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California (like most places) can clearly benefit from high quality rail infrastructure: - more pleasant commutes over greater distances - reduced housing mar

California (like most places) can clearly benefit from high quality rail infrastructure: - more pleasant commutes over greater distances - reduced housing market pressure near major offices - reduced noise and air pollution compared to motor vehicles (for the same carrying capacity) But how is it so expensive?

trhway 5y ago
>But how is it so expensive? that is a classic megaproject which will be expanding in cost until there is no more expansion is possible and then a bit more. Lets imagine some numbers - at 100B cost and say $5B/year expenses, it would need $7B/year of tickets for 50 years ROI, ie. it would need $20M/day, which is 100000 passengers/day at $200/ticket, like a 100 trains/day with 1000 riders each.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  That's not how you assess ROI. You assess ROI by estimating the total economic contribution to the area. https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/Resources/resources/reportsandpublications/Documents/FINAL-Report-APTA-Business-Case-HSR-ROI.pdf https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/Resources/resources/...
  - trhway 5y ago
    Oh! you're right. Such approach though would easily allow the cost to continue balloon, and $200B by 2027 don't look unimaginable.
- ollybee 5y ago
  Large infrastructure projects like this are paying it forward. They are a gift to future generations who will reap the benefit without having to pay for it, just as we have benefited from inherited infrastructure of our cities.
  - koolba 5y ago
    > They are a gift to future generations who will reap the benefit without having to pay for it, … Thanks to deficit spending they will be paying for it. The only people getting a gift here are the ones fleecing the government to run up the costs. They get their money now and all our kids and grandkids get the bill.
    - hkt 5y ago
      As is the way with most government debt - ideally, economic growth will outpace the cumulative interest accrued by the debt. There are other externalities too, like the economic benefits from quicker transport between major cities. If you want to ask the size of those benefits, imagine London or New York without their underground/subway systems. It is a big deal and can't just be counted by ticket prices!
      - koolba 5y ago
        > As is the way with most government debt - ideally, economic growth will outpace the cumulative interest accrued by the debt. Actual growth might not, but as most infra spending is financed with fixed rate bonds, a couple more years of Biden’s 9.6% inflation will take a nice bite out of those costs in future dollars.
        hkt 5y ago
        "Biden's 9.6%" - I'm not american so this seems like a peculiar way of putting it since inflation is spiking across the whole western world. It seems weirdly partisan, was that the intention?
  - trhway 5y ago
    One can wonder what the future generations are robbed off by the money being redirected into the black hole of HSR.
morsch 5y ago
Meanwhile, over here, we're paying EUR ~10 billion to rebuild a single train station in one of our mid-sized cities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 OTOH, building the HSR between Berlin and Munich (~500 km) was also about EUR 10 billion, which I guess makes it a bargain. These things aren't comparable, though.
- hef19898 5y ago
  IMHO Stuttgart 21 is as much a real estate grab as it is about a new rail station. Not sure, but doesn't the cost include all/ parts of the new tunnels and railways that go through the not-so-stable hills east of Stuttgart? Anyway, Stuttgart 21 is a highly convoluted project, one that was really pushed hard by politicians. The last bit makes me usually skeptical in itself.
mcntsh 5y ago
Every step in a project needs to go through long approval/permitting processes that cost a lot of time and money. This ignores the high cost of labor/materials in California. The only reason why the NYC subway, and the Chicago L are there today is because they were built before all of these processes existed. You could not build anything like them in modern day.
- notoriousfilipe 5y ago
  > You could not build anything like them in modern day. You can not build it in the USA. London is about to open the newly built Elizabeth line, which cuts through the city with 60 miles of tunnels. Modern Metro/Subway infrastructure can be built in densely populated areas like Chicago and NYC. It's a political issue, not an engineering one.
  - reustle 5y ago
    > You can not build it in the USA. Precisely. Asia is on a roll in this regard.
fransje26 5y ago
As a comparison, the latest French high-speed track that opened in 2016 was built for 5 billion euros (5.4 billion dollars) for 400 km. The Californian track being twice as long, how the heck did it end up costing ten (10!) times as much??
- emerged 5y ago
  They spared no expense.

trhway 5y ago

>But how is it so expensive? that is a classic megaproject which will be expanding in cost until there is no more expansion is possible and then a bit more. Lets imagine some numbers - at 100B cost and say $5B/year expenses, it would need $7B/year of tickets for 50 years ROI, ie. it would need $20M/day, which is 100000 passengers/day at $200/ticket, like a 100 trains/day with 1000 riders each.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
That's not how you assess ROI. You assess ROI by estimating the total economic contribution to the area. https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/Resources/resources/reportsandpublications/Documents/FINAL-Report-APTA-Business-Case-HSR-ROI.pdf https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/Resources/resources/...
- trhway 5y ago
  Oh! you're right. Such approach though would easily allow the cost to continue balloon, and $200B by 2027 don't look unimaginable.
ollybee 5y ago
Large infrastructure projects like this are paying it forward. They are a gift to future generations who will reap the benefit without having to pay for it, just as we have benefited from inherited infrastructure of our cities.
- koolba 5y ago
  > They are a gift to future generations who will reap the benefit without having to pay for it, … Thanks to deficit spending they will be paying for it. The only people getting a gift here are the ones fleecing the government to run up the costs. They get their money now and all our kids and grandkids get the bill.
  - hkt 5y ago
    As is the way with most government debt - ideally, economic growth will outpace the cumulative interest accrued by the debt. There are other externalities too, like the economic benefits from quicker transport between major cities. If you want to ask the size of those benefits, imagine London or New York without their underground/subway systems. It is a big deal and can't just be counted by ticket prices!
    - koolba 5y ago
      > As is the way with most government debt - ideally, economic growth will outpace the cumulative interest accrued by the debt. Actual growth might not, but as most infra spending is financed with fixed rate bonds, a couple more years of Biden’s 9.6% inflation will take a nice bite out of those costs in future dollars.
      - hkt 5y ago
        "Biden's 9.6%" - I'm not american so this seems like a peculiar way of putting it since inflation is spiking across the whole western world. It seems weirdly partisan, was that the intention?
- trhway 5y ago
  One can wonder what the future generations are robbed off by the money being redirected into the black hole of HSR.

morsch 5y ago

Meanwhile, over here, we're paying EUR ~10 billion to rebuild a single train station in one of our mid-sized cities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 OTOH, building the HSR between Berlin and Munich (~500 km) was also about EUR 10 billion, which I guess makes it a bargain. These things aren't comparable, though.

hef19898 5y ago
IMHO Stuttgart 21 is as much a real estate grab as it is about a new rail station. Not sure, but doesn't the cost include all/ parts of the new tunnels and railways that go through the not-so-stable hills east of Stuttgart? Anyway, Stuttgart 21 is a highly convoluted project, one that was really pushed hard by politicians. The last bit makes me usually skeptical in itself.

mcntsh 5y ago

Every step in a project needs to go through long approval/permitting processes that cost a lot of time and money. This ignores the high cost of labor/materials in California. The only reason why the NYC subway, and the Chicago L are there today is because they were built before all of these processes existed. You could not build anything like them in modern day.

notoriousfilipe 5y ago
> You could not build anything like them in modern day. You can not build it in the USA. London is about to open the newly built Elizabeth line, which cuts through the city with 60 miles of tunnels. Modern Metro/Subway infrastructure can be built in densely populated areas like Chicago and NYC. It's a political issue, not an engineering one.
- reustle 5y ago
  > You can not build it in the USA. Precisely. Asia is on a roll in this regard.

fransje26 5y ago

As a comparison, the latest French high-speed track that opened in 2016 was built for 5 billion euros (5.4 billion dollars) for 400 km. The Californian track being twice as long, how the heck did it end up costing ten (10!) times as much??

emerged 5y ago
They spared no expense.