
Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project - masonic
https://www.city-journal.org/californias-high-speed-rail-project
======
niftich
While this article finds an issue with the way the Tejon Pass route was
eliminated in favor of the Tehachapi Pass route, Tejon Pass route would skip a
station in Lancaster/Palmdale, which would be a mistake. As the article
acknowledges, these are rapidly growing exurbs that are refuge from the
exorbitant land prices in the LA Basin. There is existing commuter rail
service between there and Downtown LA, but a HSR is a significant level-of-
service upgrade, and offers connections to Bakersfield and beyond. The fact
that a rail line offers connections between many points with the same service,
while air service must fly at least as many services as there are
destinations, is lost on these commentators.

That being said, there are many facepalm-worthy decisions made by CAHSR or by
others early on in the process, like an extremely sweeping curve on a long,
expensive viaduct just outside of Fresno station [1], or the barely-realistic
journey times written into legislation that drive up cost. Another is the
choice of the torturous Pacheco Pass over the easier Altamont, or even going
around the mountains following the Strait the old rail does. Besides, there's
no point to pining after LA-SF rail traffic when airports are perfectly fine
between those two. But what about LA-Bakersfield? Modesto-Sacramento? SF-
Fresno? That's where a train helps. And to do that, all you need is a train
that does comfy, European speeds like 100 mph, instead of a painstakingly-
built one that does twice as fast.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16172313](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16172313)

~~~
cco
What the heck is the train line doing near Fresno?

Why is it not following I-5 and making zero stops in between the South Bay and
LA?

~~~
tathougies
Fresno is the third largest city in the state and the agricultural capital of
the state. Going through Fresno will link the three largest industries:
technology, entertainment, and agriculture.

~~~
cco
I know Fresno is relatively large but the entire purpose of this route
was/is/I guess isn't to get people from SF to LA as a rival to air travel.

~~~
dragonwriter
No, the purpose cited and the comparison made in cost justifications was to
North/South _freeway_ traffic it would displace, not competition with air
travel.

------
ummonk
I used to support the HSR project on the grounds that connecting the state
(both LA / Bay Area and the Central Valley towns) would yield long term
economic benefits due the increased flow of people within the state.
Decreasing the effective distance between people by making travel faster and
cheaper has a lot of value in the information economy. Nothing beats face to
face communication.

I now no longer support the project due to the large price tag. I don’t
believe the convenience of HSR over air travel is worth the cost of this
infrastructure investment. We could get way more value out of investing in
building our local public transportation and expanding the highway network.

Maybe if we went back to the drawing board a reasonable HSR plan would be
possible (this article certainly provides good areas of improvement). Until
then, we need to stop forging ahead.

~~~
eloff
For $100B you could buy ~33,000 $3M-dollar electric commuter planes with 10
person capacity and 600mi range - not quite anything like that on the market
yet mind you - but it seems close at hand. You could cover nearly the whole
state, not just LA <\--> SF, and have 330,000 person capacity. By what measure
would this train be better?

Certainly not economic, noise, land-use, speed, convenience, coverage, or
flexibility. Probably in terms of operational costs - but not by a huge
margin. And the economics change if you scale the capacity down to match the
train system and invest the rest to partially cover the operating costs.

And it took me 5 minutes to think of a (possibly) better plan than theirs.

~~~
richk449
Very impressive. But in just three minutes, I thought of an even better plan:
put a $10M wormhole between LA and SF and have near instant travel. Wormholes
don’t quite exist yet, but they seem close at hand.

~~~
eloff
There was a plane featured on HN this week with those exact specs.

~~~
richk449
For sale for $3M?

~~~
eloff
Yes, but I have my doubts

~~~
Someone
“aims to have one flying early next year.”, and HN is skeptical about it
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18602771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18602771))

------
AlexB138
So, this article has some valid criticisms, but why is this the case? Why does
it seem like modern America can't manage any public works projects without
them taking twice as long and costing twice as much as projected? Is it
regulation? Lack of work ethic? Graft? It seems like a major problem.

~~~
chrischen
We're all spread out really really far compared to the rest of the world.

~~~
estebank
This is _one_ rail line that would connect San Francisco and Los Angeles, the
two most populous regions in the most populous state in the US. The fact that
the entire country is sparsely populated does not affect the feasibility or
utility of _this_ project in particular.

~~~
Gibbon1
A thing that becomes obvious when looking at the actual work being done is a
lot of the central valley work is grade separation. The work is grade
separating both the future high speed rail lines and existing freight rail
lines. The whole project is filled with things like that. Work that already
needs to be done irrespective of the HSR part. With that consideration the SF
to LA feature is really about a 1/3 the total price tag.

I remember one time someone made the too spread out argument. I went and tried
to do an estimate for a HSR line from Chicago to Denver. Via Kansans City and
St louis. About 1000 miles.

Probably cost between 25-50 billion. Maybe less since for most of it the only
things in the way are corn fields and cows.

Which seems like a lot of money, but then compare with the $2T spent on the
'war on terror' since 2001.

See:

[http://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/programs/construction/road_closur...](http://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/programs/construction/road_closure/2018_December_Construction_Update.pdf)

------
ProfessorLayton
As someone who voted for this project, I'm really bummed with how it's
actually turning out. The actual costs are so much more than what people voted
for, yet no one's being held responsible.

At the same time, I don't really have a solution to this problem. We need to
invest in large scale transportation initiatives for the future — projects
just as forward-looking as BART once was. Yet not even NYC can pull it
together anymore to extend their subway lines on budget and on time.

Worse, every time this happens, initiatives like this become harder and harder
for voters to consider.

~~~
landryraccoon
The 1976 BART cost $10B in today's dollars to construct. If you were alive in
1976 would you have said it was a boondoggle and the project should have been
killed?

IMO people consistently underestimate how much public infrastructure is worth.
The US highway system was sold at a cost of $27B [1] but cost over $100B and
has cost nearly $500B today [2].

Does that mean the US Highway system wasn't worth it? Of course it was, the
public just doesn't understand how much it had to cost. The Iraq war cost
trillions for zero benefit for future generations, even if 50% of the cost of
HSR is waste it's still a better deal by far.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Aid_Highway_Act_of_195...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Aid_Highway_Act_of_1956)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System)

~~~
rayiner
> The 1976 BART cost $10B in today's dollars to construct. If you were alive
> in 1976 would you have said it was a boondoggle and the project should have
> been killed?

And what would BART cost today to build? $50 billion? Would it be worthwhile
at that price? The problem is that costs for public infrastructure are
ballooning much faster than inflation. That puts more pressure on public
infrastructure projects to produce benefits that justify the investment. I
fully expect many public infrastructure expenditures today won't ever justify
themselves, for example DC's silver line.

~~~
georgeecollins
At $50B, yes. BART will exist in some form for at least a century. It is so
hard to understand how valuable it is to make something that so many people
use every day for that long but it is really valuable.

~~~
rayiner
How valuable? $50 billion is enough to create a fund that pays out $2 billion
annually in perpetuity, or about $15 for every BART ride. That’s not counting
ongoing operations and maintenance. Does BART generate $15 in positive value
per ride above and beyond ticket cost, relative to driving? I’m skeptical.

$3 I’ll believe. Which is why the constant factors kill us relative to Europe.
It costs us 3-7x to build the same infrastructure as Europe. That pushes the
required value per ride that needs to be generated to unrealistic levels.

~~~
amunicio
Let's take your own reasoning and let's apply it and see where the numbers
fall.

The Bart cost was $1.586 billion (according to Wikipedia) or around ~$10
billion of today's dollars.

Let say that back then we had put that money ($1.586 billion) into an annuity
in perpetuity and given the money each years to the riders so they will find
alternative means of transport.

So if instead of building bart back in the 70's we had put the money into a
perpetual annuity, we would be receiving the sum of $63.5 millions a year from
the annuity (your own numbers seem to indicate a 4% yield). That is less than
50 cents per ride (according to Wikipedia Bart gives 129 million rides a
year).

I don't think the cost is insignificant compared with the level of economic
activity that the 400.0000 daily riders generate for SF and the Bay Area in
general.

And now imagine 20 years from now how much $63.5 millions a year will buy you
compared with the benefits of mass transportation.

~~~
harryh
Your math is wrong. You can (at least historically) get a 4% annuity that
rises with inflation in perpetuity.

~~~
amunicio
Where can I get a save investment that pays a 4% annuity that rises with
inflation?

I'm genuinely curious. My father is retired and has some savings and that
would seem like the ideal investment for him.

------
classichasclass
> A comparatively small amount of state aid to LA Metro would do far more for
> California’s environment and economy

Like finishing the Green Line to @#$&ing LAX, maybe. It's ludicrous how bad
the public transportation options are to what is arguably the most important
airport on the west coast.

Meanwhile, on my monthly sorties through the Central Valley, the Authority
continues with its gigantic monuments to bloodymindedness, building tracks no
one will ride and ramps no train will crest. We could do so much better with
that money.

~~~
trashguy
Or any improvements on the 405 for us poor souls who live in the Valley+ and
work in Santa Monica :(

~~~
gtdawg
We just spent a lot on that. [1]

Are you not seeing results?

What additonal work would you like to see?

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/us/los-angeles-drivers-
on...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/us/los-angeles-drivers-on-
the-405-ask-was-1-6-billion-worth-it.html)

~~~
trashguy
Instead of adding lanes, they should have added some useable public
transportation like a light rail. There is 2million~ people living in the SFV
and all it has is a stupid bus line that goes to the red line. Light rail that
connects the SFV to West LA and LAX would be a huge improvement. It doesn't
help that Los Angeles city government is incompetent and the rich in Bel Air
and Bev hills like to throw wrenches in everything.

------
omgwtfbyobbq
A negative article on HSR from a conservative think tank? I'm shocked! :P

The price tag in real dollars has increase since Prop 1A was passed in 2008,
but the author is misrepresenting how much costs have increased compared to
the initial estimate of $40 billion in 2008.

The absolute cost has increased because the estimated completion date has been
pushed back by a decade or more and the construction estimates are in year of
expenditure dollar, not current dollars or 2008 dollars.

I wrote a comment about it here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16560843](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16560843)

Granted, I hate to see funds being poorly managed and contractors committing
fraud with no accountability, which appears to have happened, but I also hate
hit pieces where someone compares 2008 dollars to year of expenditure dollars
like they're the same thing.

------
dstroot
The simple facts seem to be that we have lost our capabilities to deliver
these types of projects. I voted against it at the time assuming it could
never be build with cost assumptions they put forth. Good concept with lots of
potential benefits. Unfortunately we have zero chance of being able to to do
it at a reasonable cost.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-05-31/the-u-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-05-31/the-
u-s-has-forgotten-how-to-do-infrastructure)

------
zcbenz
In comparison, the Chuo Shinkansen connecting Tokyo and Nagoya (286km in
distance), which runs at a maximum speed of 505 km/h (314 mph), costs about 45
billion US dollars.

~~~
RRL
Thanks for the context.

So the Chuo Shinkansen = ~ $253,218,691/mi.(9 stations)

Est. CA HSR (Stage 1) = $190,384,615/mi (15 stations)

~~~
culturestate
The Chuo Shinkansen is also a maglev line built mostly underground; it's not
an apples-to-apples comparison.

------
russellbeattie
Why does it seem that the U.S. has become incapable of building large projects
in a reasonable amount of time and budget? It seems every major bit of
construction is always years late, and billions over budget. Whether it's the
Bay Bridge (half of it), or a new Space Shuttle replacement, or just fixing
our bridges and other infrastructure, I've never read of a large public
project actually coming in on time and on budget.

In China, they're building infrastructure so fast it's crazy. Regardless of
the different social and political systems, we just seem to have lost all
ability to function as a society to create big things that we need. Imagine if
we wanted to build something like the Hoover Damn today?

I have to assume it has something to do with half the population trying to
actively disrupt anything positive the government wants to do, and if they
can't completely kill the project, they try to profit off it as much as
possible, essentially "proving" that government is inefficient, if not
outright incompetent.

~~~
masonic

      the U.S. has become incapable of building large projects in a reasonable amount of time and budget?
    

_Private_ projects come in on time and on budget, or nearly so, all the time.
It's the _public sector_ projects that are layered in graft.

The last major public project that came in near the original budget that I can
recall is the San Jose Area (now SAP).

~~~
scarejunba
Which private enterprise has the power to run a hundred billion project that
isn’t funded by the government. Not one.

~~~
woolvalley
Uber, Google Search Engine, Facebook, etc.

~~~
scarejunba
None of them have done anything on this scale, have they? They’re valuable
because they don’t make investments like this. Their work is on a long lever
so they have great margins over massive volume.

~~~
masonic
Google has spent over $200 million _on land alone_... in the valley alone...
just in the past _month_.

I heard that it seriously depleted HQ's petty cash fund. (But seriously, these
were, in fact, all-cash deals.)

~~~
scarejunba
Yeah, but they don't do that every month. And $200 million is 1/500 of 100
billion. This is like the difference between going to a nice restaurant and
buying a McLaren P1. Or spending all your money as an L7 at Google vs. going
to space yourself.

------
hirundo
Self driving cars are expected roll out in the same time frame as this rail
project. I think they change the ridership equation. The drive from LAX to SFO
is about 6 hours, 3 hours longer than by HSR. But if I can work or sleep in
the back I'd prefer to take the car. The car gives me more flexibility at the
destination and more privacy, comfort and cargo space.

When self driving cars become sufficiently trustworthy a better solution might
be a hybrid: high speed self driving car lanes.

~~~
usaar333
If you are talking about taking a car solo, that's pretty expensive. It's hard
to imagine a marginal cost under $0.23/mile for driving [1], so you are
looking at a round-trip solo cost of $132 minimum - that's higher than flying
(if you can plan it).

Either way, I'm not sure how much autonomy changes things. You can get luxury
buses overnight for $115 overnight ([https://www.latimes.com/travel/deals/la-
tr-money-20170903-st...](https://www.latimes.com/travel/deals/la-tr-
money-20170903-story.html)) already which probably beats the comfort of a car
anyway - how much will not paying a driver cut costs?

[1] [http://www.forthgo.com/blog/2007/05/24/marginal-cost-of-
driv...](http://www.forthgo.com/blog/2007/05/24/marginal-cost-of-driving/)

~~~
sand500
I would expect it to be like renting a more expensive car but you can sleep in
it for the ride over. Cost needs to beat luxury bus or flight + cost of
ubering around in the city

------
captainperl
For the people reading these postings, I noticed there's some
misunderstandings about California HSR ...

1) It's not for transportation. It's a jobs and pension program for
appointees. State leaders are willing to spend $100 billion (or more) of
taxpayer money for $1 billion of pork.

2) The state cannot even manage Caltrain well, which is only 50 miles long (SF
to Gilroy.) There's no way they can manage a route 400 miles long.

3) Domestic airlines do a good job of intra-state travel already.

4) There was never an affordable model for building HSR. It never made any
sense financially for California.

5) Residents of Palo Alto and Atherton will sue the state into oblivion if
they don't bury the HSR. And the state won't because tunnelling is $2 billion
per mile.

~~~
scarejunba
I think most people on HN don’t realize one thing, though: most Americans are
very much in favour of this sort of pork barrel funding. They may say
otherwise but when it comes down to it the operative reasoning is “everyone
else will get the pork barrel but me so I need to get in on it”. Revealed
Preferences are pro-pork.

------
skybrian
The key sentence seems to be:

"Fortunately, only a small fraction of CAHSR’s projected cost—$1.4 billion out
of nearly $100 billion total—has been spent so far."

This suggests that it might be possible to make major changes, or even start
over from scratch, if there's a significantly better way to do it.

------
mrhappyunhappy
Should have given the project to the French company that put forward the
proposal or hire a Japanese firm from the start. Leave it up to a bloated
agency with a misaligned agenda to royally screw things up at the cost of the
taxpayer. If you think this is bad, you don’t want to know where your federal
tax dollars go to. Reading this makes me sick.

~~~
gedy
But then they wouldn't be able to hand out favors and buy political clout with
big construction firms and unions, which is sadly probably the main goal for
the current project..

------
imh
This kind of ballooning makes me think there should be a rule for propositions
(and maybe most funding in general) that when allocating funding for XYZ,
there must be clear criteria upon which the funding is removed.

Like if the proposition had said "It'll probably cost $33B and take under
three hours, and will be canceled if the estimated costs exceed $50B or the
estimated duration exceeds 3 and a half hours."

------
Tsubasachan
The same thing happened in my country. Infrastructure like this always ends up
about 5 times more expensive than originally thought. It doesn't really matter
because there is always more money. Everyone just forgets about it and moves
on.

The US however is rapidly approaching a 1 trillion deficit. And if it wants to
challenge China in manufacturing they need to rebuild the entire railroad
system.

~~~
protomyth
_And if it wants to challenge China in manufacturing they need to rebuild the
entire railroad system._

Can you explain this point? The USA has a great cargo rail system that is
efficient and integrated with other transportation systems.

~~~
Tsubasachan
American railroads are slow, old, neglected, unsafe and need to be shared with
passenger trains.

Forty years of planned and extensive investment in infrastructure is how China
lifted itself out of its misery. There was a time when the US did the same but
something happened along the way.

~~~
protomyth
> American railroads are slow, old, neglected, unsafe and need to be shared
> with passenger trains.

Other than need to be shared with passenger trains, where are you getting the
rest? It is certainly not true of cargo trains. How fast do you need cargo to
go?

------
johan_larson
Why is this so hard? Other countries manage to construct high-speed rail and
subway lines for a fraction what the US spends.

Maybe it was a bad idea to have everyone with a brain cram into med-school,
law-school or b-school. There are other things that need doing.

------
jorblumesea
Who contributed to this article?

> Connor Harris is a policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute.

[https://www.manhattan-institute.org/about](https://www.manhattan-
institute.org/about)

Reading through their other literature, seems pretty partisan and not very
objective.

Can we get a less biased source? I'm not doubting the problems of HSR or the
project, it would just be nice to get someone with less of an axe to grind.

~~~
opo
The state senator who actually authored the legislation establishing the
California High-Speed Rail Authority was Quentin Kopp. After seeing how this
has turned out he is now opposed to it (and I think joined a lawsuit against
it). In an op ed he had this to say:

>...Consequently, there won’t be enough riders paying fares to cover
operational costs. The 2008 ballot measure prohibits taxpayer subsidy of this
now-planned track to nowhere. As the “father” of true high-speed rail, I
regret its “horizon” isn’t now bright, unless the governor and Richard restore
2008 promises to taxpayers.

[https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/letters-to-the-
editor/article...](https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/letters-to-the-
editor/article173401141.html)

------
bobsil1
We should maybe build a vac tube instead.

------
macawfish
If only Elon Musk had managed it amirite?

Oh wait...

