As many Californians can tell you, the drive between San Francisco and Los Angeles is painful. On the East Coast you can pass through several states driving for six hours, but in California those six hours will get you mile after mile of the same dry, flat scenery. Of all the highways that turn driving to drudgery, the epitome may be California’s Interstate 5. But now that the California State Senate has approved a high-speed rail plan, California travelers will have a very different kind of commute to look forward to if all goes as planned!
The Long Road to the Rail
The California high-speed rail system was first proposed during the 2008 election. was put to CA voters after around two-thirds of California’s legislative branch approved the measure. The initial $10 billion bond measure was passed by CA voters, who supported the effort to reduce highway and airport traffic, boost statewide mobility, and conserve over 12 million barrels of oil per year by 2030.2 In the original plan the system was designed to be over 800 miles long—by far the largest public infrastructure project in the country. The 432 mile SF to LA leg would later be joined by stretches to Sacramento and San Diego.3
After the cost of the project jumped from $33.6 billion to $42.6 billion in 2009 and then to $98.5 billion (accounting for future inflation) in 2011, general outcry ensued and the legislative branch threatened to pull the plug on the project. The costs were brought back down to $68 billion and the project got back on track. The bill approved last in July of this year will allow California to begin selling $4.5 billion in voter-approved bonds for the project. Of the $4.5 billion, $2.6 billion will be allocated specifically for a 130-mile stretch of rail in California’s Central Valley.4
Part of the reason why California decided to move forward with the project now was the threat of losing federal grant money. The state access will be issued $3.3 billion in federal funding.5 Some of that money came from states like Wisconsin and Florida, where Republican governors rejected the federal government money, announcing that high-speed rail subsidies make States “addicted to spending.”6
Only Time Will Tell
State governor Jerry Brown recently likened the high-speed rail plan to the comprehensive state water project in the late 1950s, and to Abraham Lincoln’s initiation of the transcontinental railroad.8 Brown’s political opponents, however, had something else to say about the train. California State Senator Tony Strickland (R) said “I think this is a colossal fiscal train wreck for California,” and State Sen. Joe Simitian (D) questioned why the Senate would “put the future of the state at risk.”9 While the project is expected to create jobs—construction of the rail is expected to generate up to 100,000 construction-related jobs for every year the system is being built, and as many as 450,000 permanent jobs once the rail is completed—concerns about funding remain in a State that is already facing a major budget crisis.10
All of the attention on cost is certainly justified. These monstrous budget criticisms draw attention to an important point about large-scale projects in general: when, exactly, is a good time to set to work on such ambitious ventures? Does such a time even exist? As Patt Morrison with the LA Times writes, “high-speed rail could wind up as a techno-evolutionary dead end, or it could be a model for the nation, one for which future Californians will bless us,” but determining which it will be can only be determined “through the rear-view mirror of history.”11 As a California taxpayer myself, I’m hopeful that the high-speed rail plan will be one for the history books. I can’t wait to abandon my car and airport security lines for the train!
