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I wrote yesterday about the problems with a lack of investment in public transit, highlighting California’s high speed rail system, and the knives that malign legislators and the traditional media have out for it. Fortunately, Jerry Brown isn’t taking the bait. He could have cut loose the program, and would have been rewarded for it by the commentariat, but instead he made a powerful argument to keep it going.
While the nation is in a “period of massive retrenchment,” Brown told The Fresno Bee’s editorial board, “I would like to be part of the group that gets America to think big again.”
The Democratic governor has said little publicly about the project since it came under fire this year in Sacramento, with cost estimates rising and lawmakers questioning its oversight. The project, to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles, was once expected to cost about $43 billion, a figure the California High-Speed Rail Authority is expected to update this fall.
Brown said he is “really getting into” the project and that “we’re working directly with the authority to get their act together.”
He said he will appoint a commissioner to fill a vacant seat on the agency’s governing board this week, though he declined to say who.
“I’m doing the best I can to keep this train running,” Brown said.
“I would like to be part of the group that gets America to think big again” is a nice slogan. It’s “win the future” with the backup of actual programs that will win the future. And it’s a rebuke to this attitude of retrenchment, of settling for less. Jerry Brown has not actually been the best messenger, considering his austerity budget. But he was constrained in that case by ridiculous rules that make governing in the state impossible. I’m glad that in this case, where the decision is more in his control, he’s going with public investment and lasting infrastructure.
Consider that the a lot of the money put to high speed rail has already been earmarked by bond and by federal investment. There are a number of private interests that want to enter into the partnership. There is more than enough money to build the first spoke in California, and after that you have a proof of concept which could spur additional investment.
California’s high speed rail system is an important test case. The program will cost money because high speed rail costs money. But the benefits are clear as well, and if it’s a choice between money to HSR and more money for carpool lanes that don’t relieve congestion, there’s no contest. The media has piled on the insults of a few powerful lawmakers and NIMBY types who simply have no use for progress. Jerry Brown is standing up to them, and for that, he deserves praise.
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Excellent post. According to the San Francisco Chronicle today, one of the key roadblocks to linking SF and San Jose with hi-speed rail will soon be removed: NIMBY opposition to laying new track through exclusive neighborhoods on the Peninsula, the same folks who long held up BART to the SFO airport. The HSR would now share track with an upgraded existing CalTrain commuter line. Makes sense.
It’s good to see Governor Brown leading the nation with new ideas (again): build big projects now when borrowing costs are so low. The US Government is providing seed funding — a lot of it from Florida which unwisely rejected their own HSR.
Taiwan, with a population of only 30 million, has a HSR line up and down the island that makes money and reduces carbon footprint. What a shame if the only superpower can’t have our own HSR.
While revitalizing and extending the Coastal route is a worthwhile venture, I don’t see that with the Central Valley high speed rail. A high speed line from Sacramento to Bakersfield is basically a ride from nowhere to nowhere. Currently Amtrak requires debarking in Bakersfield for a bus trip over the Grapevine on I5 to LA connections. I haven’t seen details, but what I’ve seen doesn’t include rail connections.
Do we need an expenditure in this seeming boondoggle, other than to employ a niche employment market and line contractors pockets with cost overruns?
True, Arbusto. Given the choices that have had to be made, in large part due to the roadblocks on the Peninsula, the HSR opted to lay the first track out in the Central Valley where there is no such opposition and construction of that link increases the likelihood that the whole project will be built from SF to LA.
This will be a great addition to our California infrastructure and surely will make money and reduce our carbon footprint rather than constitute a “boondoggle”.
There are many financial models that could be used, if folks weren’t so afraid of the future, or the best and the brightest at Goldman-Sachs, for instance, were more interested in actually building something rather than creating clever financial instruments that ultimately suck the treasure out of our country.
Apparently we have to create an infrastructure bank to do some lending as our banks are pre-occupied with matters other than actually lending.
Let’s get it done and lead the nation!
Much as I believe in infrastructure improvements and WPA-type work programs, from what I’ve seen the CA High Speed Rail program is a boondoogle that will result in very little ridership and massive — MASSIVE — cost overruns. Even the coastal route, while having the advantage of attracting much higher ridership, was certain to cost many multiples of the original estimated cost. And I agree with Arbusto: Sacto to Bakersfield is from nowhere to nowhere. If you are going to spend gazillions on a transit project, make it one that moves people between the biggest population centers.
Mark my words: after the cost skyrockets, construction is delayed, and then the resulting low ridership turns this into a white elephant, instead of being the example that gets other lines built it will be the albatross that kills other, better possibilities.
BTW: Anybody know if the much-heralded LA Metro subway and light rail system is still requiring massive subsidies due to low ridership?
Really? In 2009 Edward Glaeser, a Harvard economist, ran the numbers on a hypothetical Dallas-Houston high speed rail line. Does HSR make economic sense versus air travel? He calculated that 1.5 million trips times $68 a trip means $102 million for benefits minus operating costs. Annual capital costs came in at $648 million, more than six times that amount. A financial loser on benefits.
HSR is long distance, competing with air, not for commuters.
And costs will exceed estimates.
from AP:
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Building tracks for the first section of California’s proposed high-speed rail line will cost $2.9 billion to $6.8 billion more than originally estimated, raising questions about the affordability of the nation’s most ambitious rail project at a time when its planning and finances are under fire.