Agenda Item # 3.1 - Joseph P Thompson | Received 11/14/2022�CUCi.. n s unie w privatize transit - Gilroy uispatch 1 Gilroy, San Martin, CA
1 0 , 0111 1'±1
Letter: It's time to privatise
transit
By: JOE THOMPSON M August 18, 2022
*J0 O4o
Regarding more public sector rail transit boondoggles feasting off taxpayers forcing up gas taxes and auto
fees so that politicians can crow "success" about boondoggle monstrosities like County Transit, Caltrain,
Amtrak, etc., thanks for considering transport options, one of my favorite subjects.
The late Secretary Mineta said, in 1996 while I was doing post-doc study of transport law and policy at the
Institute which now bears his name, "The crucial question in transportation today is: What should
government do, and what should it leave to others?" He was right then, and he's right now, God bless his
soul.
Private or public? Capitalist or socialist? What does history tell us? In his immortal "How We Built the
Transcontinental Railroad," Grenville Dodge recalled Lincoln's advice to him at the White House in 1864
when Dodge insisted that the TC railroad be government owned. Lincoln was right then, but we have not
learned from our history.
' G I L R OY GILH04-k= 0
BEST OF 2022`
SPRTCH
VOTE
During WWI, the Wilson Administration nationalized the railroads, bringing chaos, and stopped traffic dead in
the tracks, so in 1920 we de -nationalized the RRs. But we didn't learn from our history.
RE
@COWED
NOV 1 4 2022
GILROY CITY CLERK'S OFFICE,
https://gilroydispatch.com/letter-time-privatize-transit/ 1/2
- - Letter: n s time to privatize transit - Gilroy Dispatch 1 Gilroy, San Martin, CA
In 1970 Congressmen stood on the floor of the House and proclaimed that Amtrak "would be self-sufficient
in three years." Never happened; deficits have only worsened. On Sept. 11, 2001 we had Amtrak, but what
was the airport security like? Traffic World reported that Amtrak's subsidies by Sept. 11, 2001, in $100 bills,
was a stack higher than the World Trade Center Towers had stood. And still we have not learned from our
history.
Promoters of the CAHSRA Bullet Train, including Hon. Rod Diridon, who I debated on Prop. 1 before the
election in 2008 said that we didn't need to worry about UPRR's eminent domain authority being superior to
CAHSRA's eminent domain authority, they would make Gilroy the South Bay Hub, and go on BNSF's tracks.
Of course, to do that you'd have to move Gilroy to Stockton. And still we have not learned from our history.
It's high time that we privatized socialist transit, all modes, and returned to our free enterprise roots in
transport in the USA and boondoggle capital California. Caveat viator.
THE
BEST OF
GILROY
2022'
lILIOVVOISPHTCH
VOTE
Joe Thompson
Past -President, 1999-2001, 2006, Gilroy -Morgan Hill Bar
Assn.
https://gilroydispatch.com/letter-time-privatize-transit1 2/2
M 91"-okt s-r
Taxpayer;
For
Whom
The
Bell
Tolls
11P1,o,, II iuuauy v idWS wr aoiuuons I uato at Liberty Bog
DECEMBER 8, 2021 2:26PM
Dying Transit Industry Grasps for Solutions
By Randal O'Toole
Your industry gets government subsidies equal to two-thirds of its operating costs and all of its capital
costs, and still most people refuse to use your services. Do you:
a. Increase operating subsidies so you can give away your services for free?
b. Spend more on capital improvements that haven't attracted more customers in the past?
c. Penalize American who aren't using your services?
d. Redefine your mission so that you appear relevant even if almost no one uses your service?
How about e. All of the above? That appears to be the transit industry's solution to the fact that,
except in New York City, almost no one rides transit anymore. Data released by the Department of
Transportation early this week, for example, reveals that October transit ridership was barely more
than half of pre -pandemic levels even as driving has returned to nearly 100 percent, flying is 80
percent, and Amtrak is 72 percent. Even in New York, transit ridership remained less than 57 percent of
pre -pandemic levels.
To get riders back, transit agencies are trying a variety of strategies:
Free fares: President Biden is going to Kansas City this week to promote free transit. Since taxpayers
are already subsidizing so much of the cost of providing transit, why not just have them subsidize all of
it? Kansas City adopted free fares last year and ridership increased a little bit. But Kansas City
residents still travel by car more than 500 times as much as they ride transit, so what is the point of
free fares?
Capital projects: Meanwhile, transit agencies all over the country are gleefully anticipating their share
of the billions of dollars of transit funds in the recent infrastructure bill. Portland, whose last light -rail
line cost $1.5 billion and yielded zero net new riders, wants to spend billions more on its next light -rail
line. Denver's Regional Transit District wants to build a rail line to Longmont even though its own
analysis found that it would end up costing $65 per rider. St. Louis wants to build a new light -rail line
even though its transit system carried fewer riders in 2019 than it did before it started building light rail
in the early 1990s.
https://www.cato.org/blog/dying-transit-industry-grasps-solutions 1/3
O/ I,I/LL, I I: DO HIVI
uying I ranslt Industry Grasps tor Solutions 1 Cato at Liberty Blog
Penalize the competition: Automobiles are faster, more convenient, less expensive, and -in most urban
areas -greener than transit. The obvious solution, if you are a transit agency official, is to make driving
slower, less convenient, and more expensive.
"It's too easy to drive in this city," says Los Angeles Metro CEO Phil Washington, referring to the city
that is often ranked as one of the most congested in the world. Washington's solution to declining bus
ridership is to convert many of the lanes on major streets to exclusive bus lanes, thus increasing
congestion and, he hopes, forcing a few people out of their cars. Cities all over the country are
proposing such "bus -rapid transit" projects, which sound good on paper until you realize that most of
them will make congestion worse, not better. Other proposals call for reducing the amount of parking
available to drivers, forcing them to ride transit instead.
Change the mission: Transit is sold to voters based on its ability to reduce congestion, save energy,
and protect the environment, but it can't do any of those things if hardly anyone rides it. A recent
report published by the American Public Transportation Association urges transit agencies to "define
success as more than just ridership." "Think of transit less as a business and more as an essential
service," says the report, encouraging agencies to focus on "socially equitable transit access." But
essential and equitable for whom?
Supposedly, many "essential workers" during the pandemic had low incomes that made them
dependent on transit. In fact, in 2019, only 5 percent of workers whose incomes were below $25,000
a year commuted to work by transit. During the pandemic, the percentage of all workers taking transit
declined from 5 percent to 3.2 percent. Meanwhile, most of the subsidies to transit come from
regressive taxes such as sales or property taxes. This means the 95 percent of low-income workers
who don't use transit are disproportionately paying for transit rides they aren't taking. This is the very
definition of inequity.
The one thing all of these strategies have in common is they increase subsidies to transit. That's
exactly the wrong prescription for an industry that is so obsolete that, according to researchers at the
University of Minnesota, people living in the nation's 50 largest urban areas can reach more jobs on
a bicycle than by transit in trips of 50 minutes or less.
The reality is that alternatives to transit are a lot less expensive and far more effective at solving the
problems that transit no longer addresses. Improved traffic signal coordination, which most cities have
failed to install partly because of anti -automobile mentality, will relieve more congestion than all of the
light -rail lines in the world. Making automobiles just one percent more energy efficient will reduce
greenhouse gases far more than spending tens of billions on transit. Helping the last few low-income
families who don't have cars obtain automobiles will help them out of poverty by giving them access
to far more jobs than transit can reach.
https://www.cato.org/blog/dying-transit-industry-grasps-solutions 2/3
3/19/22, 11:3i AM Dying Transit Industry Grasps for Solutions I Cato at Liberty Blog
Despite receiving more than $50 billion in subsidies per year, the transit industry was dying before the
pandemic and the pandemic has just about killed it off. It's time to stop subsidizing an obsolete
transportation system.
RELATED TAGS
Tax and Budget Policy, Transportation
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BY -NC -SA
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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10/1 i/22, 5:18 PM
AT&T Yahoo Mail - Fw: California's High -Speed Rail Insanity
Fw: California's High -Speed Rail Insanity
From: Joseph P Thompson (
To:
Date: Tuesday, October 11, 2022 at 05:17 PM PDT
Dear Friends,
The insanity of Supermassive Black Hole Bullet Train is hitting us when taxpayers' subsidies are already at the 99%
level on the insanity of County Transit, this County, every County, every transit district, VTA, TAMC, SCCRTC, COG,
FAX,
Etc., etc., all over the State. Motorists are expected to pay the higher & higher gas taxes, and diesel taxes, so that
bankrupt
boondoggles can continue to run, and almost nobody rides them, anywhere except in large dense cities, e.g., SF.
Otherwise,
it is empty bus seat transport, almost all the time, almost every minute. If anyone is aboard, they are only paying about
1%
of the cost of their ride, while motorists are paying 102% of the cost of ours, including highway construction and
maintenance.
If all the bus seats were occupied by patrons who bought tickets, then taxpayers would still lose money because the
transit
agencies don't charge remunerative fares. This is unfair, unsound, and unsustainable transport policy.
Ask yourselves Norm Mineta's "crucial question" (1995): " What should government do, and what should it leave to
others?"
Norm was right then, and is still right today. If we tax ourselves out of our cars, then we are slitting our throats. It is time
to privatize transit, all modes. Learn from our history.
We ought to abolish the transit agencies. Or at the least require that their "Directors" be elected to the stand-alone
governance bodies over which the preside, without the consent of the voters.
Caveat viator.
Joseph P. Thompson, Esq.
Past -Chair, Legislation Committee, Transportation Lawyers Ass
(408) 848-5506
E-Mail: TransLaw@PacBell.Net
cc: P 1CT,O11711Q1` ----NEXT MEETING: REGULAR, SECIAL; REAL OR VIRTUAL; PUBLIC WORKSHO
AND/OR
PRIVATE RETREAT, AND ESPECIALLY TO NON -BROWN ACT COMPLIANT "MOBILITY PARTNERSHIP"
VTA&COG r_
Q
Forwarded Message
From: Cato at Liberty Blog <newsletters@cato.org>
To: "translaw@pacbell.net" <translaw@pacbell.net>
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2022 at 04:13:36 PM PDT
Subject: California's High -Speed Rail Insanity
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10/11/22, 5:18 PM
AT&T Yahoo Mail - Fw: California's High -Speed Rail Insanity
View in browser
Latest posts from the Cato at Liberty F!oq
California's High -Speed Rail Insanity
Tuesday, October 11, 2022 2:47 PM
David Boaz
The sad, tragic, outrageous story of the California high-speed rail boondoggle
continues, as Ralph Vartabedian writes in the New York Times.
When California voters first approved a bond issue for the project in 2008,
the rail line was to be completed by 2020, and its cost seemed astronomical
at the time — $33 billion — but it was still considered worthwhile as an
alternative to the state's endless web of freeways and the carbon emissions
generated in one of the nation's busiest air corridors....
[Recently] the "final plan" raised the estimate to $113 billion.
The rail authority said it has accelerated the pace of construction on the
starter system, but at the current spending rate of $1.8 million a day,
according to projections widely used by engineers and project managers, the
train could not be completed in this century.
Advocates of high-speed rail always present it as the modern, efficient,
environmentally sensitive alternative. It seems like an obvious choice for
a technologically advanced society. But in the real world, not only are there
serious questions about the likely ridership and the environmental
benefits of high-speed rail, planners always forget that politicians will be in
charge. Read every word of Vartabedian's article. Instead of a quick, direct
route between two of the nation's biggest cities, politicians insisted on running
it "through the district of a powerful Los Angeles county supervisor" and
through the less -populated Central Valley and San Jose. We'll have hovercraft
before this rail line connects Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Vartabedian points out the big picture:
Now, as the nation embarks on a historic, $1 trillion infrastructure building
spree, the tortured effort to build the country's first high-speed rail system is
a case study in how ambitious public works projects can become perilously
about:blank 2/3
10/11/22, 5:18 PM
AT&T Yahoo Mail - Fw: California's High -Speed Rail Insanity
encumbered by political compromise, unrealistic cost estimates, flawed
engineering and a determination to persist on projects that have become,
like the crippled financial institutions of 2008, too big to fail.
And I say, as I did 10 months ago when Vartabedian wrote a similar critique of
big infrastructure projects nationwide, that it would have been more useful to
members of Congress and the public if the Times had published these stories
during the many months that Congress was debating the Biden
administration's $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan.
Maybe I'm in a grumpy mood because I just endured an Amtrak journey that
arrived at 5 a.m. (by bus!) instead of the promised 9 p.m. by train. But I was
writing about this disastrous project long before that trip, as here and here.
Read more Cato blog posts
Subscribe to Other Cato Newsletters.
Donate to Cato
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10/11/22, 5:03 PM How California's Bullet Train Went Off the Rails - The New York Times
'.'l;e NCtu a)ork Niinc$ https://www.nytimes.cam/2022/10/09/us/California-high-speed-rail-
politics.html
How California's Bullet Train Went Off the Rails
America's first experiment with high-speed rail has become a multi -billion -dollar
nightmare. Political compromises created a project so expensive that almost no one
knows how it can be built as originally envisioned.
By Ralph Vartabedian
Oct. 9, 2022
LOS ANGELES — Building the nation's first bullet train, which would connect Los Angeles
and San Francisco, was always going to be a formidable technical challenge, pushing
through the steep mountains and treacherous seismic faults of Southern California with a
series of long tunnels and towering viaducts.
But the design for the nation's most ambitious infrastructure project was never based on the
easiest or most direct route. Instead, the train's path out of Los Angeles was diverted across
a second mountain range to the rapidly growing suburbs of the Mojave Desert — a route
whose most salient advantage appeared to be that it ran through the district of a powerful
Los Angeles county supervisor.
The dogleg through the desert was only one of several times over the years when the
project fell victim to political forces that have added billions of dollars in costs and called
into question whether the project can ever be finished.
Now, as the nation embarks on a historic, $1 trillion infrastructure building spree, the
tortured effort to build the country's first high-speed rail system is a case study in how
ambitious public works projects can become perilously encumbered by political
compromise, unrealistic cost estimates, flawed engineering and a determination to persist
on projects that have become, like the crippled financial institutions of 2008, too big to fail.
Proposed California High Speed Rail
The California bullet train's route from Los
Angeles to San Francisco, traversing the state's
mountain ranges and its Central Valley, is shown
in a dark black line. The route was selected over
proposals that would have roughly followed the I-
5 and the I-580 highways between Southern and
Northern California. The light gray line shows a
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/us/California-high-speed-rail-politics.html?searchResultPosition=1&utm_campaign=Cato at Liberty Newsletter&... 1/10
10/11/22, 5:03 PM How California's Bullet Train Went Off the Rails - The New York Times
proposed second phase that would extend the
system to San Diego and Sacramento, though it
has not received environmental approvals or
funding.
Sacramento 80 MILES
San Francisco Stockton
Modesto
San Jose Merced
Gilroy
NEVADA
Madera
Fresno
Kings/Tulare
PHASE 1
CALIFORNIA
Bakersfield
Palmdale
Burbank
Los Angeles Riverside
Anaheim
PHASE 2
San Diego
Source: California High Speed Rail Authority • By The
New York Times
A review of hundreds of pages of documents, engineering reports, meeting transcripts and
interviews with dozens of key political leaders show that the detour through the Mojave
Desert was part of a string of decisions that, in hindsight, have seriously impeded the state's
ability to deliver on its promise to create a new way of transporting people in an era of
climate change.
Political compromises, the records show, produced difficult and costly routes through the
state's farm belt. They routed the train across a geologically complex mountain pass in the
Bay Area. And they dictated that construction would begin in the center of the state, in the
agricultural heartland, not at either of the urban ends where tens of millions of potential
riders live.
The pros and cons of these routing choices have been debated for years. Only now, though,
is it becoming apparent how costly the political choices have been. Collectively, they turned
a project that might have been built more quickly and cheaply into a behemoth so expensive
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1 U/11/22, b:U3 I M How California's Bullet Train Went Off the Rails - The New York Times
that, without a major new source of funding, there is little chance it can ever reach its
original goal of connecting California's two biggest metropolitan areas in two hours and 40
minutes.
When California voters first approved a bond issue for the project in 2008, the rail line was
to be completed by 2020, and its cost seemed astronomical at the time — $33 billion — but it
was still considered worthwhile as an alternative to the state's endless web of freeways and
the carbon emissions generated in one of the nation's busiest air corridors..
Fourteen years later, construction is now underway on part of a 171-mile "starter" line
connecting a few cities in the middle of California, which has been promised for 2030. But
few expect it to make that goal.
Meanwhile, costs have continued to escalate. When the California High -Speed Rail
Authority issued its new 2022 draft business plan in February, it estimated an ultimate cost
as high as $105 billion. Less than three months later, the "final plan" raised the estimate to
$113 billion.
The rail authority said it has accelerated the pace of construction on the starter system, but
at the current spending rate of $1.8 million a day, according to projections widely used by
engineers and project managers, the train could not be completed in this century.
"We would make some different decisions today," said Tom Richards, a developer from the
Central Valley city of Fresno who now chairs the authority. He said project executives have
managed to work through the challenges and have a plan that will, for the first time, connect
85 percent of California's residents with a fast, efficient rail system. "I think it will be
successful," he said.
But there are growing doubts among key Democratic leaders in the Legislature —
historically the bullet train's base of support — and from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has been
cautious about committing new state financing. As of now, there is no identified source of
funding for the $100 billion it will take to extend the rail project from the Central Valley to its
original goals, Los Angeles and San Francisco, in part because lawmakers, no longer
convinced of the bullet train's viability, have pushed to divert additional funding to regional
rail projects.
"There is nothing but problems on the project," the speaker of the State Assembly, Anthony
Rendon, complained recently.
The Times's review, though, revealed that political deals created serious obstacles in the
project from the beginning. Speaking candidly on the subject for the first time, some of the
high-speed rail authority's past leaders say the project may never work.
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10/11/22, 5:03 PM
How California's Bullet Train Went Off the Rails - The New York Times
Construction crews placing concrete at a viaduct in Selma, Calif. The decision to begin construction of the
project in central California instead of in Los Angeles or San Francisco has proved costly. Ryan Christopher Jones
for The New York Times
Unless rail authority managers can improve cost controls and find significant new sources
of funding, they said, the project is likely to grind to a halt in future decades.
"I was totally naive when I took the job," said Michael Tennenbaum, a former Wall Street
investment banker who was the first chairman of the rail authority 20 years ago. "I spent
my time and didn't succeed. I realized the system didn't work. I just wasn't smart enough. I
don't know how they can build it now."
Dan Richard, the longest -serving rail chairman, said starting the project with an early goal
of linking Los Angeles and San Francisco was "a strategic mistake." An initial line between
Los Angeles and San Diego, he said, would have made more sense.
And Quentin Kopp, another former rail chairman who earlier served as a state senator and a
Superior Court judge, said the system would be running today but for the many bad political
decisions that have made it almost impossible to build.
"I don't think it is an existing project," he said. "It is a loser."
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10/11/22, 5:03 PM How California's Bullet Train Went Off the Rails - The New York Times
The 2-hour, 40-minute Dream
Although it comes more than a half century after Asia and Europe were running successful
high-speed rail systems, the bullet train project when it was first proposed in the 1980s was
new to America, larger than any single transportation project before it and more costly than
even the nation's biggest state could finance in one step.
The state was warned repeatedly that its plans were too complex. SNCF, the French
national railroad, was among bullet train operators from Europe and Japan that came to
California in the early 2000s with hopes of getting a contract to help develop the system.
The company's recommendations for a direct route out of Los Angeles and a focus on
moving people between Los Angeles and San Francisco were cast aside, said Dan
McNamara, a career project manager for SNCF.
The company pulled out in 2011.
"There were so many things that went wrong," Mr. McNamara said. "SNCF was very angry.
They told the state they were leaving for North Africa, which was less politically
dysfunctional. They went to Morocco and helped them build a rail system."
Morocco's bullet train started service in 2018.
The goal in California in 2008 was to carry passengers between Los Angeles and San
Francisco in 2 hours 40 minutes, putting it among the fastest trains in the world in average
speed.
The most direct route would have taken the train straight north out of Los Angeles along the
Interstate 5 corridor through the Tejon Pass, a route known as "the Grapevine." Engineers
had determined in a "final report" in 1999 that it was the preferred option for the corridor.
But political concerns were lurking in the background. Mike Antonovich, a powerful
member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, was among those who argued that
the train could get more riders if it diverted through the growing desert communities of
Lancaster and Palmdale in his district, north of Los Angeles.
The extra 41 miles to go through Palmdale would increase costs by 16 percent, according to
the 1999 report, a difference in today's costs of as much as $8 billion.
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u/ I i/LL, o:uo rive
How California's Bullet Train Went Off the Rails - The New York Times
"I spent my time and didn't succeed. I realized the system didn't work," said Michael Tennenbaum, the first
chairman of the rail authority 20 years ago. "I just wasn't smart enough. I don't know how they can build it
now." Tracy Nguyen for The New York Times
According to interviews with those working on the project at the time, the decision was a
result of political horse -trading in which Mr. Antonovich delivered a multi -billion -dollar plum
to his constituents.
"I said it was ridiculous," said Mr. Tennenbaum, the former rail authority chairman. "It was
wasteful. It was just another example of added expense."
The horse -trading in this case involved an influential land developer and major campaign
contributor from Los Angeles, Jerry Epstein.
Mr. Epstein, who died in 2019, was a developer in the seaside community of Marina del Rey
who, along with other investors, was courting the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
for a 40-year lease extension on a huge residential, commercial and boat dock development.
Mr. Epstein was also a member of the rail authority board, and he became a strong backer of
Mr. Antonovich's proposal for a Mojave Desert diversion on the bullet train.
"The Palmdale route was borne of a deal between Epstein and Antonovich, absolutely," said
Art Bauer, the chief staff member on the State Senate Transportation Committee, speaking
publicly on the matter for the first time.
"If I get my lease, you get my vote was the deal," Mr. Bauer said. Though Mr. Epstein was
only one member of the board, his lobbying of other board members proved critical, he said.
"Epstein got the votes. The staff didn't get the votes. The staff didn't want to go that way."
The desert route "sacrificed travel time and increased the costs," and opened the door to "a
whole series of problems" that have become only clearer as time has gone on, he said. "They
betrayed the public with this project."
A similar assessment was made by Hasan Ikhrata, a former executive director of the
Southern California Association of Governments, the giant regional planning agency that
helped build powerful support for the bullet train.
The rail route "was not based on technical and financial criteria," Mr. Ikhrata said.
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Ili/ I I/LL, 0:U0 rIVI
How California's Bullet Train Went Off the Rails - The New York Times
In a recent interview, Mr. Antonovich, now retired, said there was no connection between
Mr. Epstein's support for the Palmdale route and his own support for the lease extension in
Marina del Rey. "Jerry played a role in promoting Palmdale," he said, but "they were two
separate breeds of cat, the Marina and the desert."
A number of viaducts for the high-speed rail system are in various stages of construction in the Central
Valley. Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times
There were plenty of reasons for routing the train through the two desert cities, where more
passengers could board, he said, and it was only natural that his constituents would want to
see benefits from a bullet train. "We wanted to share all that stuff."
The dogleg from Burbank to Palmdale was never without advantages. For one thing, said
Mr. Richards, the current rail authority chairman, the direct route through the Grapevine
would have had higher land acquisition costs and faced opposition by a major landowner.
After the decision was made, Mr. Richards said, a follow-up study validated the choice.
But it has presented a complex engineering challenge, requiring 38 miles of tunnels and 16
miles of elevated structures, according to environmental reports.
And it introduced a fundamental conflict that has dogged the project. If the train was to rush
passengers between the state's two urban hubs almost as fast as they could fly, how much
speed should be sacrificed by turning it into a milk run across the huge state?
Then came the decision to start building a train between Los Angeles and San Francisco
that reached neither city.
A Bullet Train for the Farm Belt
The idea of beginning construction not on either end, but in the middle — in the Central
Valley, a place few in Los Angeles would want to go — was a political deal from the start.
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10/11/22, 5:03 PM How California's Bullet Train Went Off the Rails - The New York Times
Proponents of running the rail through the booming cities of Bakersfield, Fresno and
Merced cited a lot of arguments: The Central Valley needed jobs. It would be an ideal
location to test equipment. It would be the easiest place to build, because it was mostly open
farmland.
But the entire concept depended on yet another costly diversion.
Instead of following Interstate 5 through the uninhabited west end of the valley, the train
would travel through the cities on the east side — more passengers, but also more delays,
more complications over acquiring land, more environmental problems.
Rail authority leaders said starting the bullet train in the center of the state reflected a
decision to make sure it served 85 percent of the residents of California, not just people at
the end points. Running it on the east end of the valley, they said, would ensure that it
served existing cities; building on empty farmland would encourage new sprawl.
"The key to high-speed rail is to connect as many people as possible," Mr. Richards said.
The rail authority spokeswoman, Annie Parker, said studies in 2005 showed that building
along the east side of the Central Valley provided better and faster service, though it was 6
percent more expensive. In any case, she said, the current route is what voters agreed to in
2008 in a $9 billion bond authorization.
Gov. Jerry Brown, center, surrounded by construction workers and elected officials after signing a bill
authorizing initial construction of the high-speed rail line in 2012. Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press
State senators were under pressure to endorse the Central Valley plan, not only from Gov.
Jerry Brown but also from President Barack Obama's transportation secretary, Ray
LaHood, who came to the state Capitol to lobby the vote.
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I u/ 1 1/LL, 0:uo Y'IVI How California's Bullet Train Went Off the Rails - The New York Times
The Central Valley quickly became a quagmire. The need for land has quadrupled to more
than 2,000 parcels, the largest land take in modern state history, and is still not complete. In
many cases, the seizures have involved bitter litigation against well-resourced farmers,
whose fields were being split diagonally.
Federal grants of $3.5 billion for what was supposed to be a shovel -ready project pushed the
state to prematurely issue the first construction contracts when it lacked any land to build
on. It resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in contractor delay claims.
"The consequence of starting in the Central Valley is not having a system," said Rich
Tolmach, who headed the nonprofit California Rail Foundation that promotes public rail
transit and was deeply involved in the early days of the project. "It will never be operable."
Which Path Through the Mountains?
More political debate ensued over what route the train would take into the San Francisco
Bay Area. The existing rail corridor through Altamont Pass, near Livermore, was a logical
alternative. The French engineering company Setec Ferroviaire reported that the Altamont
route would generate more ridership and have fewer environmental impacts.
An artist's rendition showing the bullet train passing through Altamont, Calif. Some officials question whether
the project will ever be completed. Reuters
But as with so many decisions on the project, other considerations won the day. There was
heavy lobbying by Silicon Valley business interests and the city of San Jose, which saw the
line as an economic boon and a link to lower cost housing in the Central Valley for tech
employees. They argued for routing the train over the much higher Pacheco Pass — which
would require 15 miles of expensive tunnels.
In 2008, the rail authority issued its record of decision.
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10/19/22, 5:03 PM How California's Bullet Train Went Off the Rails - The New York Times
"It absolutely has to go through Pacheco and up through San Jose," Mr. Richards said.
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