
Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California? - jrmg
https://www.desertsun.com/story/opinion/columnists/2019/10/17/taiwan-managed-to-build-high-speed-rail-why-cant-we-connecting-california-joe-mathews/4013735002/
======
narrator
I think it's because in the U.S absolutely anyone can tie up this stuff in the
court systems for years. There are a lot of environmentalists who have been
working overtime to stop this thing. For example:
[https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2018/10/24/high-speed-
rail-l...](https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2018/10/24/high-speed-rail-
lawsuit/) . There are _seven_ environmental lawsuits against this thing. How
much do you think the legal bills are? There will likely be many more.

Edit: There are a couple of regularly glitchy things about how American
government works. They are:

#1 : Public Employees Unions who negotiate with themselves for sweet pension
deals.

#2 : Suits against various government agencies by individuals that wind up
being paid for by taxpayers. For example, school districts getting sued for
something a janitor did and then taxpayers having to pay for it as if they
were a private business and the taxpayer is the owner.

#3 : Environmental lawsuits to stop government infrastructure projects.

~~~
chongli
Are these _environmental lawsuits_ really about protecting the environment
(fighting climate change) or are they NIMBY lawsuits taking advantage of
environmental laws/ordinances? In general, I would expect environmentalists to
be among the major proponents of high speed rail, with the goal of getting
more cars off the freeways.

This calls to mind the _Faculty of Environment_ at my university, whose
primary focus is on the urban planning degree program. Urban planning as a
rule seems to be all about politics, stakeholders, and NIMBYism; not so much
about fighting climate change.

~~~
briandear
> Are these environmental lawsuits really about protecting the environment
> (fighting climate change)

“Protecting the environment” isn’t “fighting climate change.” Regardless of
one’s position on the effects of CO2, that’s like suggesting that ensuring
health should be entirely about how to prevent influenza. Protecting the
environment includes protecting habit, stopping (actual, toxic) pollution.
Climate change isn’t the end-all be-all of environmentalism. Climate change is
being used at an almost religious level to justify pretty much anything
climate activists deem necessary — regardless of any unintended (or
subversively intended) consequences.

Environmentalism doesn’t have to also mean “obsession with climate.” Some of
us care deeply about the environment but also don’t have the audacity to think
that the climate is changing _because_ of humans. The climate has been
changing for 4+ billion years.

Of course, downvote away. Heresy is expected to be punished here. It is
important that the point was made: caring about the environment can be
independent of the climate change gospel.

~~~
zenexer
It can, but there’s a point of diminishing returns. There’s little point in
protecting an ecosystem if it isn’t going to exist in a decade or two anyway.
A big construction project might have a more tangible short-term impact, but
if that excuse is used in every project that’s likely to have a strong
positive impact on climate change, we might be shooting ourselves in the foot.

Of course, nothing is every black-and-white; destroying countless local
ecosystems is a high cost, and it’s difficult to measure whether it’s worth
that cost. How many ecosystems will be saved as a result? From any single
project, probably none. From all the projects combined, maybe a lot.

It’s along the lines of, “nobody else is trying to prevent calamity X, so
calamity X is inevitable, and I shouldn’t try to stop it if the cost is
calamity Y, where calamity Y is a more localized version of calamity X.” Well,
calamity X is going to bring about calamity Y anyway if everyone has that
mindset.

It reminds me of the Trolley Problem [1], except the “do nothing” outcome is a
long way off, and the “do something” outcome happens immediately, thereby
skewing the choices.

[1]:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem)

~~~
grawprog
>There’s little point in protecting an ecosystem if it isn’t going to exist in
a decade or two anyway.

You realize one of the main things that would help climate change is having
healthy functioning ecosystems? They help with things like soil erosion,
carbon sequestering, they supply much needed nutrients to soil, regulate
temperature, and numerous other things that used to keep the earth balanced.

------
jedberg
The California HSR has a lot of problems not matched in Taiwan.

Firstly, once you get from San Jose to Bakersfield, then what? We don't have
good public transit in LA, much less to Bakersfield. But even if the train
went all the way to Union Station in Los Angeles, you'd still need to rent a
car to get anywhere useful, or take Uber/Lyft. And same thing on the other
end. What happens when you get to San Jose? You still need a car or another
slow train.

If you want to get from San Francisco to Disneyland via HSR, the entire trip
would probably take you about six hours with all the train changes and car
rides and waiting. You could do the drive in six hours too and then have your
car at the other end.

Even today, if I want to visit my parents in the suburbs of LA coming from the
suburbs of San Jose, I can make the drive in five hours, or spend five hours
getting there by plane, assuming someone picks me up at the other end. The
only reason I fly is if I happen to be going somewhere right near the airport
or it will be rush hour at one end or another when I arrive because I don't
have scheduling flexibility.

Secondly, the original proposal was to build Stockton to Fresno first. That
would be the least used section of the line. Not a lot of people move between
Stockton and Fresno. The train would be bankrupt before it ever got to phase
two. At least they finally changed their mind on that, but not for a much
better route.

To be remotely viable, they need to build the most trafficked parts first --
San Jose to Stockton and Bakersfield to Los Angeles. But even those lines
would still suffer from problem one unless/until the local transit was vastly
improved.

I would love to see a viable HSR in California, but the current proposal is
not that.

Let's build up our local transit first in LA and the Bay Area so that when we
connect them with a high speed rail, the rail is actually useful.

~~~
toastal
Could that not be a chicken and egg issue? There's no reason to build bus
lines to a nonexistent train station. And without the attractive high-speed
train option, who's going to take these buses in meantime? Sounds like the
train could be a catalyst.

~~~
smsm42
San Jose has plenty of good meeting points for urban transit. It's likely the
same points HSR would be using anyway. What it doesn't have is the proper
urban transit - the one that exists takes hours instead of minutes to get
anywhere and virtually nobody who can afford not using it uses it. Having HSR
wouldn't solve any of it.

------
jorblumesea
HSR failed in California largely because building effective mass transit is a
secondary goal. If you look at the route, and how the process unfolded, the
focus was mostly on who was going to get paid, and helping out political
friends. In the US, large transit projects are mostly about pork barrel
politics and spending, and if something actually usable comes out of it, then
that was a great but secondary effect. If you look at how other countries
build transit, politics is more subdued and the goal is to actually build a
functional system. Republicans block most transit projects as it is
antithetical to their political views, and the Democrats uses it as a social
spending policy and political handouts largely ignoring the needs of an actual
transit system.

Basically, US politics just doesn't care to build things properly because the
incentives are totally off.

Vox has a pretty good breakdown: [https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2019/2/15/18224717/c...](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2019/2/15/18224717/california-high-speed-rail-canceled)

------
yongjik
I think any talk about HSRs in the US should be able to explain US highways.
American highway system is arguably one of the best in the world - it's also a
gigantic government project, and it's constantly being extended.

So how come America, with its proven track record of great highways, is
totally impotent with high speed rails? The answer can't be just "American
government doesn't work" or "the country is too big." Irrational mistrust
against railways?

~~~
rb808
> American highway system is arguably one of the best in the world

No, I'd say the German Autobahn system is the best in the world, followed by
France (expensive) then UK, before USA.

USA is good because they tend to go to central cities, where European
motorways deliver to a ring road. You can commute to work on a US motorway,
but between cities they aren't special.

~~~
1123581321
What is the difference between a bypass highway and a ring road?

~~~
pas
OP probably means that very few highway goes through cities in Europe, whereas
you have big highway junctions in cities. (Eg Boston Big Dig.)

~~~
1123581321
That makes sense. Thank you!

------
aodin
For an article with quite a few numbers, it seems to be missing some basic
ones:

* Taiwan, area 36,197 km^2, population density 651 / km^2 [1]

* California, area 403,932 km^2, population density 97 / km^2 [2]

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

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

~~~
diego
That's a nonsequitur. The California coast is pretty dense, the rest of the
state has large amounts of empty space and national parks. Nobody would build
a high-speed rail through Yosemite or Death Valley.

~~~
trynumber9
The same is also true of Taiwan to a smaller degree. They have a populated
coast and then a sparse interior.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan#/media/...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan#/media/File:Population_density_of_Taiwan_by_district.svg)

~~~
franknine
Central Taiwan is full of high mountains, tallest one is nearly 13,000ft
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yu_Shan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yu_Shan)

------
wenc
Side observation, non-related but was brought up in the article:

"Taiwan is a far poorer place than California — with median household income
just one-fourth of ours — but still it managed to afford high-speed rail."

The author seems to be ignorant of some context when describing Taiwan in this
way -- I learned recently that wages in Taiwan were artificially and
structurally depressed in order to enable a competitive export economy. Taiwan
is actually not a palpably poorer place except maybe in an absolute dollar
sense. Taipei has top notch infrastructure, superior to every large U.S. city
in my view (I've visited and seen for myself) The highways are beautiful. They
don't skimp on infra spend.

Notwithstanding the fact that median household income is rarely good
indication of how "poor" a place is, especially when comparing across
countries because of local cost of living assumptions.

If we compare poverty rates, Taiwan's is 1.78% whereas California's is 18.2%.

Taiwan's GDP per capita (PPP) -- not household income -- was $53k in 2018.
California's was $66k in 2016. Not that different.

Looks like the author was trying to use a bit of rhetorical sleight of hand
there to make his point.

------
zachguo
1\. It resulted from the era of rapid economic growth.

2\. East Asian countries generally value the greater good for all more.

3\. There was no stereotype against train travel, and having HSRs was
generally considered as a national pride.

Nowadays, it's also difficult to do any large scale infrastructure project in
Taiwan, because the economy stagnates and the two-party political system is
kinda gridlocked .

------
monster_group
The real issue is that gas is too cheap in the US. Everywhere else, except oil
rich middle east, gas is expensive enough to discourage people from driving
everywhere. They end up taking public transport. In US driving almost always
comes out cheaper unless the distance is too great to be convenient to drive.

------
supernova87a
Simply put, even if all the environmental / lobbying / no-car-at-the-
destination issues were resolved, the distances of California (and population
densities) would still make it economically challenging to have HSR a slam
dunk compared to flying.

HSR breaks even with flying at about _200-300 miles_ journey. That is, if the
planned journey is within that range, for similar pricing, people will choose
50-50 rail over flying (in aggregate, in Europe, Asia). New York to
Washington/Boston distances. Greater than that, flying has the advantage.
(People will incrementally choose flying the longer the distance). This takes
into account typical traffic, getting to the airport, check-in, all that
stuff.

San Francisco to Los Angeles is 380 miles. Add to that the destination rental
car issues, etc. And we haven't even talked pricing yet.

Even if you got that all out of the way, flying is still often better than
rail. Even on Tokyo-Osaka route, one of the pinnacles of HSR, there are almost
comparable flights serving the route as shinkansen.

I know we all wish for high speed rail as a demonstration of our technological
prowess. But in recent years even I've soured on it for California, given how
incompetent we seem to be on top of rail's structural disadvantage in the
state. The money would bring far more benefits if spent elsewhere to solve our
traffic, commute, suburban issues.

~~~
Gibbon1
> economically challenging to have HSR a slam dunk compared to flying.

Ever priced out a runway extension project? Know how much that costs? You have
no idea.

~~~
supernova87a
Oh I do. But you have an existing federal body willing to hide/distribute the
cost of that runway, control tower, staff, weather forecasters, etc. Not as
much for rail.

------
CalChris
The route chosen for CA high speed rail guaranteed failure. SF out to the
Central Valley and then in to LA meant a really expensive project which would
result in a slow train. This single route through everywhere was necessary for
political, particularly Congressional, backing. I'm glad Gavin Newsom
cancelled it and I still want HSR. They should start with SLO to San Diego and
then a Central Valley line. Finally, connect SFO (yup, San Francisco
International Airport) to SLO.

~~~
Gibbon1
Have you read any of the official product planning documents?

~~~
CalChris
If you wish to provide a link I will look at them briefly.

~~~
Gibbon1
Not my problem

------
jkw
California is terrible at managing infrastructure projects.

~~~
throwawaytoday5
It's not just California, it's every state and every city in the US. People
have an aversion to public works projects often crying about taxes or how the
service is useless or not good enough. We have a political system where one
major party (out of two) decries any public spending that might help people
who aren't millionaires/billionaires/corporations.

Is it any wonder when you have evil groups of people spending hundreds of
millions of dollars to tell people that they should vote against their
interests?

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-
pub...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-public-
transit.html)

~~~
jccooper
Major highway and road projects in the US are often completed with minimal
fuss. You don't really hear about these, because they go off smoothly. The
difference may perhaps be that there's plenty of experience and precedent in
doing these, both in government and industry, as road projects are constantly
executed.

Major rail construction has basically been absent in the US for a generation
or more. Does the lack of experience and support, combined with a general
reluctance to bring in foreign expertise, explain the difference? Maybe. The
Texas HSR project may be instructive, as it's bringing in a Japanese firm.

~~~
jcranmer
> Major highway and road projects in the US are often completed with minimal
> fuss. You don't really hear about these, because they go off smoothly. The
> difference may perhaps be that there's plenty of experience and precedent in
> doing these, both in government and industry, as road projects are
> constantly executed.

... yeah, I don't think that's true. Major road projects in the US often have
exactly the same kinds of hemorrhaging cost overruns and other issues that
rail projects do: look at Seattle's Alaska Way Viaduct replacement project,
the Bay Area's Bay Bridge replacement project, or Boston's Big Dig for
infamous cost overruns that are measured in large integer multiples.

The major difference, I believe, is that there is often massive public
pressure to force through road projects when they hit snags, whereas rail
projects tend to get cancelled at first opportunity.

~~~
phlakaton
On the flip side, the reconstruction of LA freeways after the Northridge
earthquake was a resounding success, finishing a month or more ahead of
schedule. How? By offering financial incentives to complete early. ;-)

This describes in more detail how it was done:
[https://www.epi.org/publication/bp166/](https://www.epi.org/publication/bp166/)

------
erentz
Fund rail like we do highways. Establish an agency to incrementally purchase
ROW or track rights and incrementally upgrade services. And to tie all these
services together into a cohesive network.

This would mean first all the lines in NoCal and separately SoCal would reach
speeds of 120mph, electrified, with regular high quality service. That first
supports the massive need for transit within these separate mega regions.
You’d have a fast enough train from Sacramento to San Jose. Or from San Diego
to LA. So on. This already provides good economic benefits.

Second, starting a rail renaissance this way around means you have laid out
everything you need to get support for the 180+ mph HSR line that would later
link these two networks into one statewide network.

At that point you would not only have support from the public because it’s
obvious what the benefits will be, but you also have all the construction and
project management experience built up over the years of
buying/fixing/upgrading lines in these northern and southern networks.

And instead of this inside out (outside in?), stand-alone plan we had with
CAHSR. You now all the way through are making peoples lives better AS YOU GO
with your capital investments.

The Central Valley construction right now for example is ridiculous as
everyone knows. (We know it was done because there was federal money for it,
but still.)

Imagine instead that same capital expenditure had gone to making the
Sacramento to San Jose Capitol Corridor route a high quality electrified
120mph line? It would’ve had immediate economic benefits and people would ride
the trains and be like holy shit give me more of this now!!

------
haunter
As an outsider from Europe: what I see that americans hate any publicly funded
projects. "If it doesn't benefit me why should I pay taxes for that?" See the
whole healthcare system. "I'm healthy, never sick why should I pay the cancer
treatment of those who are obese and smoke all the time?" That's totally
different in Europe. Not just in the nordic countries but generally
everywhere. So the same applies for public transport and such as well. Also
add on the top of that the lowest gas prices in the western world
[https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/](https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/)

~~~
SamReidHughes
Californians voted for the high speed rail project in a ballot initiative.

~~~
phlakaton
Would they have if it had been, say, a $29B proposition instead of a $9B one,
and not to be completed until all the baby boomers were 90+ years old?

This project has been facing stiff headwinds from the moment it began. If we
had that vote again, knowing what we know now, I doubt it would pass.

~~~
SamReidHughes
Agreed. I was always against it, because I knew it would play out this way
:-). I’d rather force the TSA to have an SLA.

------
ksbakan
The fact that taiwan is much poorer also means that the labor cost for
construction is much lower

~~~
larrysalibra
Taiwan imports construction workers from much poorer Southeast Asian
countries.
[http://www.cedaw.org.tw/en/upload/media/Capacity%20Building/...](http://www.cedaw.org.tw/en/upload/media/Capacity%20Building/7-1BMigrant%20Worker%20in%20Taiwan.pdf)

~~~
dmitrygr
US cannot do that either (for political reasons). The optics aren't great,
"murrican jobs" and all

~~~
EdwardDiego
Large parts of your agricultural industry already are.

~~~
jcranmer
But the agricultural industry doesn't face "Buy American" provisions in their
funding requirements that prohibit them from using too much foreign stuff,
which is the norm in infrastructure projects.

------
perspective1
Answer: cars and highways. It's really hard to spend a lot of money replacing
something that already works, even if it works really, really badly. High
speed rail will only happen with a federal mandate.

------
Merrill
California has 10 times as many lawyers as Taiwan.

[http://www.twba.org.tw/en/Report.htm](http://www.twba.org.tw/en/Report.htm)

[https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-
archives/2...](https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-
archives/2018/05/new_aba_data_reveals/)

------
justinzollars
The key issue is this:

>While California established an underfinanced government authority to lead
the project, Taiwan’s biggest businesses came together to create a private
corporation.

It should be private.

------
dehrmann
I used to be more in favor of CA HSR, but I read an argument that said cities
are congested, rural I-5 isn't, so we'd be better off building a second BART
tunnel and electrifying Caltrain.

~~~
Gibbon1
High speed rail is paying for half of the electrification project.

------
ulkram
Is it just me, or is it a bit arrogant to assume that because X can do
something, why can't Y do it?

~~~
bnt
It would be, but here we are comparing a clear “underdog” with one of the most
prospering economies in the world, and the underdog won.

------
mch82
High speed rail is a bad investment. Rail systematizes discrimination,
typically loses money, and struggles to provide a last mile solution.

$60B can buy at least 600,000 electric vehicles with 3 million seats. Semi-
autonomous vehicles are already capable of operating as a “train” in a
dedicated freeway lane and autonomous operation is likely by 2033 (when
California’s HSR would begin operation). This solution could be deployed
incrementally, with a smaller fleet of human-driven, semi-autonomous EVs in
the first phase.

600,000 vehicles may not sound like a lot, but the whole United States had
370,400 taxi & ride share drivers in 2018! [1].

We need to turn the HOV lane into an autonomous car lane & build the future we
want instead of tying ourselves to a romanticized version of the past.

[1]: [https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-
moving/m...](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-
moving/mobile/taxi-drivers-and-chauffeurs.htm)

Edit: I failed to acknowledge that autonomous vehicles are not available
today, so have updated my post. Note, high speed rail isn’t available either &
won’t be until, at earliest, 2033.

~~~
_delirium
$60B can buy zero autonomous vehicles, because there aren't any working ones!
And won't be for years, regardless of the wrong predictions [1] Elon Musk
keeps making.

[1] He promised in 2016 that Tesla vehicles would have level-5 autonomy by
2017: [https://futurism.com/elon-musk-every-tesla-car-will-be-
fully...](https://futurism.com/elon-musk-every-tesla-car-will-be-fully-
autonomous-by-2017)

~~~
mch82
We have the technology today to operate a “train” of self-driving vehicles in
a dedicated self-driving freeway lane.

California high speed rail isn’t scheduled to open until 2033.

By 2033 I bet we’ll have self-driving vehicles capable of last mile
transportation, at least in dedicated lanes on the road.

~~~
_delirium
If that actually works, I'm fine with it. I don't care that much about the
tech... the Paris Metro uses rubber tires instead of steel rails, but it's
functionally the same as any other metro system from a customer's perspective.
If LA-SF comes up with a "high-speed rail" solution that runs on rubber wheels
on asphalt, but has fast, frequent, and reliable schedules, then sure, sounds
good to me! That's the key though... will I be able to buy these tickets the
way I can buy TGV tickets in France?

~~~
my123
The Paris metro system actually has both rubber and rail lines. :-)

Autopilot got deployed since the 60s, and 100% driverless lines since the late
90s (currently line 1 and 14 are automatic, and line 4 is becoming automatic
too)

