|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
It’s no secret that President Joe Biden loves his choo-choo trains.
During his decades in the Senate, he commuted daily on a train from his Delaware home to Washington D.C. Since he’s been in office, he done all he can to boost rail transit.
For instance, he reinstated the $3 billion that the Trump Administration clawed back from the California high speed rail because it has failed to meet any performance deadline. Remember, that the money was included in the President Barrak Obama administration as a shovel-ready project to spur jobs in 2012. That bill, in fact, was a gift to labor unions to keep their jobs going during the recession and had little to do with capital projects.
Let’s further remember that the high speed rail was sold as a taxpayer investment of $10 billion on a capital cost of $33 billion for a rail line to move riders from the Bay Area to Los Angeles in about three hours. It was supposed to have no taxpayer subsidy with private investors ponying up the rest of the construction cost. No private investment has emerged. Gov. Jerry Brown convinced the Legislature to devote 25% of the proceeds of the state’s cap-and-trade fund to the high speed—advancing the dubious argument that it would reduce emissions.
Gov. Gavin Newsom sliced the project down to Bakersfield to Merced for the first phase. The latest estimate on opening date for that line is 2028 and the cost for the entire system continues to soar to as much as $133 billion. It should be noted that Gov. Brown choked when the estimate reached nearly $90 billion and cut it back down.
That didn’t stop the Biden Administration from allocating $3 billion out of the infrastructure bill so the rail authority could start the bidding process on the rail cars. It seems like there’s no adults in the room who are not enamored with choo-choo trains or union construction jobs.
It’s way past time for this bad project to be blown up and stopped. Let those incomplete viaducts become this century’s mystery of Stonehenge a century from now.
Sadly, that seems to have little chance of happening despite the state’s $68 billion budget shortfall for next year.
It will be interesting to see how the privately operated high speed rail from San Bernadino to Las Vegas will fare. That’s a heavily traveled route and will have to deal with all of the environmental requirements that the high speed rail does. Here’s betting it will open years before the other system starts operating, if it ever does. It also received a federal grant.
Incidentally, the arrogance of some of these regional agencies is mind-boggling. There’s widespread belief that nobody knows what’s going to happen to traditional downtowns in these days of remote work for tech people. Nonetheless, the Valley Transportation Authority (Santa Clara County) is pushing ahead with its plans to connect BART with CalTrain and the transit center in downtown San Jose.
Last November, the authority purchased a $76 million tunneling machine to begin construction on the tunnel under downtown in 2025. That’s a thumb in the eye of taxpayers. The estimated cost has climbed 31% to $12.2 billion.
Ridership estimates on BART extensions have proven wildly optimistic—see the San Francisco airport line. The hugely expensive extension of Muni to Union Square has drawn about 25% of the estimated ridership.
It likely will be so in San Jose.
I seem to remember the 1960s when Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley) opted out of a Bart extension to San Jose.
Interstate travel and local commuting by train were once prime modes of transportation. Today local rail travel is promoted as a means of reducing pollution and commute travel gridlock.
For longer distance travel, Amtrak provides an alternative to the airlines but it takes longer and rail maintanence along with safety concerns are ongoing issues.
Back in the day, my father commuted to San Francisco from Los Altos and my mother would drive him to the station and pick him up later in the day. Back then we had just one car and a one car garage as did many families.
The Southern Pacific commuter train had a bar situated in the last car and my father would have a few martinis on the way home which often relieved the tension of another tough day in the financial district.
I don’t see as many people riding mass transit compared to the old days as it has become relegated to those with limited income resources or for travel to ball games.
The concept of a California high-speed rail is ludicrous and comparisons to Japan’s ‘Bullet Train’ are even more absurd.
No one is going to ride this thing because its range is limited and there are other more viable options.
Connecting BART to Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority routes makes sense as local transportation around the SF Bay Area will now be interconnected.
As far as a high-speed rail from San Bernardino to Las Vegas, is this a gambler’s special or an actual commute route?
And as far as Joe Biden”s rail transportation preferences, who cares? He will have plenty of time to play with trains after losing the 2024 election.