The California High Speed Pipe Dream

I'm glad somebody said it. The proposed California high speed rail system is a "fairy tale," states the Reason Foundation's Adrian Moore, releasing a study debunking proponents' claims of construction cost and potential ridership.

I first questioned the high speed rail plan in April (see "The Cost of Dreaming"). I've read the California High Speed Rail Authority's proposal and it is deeply flawed. The Authority claims it can build an 800-mile system for $40 billion and that it will carry 100 million passengers a year by 2030. Common sense and experience from every other major civil engineering project in the United States tells us that it will cost two to three times that number and take at least twice as long to complete. Ask Boston if you don't believe me.

The Reason Foundation's study pegs the number at closer to $81 billion, and I believe they are being conservative even at that figure. The $10 billion bond, if passed in November, will be little more than a small down payment on a project that could spin wildly out of control.

The route map is a nightmare, taking San Diego to Los Angeles passengers through Riverside, and with no direct route between San Francisco and Sacramento, at least in the initial phase. The Authority's ridership projections are highly suspect. They use numbers for market share and load factors that far exceed the experience of high speed rail systems in Europe and Japan, both of which have more mature systems and operate in markets with substantially higher driving costs. The Authority asserts that the high speed rail network will divert 56 percent of intercity air travel, an unsupportable assumption that fails to account for competitive response by airlines to protect their market through discounted pricing and enhanced service options.

According to the Reason Foundation's study, "The CHSRA’s anticipated average speeds are not being achieved anywhere in the world, including on the most advanced systems ... As a result, HSR will be less attractive as an alternative to airline travel and is likely to attract fewer passengers than projected."

The California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) is also taking the state down the same dangerous track that Congress and the Nixon Administration did when they forecast that Amtrak would become profitable. Making that promise has set the national passenger railroad up as a disappointment for 37 years, and today no one believes that passenger rail can be self-sustaining. It's clear from the Authority's proposal that its P&L projections do not include the cost of capital construction or replacement. The Reason Foundation states, "The CHSRA’s claims of profitability could not conceivably be credible under even the most optimistic assumptions, unless some or all capital and debt costs are ignored."

The most dangerous aspect of the California high speed rail proposal is the likely diversion of funds from existing passenger rail projects to the new toy, and the eventual disillusionment of California taxpayers resulting from the inevitable construction delays and cost overruns of the HSR project.

Californians are indeed riding trains, in greater numbers every year, as evidenced by increasing ridership on Amtrak, commuter and light rail systems throughout the state. As I wrote back in April, "Adding to the current passenger rail network, increasing connections and train frequency on existing lines, adding track capacity, modernizing equipment and improving service will bring more passengers to trains -- thus reducing highway and airline congestion along with greenhouse gas emissions -- at a far lower cost than pipe-dream high-speed rail projects."

Comments

[Morris Brown]

The Cox - Vranish is really revealing. These well respected authors have really taken apart almost all of the arguments being advanced for building this system. There probably is a need for HSR at some time and in some place of California, but this project just fails to meet those elements.

The leadership of the CHSRA has proven itself to be incompetent. How else can you judge them when you realize they write an EIR/EIS around a route structure owned by another entity (Union Pacific Railroad) and fail to negotiate an agreement for it use. So you get a lawsuit right away challenging the CEQA document.

Now you have Prop 1A on the ballot and it mandates that a business plan was to be completed by Sept 1st, a date not past and no business plan is available and will not be available until after the election. Essentially they are defying the legislature and perhaps the courts with their failure to produce the plan. Why did they agree to produce the plan if they had no intention of meeting the Sept. 1st deadline.

Surely the voters of California are going to vote this proposition down. The voters should remember that the CHSRA has already spent 60 million dollars with laying down any track. Should they be trusted with 9 billion of which they can spend 10% more (900 million) and still not build anything? I don't think so.

[J.A.Zumwalt]

OK, you guys may want to check this out: http://cahsr.blogspot.com/2008/09/truth-vs-truthiness-on-prop-1a.html

The Reason Foundation's report seems to be anything but credible, and this is certainly not the only source where you will find opposition to their stance on this topic. I can see how one could have reservations about CAHSR, as with any big public service project, but I think it's not only foolish, but downright irresponsible to oppose this project. Dan Zukowski- I'm especially dissapointed in you. This rail project is peanuts compared to the kind of money flying around the hill right now, and if the project itself seems so flawed to you, look at the timing. Perfect timing, that is. I suppose you've heard the saying "where California goes, the Nation follows." Rail needs to get big RIGHT NOW- before more efficient cars and various alternantive fuels get into the market. We can't have as many cars as we do and expect to "be green"-- no matter how you fill 'em up, it just isn't efficient. Amtrak and the various high speed rail plans sprouting up all over the country have the oppourtunity now to make a splash and change fundamentally the infrastructure of the USA. We just can't know how long this window of oppourtunity will last. Take it from a Seattlite: Projects like this are just going to get more and more expensive as we wait, arguing over what eventually turns out to be nomenclature. With any major governmental project like this comes a risk; but I predict that if Californians wait on this project, regret will hit like a semitruck. Take a look around the California High Speed Rail Blog- there's an interesting paper on there that suggests that the cost of doing nothing will actually be more than building rail. To compensate for the extreme projected population increase on top of already failing infrastructure won't be cheap-- and unfortunantly highways are eaisier, if not cheaper, to build in this country. This is Rail's big chance- and if it fails in California now we may have to deal with the possiblility of living in the 20th century-- 100 years too late.

[Transit Professional]

Dan,

I'm sorry, you've lost me. Wendell Cox is one of the biggest charlatans masquerading as an expert in the US. I peer review papers for the Transportation Research Board, the transport arm of the National Academy of Sciences. His work is uniformly horrid, full of bias, abuse of the modified aerial unit problem, and employs several of the tactics of disinformation described in the classic texts "How to Lie With Statistics" and "How to Lie With Maps."

Joe Vranich is a once-reliable individual who has gone over the edge of ideological extremism. There is a reason this type of stuff gets printed by think tanks funded, in part, by the airline and auto industry- no serious institutions in the transportation research arena will touch it.

Shame on you for being hoodwinked.

[Adron]

I could do a better business plan for high speed rail in California, with today's population densities, with my eyes closed and rambling on haphazardly to a scribe.

...ok that's an odd statement, but it drives home the point.

The HSR business plan is BAD. The estimate of 81 billion, like you mentioned, is probably shy by about 10-20 billion. With the financial shake up of recent days, the pending inflation, and the maniacally stupid way the Feds have been handling it, I'd put a SWAG at $200-400 billion.

The HSR should be built, but it should be much more incremental than what it is. Trying to drop tracks between San Francisco and LA are kind of silly anyway, the air service is actually far more efficient, and will be, for another 20-30 years.

If anything San Diego to LA, or San Francisco to Sacramento - those are good high speed rail corridors. Spread some of it out into the outlying areas and you have a well utilized system.

Also I noticed on the HSR site, the stupidly low price - almost a 1/5 of an airline ticket, for the HSR passenger ticket is just insane. Besides that, it SHOULD be more just based on market demand. It would require absurd subsidies to maintain operations at the price point they've suggested.

Any business person of intelligence knows you don't start low, you'll artificially reduce the market value of your service/product.

...anyway, good write up Dan.