RUNAWAY TRAINS: COST OF CALIFORNIA HIGH-SPEED RAIL ACCELERATING
By Anthony Pignataro/CalWatchdog.com
Sixty-five billion dollars. That’s the newest estimate of how much money it will take to run bullet trains across California. Though not an official figure—the California High-Speed Rail Authority still insists it can pay for bullet trains, stations, maintenance facilities and 800 miles of tracks with $43 billion, though a new cost estimate is due in October—the number comes from Californians Advocating Responsible Rail Design (CARRD), the most credible citizens organization right now criticizing the state’s high-speed rail dreams.
“Our analysis, based solely on official and publicly available Authority documents, determines the current project costs are approximately $65 billion,” states this CARRD analysis, released Feb. 9. “The $43 billion figure was inaccurate, even at the time it was made. One of the selling points of the project was that it would parallel existing transportation corridors. From an engineering perspective, this requires expensive civil works which were unaccounted for in the 2009 number.”
Though CARRD is just a handful of stay-at-home moms in Palo Alto, the organization recently attracted the attention of The New York Times, which gave considerable ink to the new cost estimate in a Feb. 10 story. The Times story is a huge gift to CARRD, most notably because the group’s goal of bringing rationality to the state’s bullet train project is still very much a tough slog.
Turns out bullet trains exhibit tremendous momentum before they even start running—before they’re even built, in fact. This momentum, which builds from the interplay between the government agencies and officials that approve such projects and the corporations that build them, is extremely difficult for citizens groups to overcome.
This is exemplified by the Association for California High Speed Trains (ACHST, to its friends). This group, which was established in 2005, “seeks to enhance California’s transportation system by securing funding from federal, state, local, and private sources to design and build a network of high-speed trains under the direction of the California High-Speed Rail Authority,” according to the group’s website.
“The Association also seeks to educate and inform the public, business community, and government officials about the benefits of high-speed rail for all Californians,” the ACHST website adds. “Relationships are built with groups whose agendas include environmental, quality of life, and sustainable economic growth initiatives.”
This group, which boasts an impressive 48-member Board of Directors, is for all practical purposes the state bullet train authority itself. Or rather, it’s a conglomerate of the authority’s extremely well-compensated contractors and sub-contractors.
“It’s all the same companies who have high-speed rail contracts,” said Elizabeth Alexis, an economist with CARRD. “It’s very odd that the people who get paid by government are allowed to lobby on behalf of that government. It’s not appropriate for a public project, paid for with public dollars.”
Indeed, the list of ACHST’s directors is a who’s-who of high-speed rail contractors: STV Incorporated, Hatch Mott MacDonald, T.Y. Lin International, Parsons Brinkerhoff Quade and Douglas, AECOM, URS Corp., Parsons, HNTB and so on. Joining the group isn’t cheap, either: dues range from $2,500 to $10,000 a year, depending on the company’s number of employees. What’s more, ACHST is headquartered at 1215 K Street, Suite 1120 in Sacramento—the same office used by Lucas Public Affairs, which enjoyed a lucrative $10,000-a-month public relations contract with one of the high-speed rail authority’s biggest contractors.
“They’re not a client of ours,” said Donna Lucas, who founded Lucas Public Affairs in 2006 after working as a strategist for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, of ACHST. “They sublet space from us.” Lucas did say she sent out a ACHST press release last week, but insisted it was just a “courtesy” for which they were “probably reimbursed.”
“My reputation is very important to me,” Lucas added. “There is no conflict of interest.”
Lucas said her firm was subcontracted by rail authority program management contractor Parsons, but said the contract ended “probably last summer.” In her October 27, 2010 report on the high-speed rail authority, then-state Inspector General Laura Chick found that the authority was wastefully paying three firms—including Lucas—to do pro-rail PR.
“Beginning February 2010, Deutschman became a subcontractor under Ogilvy and stopped charging costs to Parsons Brinckerhoff,” Chick’s report noted. “Townhsend and Lucas remained under Parsons Brinckerhoff and continued to charge $8,000 and $10,000 per month, respectively. This amounted to $90,000 in charges from February 2010 to June 2010, which were [sic] not supported by appropriate documentation. Since Ogilvy became the lead for communications and public outreach, Townsend’s and Lucas’ work should have been conducted and coordinated through them or ceased all together.”
That’s real money—clearly, the high-speed rail authority will spend pretty much whatever it takes to promote its bullet trains. And that means activists like Alexis and the rest of CARRD have a lot of work ahead of them, New York Times publicity or not.
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8 Comments
Hardly a surprise there’d be higher cost estimates on a public works project. I voted against the high-speed rail proposition. Too costly and not really necessary. High-speed trains are cool, but not really needed here at this time.
I would NEVER give two thoughts towards what a group of stay-at-home moms from Palo Alto have to say. Why you ask? Well what insight does a group of car-dependent, upper middle-class housewives have on improving our state’s transportation infrastructure? The bigger question to ask is what is wrong in putting money toward alternative transportation? How many BILLIONS of dollars gets spent to build, maintain, and operate our massive road network that over the last 50 years has made us all dependent on our cars (and the foreign oil that fuels them)? I don’t hear anyone from this totallyl biased website complaining about that. These rails will be a huge improvement for our infrastructure, and a model for the rest of the country.
Sadly, the viewpoint of this article, like many on this site, is unnecessarily negative toward the positive changes occurring in our city and state.
Baktaah: While I rarely ride the Blue Line here in Long Beach, and appreciate it’s existence and availability to all, it, along with the Green, Red and Gold Lines cost BILLIONS to construct and haven’t reduced traffic congestion in Los Angeles County. Too little, too late.
Why shouldn’t the government run a high speed rail system in California? I mean, hey, it is doing so very well with everything else it is running, right?
@Baktaah Sorkhabi: It really shouldn’t matter to taxpayers where good information comes from so long as it is factually accurate and urges extreme caution in spending one additional dime of taxpayer funds here in California. One of our biggest challenges in this state is that the majority of voters do not seem to be able to read the word “bond measure” on a ballot and equate passage with higher taxes. There is a good reason that voters (taxpayers) are required to approve such bond measures…because every single one of them increases both our taxes and our public debt. Oh and those shiny new and super fast train engines? They would be dependent upon oil (both foreign and domestic) to operate as well. Regardless of the type of engine running the locomotive, because we are so behind the curve in nuclear power generation in California, the power used to move the train will be generated by fossil fuels.
Comments such as “it hasn’t reduced traffic congestion”, “too little, too late” and “cost too much” are simply not valid.
Some valid points…
1. If you look at it carefully, the two hundred thousand riders or so a day that take a train or bus in the greater Los Angeles area are each a car proactively removed from the streets and freeways we drive.
2. The cost of fuel is going up and up and will move more folks to public transportation.
3. Population in already dense areas will continue to grow as warehouses are converted to residential housing and mid and high rise condo and apartment buildings become more commonplace throughout the basin.
4. There is simply nowhere else to build roads, so this additional commuter traffic must be handled in anticipation for the growth the WILL occur. If we do not act now, we could look like New York City in the future.
We didn’t wait until we were dying off from lack of water before we built infrastructure to bring water to us. We need to plan transportation to support what we know will happen with our population as well.
@Ken: Your points are, indeed, valid. I am very much a proponent of mass-transit AND high speed rail. I just don’t want the government involved in operating or managing such a system.
Like a reverse midas-effect, almost everything we seem to attempt through state-level government turns into metaphorical lead, costing more than we can afford, operating far less efficiently than is otherwise possible and growing an already corpulent, intrusive and far too expensive state government still more obese, intrusive and expensive.
How about we try keeping government out of it (beyond ensuring that applicable laws are followed) and turn the private sector loose on this challenge?
Instead of yet one more burgeoning, expensive, intrusive and inefficient goverment bureaucracy (the California High Speed Rail Authority, of all things.) Let’s allow a group of private investors to build the thing and a private company to operate the thing and instead of costing us billions of tax dollars that we do not have, allow *them* to pay *us*, and handsomely, for the *privilege* of operating such a system in our state?
“I would NEVER give two thoughts towards what a group of stay-at-home moms from Palo Alto have to say.”
Considering their families are paying the property and income taxes, you should care what they say.
@JBG: The private sector (automobile industry) is working on improving mobility worldwide. The pace of technological change has been painfully slow for many of us, and costly in terms of lives lost, greenhouse gases emitted and other undesirable things.
As you know, the automobile industry has been given a huge leg up on alternate transportation systems for the last 60+ years through public funding of the interstate highway system, regional and local roadways. No doubt the public is also subsidizing the production and distribution of refined fossil fuels.
And, “we, the people”, may have exhibited many a dubious buying decision over the years when it comes to rational vehicle performance. Hopefully, we’ll take increasing higher fuel cost as a cue to press industry for lighter, smaller, safer cars that take advantage of our existing highway infrastructure.
As for high speed rail, it’s looking more and more oversold in CA. In the end, if it’s built at all, it will most likely be over cost and under used and will only marginally address our mobility needs and wants. It’s too early to call it a loser, but…….