This week the plan appears to be gathering momentum:

“That’s part of what prompted us to consider getting involved,” said Adrienne Tissier, a San Mateo County supervisor who serves as chairwoman of the transportation commission and also sits on the Caltrain board.

At today’s meeting, Tissier plans to ask the commission’s planning staff to take on the high-speed rail effort. She expects the commission will have about a year and a half to work with the rail authority before the spring 2013 deadline for a final San Francisco-San Jose plan.

And the Bay Area Council is getting even more serious about the plan, hiring Gavin Newsom’s former campaign manager to lead the effort:

“We see this as the way forward to save this project,” said John Grubb, a senior vice president of the Bay Area Council, a pro-business advocacy group.

The council, working with Metropolitan Transportation Commission officials, is calling for formation of a coalition of Bay Area transportation agencies and cities to work with the California High-Speed Rail Authority to come up with an acceptable plan to run high-speed trains between San Jose and San Francisco, perhaps at less-than-high speeds. The group also plans to hire San Francisco lobbyist Alex Tourk to help build business backing.

Jim Wunderman, president and CEO, of the Bay Area Council, explains the thinking that went into the effort:

“There were some assumptions made that everyone was flat-out excited about high-speed rail,” said Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council. “The concerns of the cities along the line weren’t anticipated by the authority, and by the time they realigned their operations to deal with that, it was too late for a second chance at making a good first impression.”

Clearly, the BAC has decided that it’s too late to push back against the NIMBYism and that instead some sort of deal has to be struck. While I am not sure they’re right, I can understand why they’re taking the approach they are, especially with Congresswoman Anna Eshoo pushing hard for something like this. And as I said when discussing the BAC proposal last week, this could work out OK – but there are some important issues to take care of, including ensuring that whatever hybrid plan is reached can accommodate the passenger rail traffic that it needs to carry.

Others are raising these concerns:

“A scaled-back plan is good,” said Marian Lee, head of the Caltrain Modernization Project, “but can we get enough trains through our corridor – high-speed and Caltrain – to make it work?”

That’s one of the key questions the Bay Area Council plan needs to answer. While the plan might make political sense (and that’s still an open question) it might not make operational sense. In the end, that’s what matters. NIMBYism is a temporary phenomenon, but whatever does get built will have to last us for a while. Let’s make sure that the hybrid solution doesn’t undermine Caltrain or HSR, but that if it does go forward, it provides a strong basis to grow passenger rail ridership on the Peninsula, whether the destination is local, regional, or across the state.

There is much common ground among the framework put forward by Senator Simitian, Assembly Member Gordon, and Congresswoman Eshoo; the Caltrain concept; ideas from San Francisco and San Jose; and even the “phased” approach that the Authority has aired.

The Bay Area Council has had discussion with these leaders, and I see substantial areas of agreement among them and with the Bay Area Council. I believe that there can be broad support for a project that:

• Brings both high speed rail and Caltrain electrification to the Peninsula as soon as possible, by utilizing a simple design that can be funded and built quickly.

• Provides sufficient speed, capacity, and flexibility to support an attractive high speed rail service, while also providing adequate capacity for robust Caltrain service.

• Minimizes community impacts by forgoing construction elements that are not needed in the near/mid‐term.

• Connects to the Transbay Terminal.

• Meets legal requirements necessary to access Proposition 1A high speed rail bond funds.

• Is designed such that future upgrades, should they be necessary and desired at a future date, would not require unnecessary disruption or wasteful reconstruction.

Some will have concerns additional to those above, and some might quibble with the precise wording— there certainly will need to be a degree of compromise on all sides in order to reach agreement. But agreement, I am confident, is within our reach.

What the BAC lists here is, broadly speaking, a workable starting point. A good design that meets both Caltrain and HSR’s needs, connecting to the Transbay Terminal and designed in a way for future upgrades – which ARE quite necessary – is something I think a lot of people can get behind.

I worry about what “minimizing community impacts by forgoing construction elements that are not needed in the near/mid-term” means. I wish the BAC had not accepted the NIMBYs’ framing that things like aerial structures are “not needed” and have impacts that need to be “minimized” – what about the community impacts of at-grade crossings that cause significant traffic jams, that split communities, and that are very unsafe. Jim Wunderman might say I’m “quibbling with the precise wording” but I think this matters.

But this seems worth exploring. HSR was always going to be built in phases, and if the initial SF-SJ phase is some kind of hybrid that carries bullet trains to and from Transbay Terminal along a route that includes the Central Valley and terminates in downtown LA, a phase that can and will be expanded when the other segments are fully built out and when NIMBYism has faded, then it could work.

The politics here matter. The Bay Area Council have been strong backers of the HSR project, and have long been concerned at the NIMBYism cropping up on the Peninsula. While I’d always hoped the BAC would play a stronger role in helping push back against that NIMBYism by helping mobilize the Peninsula’s large, silent, pro-HSR and anti-NIMBY majority, they appear to be instead trying to broker a deal that enough people can live with. By providing backing for a hybrid plan they’re making that plan much more likely. And since the local electeds, including Anna Eshoo and Joe Simitian, have been converging on this plan along with the California High Speed Rail Authority (who has increasingly been open to this), the hybrid plan may be the new consensus path forward.

Perhaps another elected official who is converging toward this plan is Governor Jerry Brown. Remember that at the beginning of the month, he line-item vetoed $145 million in Prop 1A funding on the basis that it didn’t help build a comprehensive statewide rail plan:

The High-Speed Rail Authority (Authority), the Department of Transportation (Caltrans), and local jurisdictions should work together to develop a comprehensive statewide rail plan. The projects identified by Caltrans and the California Transportation Commission appear unrelated to the high-speed rail project or an integrated rail plan. As plans for the high speed route are further developed, the Authority should work with local agencies to build mutually beneficial projects.

That reads pretty closely to what the BAC letter proposed. Now it could be that the BAC simply read Brown’s veto closely and is appealing to his way of thinking – or both Brown and BAC are trying to produce this kind of coordinated, integrated solution.

In any case, it’s good that BAC is trying to keep HSR not only alive but well on the Peninsula. HSR advocates will closely evaluate both the concept that BAC has proposed as well as the details that emerge – and those advocates will fully expect to be a part of the process. After all, we represent the majority of Californians and the majority of Peninsula residents, both of whom continue to strongly support this project.

Before discussing some of the possible funding sources, it’s worth taking a moment to discuss Clem Tiller’s excellent presentation (1.1MB PDF file). Tillier added in a blog post that he didn’t quite have time to drive home some key points:

• Need for metrics to assess various infrastructure proposals

• Caltrain has “failed miserably” to market electrification to the public, not explaining that it’s primarily about speeding up trip times

• Electrification faces political obstacles that must be overcome, or else the project will not get done

• DMUs aren’t really an option, particularly because they don’t help achieve faster trip times

• A “mid-line overtake” (see Clem’s presentation) could help with providing service to Transbay Terminal if the HSR route temporarily terminates in San José.

Tillier’s presentation also emphasized the importance of electrification as the second of three steps to improve service. The first step, schedule optimization, has largely been achieved within existing rolling stock and trackage, with trains 100% full at rush hour. Electrification is the second step, and the third step is targeted (Clem’s emphasis) work on segments of the route to help speed trains, from a midline overtake in the San Carlos area to a few grade separations.

All of this makes sense in a Caltrain-focused discussion, and as far as I can tell, it’s not wholly incompatible with future HSR plans – the midline overtake would become obsolete, and theoretically would not require very costly work to be done, when HSR tracks are built.

I hope that Clem’s points were understood by the attendees, because it’s important to keep in mind that saving Caltrain is about more than just filling the short-term operating deficit – it’s about improving the infrastructure of the system to enable faster and more frequent trips, which will increase ridership and help improve the system’s finances.

Still, the deficit is the big issue looming over Caltrain right now, and as David Herron reports, several funding ideas were proposed to deal with it, including a gas tax, backed by Congresswoman Jackie Speier and Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune. Transform’s Carli Paine proposed parking fees, tolling the Highway 101 carpool lanes, or even a payroll tax.

Let’s take a closer look at a gas tax. According to Herron:

One idea buzzing around is a 10 cent gasoline tax. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) has legal authority to put a gasoline tax on the ballot, but it would requires a 2/3rds majority to enact. Polling suggests that there’s only 60% support for a new tax.

10 cents is probably too small an amount. We need to stop subsidizing driving through tax breaks on gasoline, and instead fund the retention and expansion of mass transit options via higher gas taxes. So what would a good tax be?

The most recent stats I could find, from the MTC, states that the 9-county Bay Area sold an average of 8,327,000 gallons of gas daily in 2007, for a total of 3.04 billion gallons sold that year. That figure is problematic given the impact of rising gas prices and the recession on gas sales since 2007, but let’s go with it for now.

At 3.04 billion gallons a year, here’s the revenue that would be generated annually by various gas tax increases:

10 cents: $303 million
15 cents: $456 million
20 cents: $608 million
25 cents: $760 million
30 cents: $912 million
35 cents: $1.06 billion

And so on.

How much is needed? That all depends on what the “needs” are. Last summer Mike Rosenberg, writing in the Contra Costa Times, reported that Bay Area transit agencies faced an operating deficit of $8.5 billion over the next 25 years, which translates to about $340 million annually. There’s also a capital projects deficit of $17.2 billion over the same time frame, or $68.8 $688 million annually. So a gas tax increase of 12-13 cents would about cover it. (OK, it actually wouldn’t – as you can tell, math is not my strong suit. But the point I make below still works.)

But surely you’d want to do more. As oil prices keep rising, as growth in the Bay Area core chokes freeways, and as the great shift away from driving continues, it’s not enough to maintain 2008 service levels. We need to massively expand services. So I’d argue for going to 35 cents per gallon, to bring in a billion dollars a year in new revenues for transit.

This is especially valuable from a political perspective, where you’ll need to show your work to voters after they’ve approved a gas tax. They’ll expect to see results, and rolling in some capital project funding as well as service improvements would go a long way to accomplish that.

Any gas tax increase – whether just 10 cents or as much as 35 cents – would need to be phased in over time. In 2005, Washington State voters agreed to a 9.5-cent gas tax increase, phased in by about 3 cents a gallon per year. Nobody noticed – as gas prices soared from 2006 to 2008, 9.5 cents made hardly a difference to drivers at the pump.

Phasing in a Bay Area gas tax over 3 years or so would be quite doable, and most people wouldn’t notice the difference, especially as prices are right now headed back up to $4/gal.

But we’d still need to deal with the issue of building political support. 60% support is pretty damn strong, but the moronic 2/3 rule for tax increases is a high hurdle. Not just the MTC but other Bay Area political leaders should work on dual tracks – building public support for a gas tax increase, and working with Governor Jerry Brown and the state legislature to reduce the vote requirement to 50%+1 or 55%.

While the discussion was focused on Caltrain, it’s really a much bigger matter of finding the revenue to sustain and expand the Bay Area’s mass transit systems. High speed rail needs those systems to be as robust as possible in order to bring people to and from the HSR stations to their destinations around the region. And Bay Area residents need to realize that their prosperity depends on solving this problem. Let’s get to work.

• Chinese airlines cut fares to win back riders on new HSR lines

• Spain HSR overtakes flights on Madrid-Barcelona route, long one of the busiest air routes in the world

• Taiwan airlines “reeling” from HSR success – keep in mind this is from an HSR system that needed a government bailout thanks to a flawed funding method

• Acela takes over 40% of market share on Northeast Corridor – even though Acela isn’t real HSR, certainly not what we’re planning here in California

Other studies have indicated that California would experience similar benefits from HSR. The Brookings Institution produced a report last October that claimed SF-LA was one of the best corridors in the country for HSR.

That study is now boosted by a new report from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) showing that HSR will get at least 6 million riders per year from the three Bay Area airports combined:

SH&E forecasts that by 2035, San Jose would lose 12 percent of its projected passengers because of high-speed rail, followed by a 9 percent diversion at Oakland and a 4 percent loss at San Francisco. They figure the three airports would carry slightly more than 100 million total passengers without the bullet train but that each would carry about 2 million fewer travelers if high-speed rail is built as planned.

Translated to total airport activity, the train project is estimated to reduce overall operations at San Jose by 9.2 percent, at San Francisco by 5.3 percent and at Oakland by 5.2 percent….

The consultants say two-thirds of San Francisco and San Jose travelers headed to the Los Angeles area would switch to high-speed rail, and about half the Oakland passengers would do the same.

The study is based on the MTC/CHSRA ridership estimates prepared by Cambridge Systematics, and independent observers view those numbers as credible:

“There will be a giant sucking sound as you hear, especially business travelers, vacate airplanes in favor of high-speed rail,” said Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst with Forrester Research in San Francisco, who was not involved in the study. “It will be less susceptible to delays, more efficient, (will go) city center to city center, and there are just some additional pleasantries,” he said.

And the local airports aren’t concerned by it. SFO has long been supportive of HSR and welcomes the station planned for Millbrae. Mineta San José Airport, in the midst of a major and welcome expansion project, is also unconcerned:

California airports have long been supportive of the rail project. Stations are planned at the BART stop at San Francisco Airport, in San Jose and near Southern California airports.

“We recognize that if high-speed rail does affect our short-haul passenger traffic at the airport in the future, that makes it even more important to protect the airport’s ability to serve long haul routes in the future,” said David Vossbrink, spokesman for Mineta San Jose International Airport. The study indicated the diversion estimates represented “total aircraft activity.”

This is because they understand that the future of short-haul flights is not bright. Rising oil prices in 2008 led to a major reduction in those flights even on the busy SF-LA corridor. Southwest has only been able to maintain its low prices through the use of fuel hedges that allowed it to lock in low fuel costs. As oil prices rise, which they will do for the foreseeable future, Southwest will become unable to keep their fares low.

That is why we should welcome this study. California must move beyond relying on oil-based forms of transportation, including flights to get around our state. High speed rail will enable us to provide sustainably powered travel with a stable cost. Further reasons to ensure HSR gets built as planned.

The plaintiffs hope their motion, to be filed in Sacramento Superior Court within the next two weeks, will lead to a full trial that would include evidence discovery and witness testimony. Ultimately, they hope the suit will reverse the rail authority’s December 2007 decision to run its bullet train through the Peninsula instead of the East Bay….

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Oakland-based Stuart Flashman, said a “writ of error coram nobis,” while uncommon, can be used to reopen a case even after a judgment has been made, as long as previously unknown evidence comes to light after the case closes.

The plaintiffs claim a group of concerned Peninsula residents last week obtained documents from 2007 that show the Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission may have hid parts of an independent study that showed less favorable ridership models. The residents, called Californians Advocating Responsible Rail Design, circulated the data to city officials, who Flashman said were “furious” at the discovery.

That’s CARRD’s spin, though Rosenberg takes pains to try and present it neutrally – and correctly notes it is MTC and not the California High Speed Rail Authority that is at issue here. However, it’s unclear that anything was “hidden” – MTC and CHSRA divulged the data upon request, and these coefficients aren’t always included in the published reports. Further, the ridership models weren’t “less favorable” overall – the numbers merely flipped between the Altamont and Pacheco alignments. There is as of yet no evidence to suggest this was inaccurate or illegitimate, although HSR critics have been busy claiming that it was.

Rosenberg’s article continues:

Flashman, who has already begun drafting the motion, said the new data makes the ridership study the authority used to justify its route “fatally flawed, but none of us knew it.”

Flashman is just plain wrong here and is using the “magic bullet” to concoct a theory that the entire study is “fatally flawed.” Again, there is no such evidence this is the case. If the coefficient change was in error, then you simply recalculate the ridership and the fares accordingly. One error, whether deliberate or not, does not at all indicate that any of the rest of the study is flawed. It certainly creates a PR and political problem, but that’s not the same as an evidentiary problem.

Even if the specific element of the ridership numbers in question was flawed, it might not really matter for the EIR and therefore render the effort to reopen the lawsuit invalid:

But the claim, even if true, may not be enough. The ridership numbers may not have any impact on the rail line’s environmental impact, which is the only basis on which the judge could reopen the case.

In addition, this legal maneuver may not be something that the cities and TRANSDEF can actually pull off, as Rosenberg quoted Kopp, himself a retired Superior Court judge, saying the “writ of error coram nobis” was something he’d only seen used in criminal cases.

Rosenberg’s article is also noteworthy for his accurate portrayal of the outcome of the Menlo Park/Atherton lawsuit:

The plaintiffs last summer lost the majority of their suit, which they filed in Sacramento Superior Court in August 2008. They cited environmental laws in challenging the authority board’s certification of an early planning document that picked the Pacheco Pass as the Bay Area route instead of the Altamont Pass.

But Judge Michael Kenny did rule that two areas of the authority’s report needed more study: Vibration and track use from San Jose to Gilroy. The authority is redoing that work while it chugs along with more advanced planning.

Flashman went as far as to suggest a possible criminal fraud investigation against those at the MTC responsible for concealing ridership data, if in fact they did. But such an investigation would come from the attorney general’s office, which is also representing the rail authority in the lawsuit.

It’s not inconceivable that the Attorney General’s office would launch such an investigation, but it is also unlikely, since there is nothing to yet indicate any wrongdoing was done. Indeed, while the coefficient change does indeed “raise eyebrows,” as Brian Stanke put it, the change itself hasn’t been shown to have been an errant calculation.

Still, it’s clear that the cities of Menlo Park and Atherton aren’t done fighting the HSR project as it currently exists. Ironically enough, even if Altamont somehow rises from the dead and is again chosen as the primary HSR route, it will still cut through parts of Menlo Park. As it turns out, it’s the poorer neighborhoods that would have the trains in their backyards. Which raises questions of environmental justice, as wealthier residents seem happy to dump the problem in someone else’s lap. While I don’t think the trains would cause environmental harm to those neighborhoods, it would be a pretty obvious example of class-based NIMBYism.

Further, the Altamont alignment raises many of the same questions and controversies as the Pacheco alignment. Palo Alto might be relieved to not have the project in their community, but Fremont, Pleasanton and Livermore might not be so pleased to themselves become a dumping ground. There will be NIMBYs there who fight aspects of the project as well. And of course, without HSR funds, Caltrain’s electrification project will face a significant setback.

The Altamont alignment also creates environmental permitting issues through the Don Edwards wildlife refuge in and near the San Francisco Bay. It also potentially complicates the operations of the HSR system, with San Jose being served by a spur instead of being a prominent station on the mainline.

In any case, I am sure these questions will continue to be debated in the comments, and it’s a worthy discussion to have, even if there aren’t yet any conclusions that can be reached, especially since there’s a lot we still don’t know about the ridership questions CARRD has raised. Menlo Park and Atherton are awfully quick to use those questions as a basis for trying to reopen a lawsuit they already mostly lost. It’s a shame that instead of working to improve the project, they continue to prefer to try and undermine it with lawsuits that cost their governments and the state government more money at a time when neither can really afford it.

Note to readers: Apologies for the delayed approval of pending comments the last few days. Been in all-day meetings here in LA. Things will be back to normal starting tomorrow.

In 2009 the opposition shifted. Recognizing that trying to argue against the concept of HSR in California was a non-starter, opponents instead tried to undermine the project by arguing that the route choices were flawed, or that communities would be destroyed by the project. After a burst of NIMBY energy in early 2009, this began to fade as it became clear that state and federal lawmakers were not going to let a group of prosperous Peninsula residents block a project that had widespread public support and was a necessary part of the state’s economic recovery. Indeed, by early 2010 NIMBYism had faded significantly as a threat to the overall project, though it continued to play a big role in debates over routing and implementation.

By 2010 the folks who didn’t want HSR to happen had focused on trying to destroy the project and the CHSRA’s credibility by combing through every document available to find ANY flaw they could – a search for a magic bullet, like decades of JFK assassination conspiracy theorists. It didn’t matter whether the flaw actually meant the whole HSR project was fatally flawed. All that mattered was that some discrepancy be found. Because if that were possible, then they could use that discrepancy to argue that the project is flawed without ever having to show precisely how the flaw means the project isn’t viable.

Let’s be very clear about that. The goal wasn’t to explain why HSR won’t generate operating surpluses, or suggest that California doesn’t need the trains. The goal of HSR critics was to instead find a flaw and assume that finding a flaw automatically meant HSR has to stop, that everything the Authority says is false, that all numbers don’t pan out, etc, etc.

It is a fundamentally dishonest approach to public oversight of a project. But that is precisely what has happened here.

First it was the business plan. We were told that the plan was “illegal” because it suggested a public guarantee for investors. It wasn’t clear whether that actually was illegal, and in any case it didn’t get much media traction. We were then told that the fact that the overall cost estimate changed was proof that it was a boondoggle and CHSRA can’t be trusted. Of course, the shift was due to federal rules regarding year-of-expenditure costing. We were then told that a model that proposed setting fares at 83% of airfare instead of 50% was somehow a sellout and a bait-and-switch and meant the project was dishonest and we should revote.

But none of those criticisms stuck. Sure, some parts of the business plan still need work, but that’s natural in an evolving project like this. And the HSR critics seem to have instinctively understood this line of attack was going nowhere, because they quickly shifted toward a focus on ridership.

This was partly due to signals sent by HSR opponent Senator Alan Lowenthal, who has repeatedly tried to destroy the project. He even lied to the public when, on KQED a week ago, he claimed that everyone who spoke at the Palo Alto hearing raised “concerns” about the project – Lowenthal did not once mention the outpouring of public support for the project he had heard.

HSR critics picked up on Lowenthal’s extremely dishonest and irresponsible claim that “the ridership numbers don’t pass the smell test” as a green light to zero in on the ridership estimates to try and find their single flaw that would somehow bring down the project they disliked, since every other line of attack over the last two years had failed them. Lowenthal’s original “smell test” claim was totally baseless, since he had NO explanation for why they didn’t seem right. No evidence, no logical argument. All he said was it didn’t feel right to him. That’s not a serious statement, certainly not one that should be made by a state legislator with oversight powers over an important project.

The initial efforts of HSR critics to attack the ridership numbers here in 2010 was the laughable attempt by the PCC to suggest that HSR and Amtrak were legitimate comparisons – that any idea that HSR would draw more riders at its stations than Amtrak at its NEC stations was somehow ridiculous. In fact, that is precisely what will happen and is a totally justifiable claim.

So they quickly abandoned that, but did not abandon the search for their magic bullet. This week, they claimed they found it. Here’s what we know:

1. Cambridge Systematics wrote in a letter dated January 29, 2010 that the MTC chose not to include the final coefficients in the final project report. This was stated neutrally, as the letter clearly indicates. Cambridge Systematics did not claim MTC or CHSRA was being dishonest, fraudulent, or anything else. All they said was, in effect, “we weren’t the ones who chose not to include that information. Go ask MTC.” Yet HSR critics claim this was “deliberately withheld,” for reasons unstated yet apparently sinister. How do we know the reasons were sinister? Well, actually, we don’t. We’re supposed to just believe people who have a vested interest in making HSR look bad.

2. The coefficients in question were modified, as is claimed to be regular and legitimate practice. It is important to keep in mind that it remains unknown why the coefficients were changed. One report indicates it was done to assess the impact of travel time on ridership, but that does not exactly explain why the coefficients changed by the amounts they did. In the absence of that info, it would be wrong to assume that means CHSRA did something bad. Yet that is precisely the assumption being made by HSR critics. We’re supposed to jump to conclusions because critics ask us to do so.

3. Nobody has explained what the impact of the coefficient change actually was. Did it totally change the ridership numbers for Altamont and Pacheco, which were still very close even after the change? Was it alone responsible for the choice of Pacheco? Realize that Peninsula HSR critics have a vested interest in undermining the Pacheco alignment, because it might theoretically revive the Altamont alignment, which would direct the trains away from the communities that have been most vocally opposed to HSR (Menlo Park, Atherton, and Palo Alto). [UPDATE: Brian Stanke shows in the comments the shift took Altamont from 69 million to 65 million riders, and Pacheco from 65 million to 70 million riders.]

4. More importantly, nobody – not one single person – has explained how this invalidates ANYTHING regarding the overall ridership numbers, the revenue estimates, or the fiscal plans. We are supposed to just believe that because one controversial change was discovered, that suddenly the whole HSR project is in dire peril.

Nonsense.

What we have here is a question about how one element of one part of one ridership estimate was made. The question can be answered fairly straightfowardly, without a rush to judgement, and I hope that is precisely what we will get. I have communicated to the Authority my belief that complete openness is in their best interest, and I have every reason to believe they feel exactly the same way. After all, the ridership info in question WAS made public when HSR critics asked for it, wasn’t it?!

So why is this “magic bullet theory” getting so much attention? Let me explain some reasons why.

Americans are trained to think nobody rides trains and they all lose money, so anything that reinforces that frame helps kill HSR projects. As we know, this assumption is complete nonsense. Many passenger rail systems of various kinds in the country have significant ridership and meet their goals. HSR in particular consistently posts high ridership numbers across the globe. Further, all HSR systems, including Amtrak’s Acela, generate profits “above the rail” – meaning operating costs are covered, no ongoing subsidy is required. That is not true of California freeways, for example, which require a costly state subsidy to maintain operations, since gas taxes are insufficient to pay for necessary upkeep, certainly not for adding capacity (eve Orange County has used sales taxes to subsidize capital construction on new freeway lanes). But because HSR is a train, well, it’s easy to assume that it’s going to fail anyway, so anything that reinforces that preexisting assumption of failure is useful.

The media in particular are trained to believe that any discrepancy on the part of government is a sign of scandal. Plenty of reporters and media outlets make a living exposing government problems in breathless tones. Sometimes these are significant. But they usually don’t suggest the public service in question should be abolished or ended. When the University of California has a scandal over executive pay, nobody proposes the solution is to close down UC. When the East Span of the Bay Bridge cost estimates came in way above estimates, we didn’t decide to not replace the span. When hospitals commit billing errors, we don’t shut down the hospital. Instead in those cases we solve the underlying problems, ensure anyone who screwed up or intentionally erred is held accountable, and we move on to ensure we don’t lose sight of the big picture. Yet we’re supposed to now throw out all HSR plans and the project itself because a controversial coefficient change was found? Really?

Stephen Colbert was right – “truthiness” has replaced the truth. This entire controversy over ridership is a classic example of truthiness – “a “truth” that a person claims to know intuitively “from the gut” without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.” When Alan Lowenthal said the ridership numbers “don’t pass the smell test,” he was engaging in truthiness. When HSR critics say the coefficient change means the entire ridership estimate is flawed and HSR is doomed, they too are engaging in truthiness. They found a magic bullet that they believe validates their preexisting worldview and now we’re all supposed to fall in line behind them and agree HSR sucks and we should just quit. No, I don’t think so.

A severe recession has created a public mood less accepting of any change or new idea at all, mobilizing public fear of spending new money on something that might not work. Across the political world, we see regressive forces beginning to prevail in their quest to stop us from solving deeper problems merely by suggesting the solutions might cost money or that the solutions might be imperfect. In a week where we learn one of California’s largest insurance companies will raise rates by over 30% on individual policy holders this year, we’re supposed to believe that health care reform is a bad idea that should be abandoned. After a decade of accepting that global warming is real and we should do something about it, we’re now supposed to believe that a few stupid emails sent by some British scientists somehow invalidate the entire effort to address the climate crisis, that we should instead do nothing while our planet heats up, our sea levels rise, and our state becomes drier (don’t let recent El Niño rains fool you).

There is a widespread effort in this country to use fear, uncertainty, and doubt – and especially concern about spending money – to keep the 20th century alive at all costs and to destroy any effort to do anything new. What we are seeing with this silly “magic bullet theory” being peddled by HSR critics is not at all different from the people trying to repeal AB 32 or trying to stop federal health care reform from happening. It all involves critics and defenders of the status quo taking false or misleading claims about one piece of the overall reform or need to act and using them to insinuate the whole reform or underlying issue is nonsense and should be ignored – even though their claims have not actually shown what they claim has been shown.

It’s like assuming a kid who flunked a math test is mentally challenged and doesn’t deserve to continue their education. It’s like assuming that because Apollo 1 burned up on the launch pad that we shouldn’t go to the moon.

In short, it’s absurd to use one controversy to attack an entire project. But that is what the HSR critics want to do, because all they feel they have to do is sow doubt, whether or not it’s backed by reasonable analysis, and they’ll win.

I hope for the sake of this state and its future that we will reject that, and demand solid analysis backed by strong evidence from all sides in the HSR discussion. If someone at MTC or the CHSRA did something they shouldn’t have, I will lead the call for them to be held accountable and face the proper consequences. But I’m not going to fall into the trap of assuming that just because a magic bullet theory is claimed, that I’ll abandon the HSR project. I hope others will refuse to fall into that trap as well.

Newsom had already come out in support of Transbay. Enhancing Diridon was a foregone conclusion. But the announcement apparently portends a broader regional agreement.

We should learn more about this announcement of regional aspirations at this morning’s meeting of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which is brokering the agreement. More details from the Chronicle:

The proposal would turn the Diridon Station in downtown San Jose and the planned new Transbay Terminal in downtown San Francisco into major regional transit hubs.

In addition, the Caltrain Station at Fourth and King streets in San Francisco’s South of Market would be expanded to accommodate high-speed rail.

The proposed package also seeks funding to electrify Caltrain and to equip its rail cars with automated train-control equipment that senses impending danger on the tracks. The train tracks in San Bruno would be separated from truck and auto traffic.

Together the projects would cost $3.4 billion, said Randy Rentschler, government affairs manager for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The region will ask for $1.6 billion in new federal stimulus money to help pay for the improvements. Additional funds would come from the nearly $10 billion funding pot backed by California voters for high-speed rail.

The Bay Area will seek additional funding later to pay for other projects.

One could argue that the explicit advocacy of Caltrain upgrades is a rebuke to NIMBY calls for taking HSR off the Caltrain corridor altogether, but I’m not sure the powers that be would bother to dignify such fringe proposals. This could turn out to merely be formalizing exactly which upgrade projects should come first. (Incidentally, Caltrain was awarded $9 million in stimulus funding for unrelated projects this week.)

It’s encouraging to see a regional consensus emerging around Transbay, which should hopefully end the public political squabbles. What do you think? Will this announcement put an end to the issue, or merely galvanize opposing forces and bring the funding and technical challenges of Transbay further into the fore?

Some great news out of the US Department of Transportation:

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today emphasized the administration’s long-term commitment to expanding high-speed rail service in “five or six regions” of the country, not just with the $8 billion provided in the economic stimulus package President Obama signed into law last week, but also “in subsequent years a very substantial effort.” Meeting with reporters earlier today, LaHood said that for Obama building high-speed rail networks is, “if not his No. 1 priority, certainly at the top of his list. What the president is saying with the $8 billion is this is the start to help begin high-speed rail projects.” He added that the administration “is committed to finding the dollars to not only get them started but to finishing them in at least five parts of the country,” although he declined to elaborate on where these projects might ultimately be built.

One of my lingering concerns about the Obama Administration has been that they might be tempted to claim victory with the $8 billion in HSR funding added to the stimulus and not follow up on that money, which as we know merely pays for some initial costs. But what Ray LaHood is saying is that in fact, the $8 billion in HSR stimulus really is intended as a signal to America that Obama is truly serious about building HSR.

This couldn’t be better news for us in California, where we have long known that at least $15 billion in federal aid, spread out over 10 years, will be needed to build the SF-LA line. Unfortunately the news is tempered by the fact that the Obama Administration’s support for HSR did not extend to mass transit as a whole. Here in California the state has decided to zero out the State Transit Assistance account, costing local agencies over $500 million in funding. The federal stimulus isn’t nearly enough to make up the difference. And as the San Jose Mercury News reports, that’s setting up a situation where HSR may be pit against local transit agencies:

The MTC meeting Wednesday in Oakland could turn contentious, as the current plan calls for allocating $75 million to help build the Transbay Terminal in San Francisco, which would serve as the final stopping point for a high-speed rail line and Caltrain, [NOTE: in fact the MTC now plans to get the train box money from the $8 billion HSR stimulus - see update at top of the post] and $70 million to build a BART spur to Oakland International Airport. Those two projects alone would take 43 percent of the $340 million headed to the area in stimulus funds for local transit.

Some want money for those new two projects scrapped or reduced — and redirected to cover the cost of paying for day-to-day transit needs.

But MTC officials counter that building the Transbay Terminal now will save millions of dollars in later costs, and combined with the $8 billion in stimulus funds set aside for high-speed rail could accelerate that program. California is a leading candidate to capture much of that money because voters in the fall approved a $10 billion bond measure to begin work on the line, which will someday extend from San Diego to San Francisco and Sacramento.

“Given that California is the only state to pass a bond to build a new high-speed line, we think we might be able to do some double-dipping there,” said MTC executive director Steve Heminger. “We are going to spend the stimulus money fast. I can guarantee that.”

I support using that money for the Transbay Terminal, although I’m less certain about whether BART to OAK is all that necessary; the AirBART buses work pretty well (I used them on numerous occasions when I was an undergrad at UC Berkeley, although that was 10 years ago).

But I really hate it when HSR pitted against other forms of transit. I have said it before and I will say it again – HSR and other mass transit need each other to be successful. It should not and must not be an either/or choice. I don’t blame the MTC for being stuck in this position – that blame lies in Sacramento and Washington DC. But we transit advocates need to not fall out along modal lines.

I’d like to propose a solution, one that I don’t even know is possible under state law but makes a ton of sense to me. The nine-county SF Bay Area region should implement its own gas tax, which will solely be used to fund public transit. I haven’t penciled out the numbers so I don’t know exactly what the tax amount should be, but it should be indexed to the price of gas, and not a fixed cent number.

This money would initially be used to backfill the loss of STA funds, and allow the federal stimulus money to go to new transit infrastructure such as Transbay Terminal or BART to OAK. Ultimately the STA funds must be restored by a statewide gas tax increase, but it is much more politically possible to implement a gas tax in the Bay Area first than to try and get the Central Valley and the Southern California exurbs to buy into this (they can be brought on board later, once the 2/3 rule is eliminated).

It’s very difficult for folks living in the nine counties to evade the tax, with the possible exception of Gilroy residents who might drive to Hollister to fill up. Most folks will simply pay the increase rather than drive far out of their way to get a cheaper gallon of gas.

I’m not sure if this option has been explored by the MTC and the member counties, but it ought to be. It’s a sensible solution that would not only help spare transit agencies from “Armageddon” but would itself be a long overdue policy shift that would give a real boost to transit efforts in the SF Bay Area.