High-Speed Train Plan in California Derailing?

From: GOCTECH.com

A report released Tuesday, Jan. 3, by the California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group threatens to permanently derail plans for a network of 200 mph trains in the Golden State.

The group, which exists by state law and was directed by the California State Legislature to conduct the report, concluded that “moving ahead on the [High-Speed Rail] 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 appropriate management resources, represents an immense financial risk on the part of the state of California.”

Presently the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) intends to use $9 billion in voter-approved bonds — as well as $3.5 billion in promised federal funding — to construct an initial 130-mile segment of the railway between the cities of Chowchilla and Bakersfield in the state’s Central Valley. However, with that 2008 bond vote came the requirement for the California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group to green-light the feasibility of CHSRA’s plan prior to the State Legislature issuing bonds. The group, headed by former CalTrans director and current Orange County Transportation Authority chief Will Kempton, advised via the report that the state Legislature shouldn’t fund the increasingly-criticized project.

The CHSRA authority immediately responded, saying that “while some of the recommendations in the Peer Review Group report merit consideration, by and large this report is deeply flawed, in some areas misleading and its conclusions are unfounded.”

The CHSRA contends the report includes “egregious errors and unsupported assertions” that “would have been avoided with even minimal consultation with the CHSRA.”

The report nonetheless likely deals a serious blow to Gov. Jerry Brown’s support of high-speed rail in California. Brown said as recently as late December he intends to ask the state Legislature to issue bonds. Yet the governor’s spokesman, Gil Duran, waved off suggestions that the reports put a stop to the rail plan. “The peer review report will be evaluated by the Legislature, but it does not appear to add any arguments that are new or compelling enough to suggest a change in course,” Duran said, according the San Francisco Chronicle.

Brown is slated to introduce his budget proposal on Tuesday, Jan. 10. Update: Brown will be introducing his budget Thursday, Jan. 5 at 2:30 pm PT

Congress, Governors Nix Obama's High-Speed Trains

From: Real Clear Politics

Dead. Kaput. Through. Finished. Washed up. Gone-zo.

That, I think, is a fair description of the Obama administration's attempt to build high-speed rail lines across America.

It hasn't failed because of a lack of willingness to pony up money.

The Obama Democrats' February 2009 stimulus package included $8 billion for high-speed rail projects. The Democratic Congress appropriated another $2.5 billion.

But Congress is turning off the spigot. The Republican-controlled House has appropriated zero dollars for high-speed rail. The Democratic-majority Senate Appropriations Committee has appropriated $100 million in its budget recommendation.

The Transportation Department is struggling to push some of the previously appropriated money out the door. Some $480 million of planning, engineering and construction grants were made to 11 state governments in September.

But this doesn't build many rail lines, and with one exception, none of them is really high-speed, like Japan's TGV or Japan's bullet train. The governors of Wisconsin and Ohio nixed train lines that wouldn't provide faster service than current parallel Interstate highways. The governor of Florida cancelled a faster line between Orlando and Tampa, which are only 90 miles apart.

The one remaining project that really promises high-speed rail travel, in California, faces cost overruns that would be astonishing -- except for the fact that cost overruns have been standard operating procedure in high-speed rail projects around the world.

The feds insist California build a 160-mile segment in the Central Valley that is estimated to cost at least $10 billion and will have virtually no riders. The estimated cost of the whole project has zoomed from $43 billion to $67 billion, and there seems to be no prospect of any more public- or private-sector money.

Obama has rhapsodized about the wonders of getting on a train across the street from your office and traveling to another city, and he has presented high-speed rail as a technology of the future. But high-speed rail is futuristic in the same way as Disney's original Tomorrowland. Gee, someday you'll be able to take frozen peas from your freezer and heat them on your electric range.

Passenger rail is an old technology that is particularly attractive to planners, the folks who want to force us out of our cars and into subways that travel only on the routes they design. Let's make everyone live the way people do in Manhattan!

This is contrary to the thrust of emerging information technologies, which let us take whatever path on the Internet we want. Sort of like automobiles.

Moreover, the idea that it would be great to put high-speed rail lines all over the country shows an underappreciation of American geography and of some of the nation's genuine strengths.

High-speed rail can compete with air travel only over limited distances, but the United States is a continental-sized country. Japan and France, as you may have noticed, are a lot smaller.

California's high-speed train wreck

They still support it, but why? One bungle after another in a high speed boondoggle.

From Los Angeles Times

California's much-vaunted high-speed rail project is, to put it bluntly, a train wreck. Intended to demonstrate the state's commitment to sustainable, cutting-edge transportation systems, and to show that the U.S. can build rail networks as sophisticated as those in Europe and Asia, it is instead a monument to the ways poor planning, mismanagement and political interference can screw up major public works. For anti-government conservatives, it is also a powerful argument for scrapping President Obama's national rail plans, rescinding federal funding and canceling the project before any more money is wasted on it.

We couldn't disagree more. We pointed out back in 2008, before voters approved nearly $10 billion in state bonds to fund the project under Proposition 1A, that it would be more expensive and difficult to build than its backers were letting on. But we endorsed it anyway because of the economic and environmental benefits the train could bring. The benefits still outweigh the costs, and none of the $43-billion project's troubles are insurmountable. Fortunately, a report last week from the state Legislative Analyst's Office offers strong recommendations for getting the system back on track.

The train's biggest problems can be laid at the feet of the High Speed Rail Authority, which is overseeing its construction. Inexperienced board members appointed by the governor and Legislature on the basis of political patronage rather than expertise have made a host of poor decisions. Not the least boneheaded of these is the board's plan to take a circuitous route from Los Angeles to Bakersfield by veering through Palmdale and Lancaster. Compared with the more direct route along Interstate 5 through the Grapevine, this would add 30 miles to the trip plus $1 billion in construction costs, and make it all but impossible for the train to meet its promised travel time of 2 hours and 40 minutes from L.A. to San Francisco. The legislative analyst calls for slashing the authority's proposed budget for next year by $185 million and eventually eliminating it, transferring the bullet train's oversight to another agency. We heartily agree.

CBO: Taxing mileage a 'practical option' for revenue enhancement - The Hill's Floor Action

From: The Hill

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week released a report that said taxing people based on how many miles they drive is a possible option for raising new revenues and that these taxes could be used to offset the costs of highway maintenance at a time when federal funds are short.

The report discussed the proposal in great detail, including the development of technology that would allow total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to be tracked, reported and taxed, as well as the pros and cons of mandating the installation of this technology in all vehicles.

"In the past, the efficiency costs of implementing a system of VMT charges — particularly the costs of users' time for slowing and queuing at tollbooths — would clearly have outweighed the potential benefits from more efficient use of highway capacity," CBO wrote. "Now, electronic metering and billing are making per-mile charges a practical option."

The report was requested by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who held a hearing on transportation funding in early March. In that hearing, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the Obama administration is hoping to spend $556 billion over the next six years, much of which would go to federal transportation improvement projects.

Conrad said in response that federal funds are tight, and in asking for recommendations on how to raise that money, he noted the possibility of a VMT tax as a way to solve the problem of collecting less in taxes as people move to more fuel-efficient vehicles.

"Do we do gas tax?" Conrad asked. "Do we move to some kind of an assessment that is based on how many miles vehicles go, so that we capture revenue from those who are going to be using the roads who aren't going to be paying any gas tax, or very little, with hybrids and electric cars?"

Conrad argued some recommendation should be made by his committee on these issues when the Senate considers a transportation spending bill later this year.

CBO's report stressed it was making no recommendations but seemed to support a VMT tax as a more accurate way of having drivers pay for the costs of highway maintenance. The report said miles driven is a larger factor in highway repairs than fuel consumption and suggested that having drivers pay for the real costs of highways "would involve imposing a combination of fuel taxes and per-mile charges."

But CBO's assessment of "costs" was broader than just those costs associated with maintaining highway systems.

"Any given driver’s highway use also imposes costs on other users, on nearby nonusers, on the environment, and on the economy in the form of congestion, risk of accidents, noise, emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants that affect local air quality, and dependence on foreign oil," CBO said.

On how to implement the idea, CBO said it is unclear how much it would cost to "install metering equipment in all of the nation's cars and trucks."

"Having the devices installed as original equipment under a mandate to vehicle manufacturers would be relatively inexpensive but could lead to a long transition; requiring vehicles to be retrofitted with the devices could be faster but much more costly, and the equipment could be more susceptible to tampering than factory-installed equipment might be," CBO said.

The report added that VMT taxes could be tracked and even collected at filling stations. "If VMT taxes were collected at the pump, each time fuel was purchased, information would be sent from a device in the vehicle to a device at the filling station," it said.

CBO also suggested different VMT tax rates might be assessed to different vehicles because heavier vehicles do more road damage, and rates might change depending on whether miles are driven at peak use times or during less congested hours.

CBO did acknowledge that privacy concerns may be a hurdle to implementing a VMT tax because electronic tracking of miles driven might provide too much personal information to the government. However, CBO noted that some have proposed restricting the information that would be transmitted to the government.