California’s indefinite delay of its high-speed rail spine isn’t a failure of a technology that works well from France to Japan. For advocates of a Green New Deal or even a less ambitious vision of a less car-dependent America, it’s even worse than that. It’s a failure of progressive Democrats to execute big, complex infrastructure projects — the last legacy of the Obama stimulus.
Most new governors use their inaugural State of the State speech to announce grand plans. New California Gov. Gavin Newsom used his to end a grand plan: The state’s $77 billion high-speed rail from San Diego to Sacramento. Under the more than two-decades-old vision, Californians could have travelled from Los Angeles to San Francisco in two-and-a-half hours at top speeds of 220 mph. Mr. Newsom is delaying the full project indefinitely, and will complete only a link in the Central Valley between Merced and Bakersfield. That’s just 160 miles out of the full 703 planned in 2000.
Mr. Newsom’s decision spurred the Trump administration to revoke a $1 billion future grant, and explore demanding the repayment of $2.5 billion in federal stimulus funds already spent. Indeed, this high-speed crash is an indictment of former President Obama’s stimulus package, 10 years after the fact. “There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest train,” Mr. Obama said in his State of the Union address in 2010, lauding the months-old recovery act’s investment in new rail lines across the country.
But that was the first problem: To please rail enthusiasts across the country, Mr. Obama spread the money too thinly. As The New York Times warned back then, “that money” — $8 billion to be shared by 11 regions, from Florida to California — “will not be enough to pay for a single bullet train.” Washington should have offered a commitment to fund one marquee project to completion — but that’s not how our “bring home the bacon” system of government works.
The second problem: The Obama stimulus offered money without pushing for cost reforms. American infrastructure projects cost vastly more than similar endeavors in Europe — but we also fail to estimate costs properly. As the Bay City Beacon has noted, California’s original cost estimate, back in 2008, for the full rail project, at $33 billion, was reasonable, compared to similar projects in Germany and the Netherlands. Since, then, the projected cost has more than doubled.
California also chose to build — or, rather, not build — rail through a public-authority structure, creating the California High Speed Rail Authority. In the mid-20th century, such authorities, effectively government-owned independent corporations, could attract top professionals and cut through bureaucratic red tape. Now, they’ve become just another part of the bureaucratic morass, insulating any one politician from voter accountability for failure.
It’s not too late to draw constructive lessons from the Golden State’s disaster. First, America should focus on rail links that connect dense cities. If a passenger has to rent a car at either end of his journey, taking a train is far less cost-effective, and essentially pointless for trips under four hours or so.
On this measure, California always fared poorly: Only one California region, Oakland and San Francisco, scores in the country’s top 10. Bakersfield and Merced score horrendously. Like many American cities, they offer only scant bus routes, generally to poorer people with no other options.
High-speed rail proponents should counterintuitively push for public-transportation improvements within cities before they push for it between them. If I have to rent a car in San Diego to get anywhere, I might as well drive, or fly and rent a plane at the airport. Pax Alexandria Ocasio-Ortez, well-designed rail lines could eventually compete with air travel between cities such as Houston and New Orleans — but only if you don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on a car at either end.
Second, build on what we have. Fortuitously, America already has a robust rail culture, but on the East Coast: The Acela line from Washington to New York to Boston, where people don’t need to rely on a car at their origin or destination. Future investments should go toward improving speeds and pricing along this corridor, creating a success for other cities to emulate. Europe is taking this approach, improving existing rail infrastructure for about $1.3 billion to create a new high-speed line between London and Amsterdam, two dense cities.
Third, use federal money to effect cost reform — including cutting the worker-health care costs that America uniquely saddles its construction contractors with. Future Washington infrastructure bills should offer rewards to states that can execute big projects on time and on budget, with claw-backs to states that underestimate costs and fail to deliver on schedules.
Fourth, be mindful and respectful of the real environmental costs of rail. A true high-speed rail line, as is evident in northern France, offers only costs to people in rural and suburban areas with no direct benefits: A gash across a farm with no nearby station.
Rail doesn’t have to remain a dream in America — but its champions should tether future projects far more closely to reality on the ground.
This piece originally appeared at The Washington Times
______________________
Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal. Follow her on Twitter here.
This piece originally appeared in The Washington Times