People continue to fill the opinion pages of newspapers with their
advocacy of the high speed train, usually quoting the "facts" from
the CHSRA press releases. Michael Fitzgerald of the Stockton Record
thinks that this will be the greatest thing for Stockton since sliced
bread. He fancies dozens of trains rushing from Stockton to Silicon
Valley and back, carrying thousands of people who have
enthusiastically abandoned their cars. He hasn't been paying
attention to what the train executives actually have and haven't been
been saying. This will not be a commuter train for anybody. This
will be, if I understand the real intentions, the Disneyland Express,
carrying disposable-income tourists from San Francisco to LA. It
won't even go to Sacramento until the SF to LA line is profitable.
Like, that's possible!

It needs to be said one more time. This train is not really about
trains, it's about the money; it's intended to be the money express.
It's about the local politicians and their dream of massive funds
being dropped in their jurisdictions for which they can claim credit.
It's about the rail-related industries that will dip their snouts in
the trough of billions of dollars. It's all about the rail
bureaucracies who will expand their "empires," and grow their
operating and capital development budgets and their payroll. I'll
have more about that in future emails.

While advocates fantasize about whizzy metallic blurs rushing through
the Central Valley, the reality is that, even if started, it may
never get completed. Why? Lots of reasons. The amounts of
development funding now specified will not be anywhere nearly enough.
The current numbers are "less than $50 billion." Sorry. Double or
triple that number. Do you know what's happening to the dollar? Do
you remember when they put the new Bay Bridge out for bid and
couldn't get contractors who would do it for the then-projected cost?
Do you know that the Bay Bridge costs currently over three times as
much as the original budget? Why would the high-speed train be any
different? (Rhetorical question.)

Michael Fitzgerald's article is interesting in how he frames the
entire problem. First sentence is a paraphrase of the CHSRA web-site
verbiage. Lower fare than airlines? Southwest can fly you to LA for
$39. That's less than the $50. the high speed people promise, and
that's a promise they can't keep.

All that eco-talk. Just how eco-friendly the train would be remains
to be seen. First of all, full-cost accounting must take the entire
construction process into account; think of all the materials and
their delivery, how they were manufactured and how much GHG and
pollution output is produced as a result. Then, the Diesel machinery
cutting through mountains, building viaducts, etc. The carbon
footprint will be staggering. Then, if and when it runs, how much
electricity it will consume and how that power is generated. We
know, for sure, that oil consumption must decline in the future to be
replaced by dirtier coal to power generator plants. All in all, with
a project of this magnitude, eco-friendly is not a term that springs
to mind.

Let's see, Michael, you say that a dam benefits special interests but
this train doesn't? Excuse me? Also, Michael, you haven't made any
case that the train is not a luxury, because most high speed trains
in the world provide first class travel for those who can afford it.
This choo-choo will certainly not be the Soviet Peoples' Train for
the Proletariat.

Regarding the upgrading, or even repairing highways and airports,
purportedly three times as expensive as the high-speed train,
according to Ms. Pourvahidi of the CHSRA, should we not be doing
that? Should we build the train and abandon our highways and
airports? That makes a lot of sense! She asks, just stepping out of
Wonderland, "How can you not afford to do it?" Carrie, are you asking
how can we not afford to commit $100 billion dollars to a train for
the well-to-do to ride to Disneyland in comfort? Good question,
Carrie.

Well, you get the idea. At the end of this article, Michael complains
that we're more concerned with prisons and dams. That's right,
Michael, also with highways and bridges and levees and airports and
schools and hospitals and the entire present deteriorating
infrastructure of California. First things first, Michael.

Martin
==================================================

Published Sunday, September 23, 2007, by the Stockton Record

The bright idea no one is backing

By Michael Fitzgerald
Record Columnist

Imagine boarding a sleek, eco-friendly train in Stockton that whisks
200-plus mph through nice country to Los Angeles in under two hours
and charges lower fares than airlines.

Welcome to the brightest idea with the dimmest prospects: California
high-speed rail.

The California High Speed Rail Authority held a public meeting last
week in Stockton. The train's proposed route is under discussion.
Local transportation officials lobbied for a Stockton link.

Unfortunately, the governor's indifference to high-speed rail and
the public "huh?" factor to this potential bonanza for the Valley
do not bode well for its future.

To sum up opponents' arguments: $40 billion, doubts about ridership,
no private money forthcoming. Higher priorities, like water for
Southern California.

The call for private investment is puzzling. This is not a dam
primarily benefiting special interests. This is public
transportation, serving Sacramento, the Bay Area, the Central Valley
and Southern California. Do leaders require private capital to build
freeways?

Also puzzling, considering California's projected growth, is the
notion that high-speed rail is a luxury.

Statewide, the cost of upgrading the highways and airports will
be two or three times greater than high-speed rail, said Carrie
Pourvahidi, the Rail Authority's deputy director.

"How can you not afford to do it?" Pourvahidi asked.

Besides whooshing from Stockton to San Francisco over the Altamont
in 45 minutes, restoring sanity to 50,000 road-weary commuters, the
line's construction will bring jobs.

But the biggest economic benefit of a line projected to carry
117 million people is the number of riders via Stockton -- the
equivalent of having a freeway come through.

A downtown station would give the city center a commercial boost,
raise its profile statewide and link to local public transit.

Yet the governor and legislature keep the Rail Authority's budget
between diet and life support. A statewide bond vote has been
repeatedly postponed. It is now supposed to be on the November
ballot. Don't bank on it.

What saddens is not that high-speed rail may lose out to other state
funding priorities. That's politics. It's the timidity. It's the
worldly wise bemusement with which some dismiss high-speed rail, as
if its futurism were so far out it would be necessary to defrost Walt
Disney to build it.

Remember California, the trend-setter? It's almost as if we've
forgotten how to be California. We're more concerned with prisons
and dams.

The dysfunctional state government can respond only to crises.
In this climate, progressive solutions really do look fanciful.

-- 
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Martin Engel
1621 Stone Pine Lane
Menlo Park, CA 94025
650:323-1670
martinengel@earthlink.net
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