High Speed Rail: A Necessity for California

Here's a letter written to the Oakland Tribune which has come out in support of the Governor's stance on HSR:

From: steve@urbanspace.biz
Subject: Tribune Myopia?
Date: May 17, 2007 8:07:29 PM PDT
To: triblet@angnewspapers.com
Cc: mreynolds@angnewspapers.com, cburt@angnewspapers.com

Editor(s):

What are we going to do with you guys? Everyone who understands how
much pollution the airline industry generates (on top of the all the autos,
trucks, construction machinery, etc., up and down the State) ought to be
in full support of near-zero polluting High Speed Rail on just that basis alone
(to say nothing of the millions to be saved on PSA's lobbying against it).

But that's not the Opinion of the Oakland Tribune's stolid editorial department
(California bullet train belongs on back burner: May 16). The Trib apparently
wants to see how many more tons of airborne crud Oakland lungs can take
before the planet collapses altogether, yes? We already know that West Oakland,
transportation nexus of the Bay Area that it is, has one of the highest rates of
asthma anywhere in the State, but, according to Tribthink, "California has an
abundance of higher priorities."

How about this priority instead, one that East Bay taxpayers might want
to consider, since, as the HSR route currently envisioned goes to SJ,
SV and then on into SF and not anywhere near Oakland, it's us'ns who'll
be biting the bullet somewhat harder than our West Bay counterparts:
Let's have the HSR railhead in the Bay Area be a sort of Grand Central Station
that serves the greater metropolitan region, with other transit systems
feeding into that one terminal. Instead of paying for new rights of ways,
miles of redundant trackage, more ditzy bureaucrats, cost overruns, etc.,
we could be plowing that same amount of money straight from the
HSR budget right into our own, already built, upgrade-needy
transportation infrastructure.

Imagine BART with an Express function so that maybe four stops
only from SJ to SF define the trip: Fremont, Hayward,
Oakland Airport, Downtown Oakland, and - zip - right into
Embarcadero station, maybe 30 minutes max, instead of the
lugubrious, hour-long, 12-stop trek it will likely become once
the Warm Springs-to-SJ link is installed (and don't forget that
we still can anticipate getting snookered once again by that wily,
Oakland-eschewing cabal of "entrepreneurs," so's Lew Wolff City
can receive the subsidy of still another BART extension).

I think I'd rather spend my infinitesimal contribution to HSR expressly
on an improved BART system, especially since we can begin immediately!
No wait for all that extremely complicated construction up and down
the Central Valley maybe ten years from now; we can have our part
happen now, when and where it's most obviously needed.

The impact on our regional economy will pay huge dividends if
we keep on building our infrastructure to greet HSR when it finally
arrives sometime toward the middle of the next decade. But it'll
never get here at all - nor will any of the benefits we could be
deriving right this minute - if we follow the Tribune's latest
low-speed, luddite logic.

Cordially,

- Steve Lowe
VP, West Oakland Commerce Association

189 3rd Street A-415
Oakland CA 94607
- 510 835 8424

With the state’s population projected to reach an estimated 48 million by 2030 and with growing concern over the inadequacy of many of the Golden State’s highways and airports, as well as deteriorating air quality, one would think these would justify the need for a comprehensive transportation package and that would include High Speed Rail; HSR, of course, able to move travelers cost-effectively, comfortably, efficiently, quickly, reliably and safely. It’s also an environmentally sound way to travel.

In 1990, “the Clean Air and Transportation Improvement Act (Proposition 116) provided $5 million to conduct HSR feasibility and preliminary engineering studies for the Los Angeles to Bakersfield Corridor. In 1993, an Executive Order from the Governor and Senate Concurrent Resolution 6 (SCR6) established the California Intercity High Speed Rail Commission to develop an HSR plan with service between northern and southern California within 20 years.” (Distribution of the California Intercity High Speed Rail Commission). To help carry out this plan, four main studies, including: Corridor Evaluation, Ridership Analysis, Economic Impact, and Financing Options, were undertaken with final resolution in 1997. The study’s findings revealed that HSR in California is not only feasible, but has strong public support. This would have meant the projected year of completion would have been 2013. Now this date will come and go with no state HSR up and running by that time.

In 1993 dollars, the amount of money expected to take to complete the 700-mile statewide HSR project was $25 billion. Today, costs to complete the same 700-mile network are projected to be upwards of $40 billion, a 60 percent increase. The long and short of it is the longer building what is to be California’s biggest public works undertaking is put off, the more and more prohibitively expensive it becomes to construct. So, with this in mind, why not begin with the construction of a “starter” system, say between Los Angeles and Bakersfield, for example, and then incrementally build on from there?

Why Los Angeles/Bakersfield?
The reasons should be obvious. First, there is ongoing discussion centered on narrowing the gap in direct rail service between those two municipalities. Being proposed is the extension of Amtrak’s San Joaquin trains south of Bakersfield to Wheeler Ridge, with connecting Amtrak Thruway Bus service between Wheeler Ridge and Saugus (near Valencia), where passengers would then board other trains to reach LAUPT and additional points. Currently, train passengers are discharged at Bakersfield’s modern Amtrak station, where, if they’re continuing their southward journeys, board corresponding buses for the purpose of being ferried to LAUPT. Installation and implementation of HSR between the Bakersfield and Los Angeles would obviate the need for the proposed aforementioned extensions. The gap in direct rail service between Bakersfield and Los Angeles alone should be reason enough for this gap to be rail-bridged. California, meanwhile, with its technological superiority and as economically well off as the Golden State is purported to be, by not having direct rail service between the San Joaquin Valley (which is experiencing exponential growth) and the southland, borders on the unconscionable, especially when one takes into account the expected gains in air pollution and traffic congestion mitigation that would be made by getting travelers out of their vehicles and aboard trains.

“Patterns of urban growth of Post WWII North American development have created cities and regions that are centered upon and are dependent on the car to meet transportation needs,” argues the Center for Clean Air Policy. “All told, this pattern of growth has resulted in deteriorating urban air quality and human health, increased emissions of greenhouse gases, limited transportation and housing choice, inefficient use of infrastructure, and communities that are less able to meet the needs of their residents.” (Center for Clean Air Policy, “CCAP Transportation Guidebook, Part 1: Land Use, Transit & Travel Demand Management,” p. 7. For more information log on to: www.ccap.org/guidebook.) Those reasons alone make switching modes more than justifiable.

So what to do?
In lieu of HSR in California not yet getting the green light and moving ahead, should efforts instead be concentrated on: Increasing schedules on all Amtrak "California" corridor trains; improving existing and purchasing new rolling stock; purchasing new, more fuel-efficient and far less-polluting locomotives; improving track, roadbed and signaling with areas of double and even triple track (incorporating freight by-passes like the one in place at the Martinez, California station); and on marketing and safety? Should it not also be impressed upon Californians that efforts be focused on building new and expanding ancillary transportation services such as existing commuter rail and mass transit (bus and rail) feeder systems?

I’m firmly convinced that when the traveling public en masse becomes absolutely gridlocked, will we come to recognize and realize the marked social/environmental/quality-of-life benefits that passenger rail provides, and then and only then will true High Speed Rail in California (and elsewhere in the nation, for that matter) have its day.

The bottom line is we simply cannot afford to wait until the day that “immobility” becomes the rule, instead of the exception it is currently. The time for California High Speed Rail is now!

Alan Kandel

Among all other sources of justification for HSR is a report by the Urban Land Institute (ULI): "Infrastructure 2007: A global Perspective", which discusses in detail all kinds of massive overdue transportation infrastructure investment needs ACROSS THE ENTIRE U.S. (as well as the rest of the world)! It also explains in detail the extreme reluctance with which politicians will raise taxes or create any other financing means to generate the $ billions required.

For you subscribers/readers of TIME MAGAZINE, I draw your attention to a bottom-of-page summary on "Nation Building", on pages 16 & 17 of the May 28, 2007 issue, which presumes to comment on the ULI study. Time's summary section on "RAILWAYS" starts with the phrase, "Forget bullet trains", a gross misrepresentation by TIME, diametrically opposite to what is actually in the ULI report, a really staggering, unprofessional doctoring of a complex issue. Some editor at TIME must think, who would bother to investigate TIME's vaguely referenced source of the Urban Land Institute info? WELL, I DID!! Over a period of hours, after phoning the ULI for confirmation of a pdf copy of the report, downloadable from their website, I am pleased to report the following direct quote from the study:

"RAILWAYS. Experts agree that rail freight must increase to take pressure off roads (comma needed) and high-population regional corridors need passenger trains, PREFERABLY HIGH-SPEED RAIL (caps added by me for emphasis) to provide efficient inter-city transport. ..." (Paragraph continues with statements on rail hub choke points, $250 billion needed to "catch up", etc, etc.)

...not a damn thing about, "Forget bullet trains"!!! Shame on TIME magazine!!! Piss-poor, unethical cowboy journalism!!!

If any HSR proponents out there doubt the huge negative impact of a host of HSR nay-sayers and think tanks, spewing acres of garbage mis-informational crap on HSR, sponsored, no doubt, by any number of opposed special interests, including airlines, auto companies, oil companies, and road building contractors, stand by! It's gonna be a helluv'an uphill battle!

A California Senate subcommittee on the 22nd May approved a $45.2 million budget for Cal HSR, with Assembly consideration slated for today (May 23), less than half what the HSR Authority requested.

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