CA HSR update
A status update for California's High Speed Rail project
This blogpost warrants a disclosure. The update of California’s High Speed Rail (HSR) project is somewhat of an editorial comment. It’s also written with much trepidation. CA’s HSR project is very political and is politically charged. The task of CATTCC is to advance new ideas and concepts for transportation, this blogpost is written with its intent as an update and without intent to be political. CATTCC has no interest in the bickering of political banter. Yet, there is some merit to sharing my personal views which are relevant to the CATTCC perspective.
In full disclosure, as the managing director of CATTCC and author of this article, it’s a personal story and, without intent: editorializing. I’ve followed the process of CA’s HSR project and attended nearly 75% of the quarterly HSR public meetings from 1993 until 2011 as an unpaid audience attendee and politically naïve, merely very interested in the project. Over that period of time, I discovered I knew more about the project than most of the political appointees who sat on the administrative board.
This blogpost is an update regarding California’s High Speed Rail (CA HSR). The recent political change of federal administration, is again bring attention to the project. This blogpost is an attempt to provide the reader with information to assist the reader forming their own opinion.
In these many years of following the project, and now having made a career in advanced transportation technology and sustainable urban growth, I’m qualified to have a professional opinion. As such, California’s HSR project is a political project and has very little to do with improving transportation. This opinion is based upon the impractical and antiquated function of 200-year-old trains. Trains were a wonderful and useful technology in the 1800s and served society of that time very well. Today’s society is much more spread out geographically, California’s urban growth land-use is based on the automobile. Consequently, with the majority of California’s land-use design being automobile centric, instead of transit oriented, trains are antithetical to transportation function of California’s land-use. Additionally, technological advances over the past 200 years intensify the antiquity of a 200-year-old transportation technology.
In 1993, the Intercity High Speed Rail Commission was established to create a feasibility study for CA to implement high speed rail, and analyze a cost comparison of maglev technology and the European standard of steel-wheel-on-rail technology. At that time, the only maglev technology to be considered was the German maglev technology: Transrapid (implemented in China in 2004 with a 19-mile line between the Shanghai Airport and Downtown Pudong.)
In 1996, the commission was sunsetted and the CA High Speed Rail Authority was established.
This is a long post about the history and personal close-up view regarding California’s high speed rail project. One of the best sources to learn about California’s HSR is Wikipedia.
According to Wikipedia, the history of California’s High Speed Rail (HSR) began in the early 1980s.
Before 1992. Governor Jerry Brown had long been an advocate of a high-speed rail system for California. In his first two terms as governor (1975–1983) he signed legislation into law for the study of a high-speed rail system. In September 1982, the California legislature passed AB 3647, authorizing the construction of a $2bn “bullet train” between Los Angeles and San Diego,[3] including the issuance of $1.25bn in state bonds.[4] Brown signed the legislation that same month, and it became law in October that year.[5] In 1992 in his run for the Presidency the United States he continued to show his support for it. Then, in 1993 the Intercity High-Speed Rail Commission was created to conduct studies and prepare plans.[6]
1992. At the federal level, in 1992 the San Francisco–Los Angeles rail corridor was proposed in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act as one of five high speed rail corridors.
1996. In 1996 the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA), was established by SB 1420 to begin formal planning in preparation for a ballot measure in 1998 or 2000.[7] The ballot measure was originally scheduled to be put before voters in the 2004 general election; however, the state legislature voted twice to move it back, first to 2006, and finally to 2008 when 53% of voters approved the issuing of $9 billion in bonds for high speed rail in Proposition 1A.[8]
2008. The U.S. Congress enacted the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA), which among other things required the states to develop passenger rail plans.
2013. In May 2013, the California DOT released its 2013 State Rail Plan.[9] This helped provide a new perspective that viewed the HSR project as the backbone of a statewide rail modernization plan. This has been used by the Authority in allocating funds to other state rail systems that support passenger rail goals and feed into the HSR system. The plan is being updated by DOT, with the latest revision in process of publication now.
2014. In Jerry Brown's second two terms as Governor (2011 to 2019), in 2014 25% of California's Cap and Trade revenue was allocated to the HSR system.[10] In 2017, this was extended into 2030.[11]
2022. SB 198 established the priority of bringing a working HSR line into operation as soon as possible in the Central Valley.
The role of CATTCC
As CATTCC is the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology, it’s positioned as a research leader in advanced transportation technology and sustainable urban growth. One part of CATTCC, is to broadcast the message that all urban growth is based upon its primary source of transportation. Maglev technology and innovative concepts for efficient energy solutions are transportation’s future. California’s effort to build an integrated transportation network that fits into a nationwide system, is absolutely needed. However, CA’s pursuit to implement this status-quo of 200-year-old train technology into its automobile centric land-use design is dysfunctional.
Distorting the CA HSR directive
The HSRA archives will show a Board resolution, under Board President Rod Diridon, mandating all five segments of the HSR project to begin construction at the same time. This would provide simultaneous completion of the project, allowing full system functionality.
In a 2016 speech, CA’s governor declared his goal of the project, according to the NewYorker.com article: “The current project, as planned, would cost too much and, respectfully, take too long.” Instead, he proposed focusing on a shorter inland route, between Merced and Bakersfield, two small cities that, it’s fair to say, most coastal metropolitan Californians happily visit rarely or never. The news was received as a downer on par with the extinction of the space program. “This country won’t experience modern rail travel for another generation – if ever.”
Similarly, Governor Jerry Brown had previously promoted the same thing. A excerpt from a Sacramento Bee article: Even as his predecessor, Jerry Brown, pushed to launch an opening segment from Bakersfield to downtown San Jose, Brown administration officials were saying a Valley-only train may be all they could afford for starters. Brian Kelly, CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, told The Bee last summer that consultants were exploring whether an abbreviated segment between Bakersfield and Madera or Merced could generate enough ridership and revenue to meet the no-subsidy requirements of Proposition 1A.
Recent media attention to CA’s HSR project
Each of these media links is either a headline story with vague content or it displays a notable political opinion. Media reporting has bias of political preference which tends to cloud an article’s accuracy, with unnecessary rants of emotional opinion.
https://ktla.com/news/travel/trump-puts-california-high-speed-rail-in-crosshairs/
This is a fairly informative article that also mentions the private endeavor Brightline, which runs from LA to Las Vegas. An additional link to the Brightline project is a comparative analysis listing the distinctions between the two projects. Also, Brightline received a $3.2 billion federal grant.
Meanwhile, the Brightline West project is a relatively straight shot, 218 miles between the Inland Empire and Las Vegas. About 80% of the system will reside in California, following along Interstate 15 between Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga.
Speaking of Interstate 15, another key difference between CAHSR and Brightline is what’s called “right of way,” and it’s possibly the biggest hurdle (aside from funding) these types of projects encounter. A right of way literally means that the train has permission to operate in the area.
The SoCal-to-Vegas bullet train benefits from a relatively uncomplicated right of way. The train will operate alongside Interstate 15 and usage agreements to grant the train permission to operate in that space were established years ago.
Many details distinguishing the difference between two, reveals them to be the same.
Brightline West is using the American Pioneer 220, an American variant of the Siemens Velaro Novo high-speed electric multiple units, which has a designed top speed of 225 mph. The trains can operate at speeds up to 200 mph and are fully electric. The train-sets are equipped with state-of-the-art amenities. The initial order consists of 10 seven-car American Pioneer 220 trainsets, with a capacity of 434–450 passengers. The Siemens rolling stock will be ‘assembled’ at a new factory in Horseheads, New York.
As an editorial comment, Siemens Mobility was selected as the preferred train vendor due to the strength of its political lobbying. This will presumably be the train technology selected for the CA HSR, providing the political support for the project remains intact.
Alstrom is a money king in Europe, headquartered in France. Formerly an electric power generating manufacturer and grid owner, it’s now a very large train rolling stock and infrastructure equipment builder. They quite literally control public transportation by owning most of the Western World’s rail technology; by building its rolling stock and infrastructure. Siemens/Bombardier is the manufacture of the American Pioneer 220. Alstrom owns Bombardier, a partner in Siemens Mobility.
This article begins with mocking a Fresno Bee headline. A lot of the Fresno Bee articles are hidden behind a paywall. This CA Globe article is written about the state of the HSR financial status. For someone who has closely followed the legend of CA’s HSR, there’s a lot more to the project costs than this article alludes to.
Sidenotes: Prior to the legislation placing the HSR bond measure on the ballot in 2008, there was a Stanford Peer-Group Study. The study has disappeared from internet search engines, however, the study caused great controversy at the board meetings. The study claimed the actual cost would exceed $212billion, which infuriated the board as well as the HSR staff. Their response was to table the discussion. At the proceeding board meetings, their response was that it was not on the agenda for further discussion.
In January 2012, according to State law, the Peer Review Group released its report. Will Kempton, former Director of Caltrans (California Department of Transportation) and current head of the Orange County Transportation Authority, chaired the independent review panel and said: "We cannot overemphasize the fact that moving ahead on the project without credible sources of adequate funding, without a definitive business model, without a strategy to maximize the independent utility and value to the State, and without the appropriate management resources, represents an immense financial risk on the part of the State of California."
Regardless of this damning report, Jerry Brown ignored the voice representing CA citizens and pushed the project ahead. This provided his close friend Richard Blum, substantial income; as Blum’s wife (Senator Diane Feinstein) gathered Federal funds. Incidentally, also scrubbed from the internet were the close business ties Richard Blum had with Perini Construction. It’s also notable that Richard Blum was the largest shareholder (at 17%) and President of URS. URS was the transportation engineering and consulting firm that received the contract for the Central Valley portion of the HSR Environmental Impact Study (EIS/EIR) in 2004. The initial EIR was separated into five sections, each consultant group received $5million, a $25million package. When Brown was elected governor, he decided to disregard the previous resolution and ordered the project to begin only in Central CA. This provided all the EIS work to be done by URS as work-order extras for URS. URS billed over $800million by the time the project officially began construction in 2015. This paragraph is merely insight of politics as usual.
Reason.org also posted an interesting commentary regarding the 2012 study.
Also noteable: From Wikipedia: Routing high-speed rail along Interstate 5, which would have provided a shorter trip between the Bay Area and Southern California but bypassed Fresno and Bakersfield,[aa] was also discussed in the 2000s. SNCF, the French national high-speed rail operator, proposed an I-5 alignment to the Authority and offered to build it with the help of foreign investment,[231][232] although in 2009 they also expressed their interest in building the state's official proposed alignment.[233] The Authority turned down SNCF's involvement in 2011, in part due to "Buy America" requirements that mandate transportation projects using federal funds to use domestically produced trains and materials,[234] and due to political considerations as Proposition 1A outlined a route through Fresno and Bakersfield.[234][15]
Found in a reuters.com article, dated 2010, Japan offered to finance the project with long-term, low interest loans, provided California would use Shinkansen technology.
More about the project today
The question to ask is: what has changed to improve the project to give it viability? Over the past 12 years, the costs continue to rise, yet, the money pot remains close to the same.
Will President Trump call for an investigation to the waste involved in the project?
Here is a list of articles linking to President Trump’s announcement to the possible investigation to CA’s HSR:
Can the project actually be built? Where will the money come from? Will Brightline West be tasked to take over the California’s HSR project? There are more questions than answers.
The unsolicited solution CATTCC offers is recommending a change of technology. Changing its technology with a modern transit technology. This gives the system lighter vehicles, greatly reduces infrastructure costs, lowers build time, increases trip speeds and efficiency, and the system becomes more suitable and relevant to modern society.
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