the room. Steal everything you can lay your hands on and then have the stones to be utterly unrepentant when caught. Unlike the scummy ex-city manager of Berserkeley who retired with a pension of $250 grand, more than his salary.
The arrogant elite needs a comeuppance. Maybe we should let Pelosi have her no borders dream and let the cartels take over all the while nd spending hyper-Keynesian and see how far you have to go to bring on a currency crash.
morris brown Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
I don’t think anyone on the Peninsula wants BART. Chances of it being a subway nil.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 4:11 pm
PB, Bechtel and allied companies, acting through their fronts shell organizations “MTC” and “VTA” certainly do want that, all in good time.
Subways costs extra. The greater the cost, the better.
Give them another decade. There’s only so much even they can bite off and chew at once — otherwise there’s a danger that somebody else might accidentally get a piece of the action. The SJ BART extension has to be built after “unexpectedly” blowing out its budget and then “unexpectedly” carrying less than half of “projected” riders before the obvious missing piece between Millbrae and Santa Clara is put on the table.
But it will be. There is absolutely no question of that.
joe Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 8:18 pm
Expanding BART to ring the Bay Area is only possible given a massive conspiracy. It’s intentionally done slowly, to avoid rousing the sheep. The phasing of funding has no, absolutely no bearing on the expansion. It’s to keep the level of danger that somebody else might get a piece of the action.
I would cast Mel Gibson…
synonymouse Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 10:02 pm
Richard seconded, with gusto.
The odds of the CHSRA scheme imploding are much greater than BART failing to Ring the Bay.
The subway angle may be PAMPA’s only “concrete” defense against aerials over the long run. Blended is likely only a temporal victory for preservationists and slow growthers.
Remember soon the machine will have a 2/3 majority lock and can pass anything, no matter how outrageous. Expect a permanent Spare the Air Day, yada, yada.
Once a single party regime becomes embedded in the culture, like mafias, it is very hard to change.
Tony d. Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 9:02 pm
Correction: SOME on the peninsula don’t want BART. Heck, some on the peninsula, especially NIMBYS, don’t want anything, including the current Caltrain system. “Must have high property value and peaceful midday naps…”
synonymouse Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 10:09 pm
Only fair to get the oblivious Moonbeam in on the “peaceful midday naps”
OT:
AA to stop flying into Burbank in February.
Airline spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan said the changes were planned long before the airline’s parent company, AMR Corp., filed for bankruptcy in November. “This is in response to declining demand on certain routes and the high price of fuel,” she said.
Low demand and high cost of fuel are factors in airlines reducing flights. Who would have thought it ;)
Anyone know what to make of this? California’s High-Speed Rail Fibs (Cox & Vranich)
“Proponents based their estimate on train capacity (including empty seats) of 1,000. Their rail plan calls for trains with only 500 seats, but this fictional doubling of capacity nicely boosts the amount of highway construction they can claim would be needed if the train line isn’t built.”
thatbruce Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 4:16 pm
Anyone with access to the full article who can paste it in?
Matthew Reply:
January 13th, 2012 at 12:19 pm
Just search google news for the authors.
Jon Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
I believe the ridership model assumed use of doubled train-sets. 2 x 500 = 1000.
Clem Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 6:32 pm
This has nothing to do with the ridership model. It’s from the round-the-clock every five minutes double-length how many passengers could we possibly shove through the system as a thought experiment, analysis.
Alon Levy Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 7:18 pm
The rail plan calls for 500-seat trains initially, with doubled sets yielding 1,000-seat trains if ridership grows and requires it.
Remember: everything Wendell Cox says is wrong.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 7:52 pm
Alon Levy Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 8:49 pm
You’d expect so, but the man has the ability to do a quantum leap in time, so that his clock is discontinuous and doesn’t need to follow any fixed-point theorem. Some pundits just have a knack to be wrong even when they could be right very easily. See, for example, everything Megan McArdle says.