High-Speed Rail Key to Infrastructure Renewal

Yet another article written by someone who is lazy. Quoting press releases and bullet points from Powerpoint presentations is not journalism. Three paragraphs about the California high-speed train project and they are full of the rail authority's deceptions(costs, travel times, ridership, etc.), but not one word about realities such as the ultimate costs being much closer to $100 billion, never being "profitable," always being subsidized, and being a huge boondoggle to produce profits for land speculators and developers. If ever built, it will be a luxury train paid for by taxpayers.

The Cailfornia High Speed Rail system will NOT cost 100billion
this is just made up disinformation from Rich NIMBYS that want to stop a much needed infactructure project that will give us competive edge for business and travel. They LOST ..WE voted YES ON1A

Martin, your wrong about the $100 billion. You want to talk about lazy, do your research! Born and raised in California I can’t wait to see a true high-speed rail system.

This article is right on the mark. I’m a Graduate student about to obtain my Master’s in Transportation & Logistics and read about this stuff all the time. This country seriously needs to look at its transportation network. We are dead last when it comes to our mass transit systems.

@Azzarello: Martin is right that the article is lazy, just because the general conclusion is correct doesn't mean this author did his research. The author of the article didn't look in any detailed way at the other high-speed rail programs outside the USA and only mentions in passing why rail would be successful.

@Martin: high-speed rail is a generally good idea, it can compete with air and road travel in some cases if properly planned and managed. CA high-speed rail probably won't run for $100 billion, but...

@Glen: It will run over the current budget, prop. 1A only gave the program some of the program's estimated total budget, the plan is to seek private investment and use bonds to get the rest.

@ article author/Michael: DO RESEARCH! The US federal government has mismanaged the rail industry massively over the past century. exccessive labor rules, unadaptable legislation, and stiff taxes all helped bring down private rail transport. Lobbying by big oil and the auto companies had a lot to do with it as well. The government shouldn't be in charge of high-speed rail because it's a potentially profitable sector that can compete with air and road travel if managed properly.

Government officials aren't good at managing these things because they don't have an incentive to do it well, only to keep the voters contented, and if runs over budget they can just raise taxes or print more money (the latter is less desirable because of inflation). hisgh-speed rail can compete and even earn a profit, so the private sector should get to manage it since they'll do the best at keeping it efficient.

Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention, in case you check this thread again michael, I'm currently a freshman in college interested in going into a master's program in your general field once I graduate (in three-ish years), what schools have good transportation planning programs?

I agree that government should not be involved with a lot of things...and they almost destroyed the railroads. However, the cost of HSR overall, not talking about California, is a huge amount. The railroads dont want anything to do with passenger service period, so dont count on them. They cant stand sharing their tracks now. The private sector could never build a HSR network alone either. Sorry. But it is up to our government to invest and build a HSR network, just like all the other countries did, and just like we did with building the Interstate highway system. Believe me I've done my research, and read about the mismanagement daily. This country is way behind when it comes to mass transit.

The author could have done more, but that wasn't the purpose of the article. Hes not writing a study he simply stating some facts. And of course you can find statements that go against all of this as well. But in reality were way behind. I think that's pretty obvious.

I know we're way behind, and it's obviously an important issue. I haven't heard anything either way about whether the private rail companies want to do passenger rail on their own. not trying to discredit your point, I just haven't heard that they have a position at all. If you could point me to any press releases/reports from them it'd be really awesome. I personally agree the government probably would be needed to subsidize construction costs, but the private sector would be better for managing the HSR corridors once they're in place because they're more meticulous planners and more efficient than government.

the author doesn't even use that many facts and he makes the claim using basically the cliched defense for HSR a lot of other journalists have made. Part of the problem is that it just repeats the same things lots of other articles have said but doesn't explain any of the new assertions.

Let's not forget, as Gier apparently has, that Europe and Japan are far more densely populated than America. They have the bodies and the shorthauls that make rail travel a viable alternative to either air or auto.
Only if fuel is a kajillion bazillion dollars a pint would rail be competitive on this landscape, only if we had a kajillion bazillion PEOPLE would it work, and only if those kajillion bazillion people still had JOBS would it work.
There might be a need for HST service in California, in the Northeast Corridor, and MAYBE to St Louis from Chicago across to KC, perhaps along the east coast of Florida. But you simply HAVE to have the population density, AND a reason for people to travel. I don't see it.

moderate,

I can think of a recent article in Trains Magazine, I believe its the March 2009 article. It's titled "Trains' formula for fixing Amtrak" by Rush Loving Jr. Check it out if you can its a really interesting read. I've been interested in railroads just my whole life so I have read a lot of books and followed the business, even more closely now days. If you search around and read about the history of Amtrak I think you'll find it pretty fascinating. (Side Note) Amtrak was designed to fail a few years after it was formed thanks to Nixon. Even today Congress cant think long term for Amtrak, which is why it cant operate sufficiently. They keep putting band-aid fixes on it instead of planning a future for it or scrapping it altogether.
Also, Union Pacific just turned down an offer from California to help pay for track expansion over Donner Pass. The reason UP turned it down, is because California wanted to eventually share the tracks with UP to run Passenger trains. Believe me, today's freights don't want anything to do with passenger service. But please read more on the creation of Amtrak and you'll find this to be true.

Dave Skinner: Very True. The U.S. is built much differently than other countries who rely on HSR. Southern California is a perfect example of this. But I do think HSR can serve corridors in many parts such as the Northeast Corridor.

California is more than ready for a true HSR system..with 35 million people most living in the 2 major population regions connecting these 2 with HST will work. current trains already run with high ridership. This system has been built over the last 15 years and the next step is a true HST. California cities are more dense then people make them out to be. outside of New York City
San Francisco is the 2 most dense city in the USA..800,000 in 49 square miles ..a small area. This might be the only 2 city pairs where true HRS makes sense. At least here in Cali well give it a try.. PS I normally dont post on out-of -state sites but it came up on my google news and I read the very first post which happens to be from someone that lives in California and post anti HSR post anywhere they can

I really appreciate the comments so far. Thanks for posting them. On deadline every week for columns on a wide spectrum of topics, the last adjective my friends and enemies use for me is "lazy."

A reader e-mailed me and said that it was unfair to include Amtrak accidents that include dumb drivers, so appended below are the revised passages that will appear on my website.

By the way, the time period was 93-03, not 97-03, and the correct figure for road construction in the stimulus package is $28 billion, but that might change tonight as the Senate votes and then it goes to House-Senate conference.

"In stark contrast, from 1993-2003 Amtrak accidents killed 18 and left 754 injured. All these accidents were the result of derailment or crashing into other trains. If people killed and injured at crossings are included, the numbers rise to 48 and 1,250 respectively.

Some say that is unfair to Amtrak to include careless people in these figures, but it is not their fault that our rail crossings are not nearly as safe as those in Japan and Europe. Unlike Amtrak, Japanese bullet trains run on dedicated double tracks that never mix with freight trains, never cross a road, and are checked for alignment every night."

thanks michael for the advice. I did check and Amtrak did earn profits on NEC operations for several months in FY 2008 (checked september and august and they did earn profits for those two at least). For September, their state corridors almost broke even ($556.9 million in revenue vs. $676.1 million in costs. Net loss of $119.2 million) The big drains for Amtrak are the long-distance routes, where Dave, michael and I all seem to agree. The problem is that as long as Amtrak's state/short-haul corridors are tied with the national system, Amtrak has a strong incentive to use any profits on the state corridors to make its overall balance sheet look good so the federal government will keep funding Amtrak. What they need is to operate the short-haul and state corridors as for-profit, independently run business and let congress decide what to do with the long haul stuff.

Developing on my last point, the big shift in how Amtrak's state corridors operate will occur at the break-even point. Once they can break even, all of the government money (local, state, and/or federal) basically can be used as investment. Also, once you can break even, private investment skyrockets because there's actually a chance that putting capital into the corridors will earn back a return. This would lead to accelerated improvements and a virtuous cycle of improving service and decreased need for federal money. A lot of Amtrak's corridors are actually very close to reaching this point. Chicago-Milwaukee, Chicago-St. Louis, Chicago-Detroit, Raleigh-Charlotte, and most of the Northeast routes outside of the NEC (Vermonter, Downeaster, and Empire services). The most important thing I think needs to happen is to connect airports with rail more. Amtrak's codeshare with Continental is hugely beneficial for both groups. Amtrak should seek codeshares with major airlines at the other airports it stops at (Milwaukee is the best example I had in mind, Amtrak should seek codesharing with Midwest Airlines), and it should find ways to add service at other major airports as well.

When you invest in a very, very expensive transportation system to move people about a State as large as California, there are some things to think about that have little to do with trains running on time. I would say that water is the most crucial issue. Just look at the water demand created by the new jobs which include new families that go with each employment.

The Western water right is usually 2.5 acre feet per acre of irrigated land. That is a little over 800,000 gallons of water. If you build homes for 8 families on that acre, using a mix of single and multiple family dwellings, you might have 8 per acre. Essentially 100,000 gallons of ag water per family. The current southern California use rates are about 180,000 gallons per household per year. That sounds like a lot of water, but when you account for all the ancillary water use that many need (schools, public buildings, access to food, health care and recreation, ad nauseum) you soon find out that ag was a far less impact on watersheds than human development. And when you convert ag land to housing, the ag water will only provide half of current household use.

My point is that high speed connectivity will increase sprawl, and diminish agriculture and watershed needs, not improve them. I see, in the high speed transportation issue, just another water issue for down the road. Where do we get the water to put people to work and live in what is and has been a desert, as is a preponderance of California developed areas? Las Vegas and Phoenix are two high growth areas, or were before the liar loan and subprime implosion. Neither place is fit for humans 4 or more months of the year. I remember my parents loving living in Arizona in winter, but I also remember Dad saying it cost him $300 a month when they were gone in summer, whether to travels or an apartment in a Northwest college town, to keep the temperature of their Arizona home at 88 degrees...That much energy expended to cool the house in those months so it would not melt stuff. Of course, they had no landscaping that used water from the tap. Monsoonal water or die. Where they lived was highly productive ag land when Dad was stationed at Luke Field during WWII. The ag water is gone, the Colorado River dry, and Lake Powell empty. High speed rail in California will not rectify that, but exacerbate a fast growing problem.

California politics manifests itself in many ways, and not often in a way that makes either sense or promotes the goodwill of neighboring states. Yesterday, the Oregon Senate held hearings on Klamath River dam removal and having the ratepayers of Pacific Power and Light pay the bill through their monthly power bill. So one tributary, less than half the flow of the Klamath River, gets regulated to "save salmon." Meanwhile, entirely off the table, the major tributary to the Klamath, the Trinity River, has a dam on it that captures 63% of the annual flow of the that tributary, cold snow melt, impounds it in a 2.4 million acre feet reservoir, and then lets it go through power houses and penstocks on its way down canals and through tunnels to flow into the Sacramento River, and on to its destination as irrigation water in the southern Central Valley. A lot of cheap, green hydropower created. Not a drop of that water goes down the Klamath watershed. No salmon or salmon habitat is saved. Only the 37% Interior Sec. Babbitt secured by enforcing the original dam licensing rules goes down the Trinity, and the majority of that in April and May in a faux freshet for fish benefit. I have news: streams are not fish habitat---the water in them is. Every cubic foot that leaves the watershed to irrigate and fill swimming pools is lost habitat, and salmon that never will be there. So Oregon, with 5 members of the House, is losing power and irrigation water, and California, where the preponderance of the watershed of the Klamath is located, pays no penalty, and life goes on. That is what having the Speaker, and over 55 members can do for you or to you. So if anyone thinks that California is lessening their use of critical habitat water, and is halting the sprawl, that the ESA can protect salmon, you are sadly mistaken. And they will steal the water anywhere they can, just like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accomplished in Nevada with his scheme that ended up with Clark county, home of Las Vegas, owning all the unused or undiscovered water under Nevada, except for the Owyhee and upper Snake River drainages. Powerful, urban, high power water theft is the future of the West. And high speed transportation efforts will only exacerbate that ongoing theft from watersheds if only because it makes sprawl more efficient in sending residents to far away work places. What will those half million new jobs demand for water, and what will the employees and families need in the way of new water?

The transportation goal is honorable. The results will not be. The West is more than California and Clark county. Keeping sprawl to a minimum, ranches intact for habitat, subdivision within reasonable limits, and our water in our states is the only way to preserve the customs and cultures here now. If it takes a while to get here or there, yeah, so what? If our votes are needed to allow for California to expand and to increase their need for water, too bad, you don't get it. There is no need for national help to solve their very local problems, created by their legislature and their voters. Build skate board lanes along the freeways. Float down the canals of Colorado River water on its way to Los Angeles. Live with it, dude. Don't put your legislative masks on, pull up you Senatorial hoodies, and rob your neighbors to make your beneficiaries' lives better. We might shoot back.