Escalation of commitment to a failing course of action. Has the money spent so far produced anything tangible & usable? Or is it all reports & studies?
Much of the work currently done is grade separation for the existing freight and future high speed rail. Also something like half the cost of the CalTrain electrification was paid for by the CHSR project.
This project will easily create a 10x return in economic development within 5-10 years. Public transportation is an investment in your areas overall upward mobility for everyone and expand options and choices in ways that are entirely unheard of today.
If they don't build this now, then it will take and cost longer to build later.
Maybe we should invest 10x more and reap 100x the reward, in 5-10 years, nonetheless. It’s a money machine better than counterfeiting. You Cannot Lose.
You’re gonna have to show the math for $1 trillion in economic development in 5-10 years for a route that’s already served by air and road options in a state with stagnant population and declining usage of existing public transit.
We’re 27 years since the California High-Speed Rail Authority was established and not a single passenger has been carried yet.
> (...) for a route that’s already served by air and road options in a state with stagnant population (...)
Mass transit systems have some peculiarities that private transportation systems don't have, such as creating mass demand and concentrating it on specific spots. Each train stop is a natural generator for demand for housing and services in volumes that urban sprawl does not, and this leads to more affordable housing with shorter commutes and with far better services that lead to a far better quality of living.
But this potential to be realized needs urban development that takes advantage of it, which require investment.
I'm not sure if the figure is $1T but there are examples in the world where railway operators get their main source of funding and incentive to grow their network by being granted favourable conditions to invest in real estate surrounding new train stops.
> (...) and declining usage of existing public transit.
I'm sorry, the US is notorious for having self-sabotaging public transportation services, designed to pay lip service for the need to provide mobility alternatives,but actually designed to be impactical and outright hostile to commuters.
If the US learns basic lessons from the many case studies from throughout the world, nothing stops the US from benefiting from identical adoption rates seen outside of its borders.
This is a jobs program not actually a transportation plan. The alignment was to create jobs in certain areas to win local elections, not to optimize transport.
For the amount of money this costs you could subsidize plane tickets for Californians and it would cost less money AND emit less CO2. 100 Billion worth of CO2 is enormous (to a rough estimate monetary cost is proportional to emissions).
Is there any moderate to large scale passenger rail system in the world that is economically viable? It always seems to be brought into existence by force of massive subsidies. The mode of transport seems to be fundamentally broken.
Just saying a bunch of places that have mass transport does not address his question if there are systems where massive subsidies aren’t involved in their creation. I do not know what the situation is in india, but in at least in europe many of the transport systems require massive subsidies. While japan in the meantime has privatized their system and runs very, the original creation was also state directed.
But economically viable and subsided are mutually exclusive because when at that moment the question is not being asked wether the person consuming the good would pay the full price of the service. Economically viable does not mean an expert or technocrat gets to decide for you wether or not something it worth it. Deciding wether or not something is worth is fundamentally an individual’s decision. Of course the expert may say, “look, the cost of getting x amount of people from a to b is y times cheaper using this solution”. But that never takes into account if the people would have preferred a different mode of transport all together. For example, some may prefer the greater carrying flexibility of a car or the ride comfort of one. Of course that is not to say that automotive transport isn’t subsided and that the owners pay the full cost of ownership. The TLDR of it is that economically viable requires people to put money where their mouth is. Someone else CANNOT by definition make that decision unless you believe that some people have “correct” values and others don’t.
I'm Indian, and I'm saying this because I know how much of a burden our railways is on the taxpayer. It's a huge sink into which $20B worth of taxes disappear every year, with only dirty, poorly run trains to show for. It's so bad that I'll avoid traveling in trains if there is absolutely any other way. I'll drive 12 hours straight but not get into the hassle of a train.
Are we travelling in two different countries?
I travel mostly in the south, mostly in sleeper class. I find that it is reasonably good (and cheap enough for my shoestring budget).
Some 10 years ago, yes they were terrible, but now, it is quite good, and affordable.
The target audience for the railways is less upper middle class, and more middle and lower classes.
Why does it need to be economically viable? Is the US interstate system economically viable? We don't charge for the use of the interstate system at all. In an ideal world we'd run all train/bus infrastructure free of use as well. Transportation is a common good.
It would be interesting to know what fares would be if construction and maintenance of the track and signalling system were 100% subsidised, so passengers only paid for electricity, train construction and maintenance, and staff.
That would be a fair comparison to a long distance bus.
It would be more interesting to know what the impact would be to society if the trains were fully subsidized like the interstate system, and they were free for use.
You're referencing the economic output of the interstate, but there's roughly the same studies with the same conclusions made about the train system.
The folks I was responding to were discussing the direct economics of maintaining and operating the trains, and not their economic benefits. No one pays money to use the interstate, why should they need to pay money to use the train?
There is a real desire to build, but the issue is that local governments have to sign off on things to do so. For example, Palmdale (outside LA) will be getting a stop even though it's out of the way and will make the entire line 12 minutes slower. Without their approval, however, they could hold the entire project hostage.
Where local governments haven't take advantage, private citizens have. It's NIMBYism at grand scale. The grand irony to me is that our lack of experience building such a project is probably the smallest problem. We have or can buy the expertise. Our government just isn't set up for this.
We have the same thing here in the UK: HS2 has been rerouted around areas whose MP did NOT want it, and extra, pointless, stops added for places that insisted. Increasingly I feel like these projects should be run by an elected dictator: Approve a budget and general outcome targets and then let one manager run it WITHOUT constantly having to fight every legislator, municipality, etc
In 2008, Prop 1A offered high speed rail to Californians. It sold a vision of 220 mph trains connecting SF and LA by 2020, with extensions to San Diego and Sacramento, all without raising taxes. A slim majority of Californian voters believed in this vision, and voted yes.
15 years later, the project is more than 15 years behind schedule, give or take. Instead of taking 12 years to connect SF and LA, it's now taking 22-25 years to connect Merced and Bakersfield (the easy middle third), with no timeline at all for connecting San Jose and Anaheim.
The estimated cost of the project has ballooned from $33B (~$1,000 per Californian) to $88B-$128B (~$3,000 per Californian), a figure that almost seems certain to be an underestimate given the monotonic climb of past estimates.
And remember, the cost of $3,000 per Californian is not the cost of getting to ride the train between SF and LA. It's the cost of getting the OPTION to buy tickets for a train that's slower than planes, more expensive than planes, and projected to operate at a loss and need further taxpayer subsidy.
When I read the project's current marketing materials, I feel saddened.
The project managers brag that the project has generated ~$14B in economic output.
But their accounting is reversed. Until the first passenger takes a trip, the project has CONSUMED ~$14B in economic INPUTS.
There is no economic output of a half-built train that doesn't run. At that point, you might as well have been paying people to dig holes in the desert or construct pyramids. The value of labor is not when a bank computer subtracts a number from an employer's account and adds it to an employee's account. The value of labor is the utility that that labor produces.
Similarly, the project managers brag about the environmental benefits of the project.
But again, until the first point at which a flight is replaced by a train trip, the environmental impact of rail construction is entirely negative. If you pour concrete, mine iron, smelt steel, and rip up habitats, those are all environmental costs. Benefits don't accrue until the first airline defers a flight due to diminished demand.
Ultimately, the goal of transit programs should be to transport people.
If you run transit programs with the goals of (a) creating jobs or (b) signalling your commitment to transit, then you can very easily run into trouble, as cost overruns start to look like good things. Spending more money just mean you’ve created more jobs, and that you're signalling even stronger commitment to transit.
Put simply: If you run a project with the goal of paying contractors, it's very easy to get ripped off by contractors. You both have the same goal.
I hope I'm mistaken, but it seems the plan is to build and open the middle bit without a through connection to San Francisco or Los Angeles, and the connections aren't even approved yet.
Do they forecast much demand on the middle bit alone?
Britain's current high speed rail project has been criticised for rising costs, but at least they have the sense to build the part that will generate the most revenue first (London to Birmingham) even if it means politically appealing investment north of Birmingham has to wait.
I may have spoken too soon, although it seems the government is aware of how ridiculous it would be to not have the line terminate in central London from the start, so as yet it's all just rumours.
As a point of comparison, consider the New Mexico Rail Runner.
Length: 97 miles.
Project kicked off in 2005, service for three stations (Albuquerque/Los Ranchos/Sandoval) started in 2006, first phase (Belen to Santa Fe, eight stations) completed in 2008, second phase complete in 2017 with fifteen stations operational.
Total capital cost: around $385 Million dollars. That’s Million…with an M. Operational deficit of about $20 Million/year that is now covered by sales tax.
Folks liked it enough to pass the sales tax to cover operating losses, being viewed positively by both locals and the tourism industry. A horizontal complement to the vertical Sandia Peak Tram (4000’ elevation change, 2.7 mi length, two stations, completed in two years, opened 1966).
While we're making comparisons: the CHSR is supposed to be 520 miles with two tracks. It also has a lot of elevation changes; hills and mountains and valleys. This isn't to excuse the utter lack of progress made by California, but these factors Do make it a more difficult project compared to (what a cursory Google maps search shows is) New Mexico's flatter land.
Or another comparison, Florida's brightline currently connecting Miami to West Palm Beach, with plans to make it to Orlando. 70 miles + 170 to Orlando. 1.75 billion across incredibly flat land, expedited by utilizing existing tracks.
All that is to say, California's project as defined currently seems a lot more difficult in terms of terrain and scope. There are probably a lot of inefficiencies built in, as well as mismanagement. But it's not the most apt of comparisons, at least not to NM or FL.
The New Mexico Rail Runner is 96.5 miles, 74.2 of which was preexisting BNSF track which is still shared with freight and also I believe the Amtrak Southwest Chief. There are some other segments that are also preexisting track, but they are much smaller and some was improved as part of the project so I won't even try to figure out what proportion was what there.
So strictly less than 22.3 miles of new track. For $385 million.
47 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 107 ms ] threadIf they don't build this now, then it will take and cost longer to build later.
We’re 27 years since the California High-Speed Rail Authority was established and not a single passenger has been carried yet.
Mass transit systems have some peculiarities that private transportation systems don't have, such as creating mass demand and concentrating it on specific spots. Each train stop is a natural generator for demand for housing and services in volumes that urban sprawl does not, and this leads to more affordable housing with shorter commutes and with far better services that lead to a far better quality of living.
But this potential to be realized needs urban development that takes advantage of it, which require investment.
I'm not sure if the figure is $1T but there are examples in the world where railway operators get their main source of funding and incentive to grow their network by being granted favourable conditions to invest in real estate surrounding new train stops.
> (...) and declining usage of existing public transit.
I'm sorry, the US is notorious for having self-sabotaging public transportation services, designed to pay lip service for the need to provide mobility alternatives,but actually designed to be impactical and outright hostile to commuters.
If the US learns basic lessons from the many case studies from throughout the world, nothing stops the US from benefiting from identical adoption rates seen outside of its borders.
That is an extraordinary claim. 10x of 100 billion is a trillion. The GSP of the entire state of California is ~3.5 trillion USD.
I routinely drive by one of the overpasses built in the Central Valley, a constant reminder of a shattered dream of quick transit to the Bay Area.
> The mode of transport seems to be fundamentally broken.
You're American aren't you?
But economically viable and subsided are mutually exclusive because when at that moment the question is not being asked wether the person consuming the good would pay the full price of the service. Economically viable does not mean an expert or technocrat gets to decide for you wether or not something it worth it. Deciding wether or not something is worth is fundamentally an individual’s decision. Of course the expert may say, “look, the cost of getting x amount of people from a to b is y times cheaper using this solution”. But that never takes into account if the people would have preferred a different mode of transport all together. For example, some may prefer the greater carrying flexibility of a car or the ride comfort of one. Of course that is not to say that automotive transport isn’t subsided and that the owners pay the full cost of ownership. The TLDR of it is that economically viable requires people to put money where their mouth is. Someone else CANNOT by definition make that decision unless you believe that some people have “correct” values and others don’t.
The target audience for the railways is less upper middle class, and more middle and lower classes.
Rail has very low externalities, which is why we might want to subsidise it.
That would be a fair comparison to a long distance bus.
Yes, absolutely, in fact the US government did their own study on this question
https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/spring-1996/economic-i...
The folks I was responding to were discussing the direct economics of maintaining and operating the trains, and not their economic benefits. No one pays money to use the interstate, why should they need to pay money to use the train?
Just like most airports then ?
Also some countries see it as a service, not a source of revenue
The California project is designed for political payoffs sadly, so it is functioning as intended.
Where local governments haven't take advantage, private citizens have. It's NIMBYism at grand scale. The grand irony to me is that our lack of experience building such a project is probably the smallest problem. We have or can buy the expertise. Our government just isn't set up for this.
Isn't this what the transit authority is supposed to be? An independent company paid by the cities to manage and build the train system.
15 years later, the project is more than 15 years behind schedule, give or take. Instead of taking 12 years to connect SF and LA, it's now taking 22-25 years to connect Merced and Bakersfield (the easy middle third), with no timeline at all for connecting San Jose and Anaheim.
The estimated cost of the project has ballooned from $33B (~$1,000 per Californian) to $88B-$128B (~$3,000 per Californian), a figure that almost seems certain to be an underestimate given the monotonic climb of past estimates.
And remember, the cost of $3,000 per Californian is not the cost of getting to ride the train between SF and LA. It's the cost of getting the OPTION to buy tickets for a train that's slower than planes, more expensive than planes, and projected to operate at a loss and need further taxpayer subsidy.
When I read the project's current marketing materials, I feel saddened.
The project managers brag that the project has generated ~$14B in economic output.
But their accounting is reversed. Until the first passenger takes a trip, the project has CONSUMED ~$14B in economic INPUTS.
There is no economic output of a half-built train that doesn't run. At that point, you might as well have been paying people to dig holes in the desert or construct pyramids. The value of labor is not when a bank computer subtracts a number from an employer's account and adds it to an employee's account. The value of labor is the utility that that labor produces.
Similarly, the project managers brag about the environmental benefits of the project.
But again, until the first point at which a flight is replaced by a train trip, the environmental impact of rail construction is entirely negative. If you pour concrete, mine iron, smelt steel, and rip up habitats, those are all environmental costs. Benefits don't accrue until the first airline defers a flight due to diminished demand.
Ultimately, the goal of transit programs should be to transport people.
If you run transit programs with the goals of (a) creating jobs or (b) signalling your commitment to transit, then you can very easily run into trouble, as cost overruns start to look like good things. Spending more money just mean you’ve created more jobs, and that you're signalling even stronger commitment to transit.
Put simply: If you run a project with the goal of paying contractors, it's very easy to get ripped off by contractors. You both have the same goal.
Do they forecast much demand on the middle bit alone?
Britain's current high speed rail project has been criticised for rising costs, but at least they have the sense to build the part that will generate the most revenue first (London to Birmingham) even if it means politically appealing investment north of Birmingham has to wait.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/09/hs2-costs-so...
Length: 97 miles.
Project kicked off in 2005, service for three stations (Albuquerque/Los Ranchos/Sandoval) started in 2006, first phase (Belen to Santa Fe, eight stations) completed in 2008, second phase complete in 2017 with fifteen stations operational.
Total capital cost: around $385 Million dollars. That’s Million…with an M. Operational deficit of about $20 Million/year that is now covered by sales tax.
Folks liked it enough to pass the sales tax to cover operating losses, being viewed positively by both locals and the tourism industry. A horizontal complement to the vertical Sandia Peak Tram (4000’ elevation change, 2.7 mi length, two stations, completed in two years, opened 1966).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexico_Rail_Runner_Express
https://sandiapeak.com/history-construction/
Or another comparison, Florida's brightline currently connecting Miami to West Palm Beach, with plans to make it to Orlando. 70 miles + 170 to Orlando. 1.75 billion across incredibly flat land, expedited by utilizing existing tracks.
All that is to say, California's project as defined currently seems a lot more difficult in terms of terrain and scope. There are probably a lot of inefficiencies built in, as well as mismanagement. But it's not the most apt of comparisons, at least not to NM or FL.
So strictly less than 22.3 miles of new track. For $385 million.