No Silver Bullet for Bullet Train Funding
Yesterday leaders from the California High Speed Rail Authority spoke to the State Senate about the project’s progress. Some of the things we learned:
Lawmakers also heard from state Auditor Elaine Howle, who last year criticized the authority’s processes for monitoring the performance and accountability of its contractors as lacking oversight and said the agency’s contractors and subcontractors “outnumber its employees by about 25 to one.”
Howle told the joint hearing of the Senate Transportation and Housing and the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review committees that the rail authority has fully implemented 17 of its 23 recommendations and made progress on the others. That includes hiring senior-level staff and strengthening its policies and procedures.
That’s great news, if entirely unsurprising. The Authority was always going to implement those recommendations, and those who tried to use the Auditor’s report to attack the project are now proved wrong. The Authority has always been a very responsive organization and has only become more responsive over the last year or so.
Dan Richard also discussed funding:
That approval also allowed the state to tap $3.2 billion from the federal government, but it’s still not known where the rest of the money will come from. The state’s business plan calls for some backing from private investors and for a private operator to run the system without a state subsidy.
High-speed rail board Chairman Dan Richard said he still doesn’t know the answer, but officials believe the financing will come from a variety of sources. He said he remains confident that private investors will step up to service and operate the trains, sell tickets and perform other functions once the initial segment is built.
“At this point we don’t have answers for you, but we do have a mindset,” he said. “It’ll be a series of 10 percent solutions; it won’t be a silver bullet.”
That makes sense, especially given the ongoing crisis of basic governance in Congress, where core government services will start getting cut and workers will be furloughed thanks to the “sequester” cuts later this week. Congress is a dysfunctional institution that is threatening almost every service the state of California delivers, well beyond high speed rail.
Unfortunately, for some State Senators, California’s future is something to be feared rather than embraced:
“I’m still looking for Plan B,” [Mark] DeSaulnier said.
He and other senators also questioned whether the state could build the bullet train without neglecting other, badly needed transportation work, such as highway reconstruction.
This isn’t an either/or situation. Highway reconstruction and passenger rail are both important, with the latter being the higher priority anyway given global warming. Roads need to be rebuilt, but that will require a new transportation funding solution. A new transportation funding model could address both basic maintenance and transit expansion, from local buses to high speed trains. There’s no need for a false choice here, and State Senators ought to be helping find solutions rather than picking holes in one of the few solutions we do have.
I think he is referring to what to do after his 2 term limit (Snark). Like Alan Lowenthal, he probably wants to hit the US House.
While it’s impossible to figure out why the concern about HSR and funding, I think it’s related to past criticisms of his being a big spender AND the 7th District is bypassed by the Pacheco Alignment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California%27s_7th_State_Senate_district
Mark DeSaulnier seems to have forgotten about California Proposition 1B, Highway and Port Safety and Air Quality Bond Act (2006), which provided almost $20 billion dollars
A tax on oil companies producing here will help alot ..they do it in “red” Texas and Alaska and so should we..The Repubs in Sac have let the oil companies get away with this nonsense..And we need a REAL transportation bill from DC ..I dont know what the President can do with the teabagger house until its voted out..As they know President and “blue” California like the concept of HSR..
There is a way for California to fund HSR and infrastructure without further federal funds as outlined in the SPUR report. Congress has become totally dysfunctional with leaders who are totally antiquated; so do not expect meaningful infrastructure funding from them. For them it will always be the same stagnated way of doing things. With the SPUR recommendations and some type of even mild tax reform and SPUR recommendations – it can be done. Even the most progressive amongst us are sort of close minded when it come to infrastructure funding and tax reform. It can be done, and I would be willing to bet that would not be that bad. The benefits would be well worth it.
Joe Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 4:41 pm
SPUR wants $4 tolls from CV to LA. That would make the project unpopular. Also regressive.
Joe would levy an oil extraction tax equal to Alaska’s oil extraction tax rate. Sarah Palin approved.
Jo Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 5:10 pm
Sounds good to me.
Derek Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 5:34 pm
That’s a popular but false myth perpetuated by wealthy people who love regressive taxes. “As a group low-income residents, on average, pay more out-of-pocket with sales taxes” for freeways than with tolls.
This is why “Support [for HOT lanes] is high across all income groups, with the lowest income group expressing stronger support than the highest income group (80% vs. 70%).”
joe Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 6:19 pm
Tolling the highway to LA is a regressive tax. People pay more out-of-pocket with our regressive sales tax than regressive toll tax. Both are regressive. Hellooo.
Joe’s Oil Severance tax is Sarah Palin Teabagger approved. She raised the severance tax in AL to 25%. Joe thinks that’s a perfect, non-regressive way to fund HSR.
SPUR does not agree. Absolutely 100% Severance Tax free solutions to energy problems. Corporate friendly, profit friendly.
SPUR can tell its corporate sponsors and foundations that they’re advocating public infrastructure the regressive taxes. That’s an awesome way to keep the SPUR funded by the largesse of the wealthy and corporate sponsors.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 6:26 pm
Other people! Pay for my train to work!
Other people! Pay for my train to Visalia!
Other people! Pay for my golf course!
Other people! Pay for my water supply!
Other people! Pay for my freeway!
Thanks!
joe Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 6:51 pm
I also think the OIl severance tax can pay for improved mental health care in CA.
That and people who can afford a home in Noe Valley might be asked to kick in a bit more, say 4% more of every dollar earned over 100k
jimsf Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 6:53 pm
you’re a kook. and disingenuous, since you know that all of us pay taxes for other people’s stuff, locally, statewide, and nationally. Worse, this isn’t even your country to criticize in the first place so fuck off.
Derek Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 9:01 pm
Because people from other countries have nothing useful to contribute to American society!
jimsf Reply:
March 1st, 2013 at 6:47 pm
missing the point of my comment. Are you also being disingenuous or just lacking in reading comprehension skills? It can only be one or the other.
Derek Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 6:51 pm
Under California law, it isn’t a tax if it does not exceed the reasonable costs to the State of providing the service or product to the payor..
Joe Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 7:15 pm
Oh we’ll then it is All good. For a second I thought we were asking people on poverty wages to pay a disproportional share of their income. They can pay tolls until their kids bellies swell.
Derek Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 9:02 pm
Or they can avoid rush hour and pay a substantially reduced toll.
I would like to see the gas tax replaced with with a surface transportation tax that would be divided equally between transit, rail and highway.
or as Ive said before, we could shift to tolls that pay for specific highways.
facility fees on rail tickets to fund infrastructure. ( people are already expecting to pay sales tax on their rail tickets and are surprised to find they are tax free)
Or we can find money by cutting somewhere else. Or by finding something valuable to sell.
Tony D. Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 4:05 pm
Excellent ideas Jim. Far-left progressives won’t like this one (and not my original idea), but I say allow oil fracking, tax it, and send the proceeds to help fund HSR.
Jo Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 5:10 pm
You would be surprised.
Tony D. Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 4:07 pm
For Bay Area, would love to see a HWY 84 tollway from 680 to 580 through Livermore and HWY 152 tollway in southern SCCO.
I would like to see california build this without federal help. Just to show the rest of the country how lame they are.
Jo Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 12:24 pm
As the SPUR report mentions, freeway tolls could be charged. They could be charged only when entering the bay area or Los Angeles. Even a modest toll charge would go a long way.
joe Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 6:46 pm
Speaking of modest..
Tolling the roads for HSR is both unfair and counterproductive. Asking a family of 4 that makes 22K a year to pay a $4 toll to LA is insanely ridiculous when CA doesn’t tax oil production.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 6:52 pm
A family of four that makes 22k a year doesn’t go to LA unless they hitch a ride with someone who can afford the gas.
Joe Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 8:01 pm
Too poor to matter.
Maybe this fee to visit the coasts will have the advantage to keep people in their place – literally.
synonymouse Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 8:14 pm
Excess population drives down the value of labor. There was a time unions recognized this.
It is the life is cheap there principle – I don’t like it; I didn’t invent it. It enables exploitation.
joe Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 8:36 pm
The right to freely associate and organize fixed this so-called excess people problem.
Life quality and living standards increased with population and access to basic human rights.
Life is equal.
The civil rights removed the privilege of the white male. Sonia Sotomayor had an opportunity. You did too.
synonymouse Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 8:45 pm
Cairo
blankslate Reply:
March 1st, 2013 at 10:34 am
“A family of four that makes 22k a year doesn’t go to LA unless they hitch a ride with someone who can afford the gas.”
Yes. Or they take Greyhound. A transportation system that requires car ownership for full participation is far more regressive than a $4 freeway tax.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 1st, 2013 at 11:06 am
I was assuming that if they lived in the Central Valley they had access to a car. At 22k a year – an old car. The cost of the gas and the risk that the old car breaks down far away from home are greater impediments than a 4 dollar toll.
I haven’t checked in a long time. The median toll on Northeast roads is 5 cents a mile. 4 dollars is cheap. Not that the Federal government would allow tolling on I-5 to be used on anything other than maintaining I-5.
YESONHSR Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 8:20 pm
Alot of our taxes go to “red” states….So no I want the federal goverment to pay for some of our HSR project..or our money just go to freeways eleswhere.
On the contrary Jerry Brown is showing the rest of the country – and the world – just how lame we are.
Beppo Grillo tells the story:
“Why do you think politicians in Italy aren’t looking to science and technology to help find a way out from economic crisis?
Over the last decades politicians have removed many valuable people from industry and the government, in order to substitute them with their friends. So you end up with people in positions of power who know nothing about research, technology, innovation, clean energy, sustainable economy. Nothing!”
To wit the firing of Van Ark for voicing the obvious and spurning SNCF’s expert advice.
It is time to dump the backwoods AmBART and go back to a bare-bones starter. A Tejon and I-5 starter hsr from Sac to LA will provide the proof of concept and can come reasonably close to breaking even provided they use a private operator with a cheap union and forced transfers. On the LA end it would be to the portal or threshold around Santa Clarita initially. Great word for this in French is “le seuil”. Le Seuil de LaLa.
This would be economical enough and rational enough to attract private interest and capital, similar to the SNCF proposal.
C’mon, Barry Zoeller is not all powerful. Make Team Tejon an offer they cannot refuse. In truth their kneejerk opposition does not compute anyway as they are patent developers and urbanizers and hsr totally fits in with that modus operandi.
StevieB Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 2:45 pm
Unlike an airline a railroad does more than provide service between endpoints. A route through Tejon Pass and up Interstate 5 would be faster between endpoints but do little for the transportation and economic needs of the millions along the route that would be bypassed. Your ideas are completely at odds with a transportation system for a prosperous California.
synonymouse Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 3:48 pm
That is exactly the idea – as expressed in Prop 1A – of linking the endpoints of the Bay Area-Sac and the LA Basin, where the populations and the deep-pockets markets are. Bako and Fresno can be served by spurs.
What you want is AmBART trashing the backyards and almond groves along 99 with aerials and for nothing. There is no market there in those car-centric strungout burgs for a BART on steroids. Boondoggle, baby.
jimsf Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 3:55 pm
That WAS NOT the idea expressed in prop 1A by any stretch of your cockamamie imagination for had it been I would have voted no.You need to put down your crack pipe.
The route map and stations shown prior to the election is exactly the same as the one shown today.
Perhaps you were in the middle of some kind of relapse on election day.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 4:57 pm
How much does 50 miles of high speed rail from Fresno to I-5 cost?
jimsf Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 5:27 pm
This is a market now and there will be a bigger market later.
jimsf Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 5:36 pm
looks liek this doc shows that ag supports infill and high density in the central valley.
jimsf Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 5:36 pm
valley growth
synonymouse Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 6:17 pm
California ag is not the power it once was. An LA double or triple in size will grab all the water.
California high-speed rail finally wins Peninsula lawsuit after five years
……Poor Morris Brown……
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 1:09 pm
… it’s almost time to file the lawsuits saying that things have changed and a new EIR is required. Rinse repeat.
VBobier Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 1:31 pm
And when the last lawsuit is tossed in April, that will be that and the project have the Green Light to go…
……Poor Morris Brown……
StevieB Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 1:31 pm
The suit was a costly inconvenience for California High Speed Rail construction.
Opponents still despairingly hold out hope for a Central Valley lawsuit.
The Atherton City Council on Feb. 20 unanimously approved contributing $10,000 and Burlingame is said to be contributing funds to the suit.
Joe Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 7:24 pm
The next Menlo park council meeting will be a “pass the popcorn event”
Lawsuit fail and the city settled a facebook campus related lawsuit to approve 1000 new homes and by May.
synonymouse Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 1:36 pm
Was there ever any doubt about the machine puppet judiciary’s rubberstamp?
Just going thru the motions. The Peninsula had to know that.
A longer route? What a total crock! Do you have to ask how Rizzo and Noguez learned how to be crooks? California deserves its cartel future. We’ll make Greece look like Switzerland in comparison.
jimsf Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 2:21 pm
or maybe the justice system worked as designed, and the sore losers just want to pout. That is the de rigueur response these days for everything.
synonymouse Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 2:38 pm
“the justice system worked as designed”
by the machine
But PAMPA have to go thru the motions to lose the suit and win the negotiation. Like haggling for a new car at the dealership – you have to get up and move towards the door.
jimsf Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 3:51 pm
if by “the machine” you mean the voters who voted and won the prop to build hsr.
synonymouse Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 4:07 pm
Had my reading of Prop 1A been AmBART I would have voted no then.
En revanche, now I vote no on pretty much everything.
Tony D. Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 7:37 pm
Sweet!
YESONHSR Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 8:23 pm
HIPP HIPPP horray…common sense and long term thinking… instead of the backyards of people that KNEW they moved next to a railroad…and whine
Like an absent student that tries to cram the entire course during finals week, Madera Co. has an alternative plan for HSR a few week prior to Construction. Check out the Map at the link.
http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/02/28/3193346/madera-co-leader-suggests-new.html
political_incorrectness Reply:
February 28th, 2013 at 9:47 pm
That route is completely laughable. Once that lawsuit is out of the way, then we can say a true HSR line is under construction in America.
synonymouse Reply:
March 1st, 2013 at 1:07 pm
No more laughable than the Tehachapi DeTour.
How about this funding idea: California could sell bonds, supported by future taxes and operating profits. It could even go to a referendum on this.
synonymouse Reply:
March 1st, 2013 at 10:21 am
Sounds somehow familiar.
Alon Levy Reply:
March 1st, 2013 at 11:33 am
I know, right? It’s as if the state came up with a funding plan and went to a referendum based on it or something…
synonymouse Reply:
March 1st, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Along those nostalgic lines I was thinking of a tax on tea as a means of paying PB for hollow-core.
But tweaking for trendy, what about a “fee” on your favorite libations, lattes foremost, and other divertimentos such as cellphones and I-Stuff?