California
high-speed rail: Everything you need to know (update) The $64 billion plan to bring 800
miles of track up and down the Golden State By Matt Tinoco 11/29/17
You’ve probably heard that
California is trying to build its own shiny and speedy bullet train. After
voters approved a 2008 ballot
proposition that kicked off one of the Nation’s
largest and most ambitious infrastructure projects, the state’s High Speed Rail Authority has been hard at work attempting to will the
conflict-ridden yet positively utopian train into existence.
If construction plays out on
schedule (and funds don’t dry up), the train’s first phase should be complete
by 2029. Threading the state together from San Francisco down to Orange County,
Phase 1 of the California High Speed Rail (HSR) project promises a cheap
two-hour-and-40-minute ride between San Francisco’s Transbay
Terminal and LA’s Union Station.
However, as you might have heard,
the train is in trouble. As it copes with a persistent volley of antagonistic
litigation, a high cost of $64 billion, and even political challenges enabled by the Trump administration, the bullet train’s
boosters and builders have a challenge before them.
Despite the controversy,
construction activity for HSR is well under way in many parts of the state.
Passenger service between San Jose and Bakersfield is expected as soon as 2025.
And cities all across California are incorporating the train into their own
long-term regional transportation plans. Tracking a project of this magnitude
is, of course, a bit of a challenge, which is why we’ve put together this handy
explainer:
What exactly is California
trying to build? As outlined in the “Safe,
Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century,” which California voters passed 53 percent to 47
percent in 2008, the HSR project will build approximately 800 miles of track up
and down the state, connecting together most of the state's large cities with
up to 24 different stations. With an anticipated cruising speed of 220 mph, the train
is intended to provide Californians with a fast and convenient option to travel
throughout the Golden State without relying on their cars or short-haul airplane flights.
The project is supposed to open in
legs. The first, connecting San Jose to the Central Valley, is scheduled to
begin passenger service in 2025. Stops along this leg will include San Jose,
Gilroy, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Tulare County, and Bakersfield.
The second leg, expected to open in
2029, will build out tracks from San Jose to San Francisco’s Transbay Terminal,
including a Peninsula stop in Millbrae; and south from Bakersfield to Anaheim,
with stops in Palmdale, Downtown Los Angeles, and at Burbank Airport.
The proposed timeline on the later
extensions of the project are foggier, but the state plans to add a 110-mile
Sacramento extension, connecting to Modesto and Stockton on its way, and a
167-mile segment that snakes east from Los Angeles through the San Gabriel
Valley to the Inland Empire, and eventually down south to San Diego.
Altogether, the train’s proponents
envision the HSR as a much-needed boost to the state’s aging and overcapacity
infrastructure. Though the state’s population continues to grow, our freeways
and our airports cannot. And, aside from creating an alternative for
long-distance travel, HSR will also provide funds for cities to better develop
their own local transportation systems and integrate the HSR station into local
transit networks.
The train also figures into
California’s aggressive goal to cut
carbon emissions to 40 percent below 1990
levels by 2030, given the electric train is significantly less carbon-intensive
than either driving or flying.
By 2040, the state
estimates the HSR will eliminate up to
10 million miles of vehicle travel daily, as well as up to 180 short-haul
flights.
Has construction already
started? Yes, it has. The High Speed Rail Authority officially broke
ground on the project in Fresno back in early 2015. Since then, construction crews
have been working on a 119-mile segment of track in the Central Valley. For
now, this means building out the track’s right of way and its necessary
bridges, trenches, and under-crossings. The (sluggish) progress can
be tracked online. But a drive along Highway
99, itself
being realigned to accommodate the train,
yields some encouraging views of the project’s future viaduct.
Individual cities across California
have started preparing for HSR’s arrival. Notably, Fresno has rezoned the area
around the city’s future station to accommodate buildings up to 15-stories
tall, and has begun work on a pair of Bus Rapid Transit lines to connect the
city’s northern and eastern flanks.
Los
Angeles and Anaheim are moving forward upgrades to their one-day
high-speed rail stations, and Caltrans is close to releasing
its assessment of how to best integrate the
HSR into the state’s transportation grid.
Closer to home, Caltrain’s
electrification upgrade is being built with the expectation
that the corridor will one day serve the HSR. And the Transbay Terminal is
being built with the expectation (err, legal
mandate) that the bullet train will one day
arrive, though exactly how and when is one of the bullet train’s (many)
unresolved sticking points.
I’ve heard it’s not going well.
Is that true? Funny you should ask. The California
High-Speed Rail project is arguably state’s most controversial big
public-infrastructure project. The fact that the train’s projected cost has
mushroomed from approximately $40 billion when voters first approved the
project in 2008 to about $64 billion in 2016 means a lot of people feel ripped
off.
Doubly so for the fact that
construction seems to be progressing at a painstakingly slow rate. An
unreleased Federal Rail Administration risk analysis from earlier this year
said the project was running significantly over budget and behind schedule,
according to the Los Angeles Times.
Thanks to the deadly combination of
California’s strict environmental laws, under which any individual or
organization may file a lawsuit saying a project is violating the California
Environmental Quality Act, and lots of very ticked-off people, the bullet train
has been a magnet for litigation.
About six
suits have been filed relating to the Central Valley
portion of the route, and it’s only natural to expect more will come as plans
for exactly how the train will snake through the Bay Area and Southern
California materialize over the next year
or so. In July, the state
Supreme Court affirmed that state
environmental law definitely applies to the train, despite an argument made
that more lax federal law should usurp state environmental regulation for state-owned
projects.
Also, the train has fallen victim to
abjectly political attacks. Earlier this year, a cabal of California
Republicans lead by Bakersfield Congressman Kevin McCarthy penned
a letter to Secretary of Transportation Elaine
Chao, asking her to withhold roughly $650 million of federal grant money
allocated for Caltrain’s electrification because of the corridor’s eventual
intended use with the HSR.
In McCarthy’s words, "We think
providing additional funding at this time to the [California High Speed Rail]
Authority would be an irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars."
Aside from that, the train is a
frequent target for more sweeping legislative change on the state level.
A statewide
ballot proposition last November not-so-subtly
targeted the train by proposing a constitutional amendment to require voter
approval for “megaprojects” costing more than $2 billion. Another potential
amendment on the ballot next June could
derail the one of the train’s funding mechanisms.
Should we be hopeful? If there's one certain thing about the bullet train, it's
that its future has been clouded in uncertainty from almost the very
beginning—at least judging by its treatment by the state’s press.
It's important to remember, however,
that voters approved the project by a comfortable 600,000-vote margin.
And an
opinion poll conducted by the Public Policy
Institute of California in May of 2016 found that 63 percent of Californians
still considered the bullet train “important” for the “future quality of life
and economic vitality of California,” compared with just 35 percent who did not
think it is important.
The biggest question for the train,
however, is money. Litigation, aside from being costly in its own right, leads
to construction cost increases from contract change orders and the prevailing
cost increase of labor and materials. Add in the combination of
lower-than-expected revenue from California’s cap-and-trade program and a
presidential administration that, at times, seems hostile to California’s very
existence, and things start looking grim for the bullet train.
The state ultimately hopes the
high-speed rail project will generate enough revenue to cover operating costs
once construction is complete. Once the plan moves closer to completion, they
anticipate funds from private donors.
Let’s be optimistic.
Update,
November 29: More delays for the project. A
request for an emergency audit of the project was turned down Monday. According
to the LA Times,
“The state auditor last reported on the bullet train five years ago, raising a
wide range of concerns about its financial condition, ridership estimates and
oversight.”
And in another delay, state
officials have pushed back the deadline to 2020 for finishing an environmental
review. “The environmental reviews, which
will finalize the route the train will take, were originally slated for
completion this year,” reports Associated
Press. “Officials bumped the deadline
back to 2018 in March, and now to 2020.”
Comments
The cost to build this train is $80 Billion per mile. That
is $64 Billion divided by 800 miles. It
appears to be 20% built and is out of money. All federal tax subsidies going to
California should be stopped. These
people are nuts.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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