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Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

99 points by masonic 8y ago

mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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..
- scarejunba 8y ago
  Yeah, law of comparative advantage.
zcbenz 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    The Chuo Shinkansen is also a maglev line built mostly underground; it's not an apples-to-apples comparison.
closetohome 8y ago
Extra! Extra! Conservative think tank criticizes public transportation project.
- rayiner 8y ago
  HSR isn't "public transportation." Your maid isn't riding HSR to work. It's way more expensive than car travel for kids with families. HSR is taking state resources from people who need it to provide welfare for yuppies and business people.
- WillPostForFood 8y ago
  If you want to rebut something on the article, it would be helpful. Objectively, the route is not optimal, it is going to be slower than promised. Because the route is longer, and speeds lower, trips are going to take longer. The cost is far exceeding estimates. These are all true and real criticisms.
- nate_meurer 8y ago
  Is an ad-hominem really the only thing you have to contribute? No thoughts on whether the $100 billion (and climbing) cost is really worth it?
macawfish 8y ago
If only Elon Musk had managed it amirite? Oh wait...
hirundo 8y ago
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.
- chrischen 8y ago
  Cars may become self driving, but that won't change the fundamental efficiency problem in that you can only fit so many people in a private car. What you're describing can already be done by calling a Lyft, albeit at slightly higher costs than a self driving car.
  - CamperBob2 8y ago
    A network of self-driving cars is a train, or could be considered one if engineered properly. Of course, self-driving cars don't run on fixed rails, which costs them a lot of popularity around here. People don't seem to understand that fixed rail is only good for transporting lots and lots of people, very efficiently and safely, from one place where they don't want to be to another place where they don't want to be.
    - jwr 8y ago
      Well, that depends on how you build your railways. The way I see it done in the US this is indeed the case, as the stations (especially in California) seem to be in bizarre places and there is rarely a way to get to say an airport by train. But you can also build railways that make sense. See Japan for an excellent example, as well as most of Europe. These get you from where you are to where you want to be quickly and efficiently.
      - chrischen 8y ago
        I fully support public transit, including trains, but the geography of the US is not conducive to dense trains due to the urban sprawl. Ideally the sprawl is minimized for maximum efficiency (in both enhanced inter-personal cooperation, living cost) but it's hard to sell that when gas is cheap, and land is plenty. There's another issue unique to the US, is that there is a diverse spectrum of races, income levels, and cultural groups that make it hard for these different groups to live together in a dense area peacefully (as compared to a homogenous place like Japan). Much of the inane urban planning in The US is actually a result of people just trying to prevent black people or poor people from moving into their neighborhoods.
AlexB138 8y ago
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 8y ago
  We're all spread out really really far compared to the rest of the world.
  - fastball 8y ago
    That should be reflected in the projections, which it apparently isn't.
  - madengr 8y ago
    The Hoover dam was built on time and budget, along with numerous other public works projects of the early 20 century. It’s as if nothing can get done now.
    - woofyman 8y ago
      Over 100 workers died building it.
      - melling 8y ago
        China built 17,000 miles of high-speed rail in 15 years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China There’s another 8000 on the way by 2025.
        kochikame 8y ago
        It's easy to do when you can just forcibly move people and don't have to listen to what the locals think before you start laying track
ProfessorLayton 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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_1956 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Aid_Highway_Act_of_195... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System
  - xienze 8y ago
    > IMO people consistently underestimate how much public infrastructure is worth. I think you mean “politicians consistently lie about how much public infrastructure projects will cost.”
    - steve_gh 8y ago
      Transport hubs encourage development. In the UK look at all the satellite industries around Heathrow and Gatwick. Look at the offices being built close to Paddington and Kings Cross stations in London, or Reading. The sensible thing would be for the city to buy up land round the stations, then build offices and lease them. The income would offset the costs.
claydavisss 8y ago
HSR is not supposed to take you from A to B HSR is supposed to line the pockets of Democrat donors for decades, and it surely will By time it is done, every potential rider could have been given a private jet for less cost
ummonk 8y ago
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.
- marcell 8y ago
  What’s interesting to me is that the federal tax cuts passed last year cost around $150B a year. I know you may not support this either, but that would pay for the construction of 1 and a 1/2 HSR’s a year, even with the cost overrun. Reminds me of PG’s essay about how it’s easy to loss lots of money on bad investments, even for people who are normally frugal on luxuries.
  - rukittenme 8y ago
    Tax rates were cut; tax revenue was not. The federal government is expecting $26 billion more in tax revenue than in 2017.
    - marcell 8y ago
      That’s a bit semantics as it’s looking at just one year, and in any case doesn’t look at the delta from the old law. Edit: IIRC the law had some incentives to onshore money at special tax rates, which may cause a one-time bump in revenues.
    - greenburger 8y ago
      That may have been the estimate, but so far receipts are not keeping pace with 2017. Depending on your reference tax year revenues are 3% - 8% lower than 2017 thus far [1]. [1] http://www.crfb.org/blogs/tax-bill-did-not-cause-revenue-rise http://www.crfb.org/blogs/tax-bill-did-not-cause-revenue-ris...
niftich 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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?
  - Aloha 8y ago
    It's supposed to link the whole state, not just LA to the Bay
    - tropo 8y ago
      We can do both. Put all the stations on sidings so that stopped trains do not block the main track. Trains operate point-to-point just like aircraft, with everybody getting on and off at the same time. This means that there is little downside to adding more stops. The trip time for other stops is unaffected. There is no energy or time wasted on intermediate stops.
bobsil1 8y ago
We should maybe build a vac tube instead.
classichasclass 8y ago
> 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 8y ago
  Or any improvements on the 405 for us poor souls who live in the Valley+ and work in Santa Monica :(
  - gtdawg 8y ago
    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-the-405-ask-was-1-6-billion-worth-it.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/us/los-angeles-drivers-on...
    - carlivar 8y ago
      I would like to see more than two lanes on the 405-101 interchange lanes, and dedicated carpool lanes for this interchange plus 405-10.
    - trashguy 8y ago
      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.
  - DuskStar 8y ago
skybrian 8y ago
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.
jorblumesea 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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/article173401141.html https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article...
dstroot 8y ago
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-s-has-forgotten-how-to-do-infrastructure https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-05-31/the-u-...
russellbeattie 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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).
  - sundaeofshock 8y ago
    Private projects come in on time and on budget all the time? Do you have any evidence to support this? I’ve seen plenty of private projects gonoff the rails. The difference is that private projects can keep their budget information, well, private.
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    Which private enterprise has the power to run a hundred billion project that isn’t funded by the government. Not one.
    - woolvalley 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
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omgwtfbyobbq 8y ago
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.
imh 8y ago
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."
captainperl 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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.
- ArchTypical 8y ago
  > It's a jobs and pension program for appointees > There was never an affordable model for building HSR If someone isn't aware of how these free money contracts were awarded, they really don't understand the depth of the fantasy ...which Jerry Brown is almost single-handedly responsible for. > The state cannot even manage Caltrain well Yup. There are trains that go from San Diego up to San Fran, with transfers, mostly along the coast. It's so expensive to ride with EXISTING rail that it's running on subsidy. Some of the comments on these multi-billion dollar scams are ridiculously positive for no apparent reason.
Tsubasachan 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    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 8y ago
      > 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?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
johan_larson 8y ago
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.

99 points by masonic 8y ago

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 8y ago
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..
scarejunba 8y ago
Yeah, law of comparative advantage.

zcbenz 8y ago

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 8y ago
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 8y ago
  The Chuo Shinkansen is also a maglev line built mostly underground; it's not an apples-to-apples comparison.

closetohome 8y ago

Extra! Extra! Conservative think tank criticizes public transportation project.

rayiner 8y ago
HSR isn't "public transportation." Your maid isn't riding HSR to work. It's way more expensive than car travel for kids with families. HSR is taking state resources from people who need it to provide welfare for yuppies and business people.
WillPostForFood 8y ago
If you want to rebut something on the article, it would be helpful. Objectively, the route is not optimal, it is going to be slower than promised. Because the route is longer, and speeds lower, trips are going to take longer. The cost is far exceeding estimates. These are all true and real criticisms.
nate_meurer 8y ago
Is an ad-hominem really the only thing you have to contribute? No thoughts on whether the $100 billion (and climbing) cost is really worth it?

macawfish 8y ago

If only Elon Musk had managed it amirite? Oh wait...

hirundo 8y ago

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.

chrischen 8y ago
Cars may become self driving, but that won't change the fundamental efficiency problem in that you can only fit so many people in a private car. What you're describing can already be done by calling a Lyft, albeit at slightly higher costs than a self driving car.
- CamperBob2 8y ago
  A network of self-driving cars is a train, or could be considered one if engineered properly. Of course, self-driving cars don't run on fixed rails, which costs them a lot of popularity around here. People don't seem to understand that fixed rail is only good for transporting lots and lots of people, very efficiently and safely, from one place where they don't want to be to another place where they don't want to be.
  - jwr 8y ago
    Well, that depends on how you build your railways. The way I see it done in the US this is indeed the case, as the stations (especially in California) seem to be in bizarre places and there is rarely a way to get to say an airport by train. But you can also build railways that make sense. See Japan for an excellent example, as well as most of Europe. These get you from where you are to where you want to be quickly and efficiently.
    - chrischen 8y ago
      I fully support public transit, including trains, but the geography of the US is not conducive to dense trains due to the urban sprawl. Ideally the sprawl is minimized for maximum efficiency (in both enhanced inter-personal cooperation, living cost) but it's hard to sell that when gas is cheap, and land is plenty. There's another issue unique to the US, is that there is a diverse spectrum of races, income levels, and cultural groups that make it hard for these different groups to live together in a dense area peacefully (as compared to a homogenous place like Japan). Much of the inane urban planning in The US is actually a result of people just trying to prevent black people or poor people from moving into their neighborhoods.

AlexB138 8y ago

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 8y ago
We're all spread out really really far compared to the rest of the world.
- fastball 8y ago
  That should be reflected in the projections, which it apparently isn't.
- madengr 8y ago
  The Hoover dam was built on time and budget, along with numerous other public works projects of the early 20 century. It’s as if nothing can get done now.
  - woofyman 8y ago
    Over 100 workers died building it.
    - melling 8y ago
      China built 17,000 miles of high-speed rail in 15 years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China There’s another 8000 on the way by 2025.
      - kochikame 8y ago
        It's easy to do when you can just forcibly move people and don't have to listen to what the locals think before you start laying track

ProfessorLayton 8y ago

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 8y ago
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_1956 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Aid_Highway_Act_of_195... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System
- xienze 8y ago
  > IMO people consistently underestimate how much public infrastructure is worth. I think you mean “politicians consistently lie about how much public infrastructure projects will cost.”
  - steve_gh 8y ago
    Transport hubs encourage development. In the UK look at all the satellite industries around Heathrow and Gatwick. Look at the offices being built close to Paddington and Kings Cross stations in London, or Reading. The sensible thing would be for the city to buy up land round the stations, then build offices and lease them. The income would offset the costs.

claydavisss 8y ago

HSR is not supposed to take you from A to B HSR is supposed to line the pockets of Democrat donors for decades, and it surely will By time it is done, every potential rider could have been given a private jet for less cost

ummonk 8y ago

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.

marcell 8y ago
What’s interesting to me is that the federal tax cuts passed last year cost around $150B a year. I know you may not support this either, but that would pay for the construction of 1 and a 1/2 HSR’s a year, even with the cost overrun. Reminds me of PG’s essay about how it’s easy to loss lots of money on bad investments, even for people who are normally frugal on luxuries.
- rukittenme 8y ago
  Tax rates were cut; tax revenue was not. The federal government is expecting $26 billion more in tax revenue than in 2017.
  - marcell 8y ago
    That’s a bit semantics as it’s looking at just one year, and in any case doesn’t look at the delta from the old law. Edit: IIRC the law had some incentives to onshore money at special tax rates, which may cause a one-time bump in revenues.
  - greenburger 8y ago
    That may have been the estimate, but so far receipts are not keeping pace with 2017. Depending on your reference tax year revenues are 3% - 8% lower than 2017 thus far [1]. [1] http://www.crfb.org/blogs/tax-bill-did-not-cause-revenue-rise http://www.crfb.org/blogs/tax-bill-did-not-cause-revenue-ris...

niftich 8y ago

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 8y ago
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?
- Aloha 8y ago
  It's supposed to link the whole state, not just LA to the Bay
  - tropo 8y ago
    We can do both. Put all the stations on sidings so that stopped trains do not block the main track. Trains operate point-to-point just like aircraft, with everybody getting on and off at the same time. This means that there is little downside to adding more stops. The trip time for other stops is unaffected. There is no energy or time wasted on intermediate stops.

bobsil1 8y ago

We should maybe build a vac tube instead.

classichasclass 8y ago

> 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 8y ago
Or any improvements on the 405 for us poor souls who live in the Valley+ and work in Santa Monica :(
- gtdawg 8y ago
  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-the-405-ask-was-1-6-billion-worth-it.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/us/los-angeles-drivers-on...
  - carlivar 8y ago
    I would like to see more than two lanes on the 405-101 interchange lanes, and dedicated carpool lanes for this interchange plus 405-10.
  - trashguy 8y ago
    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.
- DuskStar 8y ago

skybrian 8y ago

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.

jorblumesea 8y ago

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 8y ago
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/article173401141.html https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article...

dstroot 8y ago

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

russellbeattie 8y ago

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 8y ago
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).
- sundaeofshock 8y ago
  Private projects come in on time and on budget all the time? Do you have any evidence to support this? I’ve seen plenty of private projects gonoff the rails. The difference is that private projects can keep their budget information, well, private.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  Which private enterprise has the power to run a hundred billion project that isn’t funded by the government. Not one.
  - woolvalley 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

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omgwtfbyobbq 8y ago

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.

imh 8y ago

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."

captainperl 8y ago

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 8y ago
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.
ArchTypical 8y ago
> It's a jobs and pension program for appointees > There was never an affordable model for building HSR If someone isn't aware of how these free money contracts were awarded, they really don't understand the depth of the fantasy ...which Jerry Brown is almost single-handedly responsible for. > The state cannot even manage Caltrain well Yup. There are trains that go from San Diego up to San Fran, with transfers, mostly along the coast. It's so expensive to ride with EXISTING rail that it's running on subsidy. Some of the comments on these multi-billion dollar scams are ridiculously positive for no apparent reason.

Tsubasachan 8y ago

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 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    > 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?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

johan_larson 8y ago

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.