Today's eyebrow-raiser of a story comes courtesy of the Daily Californian, the UC Berkeley student newspaper: The paper says that "state officials" -- it's not really specified who that is -- say high-speed trains could be running between Los Angeles and San Francisco as early as 2018. KCBS in the Bay Area has also quoted rail officials saying the system could be carrying 68 million passengers by 2020.
Not to be a grumpy bear on this -- I know there's a lot of people that want to see the trains up and running -- but I think the odds of the system running in a decade are long. First, there's the little issue of coming up with the $33 billion that the California High-Speed Rail Authority says the project will cost (and some people say that's a low-ball estimate). The bond passed by California voters earlier this month was only for $9.95 billion.
And then there's this: Look at how long it takes just to build a few miles of light rail. Take, for example, the Expo Line, which is planned to run from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica, a distance of some 15 miles. Construction began in 2006 and the first 8.6 miles may be done by 2010, with the remainder by 2015. That's nine years to build 15 miles of light rail, versus a decade to build 400-plus miles of 220 mph rail.
Do you really think high-speed rail can happen that quickly? Making big promises is a good way to get the public excited. It's also a good way to make them cynical when those promises fail to materialize.
UPDATE, 5:30 p.m.: Robert Cruickshank, at his California High Speed Rail blog, says the 2018 date comes from the California High Speed Rail Authority's business plan. He also has several criticisms of this post.
-- Steve Hymon
There's been a lot of talk in Washington and the media lately that one way for the federal government to give the economy a boost would be to start making massive investments in the nation's infrastructure. Such spending would both create jobs in the short term and give the U.S. the kind of infrastructure to build its economy around in the future.
In that vein, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) introduced a bill on Wednesday that would allow bonds to be issued to raise more than $23 billion for high-speed rail projects around the country. Some of that money -- it's not clear exactly how much -- could be used on the proposal to build a high-speed rail line in California. Here's a link to a story about the bill in the Boston Globe.
That is interesting, of course, since voters here earlier this month approved Proposition 1A, which allows the state to issue $9.95 billion in bonds to plan and construct a high-speed rail line. It's not nearly enough to finish the proposed line from Anaheim to San Francisco -- the California High Speed Rail Authority said recently the cost will be $33 billion; critics say it will be much more.
Still, the federal bill is worth watching. If it passes, it would arguably be a boost for passenger rail along some Amtrak corridors after decades of the nation making heavy investments in the nation's airports and highways.
The press release from Kerry's office is after the jump.
--Steve Hymon
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It's still early, but the map for Prop 1A returns is mighty interesting. The race is too close to call, but the high-speed rail bonds are narrowly winning in Imperial County in the southeast part of the state and narrowly losing in Kern County. The significance: the high-speed rail line wouldn't travel into Imperial County but would travel through the heart of Kern County.
Isn't election night fun?
--Steve Hymon
HIGH-SPEED RAIL VOTE: If you're having trouble seeing returns on the the California Secretary of State's website, I recommend trying The Times' website. We have a map that allows you to see the various state ballot measures, including Prop 1a. As of 9:31, Prop 1A is trailing slightly with 13.5% of precincts reporting.
--Steve Hymon
A pair of Big Kahunas in California politics made a last-minute pitch Friday in San Francisco for Proposition 1A, the $9.95-billion bond measure on Tuesday’s ballot that would help finance construction of a bullet train between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein echoed what has become a common refrain among supporters of the rail mega-project – that it will help curb congestion, cut pollution and provide lots and lots of construction jobs for a wheezing economy.
Feinstein also waxed nostalgic. The Democrat senator recalled riding Japan’s bullet train back in the 1960s while on her honeymoon. “We traveled 341 miles in roughly three hours with no lines, no hassles, train on time,” she said. “I will never forget it.”
--Eric Bailey
A pair of new editorials have landed in the past few days on Prop 1A, the statewide measure asking voters if they want to issue $9.95 billion in bonds to begin a high-speed rail system in California.
The San Bernardino Sun had this to say:
Worse, the promoters of this scheme are pushing bad information, such as $50 fares for a 2.5-hour trip from L.A. to San Francisco, when the more likely numbers would be $175 and 3.5 hours. They also claim a potential of 100 million passengers, when the popular Washington-New York-Boston high-speed trains get fewer than 3 million in a bigger market.
Nothing about this plan makes sense except to the promoters, many of whom would profit from it if voters were foolish enough to commit the billions of dollars.
The Sun is hardly the first to raise questions about the California High-Speed Rail Authority's statements about travel time and the cost of the system. The Sun editorial board also may have added that the bullet train in California will have to maintain an average speed of more than 160 miles per hour to get from L.A. to San Francisco in 2.5 hours and that Amtrak's total ridership last year was 25.8 million -- a record year for the rail carrier, by the way.
It may also be worth noting that the planned high-speed rail route bypasses San Bernardino.
The San Jose Mercury News, on the other hand, praised Prop 1a precisely because the route goes through San Jose and Silicon Valley (that's the San Jose station in the above drawing):
Proposition 1A's $9.95 billion bond will cover about a quarter of the cost of the high-speed rail project. The source for the rest is not certain, although similar systems have found private investment, and a federal high-speed rail funding bill just signed by President Bush was drafted in part with this project in mind.
Still, there's no question it's expensive, and, with a recession looming, voters will be wary. But a down economy is exactly the time to invest in transportation and other infrastructure that will form the backbone of our future prosperity.
The plan will create 160,000 good construction jobs now as it lays the groundwork for population and job growth. And it will be a critical step toward energy independence: The trains use dramatically less energy than airplanes and cars, and they run on electricity, most of which will come from renewable sources. High-tech, high-speed rail may be the greenest kind of travel after bicycles.
The Mercury News also endorsed a one-eighth-cent sales tax increase for Santa Clara County that would provide funding to extend BART south of Fremont in the East Bay. The editorial board envisions a day when San Francisco Bay is ringed with BART service with connections to San Francisco and L.A. by high-speed rail.
--Steve Hymon
rendering: California High Speed Rail Authority
The editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle today endorsed Prop 1A, the statewide proposal to sell $9.95 billion in state bonds to begin a high-speed rail network across the state. An excerpt: Opponents have seized on the understandable anxiety about a venture of this magnitude and have questioned everything from its cost projections to ridership estimates to its environmental benefits. In a meeting with our editorial board this week, they suggested the money would be better spent on relieving gridlock on regional roadways.
However, the fiscal safeguards on Prop. 1A were toughened substantially with the Legislature's recent passage of AB3034. It limited the amount of money that could be spent on administration or other items unrelated to construction. Also, construction could not begin on any segment of the project until it was certified that the funding for it had been secured. State funding would account for about half of the project; the balance would come from the federal government and private sources.
The Chronicle also published today an opinion piece by two members of the California Rail Foundation, who are against Prop 1A, which they find fiscally suspect. Excerpt: To promote the project, the rail authority made wild claims about ridership, energy and pollution benefits. It based its claims on a prediction that 117 million passengers will use this service annually, dwarfing the 29 million using Amtrak nationwide today. Amtrak's high-speed train, Acela, carries only 3 million annually.
No European high-speed train comes close to the rail authority's claimed performance. France's best route, the TGV-Southeast had 17.5 million passengers in its 10th year of operation, and 12 million of those passengers used trains before high-speed service started. How could California trains instantly outperform European trains that link larger populations and benefit from superb transit connections?
The Los Angeles Times editorial board has also endorsed Prop 1A. I'm trying to compile a list of editorials both for and against -- if you see one, please send me an e-mail with a link.
Also, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco) has an opinion piece supporting the high-speed rail bonds today over at the Huffington Post.
-- Steve Hymon
I had to look at this photo twice while scrolling through the wires on Wednesday -- the train on the left looks oddly robotic. Here's the caption info, from the AP, which took this photo on Monday: A sign next to the international high-speed Thalys trains says: 'Service limited to Brussels' at the Midi train station in Brussels, Monday Oct. 6, 2008. Belgian commuters struggled to get to work Monday as a one-day nationwide strike disrupted public transport and international rail links. The country's three main unions called the strike to demand higher pay amid high inflation and increased living costs.
If there's a reader who can tell us more about that train on the left, please leave a comment on the board.
--Steve Hymon
photo: Yves Logghe / AP
The campaign for Prop 1A is starting to heat up. The measure, if approved by voters on Nov. 4, would allow $9.95 billion in bonds to be issued for the planning and eventual construction of a high-speed rail line in the state. The bonds, proponents say, would allow them to go out and seek federal and private money for the line.
As I posted a few weeks ago, the bond measure is attracting the interest of many engineering and construction firms. That trend seems to be continuing, with some more big donations reported in the last week to the Californians for High Speed Trains fundraising committee, according to the California Secretary of State's online database for campaign fundraising.
Among them:
-- $20,000 from Alstom, a France-based firm that makes rail equipment.
-- $25,000 from the California American Council of Engineering Companies.
-- $25,000 from Systra, a New Jersey-based firm that consults on mass transit issues.
-- $50,000 from a political fundraising committee called Members of the State Building Trades.
-- $200,000 from the California Alliance for Jobs, a consortium of construction unions.
-- Steve Hymon
My colleague Eric Bailey in our Sacramento bureau just filed the story below to Bottleneck Blog about the campaign against Prop 1A, the high-speed rail bond. It's probably not a coincidence that several groups that support the bond -- including the Sierra Club -- also issued their own release today for the high-speed rail project. The release is after the jump. -- Steve Hymon
SACRAMENTO –- Foes of the upcoming $9.95-billion ballot measure to help fund an Anaheim-to-San Francisco bullet train launched a full front assault Thursday, saying the project will fall far short of over-inflated ridership claims, will cost dramatically more to build and won’t be able to approach the speeds and travel times promoters envision.
A report commissioned by the Reason Foundation, Citizens Against Government Waste and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation contends the project will flop financially, potentially leaving taxpayers left to foot hefty cost overruns. Moreover, they predict the big-ticket construction effort –- price estimates range from about $30 billion to more than $50 billion, depending on who does the calculations –- won’t yield nearly the greenhouse gas benefits or travel-time savings.
They say the ballyhooed 2 1/2-hour trip from Southern California to the Bay Area will be more on the order of nearly 4 hours. They say that’s because the trains will have to be beefier to meet U.S. safety regulations –- and therefore will be slower. Across the board, “we’re talking about some very, very fishy numbers,” said Wendell Cox, a St. Louis demographics and public policy analyst who helped author the report.
But backers of Proposition 1A, which would authorize the state’s portion of bond funding for the high-speed rail project, contend Cox and the report are off track. “They don’t know what they’re talking about,” said Mehdi Morshed, executive director of the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
He said the bullet train’s ridership and construction estimates have been produced by the best experts and vetted by authorities in France, Germany and Japan, where high-speed rail has long been a fixture.
Estimates of greenhouse gas savings, meanwhile, come from the state Air Resources Board, not promoters, he said. Moreover, promoters are lobbying U.S. rail regulators to allow of the highest-speed French or Japanese train technology, nixing this notion of slower speeds, he said. “It’s easy to stand up and say our estimates are off,” Morshed said. “But has anyone done the engineering we’ve done?”
--Eric Bailey
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