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High-speed rail and BART around the Bay busting budgets:
Time for broader study--does connecting BART trains pencil
Two brutally expensive rail projects have boards that are committed to building them without any regard for cost or necessity.
I’ve commented frequently on the high-speed rail project, sold to voters in 2008 as a $33 billion project connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles in under three hours with private investment for construction and no operating subsidy from the state. A 171-mile stretch from nowhere to nowhere in the Central Valley is the current phase the authority is hoping to open years from now. The total cost has soared to by more than $100 billion to $135 billion with no end date in sight.
Meanwhile, in the South Bay, the agency charged with connecting BART around the Bay is continuing to plow ahead with a project that also is more than a decade late and now tops $12.75 billion. It’s a surface station plus three underground stations in a six-mile tunnel under downtown San Jose to connect at the Diridon transit hub.
The Valley Transit Authority board has been battling with critics over whether to dig a single tunnel or two tunnels. It released a study this week that concluded that the single-tunnel 80 feet underground (the authority jammed through the purchase of the tunneling machine a year ago) is $600 million less than the two-tunnel approach that is shallower and used throughout the BART system.
Sadly, this debate misses the most important point: should the connection be built at all. BART extensions have been notable for missing badly on rider projections—that’s why you can no longer go directly from Dublin/Pleasanton to San Francisco International Airport—low ridership. It should be noted that I favored that project and have used it on occasion, although, at non-commute hours—it’s far more time-effective to drive, less than half the time.
The high-speed rail authority’s new CEO, Ian Choudri, outlined some fresh approaches to attracting investment capital in an interview with the San Jose Mercury. Some probably have a lot more utility than an unnecessary rail line. Following the example of other railroads and leasing right-of-way to pipelines, broadband or other utilities can be a steady source of revenue.
The others, selling excess electricity from the clean energy plants that the authority plans to build to power its trains, also makes sense as does allowing freight carriers to use the rails during night-time hours when passenger trains are infrequent.
It’s refreshing to see some different thinking from the authority, but it remains a project that should be in the trash bin. The Trump Administration is correct to claw back federal funds because both the Obama and Biden administrations bent or ignored the law to fund the project.
