New Pro-HSR Group Forms on Peninsula

As reported in the SF Business Times on Friday (subscription req'd for whole article) a new pro-HSR group has been formed on the Peninsula. The Alliance for Sustainable Transit and Jobs is comprised of some of the Bay Area's heaviest hitters, including representatives of the largest businesses in the region. They don't yet have a website, but that doesn't really matter right now; these groups have already been very active behind the scenes in lobbying for high speed rail, and their coming together as a formal organization portends much greater public visibility. From the article:

Countering critics of high-speed rail along the Peninsula, business and labor groups have banded together to support the approximately $8 billion section between San Francisco and San Jose.

The Alliance for Sustainable Transit and Jobs “was formed in response to recent community outbursts regarding the high-speed rail route through the Peninsula cities and the forthcoming lawsuits, political posturing and other blocking maneuvers,” according to a flyer promoting the group, which will be based in the Belmont offices of the San Mateo County Economic Development Association.

In addition to SAMCEDA, business groups in the alliance include the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, Bay Area Council, Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the chambers in San Mateo and Redwood City. Labor groups in San Francisco, Santa Clara County and San Mateo County are members.

“We’re coming from the point of view of what (high-speed rail) might bring to the Peninsula” in terms of jobs and other economic boosts, said Rosanne Foust, a SAMCEDA vice president and Redwood City mayor.

The Bay Area Council is of particular importance here. 60 years ago they came together to promote regional mobility in the wake of the transportation crisis the World War II boom created; out of their early proposals came the system we know as BART. While they didn't design the system itself, they helped get it launched and built, and look to do the same with HSR. Their member list reads like a who's who of Bay Area businesses, including companies like Chevron and Google; their executive committee includes representatives from Wells Fargo, Clorox, Bank of America, even Janet Yellin, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank. Similarly, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group includes similar (and even some of the same) companies, as does the SF Chamber of Commerce. Clearly, this is a serious effort to promote high speed rail and counter the distortions and NIMBY attacks on HSR on the Peninsula.

Of course, it's not the case that just because a bunch of large corporations say HSR is a good thing, we should just do as they say. In this case, though, the interests of the Bay Area's largest employers match those of working people and families living in the Bay Area and on the Peninsula, clear majorities of whom showed their own support for HSR by voting for Prop 1A last fall.

Having talked with some BAC staff about HSR, they made it clear that for their member companies, sustainable transportation is a very high priority. California is in a severe economic crisis, part of a global recession. When the global economy recovers, multinational corporations will look for places to invest. And it won't necessarily be California, especially if we are burdened with a transportation system that gets gridlocked during times of growth and is dependent on oil, a commodity whose costs are definitely going rise. Those companies want to invest in the Bay Area, but are saying that high speed rail needs to be part of the equation, part of the recovery, if they are going to make long-term plans for the region.

Again, there's nothing to say that the Bay Area should do something just because their largest employers recommend it. But that does place the burden on HSR deniers and NIMBYs to explain to people - especially people on the Peninsula, many of whom depend on the companies represented by the organizations that have formed this new pro-HSR group - where jobs and economic growth are going to come from without high speed trains. The answer is likely to be an assumption that the conditions of the late 20th century will just somehow magically continue indefinitely into the future, and that answer will likely not mention that the current economic crisis was caused by an overreliance on late 20th century sources of growth (sprawl, oil, finance capitalism).

Most Peninsula NIMBYs are those who were the "winners" of the late 20th century economy, those who own property near the tracks and prefer to maintain that asset value at the expense of the economic prosperity of others. Presumably they don't think they have any need of HSR, such is their economic security, but since HSR might possibly in some alternate universe threaten their property values, they're going to fight it tooth and nail. Even if that causes long-term economic distress for the region.

Even those who might not want California's 21st century economy to be dominated by a handful of large corporations can find value in high speed rail. HSR will create a green dividend that makes capital available for new entrepreneurial ventures by reducing spending on oil-based transportation. The hundreds of thousands of jobs HSR will create will produce more buyers of local businesses' products, more tax money for local governments to improve quality of life, and the trains themselves will enable Peninsula residents to have a broader spectrum of job opportunities and mobility that a 21st century economy requires.

In short, HSR offers opportunities for businesses big and small, for workers young and old, for cities along the tracks and those that aren't. The Alliance for Sustainable Transit and Jobs, along with truly grassroots groups like Californians for High Speed Rail, will help give voice to those on the Peninsula who so far have been drowned out or ignored by the loud but few NIMBYs.

Ogilvy Recommended For CHSRA PR Contract

At next week's CHSRA board meeting the board will vote on a staff recommendation to award the $9 million PR contract to Ogilvy, a leading public relations communications firm. It's not a surprising choice, as Ogilvy has extensive experience in California political communications. From the Capitol Weekly article on the topic:

Ogilvy Managing Driector Christi Black said her frm received a letter from CHSRA staff saying they were recommending Ogilvy's proposal to the board. Black cautioned that "nothing is official yet, but it's always thrilling to get the letter of intent."

Ogilvy is a global PR firm with offices throughout California, including outposts in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento. The firm contracts with other state agencies including the state treasurer's office, the state auditor and the California Earthquake Authority, among others.

It's a sensible choice, given that Ogilvy has that experience with other state government agencies and has a worldwide reach - which the California HSR project will need.

No word yet on how Ogilvy would respond to ridculous nonsense like that being peddled in the LA Weekly. But I'm sure they'll come up with something.

The CHSRA isn't the only California HSR organization working on its public outreach. I've recently joined the board of Californians for High Speed Rail, as we are working on a relaunch of the organization in the near future to provide grassroots leadership and citizen oversight of the HSR project. As part of our relaunch, we're looking for someone to help with web design. Interested in volunteering your services for the cause? Send an email to me - robert.cruickshank at ca4hsr dot org.

And yes, the transition of this blog to WordPress is still happening. Once we get some things squared away, I am hoping to launch it this weekend.

Saturday Open Thread

A few updates:

• I'll be in San Carlos today for a joint RailPAC-NARP meeting to discuss several passenger rail projects around the state, including high speed rail. I'll also be talking with several folks about ramping up HSR advocacy efforts. This blog was founded to fill a vacuum in early 2008, since there wasn't any place putting out frequent information on the project, and some of the other pro-HSR sites had gone dormant. The blog was never meant to be a stand-in for a full-scale pro-HSR effort, though we have often worked with others backing HSR, from CALPIRG to NARP, in support of HSR. Now it's time to step it up and get this thing built, especially now when the various process issues threaten to undermine the project. So be on the lookout for more robust grassroots HSR advocacy work.



• Speaking of the blog, I know we've discussed this for a while now, but we really are going to move this to a unique URL and to a WordPress platform, and soon. Not only will it offer a cleaner look, WordPress offers greater functionality in the comments - from requiring people to pick a username to threaded comments (where you can actually reply to a specific comment, and thereby follow a discussion thread). The new place is already set up, but we need to do some customization work before we throw the doors open. If anyone reading this has experience customizing WordPress themes, or wants to offer any other technical assistance, send an email to my last name at gmail and we can get going.



• Wired Magazine thinks NIMBYs won't be a problem in getting HSR built. I certainly hope they are right, and that the political backing behind the project, its self-evident benefits, and broad public support are enough to overcome the very, very small group of people who think their own personal version of urban aesthetics trumps all other social, economic, and environmental needs.

HSR on the Radio in SF Tonight

Tonight at 7PM on KALW 91.7 in San Francisco, City Visions will cover the high speed rail debate. As described in the announcement:

The vision of a high-speed rail link between Northern and Southern California is exciting, with fast, modern trains zipping people between San Francisco and Los Angeles in just over two hours. But controversy over route, ridership and cash is following the project. The state, with little money to spend on infrastructure, has just applied for massive federal funding. But some still call the project a fantasy for the well-off that shouldn’t take priority over more basic rail solutions.

Join host Lauren Melzter as she talks with:
-Samer Madanat, Director, Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley
-Brian Stanke, Director of Californians for High-Speed Rail
-Richard Tolmach, President of the California Rail Foundation

Brian Stanke will be carrying the HSR torch for us tonight. As you all probably know, Richard Tolmach is a leading HSR denier and will be using the show to disseminate his misleading statements about the project.

You can see some of his claims in the most recent issue of Cal Rail News, which he edits. Pages 5 and 6 are full of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) about HSR "invading neighborhoods" and claiming, against the evidence, that the trains will run at 200mph through "cities."

Perhaps it might be useful in advance of the show to help debunk Tolmach's claims in the comments?

If you want to participate in the show, the call-in number is (415) 841-4134, or you can email the show: feedback@cityvisionsradio.com.

Spain's Transport Minister Makes Progressive Case for HSR

Although most Americans who know anything about high speed rail associate the trains primarily with France and Japan, it is Spain that has had some of the most dramatic success with high speed rail this decade. The AVE (Alta Velocidad Española) trains have attracted significant numbers of riders in a nation whose geography and population densities are quite similar to California, and operating profits from the existing lines have been plowed back into expansions of the system.

But there are bigger picture reasons to embrace HSR, as Spain's Minister of Transportation José Blanco López explains:

Someone could think that we, the political representatives in charge of looking after the public interests by assessing the opportunity costs of each choice, would be tempted to follow the easy path on those crucial crossroads. But this is not the case.

Maybe Spain, with the socialist party at the head of successive governments, is the best example of how a mindful combination of courageous decisions on difficult times, the power of a cabinet lead by egalitarian principles and the supportive effort of the taxpayers, can lead a country to new heights of economical and social progress.

Our high speed rail network reaches now several edges of the Iberian Peninsula, and connects some of the most important cities of Spain with the most sustainable transport mode and in a fast, safe and clean way: Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga, Seville and Valencia at the end of 2010. Its next objectives will be Galicia, the north coast, Portugal and France.

The effort under way is so big that, by 2012, Spain’s HS network will be the longest one in service in Europe. And only eight years later, by 2020, another historic landmark will be achieved when more than 90% of the country’s total population will have a HS train station at less than 31 miles away.

Sure, López is selling the PSOE as a good steward of a tough economy, but he raises the key points in how we consider high speed rail. HSR opponents have not offered any explanation of how they will grow the economy and provide economic recovery to the people of California. Whereas we who support HSR have history on our side. We built the Golden Gate and SF-Oakland Bay bridges during the Depression. We built Boulder and Shasta Dams. We built the Central Valley Project and countless other key pieces of infrastructure during the worst economic downturn in history. That spending, far from hurting the economy or making the Depression worse, provided job growth in the short-term and provides jobs and savings to this very day.

López explains that in Spain they too have had to battle conservative Hooverites who opposed AVE expansion:

Spanish conservatives even raised doubts and sowed distrust about a high speed system which finally yielded priceless benefits to the whole society.

’Boondoggle‘, ’Loss-making whim‘, ‘Monument to bad territorial planning’… Shielded behind overly simple, short sighted cost-benefit analysis, critics complained with those arguments against high speed projects over years, until the success of each one of the new corridors proved them wrong and showed that in troubled economic times, the best investments for a society are the ones which improve equality. Today, like we did over the last 20 years, we have to express our conviction in a brilliant future for high speed rail in Spain, with the extension of the network to each edge of the country, building a multi-node web in which each city is a centre. A network which draws territories together and grants equal opportunities to each citizen, no matter where he lives. A network which ties us strongly to Europe.

Now more than ever, we have to look towards the future and we shouldn’t slow down our pace, because each new high speed line carried out will be at the same time a retaining wall against the economic crisis and a lever to get the society ready for the incoming recovery.

López's article is produced in conjunction with this week's Labour Party conference in Britain, where the current British governing party is hoping to use high speed rail as part of its strategy to stave off electoral catastrophe in the spring 2010 election. Julian Glover, writing in the Guardian, makes the case:

High-speed rail can be justified as green if we sort out non-fossil fuel electric power, but the case is really as much social and economic. The unspoken aim of British politics is to make all of Britain middle class, and the middle classes travel – and will do so more and more. It's best if they go by train. Faster journeys are a bonus; the gains are as much about reliability and capacity – good links between Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, as well as to London.

Transport routes north from the capital are full, or soon will be. England's great cities cannot enrich themselves in isolation and the harder it is to get between them, the poorer they will be. Rail investment is a progressive cause, if we don't want to see London as a sort of Singapore, a first world island isolated from – and perhaps one day refusing to fund – an impoverished hinterland.

We can say the same for California. High speed rail is essential to providing economic growth and prosperity to California in the 21st century. Driving and flying aren't going to be affordable for much longer, as the great gas price spike of 2008 showed. Since most jobs are going to be created in the urban centers, those who don't have the ability to live there, and other regions of the state, will be locked out of prosperity.

Those who oppose HSR are those who believe that the economic system of the latter half of the 20th century will persist forever, with a transportation system that hasn't evolved past 1985. They offer no arguments for how we will solve the gridlock on the freeways and the airports that would come with population growth, except presumably to spend twice as much money expanding those instead of building HSR. They offer no arguments for how we will wean California off of carbon emissions, to which transportation is a key contributor. They offer no real arguments at all about how California will generate jobs and economic opportunity - they just assume it will materialize out of thin air.

For the rest of us who have to live in the real world, we cannot put blind faith into a magical economic recovery based on a 20th century model whose failure has produced the present crisis. There is no reason for us to sit on our hands and refuse to follow the proven, successful model laid out by nations such as France and Spain, which have used high speed trains to provide sustainable economic growth and to try and battle a global recession.

And of course, Californians have already decided to reject the "lower your horizons and suffer" model being offered by HSR deniers. Californians knew what they were doing when they voted to build a high speed rail system in their state, and knew what they were doing when they voted to put Barack Obama in the White House, a president who understands the value of HSR and plans to fund it.

Still, we need to constantly remind ourselves and our fellow Californians of why we did that in November 2008, especially as the HSR deniers and those who would put small, parochial concerns over the needs of the state as a whole try and block HSR from getting built.

Thoughts on the Palo Alto Teach-In

Yesterday's "teach-in" hosted by the Peninsula Cities Consortium in Palo Alto was a rather interesting - and useful - event. I had to leave right after lunch, so my comments are only going to be focused on the two opening speeches and the first panel. I hope and expect folks will offer their own review of the day, including the afternoon "open space" session, down in the comments.

My comments are divided in two segments: first, some thoughts on the specific presentations and panels I saw, and then an assessment of where things stand on the Peninsula.

Yoriko Kishimoto, Palo Alto city councilmember and one of the lead organizers of the "teach-in," helped put together a very good meeting and should be credited for helping make it happen. In her opening remarks she said that the day's events were to proceed from the assumption that HSR was going to happen on the Peninsula, and the best thing to do was to come together to determine how best it should be implemented.

The first speaker was Gary Patton, former Santa Cruz County supervisor and counsel to the Planning and Conservation League. He proceeded to almost completely blow Kishimoto's constructive opening statement out of the water with an exhortation to the audience to ignore the will of the voters in passing Prop 1A. Patton's argument is that any project can be stopped. He isn't wrong about that, but the idea that we should reject the voters' will runs counter to his calls for democracy and engagement with the planning process.

Patton claimed that voters didn't approve "high speed rail" but merely authorized $10 billion in bonds. Which flies in the face of the fact that Californians voted for that money precisely because they liked the idea of a high speed train following the route the CHSRA laid out. Patton's assumption is that if Palo Alto residents don't want the train, they can organize and pressure their legislators to stop it. But that doesn't deal with the fact that anti-HSR folks aren't the only ones engaged in the public, democratic process, or that 6 million Californians voted to support that train and probably aren't going to be moved by the complaints of a few.

After trying to redefine what voters did last November, Patton went on to repeat virtually every single HSR denier claim, including attacks on ridership projections, cost overruns, and even repeating the "Berlin Wall" claim. Patton even went so far as to compare HSR to offshore drilling.

Patton seems to be of the school that contends any new development that might induce growth is bad and therefore must be stopped. He claimed that Santa Cruz County's changing growth patterns were somehow a success to be emulated, and even cited his role in defeating a Rod Diridon-supported train from San Jose to Santa Cruz. But those aren't exactly arguments in his favor. Instead of allowing more density in Santa Cruz, which suffers from a severe housing shortage and sky-high prices, development was channeled to Watsonville instead. As a result, Santa Cruz County is almost impossible to get around as Highway 1 is hopelessly jammed. The county is desperately trying to get passenger rail service up and running to deal with the transportation crisis. Patton's model for Santa Cruz County has been a failure for everyone except those who have owned homes in Santa Cruz and still have enough work or income or wealth to survive the downturn and the traffic-choked, unaffordable mess Santa Cruz County has become.

No coincidence then that Patton was in Palo Alto bringing the same message to locals. Patton seems to believe that an eternal 1970s can and should be maintained. But what of the consequences? What of global warming? Economic growth? Mass transportation? The future of Caltrain? None of these were mentioned by Patton.

He also mentioned the Atherton v. CHSRA lawsuit and decision, but wasn't honest with the audience about it. He didn't mention the fact that the judge upheld every aspect of the Pacheco choice, and the only thing about the EIR not upheld was the Union Pacific ROW issue between San José and Gilroy, an issue that would exist along the Altamont alignment as well.

Patton's presence, along with Richard Tolmach's presentation later in the morning, undermined Kishimoto's goal of working within the framework of assuming HSR on the Peninsula would happen. Both Patton and Tolmach clearly have not accepted the decision of the voters to build this train, both want to undermine the basic elements of the project, and both prefer to fight HSR itself rather than find the right way to build it on the Peninsula.

I understand the desire of the event planners to have all views represented. But if the goal is to figure out how to build HSR on the Peninsula in a way that residents can live with, having people like Patton and Tolmach arguing against HSR itself is not useful to achieving that goal.

After Patton came Bob Doty, who was a breath of fresh air - not just for the room but for the Caltrain/HSR project itself. He fundamentally understands what needs to be done and how to achieve it. He recognizes that the whole country is watching California HSR. If we get it right, and build it right, we're going to make HSR possible around the country. But if we screw it up, and can't get it built, it's hard to see how HSR is going to get very far elsewhere in the country.

Doty once again showed he is the right person to speak to the Peninsula on this project. He gives clear and direct answers to questions, even when the answer is "I don't know." Doty explained that the best way to get this project built on-time and on-budget is to get the early planning done the right way at the outset - to invest time and money into finalizing all the details, and then sticking to that plan once it has been agreed.

Doty also earned the trust of many in the room, if not all the hardcore anti-HSR folks, when he said that BART to SFO was a "bad project" that "screwed the Peninsula." That was an important point to acknowledge, given the bad taste the project left in many mouths, and given Quentin Kopp's role in the HSR project.

Another key point Doty made, one that keeps getting overlooked on the Peninsula, is that HSR is necessary to Caltrain's survival. Caltrain needs to electrify in order to survive. That's the only way they can accommodate future ridership growth, the only way they can manage operating costs, the only way they can have financial survival with a 75% farebox recovery rate (Doty's prediction).

As the Peninsula continues to discuss the implementation of HSR, Doty is going to play a key and quite valuable role in helping shepherd this to completion in a fair and sensible way.

The morning panel was interesting and quite useful, aside from Tolmach. I wanted to single out Greg Greenway, representing the Peninsula Freight Rail Users Group, who made some important points that need to be kept in mind. Freight rail is just as much a part of our transportation future as is passenger rail. PFRUG supports HSR, but wants to make sure it protects existing freight rail capacity. Greenway mentioned three specific concerns: operating hours, height of overhead wires, and the South San Francisco yard. It is definitely essential to preserve freight rail, and Caltrain/HSR appear determined to do exactly that. Let's hope others on the Peninsula agree and don't support proposals that would limit the effectiveness of freight rail.

Now, on to the broader assessment of where things stand. I believe there are basically two conversations happening on the Peninsula: first, whether or not HSR should even happen on the Peninsula; and second, how it should be implemented.

The first conversation is going to continue no matter what, but it is not useful or productive at this point. The voters have spoken, the route has been selected, and billions of dollars have been or are about to be committed. While Gary Patton is right that none of this is irreversible, there is no reason to turn back now. HSR is good for California and good for the Peninsula. Caltrain cannot survive without it. So I don't see how it does any good for folks on the Peninsula to continue debating whether or not HSR should happen.

The second conversation is very productive, useful, and necessary. I have always supported that conversation, so long as it happens within the framework that Kishimoto laid out at the meeting's outset - an assumption that HSR is going to happen on the Peninsula.

I think for that conversation to be successful, a few things need to be done. First, the public needs to be given a realistic assessment of project scope and limitations. What are some of the financial guidelines? What are some of the legal guidelines? What are some of the practical guidelines? For example, Kishimoto's statement ought to be clarified: HSR is going to happen on the Caltrain ROW. The silly and unworkable notion of building it on I-280 or US-101 needs to be abandoned. But it would also help if there was some sense, for example, of what locals are willing to offer in terms of funding in order to build a tunnel. Residents cannot assume that someone else will pay for a tunnel. Like Berkeley BART, most of that cost will have to be paid for by the locals themselves. If they want a tunnel, it is reasonable to expect them to pay for it, especially if a tunnel is more expensive than above-grade tracks.

Second, future events should probably not include folks who are pushing an anti-HSR agenda. If Palo Alto, for example, truly wants to find a workable solution to the question of how to build the Caltrain/HSR project, then there's really no point to having Gary Patton and Richard Tolmach there.

Third, the rest of the Peninsula needs to be given a greater role. As Bianca noted, Burlingame and Belmont seem to the ugly stepchildren of the Peninsula Cities Consortium - their issues and needs didn't really come up much at the part of the meeting I attended. Sure, the location of the meeting in Palo Alto probably helped explain that bias, but it speaks to a need to think of this project regionally. Residents and elected leaders in other cities are much more supportive of HSR, including Redwood City and Mountain View.

Finally, I think we need to get a better understanding of the different viewpoints out there. A lot of people on the Peninsula want HSR to happen - after all, Prop 1A did get a 67% yes vote in San Mateo County. Their views don't seem to be represented well at these kinds of meetings. There is a small number of NIMBYs who are absolutely opposed to this project, and then there's a grab bag of people in the middle, who aren't opposed to HSR but have concerns about how it will be built. That group is being influenced by the NIMBYs, who have been very effective at getting out their talking points, many of which are misstatements or just flat out lies.

The CHSRA hasn't been able to counter that, primarily due to a lack of funding. This "teach-in" would have been perfect for the summer of 2007 or even 2008. But the CHSRA was fighting for its financial life during those years, as Arnold Schwarzenegger at one point (spring 2007) proposed cutting the CHSRA's budget almost to zero. They'd asked for about $130 million, and ultimately received about $50 million, which itself got delayed by the Legislature's inability to agree to a budget. That didn't help the HSR project get off on the right foot on the Peninsula, and it enabled some mistrust and misstatements to take hold. Much of what is being done now, both on the part of the CHSRA and the locals, is making up for lost time.

And I think that yesterday's teach-in helped push that in the right direction. The NIMBYs and HSR deniers aside, I felt that there is a workable coalition for moving forward on the design process over the next 18-24 months on the Peninsula. Locals need to lay out their preferences and priorities, and project planners need to lay out their own needs, their own priorities, and most importantly, what the limitations are on this project.

If there is a genuine commitment to building HSR the right way - and I felt that many in the room shared that commitment - then this project will bring the benefits to the Peninsula, and improve the quality of life, that it ought to be producing.

I hope others who attended will give their thoughts in the comments. It was good to see you all there yesterday, to those I missed, my apologies. I wished I could have stayed all day.

Finally, thanks to Steve Emslie, Yoriko Kishimoto, Sara Anderson, Nadia Naik, and everyone else who helped make the teach-in happen. It was exactly what the Peninsula needs, and I look forward to participating in future meetings.

More Pushback on Major Media HSR Denial

For much of the last week we've been consumed with the news coming out of the Bay Area, from the Menlo Park Town Hall to the Atherton v. CHSRA decision (which both occurred on Wednesday, making that one of the more HSR-heavy days I've had lately). But I wanted to pause for a moment to bring readers' attention to some of the excellent takedowns of the HSR denial we've been seeing in the Washington Post and the New York Times lately, particularly two articles that I'd intended to write about but got sidetracked with the Great Peninsula Debate.

• Over at the Infrastructurist Yonah Freemark offered a thorough, numbers-based refutation of Ed Glaeser's four-part exercise in HSR denial in the NYT's Economix Blog. Freemark's numbers-based assessment shows, as he writes, "In this more comprehensive model that takes into account trivialities like regional population growth and a reality-based route, the annual benefits total $840 million compared with construction and maintenance costs of $810 million. Which is to say, our numbers show that HSR pays for itself rather handily. And this would be early in the lifecycle of the system, with those benefits likely to grow in future decades."
  
  As one of the core problems with Glaeser's faulty analysis was his decision to examine a hypothetical HSR line rather than an actual one, Freemark looks at the actual Texas T-Bone plan. By examining the actual context in which it would be built, he shows how HSR is going to provide benefits far outweighing the costs. But since the US economics field, from academia to the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post, is dominated by short-term and flawed concepts of costs and benefits. Freemark's full post is well worth the read.



• The St. Louis Urban Workshop has a great "re-mix" of Robert Samuelson's ridiculous screed, showing how the real transportation boondoggle are the interstate highways that continue to get gobs of federal funding despite bringing diminishing value to the country.

Media News Group Launches Another Anti-HSR Editorial Attack

One of the most reliably anti-HSR voices in the state is the Media News Group, publisher of several major newspapers (including the San Jose Mercury News). During the 2008 campaign they were among the most die-hard HSR deniers. Now that a judge has issued a mixed decision in the Atherton v. CHSRA lawsuit, MNG is taking advantage of the situation to yet again try and kill high speed rail:

OFTEN THERE IS a wide gap separating a concept from reality. Such is the case with California's high-speed rail project. Conceptually, fast, comfortable, fuel-efficient, intercity, passenger rail transportation makes a lot of sense as fuel prices rise and reductions in carbon dioxide emissions are mandated.

However, there are a number of inconvenient realities that come between California's dream of high-speed rail service and actually constructing it.

The latest roadblock is a court ruling that the High Speed Rail Authority's environmental impact report is "inadequate." The court's conclusion is hardly surprising considering that the EIR failed to address Union Pacific's decision not to allow the trains to run along its tracks from Gilroy to San Jose.

It never ceases to amaze me how usual standards of journalistic practice, such as they are, don't apply at all to the editorial page. The judge most assuredly did NOT rule that the EIR as a whole was "inadequate." He ruled that three specific parts of it were inadequate, but that the overwhelming majority of the contested portions were perfectly adequate, including the basic elements of the choice of the Pacheco Pass over the Altamont Pass for the HSR route. This inconvenient truth doesn't stop the MNG editorialists from plowing ahead with further bits of disinformation:

When the high-speed rail project was first proposed, supporters assumed it would use the Union Pacific's tracks. Without Union Pacific's right of way, an alternate route would have to be considered, affecting the Monterey Highway or requiring the taking of additional private property.

The ignorance here is astounding. UP's tracks were NEVER going to be used, at least not in any plans I've seen over the last two years. I can't speak for the CHSRA, but this HSR supporter never expected to use UP's ROW either. Ever since I became familiar with the situation in May 2008, I understood the plan was to use land next to UP's ROW, but not the ROW itself. Additional private property may have to be taken, but as southern Santa Clara County region is much less built up than the Peninsula, this should not require much if any loss of housing.

As a result of the court's ruling, the rail project is likely to be considerably delayed as a new EIR is written and the additional time and costs of buying land or battling Union Pacific in court are considered.

This is blind speculation almost entirely lacking in evidence. We have no indication what remedy the judge will order. A new EIR does not seem likely, and although it is a possibility, MNG has no basis whatsoever to assume it is a definite outcome. The time and cost of dealing with UP is certainly a consideration, but as I explained yesterday federal assistance can expedite this process.

Alternate routes, such as one over the Altamont Pass, which some rail advocates favor, are even more costly and also would require a new EIR.

Well, at least they got that one right. Altamont is dead. Will groups like the Planning and Conservation League finally accept that reality and devote their efforts to actually supporting HSR?

Voters approved a $9.95 billion rail bond measure last November. The rest of the money is supposed to come from the federal government and investors. Delays can only increase the costs and discourage investors.

But that is hardly the only problem with the high-speed rail project. The business plan is inadequate. There is no accurate estimate of ridership, fares, operational costs and investor interest. Also, the $40 billion cost estimate is dubious.

I see MNG decided to rehash a bunch of the old discredited HSR denier nonsense for good measure. I suppose this means that once we've discredited this editorial we can expect its claims to keep reappearing in MNG editorials for years to come?

With so many other greater capital project needs such as fixing the Delta, highway repair and school renovations that require large amounts of funding, California should sidetrack its highly questionable high-speed rail project.

This is the new line of attack against HSR, and we heard it in Menlo Park last week: that HSR isn't worth the money given all the other priorities.

The fact is we need to and can do all of these things. HSR is necessary to this state's future. To sacrifice it because we're too cheap to find money to pay for our other priorities would have been like refusing to build the Golden Gate Bridge during the Depression. That move, funded by local bonds issued in the depth of the Depression, worked out pretty damn well for California. So too will HSR. MNG will never admit it, and that's fine. We didn't need them in the campaign to pass Prop 1A, and we don't need them in the campaign to ensure that the will of the voters is respected and the HSR project built.

Thoughts from the Menlo Park Town Hall

First off, it was a pleasure to meet so many of you in person last night at the Menlo Park town hall event. For those of you who were there and who I didn't get to talk to, my apologies, I'm sure we'll reconnect at the Palo Alto HSR "teach-in" on September 12. I even got to say hello to Morris Brown and Martin Engel, and they were cordial and friendly to me as I was to them. It's not about personal attacks to me - I think they're wrong on pretty much everything to do with HSR, but that doesn't make them bad people.

I also don't know how I would have gotten through the whole meeting without being able to let off steam by making snarky comments about stupid questions to Bianca, especially since my iPhone died with about 20 minutes left in the evening (if you were following the twitter feed and noticed that the tweets didn't go to 9pm, that's why. Don't worry, you didn't miss anything important).

Overall Anna Eshoo deserves credit for hosting this event, and for bringing together folks from Caltrain and the CHSRA to talk about the high speed rail plans. Eshoo ran a good event - folks submitted questions or comments on cards, and Eshoo worked her way through an impressive amount of the hundreds of cards submitted. She promises that either her staff, Caltrain or the CHSRA will respond to each and every card that didn't get answered in person.

Eshoo also did a good job of pushing the panelists to answer the questions that were asked as directly as possible. That was necessary to help build some trust between the audience and the panel, although as I'll explain, that was an uphill battle from the start, as many in the audience had already made up their minds about the CHSRA.

Unfortunately, Eshoo's skills as a moderator did not outweigh her overall lack of familiarity with the project. Eshoo is a Menlo Park homeowner who lives very close to the tracks - "few people live closer to the tracks than I do," she explained several times during the evening. At times her perspective seemed to be that of a typical local - she said "I want less noise, I don't want a 40 foot wall, I don't want to lose my home." Of course, she should have known that there would be less noise, that a 40-foot wall was highly unlikely, and that she wouldn't lose her home. Caltrain and CHSRA officials made those points repeatedly during the night, but I am not quite sure Eshoo understood those points.

I get the sense Eshoo called this meeting in response to numerous constituent complaints about the project, because Eshoo did not show she really understood the HSR project in any detail. One of the evening's most stunning moments came when she realized that the CHSRA already made the decision about the route for the trains before Prop 1A was approved. Eshoo seemed to have it in her head that the whole route itself was still up for grabs, and not just the details of its implementation.

Further, she seemed to be dismayed that Prop 1A included a detailed routing based on the Final statewide EIR. Which is equally stunning to me. Did she expect people to vote for vaporware? To give $9 billion to a project that had no details nailed down?

Eshoo's apparent surprise that a route had been selected before Prop 1A went to voters, and her claims that she didn't know about it, really do not make her look very good. As a sitting Congresswoman she should have known these things. The route debate got widespread media coverage last year, including on the Peninsula. For her to miss that rather key detail suggests she wasn't really paying close attention to what goes on in her district.

And as it turns out, Eshoo did know of these key details - at least she did as of August 2007, when she signed the following letter to the CHSRA, alongside other Bay Area Congressional representatives including Zoe Lofgren, Tom Lantos, Mike Honda and my own rep, Sam Farr:

Title: Letter to Mehdi Morshed, Executive Director, California High Speed Rail Authority
Date: 08/24/2007
Location: Washington, DC
Letter to Mehdi Morshed, Executive Director, California High Speed Rail Authority

Five California Members Sign Letter Calling for Pacheco Pass Route

Washington, D.C. - Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), joined with Representatives Anna Eshoo (D-Palo Alto), Sam Farr (D-Monterey), Mike Honda (D-Campbell), and Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo) in signing a letter strongly endorsing the Pacheco Pass route for California's High Speed Rail Project.

The complete text of the letter is below:

Mehdi Morshed
Executive Director
California High Speed Rail Authority
925 L St., Ste. 1425
Sacramento, CA 95814

Dear Mr. Morshed,

We are writing to express our strong support of California's High Speed Rail Project. We believe that the project will transform the state's transportation network into a much safer system that will serve our growing population for this century and the next in a way that can boost our economy while protecting our environment.

We recently reviewed the Northern Mountain Crossing Corridor Study you released concerning different possible routes from the Bay Area to the Central Valley. We all agree that the High Speed Train network should serve all three major cities: San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. However, upon reviewing the document it is clear that the Pacheco Pass alternative provides a better level of service with a greater number of trains stopping in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose on a daily basis. The Pacheco Pass route is also the least damaging to our region's natural resources.

In order to connect the Bay Area to the Central Valley using an alternative option, the Altamont Pass, would require building a new high level bridge over the San Francisco Bay. The Altamont Pass option would also require construction through the Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge with additional impacts on the San Francisco Bay and Palo Alto shore of the Bay. This alone is a good enough reason in our opinion to reject the Altamont Pass outright. The impact the Altamont Pass would have on the environment could well make us rethink our support of any federal funding for the project.

We believe there is sufficient and compelling data to determine that the Pacheco Pass is the best option for the High Speed Train to serve the Bay Area. We thank you for your consideration and will continue to follow the issue closely.

Sincerely,

Zoe Lofgren
Michael Honda
Anna Eshoo
Sam Farr
Tom Lantos

So I don't know what Eshoo is talking about when she expressed surprise about the routing choices. True, Eshoo did not come off last night as a pro-Altamont person. Instead she came off as someone who really didn't understand some of the key project details. I hope she had some private meetings with Caltrain and CHSRA staff before the town hall, and that the town hall wasn't her first encounter with some of these issues.

Eshoo did have some other very good points, including the need for the CHSRA to improve its outreach. But if I'm a Peninsula resident, I'd be somewhat annoyed and troubled that my Congressional rep gave off an impression that she hadn't been paying attention to the details 10-year long development of a project that would bring significant change (for the better) to my region.

Two of the panelists were Caltrain staff - executive director Mike Scanlon and project advisor Bob Doty. Both of them were very, very impressive. Scanlon showed he clearly understands the need for the project as well as the locals' concerns. He emphasized that this is about survival for Caltrain, and that without electrification, Caltrain may not be able to continue operations. Caltrain needs partners to do the electrification, which will dramatically cut their costs. The state of California is no longer able to be that partner. So Caltrain needs CHSRA and its federal funding.

I don't quite think the Peninsula NIMBYs understood this point (and they would probably refuse to accept it even if they did). Their vehement opposition to the HSR project could well destroy Caltrain. These towns are already choked with traffic as it is, including Menlo Park. They desperately need Caltrain to not only stay, but to improve.

Bob Doty was another very impressive speaker. He has project management experience on HSR projects around the world, from the Channel Tunnel to Korea. Like Scanlon he was able to give quick and direct answers to questions, connecting with the audience even when the audience didn't want to hear what he had to say. Doty reminded the audience that tunneling is an extremely complex and difficult undertaking, that the decision to do it is not nearly as simply as the NIMBYs have made it out to be.

I would love for Doty to wind up with a major position at the CHSRA. He has the expertise and the credibility to help provide the kind of leadership that the project needs. UPDATE: According to Clem, Doty is already working for the CHSRA:

Bob Doty is already working for the CHSRA. He reports 50% to Mike Scanlon (Caltrain) and 50% to Mehdi Morshed (HSR), in a dual-reporting arrangement initiated by the MOU between the two agencies.

Wonderful news. Back to the original post...

Mehdi Morshed and Dominic Spaethling represented the CHSRA. Spaethling didn't get many occasions to add comments, though he did a good job of explaining the upcoming public interaction process.

Morshed was on the hot seat most of the night. His performance was mixed. It's worth keeping in mind that Morshed is not a public speaker by training - he's a project engineer. Morshed acknowledged that he's been getting some help on public outreach, and he did his best to answer questions directly. Most of the time he did this well, even if his more determined opponents in the audience refused to accept his answers.

One example is a question a self-described Palo Alto NIMBY asked about the business plan. This question was highly misleading and was a clear attempt to sow disinformation. She asked whether the CHSRA was hiring a PR consultant to write the new business plan. Her implication was that the business plan would be a dishonest product full of spin and devoid of fact.

But as Morshed explained, that's not actually the case. The Authority is hiring a PR firm to design the final publication of the business plan - the typesetting, the pictures, the printing. NONE of the content will be produced by the PR team - that comes from the financial and project contractors who rightly have the skills and knowledge to produce that information.

It's not at all unusual for that arrangement to exist, whether it's a private or a public sector business plan in question. You want someone who knows PR to ensure that the plan is readable. The only reason anyone would make an issue out of this is if you wanted to undermine the public's confidence in the CHSRA.

Morshed did less well when asked about the tunnel. He tried to reassure people that it would be given a fair hearing, but he may have gone too far in that by saying that tunnel costs "would be the last thing considered" when looking at a tunnel. Obviously it needs to be as much a factor in the choice as anything else - the CHSRA needs to ensure that it is going to build a cost-effective system. I understand Morshed's dilemma here, but the CHSRA needs to make it clear to Peninsula residents that unless they are planning to pay for the tunnel themselves, it is not appropriate for the CHSRA to be reckless with public funds.

Overall, I don't think the town hall changed any minds. These things rarely do. Especially when there is a loud group of people who have already decided to believe that numerous myths are actually facts - and that if you point out that they aren't facts, the person who believed it will become indignant at the person doing the debunking.

In that way the HSR debate resembles the health care debate in many ways. Just as "death panels" and "socialized medicine" started to dominate the conversation around health care despite there not being any evidence to support those claims, we now have arguments about a "Berlin Wall" and people convinced that numerous houses will be lost even though a cursory glance at the ROW shows that takings will be very, very, very few in number (especially in the Atherton-Menlo Park-Palo Alto area).

What the town hall also showed is how difficult it has become to focus on the big picture. To their credit, Eshoo and Scanlon both pointed to the need for sustainable mass transportation, and Scanlon in particular understood that the 20th century model of transportation, relying on freeways, was no longer viable. The Peninsula was built on the railroad. It's time to give that railroad an upgrade.

The Peninsula needs political leadership that is determined to build HSR, and determined to build it right. My question of the night was oriented toward that very matter. I wanted to hear that those in attendance, Eshoo in particular, would see to it that critics of the HSR project would not be allowed to overturn the will of the voters, that HSR would be built in a way that was cost effective. Eshoo took issue with my claims about "HSR critics" and said that everyone in the room wanted HSR built, the question was instead about whether or not it should happen.

I don't think that is accurate. Judging from the questions Eshoo herself read, there were a lot of people who still questioned the basic premise of HSR. A clear statement that "this WILL be built and it will be built the right way" would have gone a long way toward pushing everyone toward constructive solutions. Instead I'll have to be content with Eshoo's claim that there are no HSR opponents. I'm going to hold her and the Peninsula to that claim. You too, Morris!

Palo Alto's DIY HSR Planning Effort

Palo Alto has decided it's time they did their own HSR planning:

Not trusting the California High Speed Rail Authority to look out for locals' best interests, Palo Alto will spend $70,000 to arm itself with expertise on high-speed rail design options.

The city council voted 7-0 on Monday to hire engineering consultants and hold an informational symposium and a separate design workshop on plans for the Peninsula portion of the planned Los Angeles-to-San Francisco rail line.

Many in Palo Alto and neighboring cities are pushing for the trains to run underground while fearing that the rail authority will instead run them above-ground to save money.

I'm with Rafael on this - I don't see an inherent problem here. If Palo Alto wants to spend $70,000 to learn that a tunnel is going to be extremely costly, or that sending trains down the 101 or 280 corridors is practically and financially unworkable, fine with me.

I'm also pleased to see that Palo Alto plans some public design workshop meetings:

The symposium will come first. On Sept. 12, the city will sponsor an all-day "teach-in" to educate the public on "urban design and planning concepts" related to railroad design. The $5,000 event may be funded partly by Caltrain, Deputy City Manager Steve Emslie said.

The city is hoping Caltrain will also chip in for a $15,000, two-day design workshop on Oct. 3-4. The charrette, open to the public, will include brainstorming sessions, briefings from design professionals and presentations of conceptual plans from "a team of national experts," according to a city staff report.

I'll post more details about the September 12 meeting as I get them. Ironically I was going to be in the area that day anyway, so I should be able to attend the "teach-in." I hope that Palo Alto plays it straight and offers a truly informative discussion of design and planning concepts. In fact, an honest discussion of urban design concepts would make it clear that urban passenger rail and transit-oriented development are essential to a high quality of life for a 21st century city.

The charrette, long discussed, should also be a very interesting and hopefully valuable event. More details on that one too as I get them.

Ultimately anything that increases public knowledge of HSR principles, design, and operation - so long as it's presented in an unbiased way - is an extremely valuable thing to do.

Better Modeling of the Above-Grade Peninsula Caltrain/HSR Project

One of the most unfortunate parts of the debate on the Caltrain/HSR project on the Peninsula is the lack of accurate information. NIMBYs and other project opponents have already convinced many people that an above-grade solution would be a sort of "Berlin Wall" through the city, and Jim McFall's video reinforces that errant conclusion. The problem is that McFall's video has been the only attempt to visualize what the corridor would look like with above-grade tracks.

Until now.

Mike, who brought us the point by point refutation of the notorious Cox-Vranich HSR denier report last year, is back to inject some sense and fact into the debate over HSR. He has put together a YouTube video of simulations of the Churchill Avenue crossing in Palo Alto - including the existing at-grade model, the proposed CHSRA above-grade solution, and the flawed McFall model. Mike added authentic sounds of the crossing - a recording of Caltrain crossing at-grade, and of the Acela. Here's the video:



You can see clearly that McFall's model is misleading on several counts. He has the dimensions all wrong - the structure is higher in McFall's model than is actually proposed, and the catenary poles are too densely packed together. More importantly, McFall's video doesn't include existing landscaping that would mitigate much of the visual impact of an above-grade solution. There are no trees in the McFall video, whereas Mike's video makes clear that trees are indeed part of the solution.

The results of misleading misinformation on the Caltrain/HSR project (such as the McFall video) could be seen in Atherton on Thursday night, where a crowd came to speak in favor of the city's avowed "tunnel or nothing" stance:

Duncan Jones, Atherton's public works director, laid out the town's case for both joining the lawsuit and still participating in the high-speed rail planning process. "We need to hedge our bets," he said.

Mr. Jones, a former rail consultant, said that the town's fallback position -- if the route doesn't change, put the high-speed trains in a tunnel, rather than on a raised berm -- isn't as far-fetched as it sounds.

The rail corridor in Atherton is lined by expensive homes, and widening it to accommodate high-speed rail would require purchasing swaths of private property.

"When (the authority) looks at all of the costs and impacts, they may find out that going underground may be cheaper," Mr. Jones said.

Jones's comments are barely credible. I cannot imagine that buying a few strips of backyard will cost a billion dollars - which would be the minimum estimate for tunneling through Atherton, even with a cut and cover model. The San Jose Mercury News article on the meeting noted that Hatch Mott MacDonald executives estimated a tunnel through Atherton would cost:

A tunnel on the Peninsula would likely follow the same model as the San Jose BART extension, Townsend said, because both areas have soft ground. A high-speed rail tunnel would likely cost somewhere between $100 million to $250 million per mile, compared to less than $100 million for an at-grade system, he said.

I have a difficult time imagining that the cost of eminent domain for a few backyards would be $100 million. I am also skeptical of the lowball cost of an HSR tunnel that Townsend offered, but even if these estimates are accurate, it represents a doubling of the cost of building on the Peninsula.

Such is the fact-free nature of the debate on the Peninsula, unfortunately. Let's hope Mike's more accurate animation gets spread far and wide, and that people on the Peninsula can actually make informed choices about the Caltrain/HSR project.

Review of Yesterday's FRA Meeting in Sacramento

Thanks to Matt Melzer for attending and compiling these notes (with help from Ryan Stern) from yesterday's FRA meeting in Sacramento on high speed rail. Lots to chew over here! -Robert

Besides presentations from the feds, there was one from Amtrak's VP Policy and Development, Stephen Gardner, who emphasized that Amtrak wants to be THE national HSR operator. He also said that expanding state partnerships is "Amtrak's future."

Will Kempton, Mehdi Morshed, and Bill Bronte acted as the regional presenters, making the public case for California to receive stimulus funds based on the obvious success and maturity of California's passenger rail programs. Their PowerPoint also had nice maps showing CAHSR integrated with each existing Amtrak California corridor, as well as all three. Yet, there was no illustration of long-distance routes, regional rail systems, or Thruway motorcoach connections. So the visualization severely minimized the true reach of the state passenger rail network.

The Surfliner route north of LA looked like an errant finger, with San Luis Obispo positively orphaned. This, of course, has no relation to reality, with the existing Thruway connections to Hanford and the Bay Area, as well as the Coast Starlight and the future Coast Daylight. It's this lack of emphasis on statewide connections on the part of the HSRA that leads to situations like Pete Rodgers of SLOCOG opposing Prop 1A supposedly because he didn't think there was anything in it for SLO. Even if the $950 million for feeder rail and transit improvements didn't exist, he'd still be wrong.

After their presentation giving an overview of the federal HSR Strategic Plan and Next Steps (to which I'll refer readers to previous posts regarding details), Karen Rae (FRA Deputy Administrator), Paul Nissenbaum (FRA Director, Office of Passenger and Freight Programs) and Gardner engaged in Q&A. Some of the juicier questions:

Representative of LA County MTA: With the billions of dollars LA County voters approved for new transit projects in Measure R, why can't MTA use future HSR connectivity benefits as part of cost-effectiveness calculations for FTA New Starts applications? Why aren't FTA's criteria more holistic?

Rae: "We've talked more with FTA in the past 6 months than [we probably did] in the past 15 years." FRA and FTA are aware of such issues and will discuss them more moving forward.

Jason Lee, San Francisco MTA: With so much focus on cost, won't HSR grant applicants cut corners and shy away from key projects like the $1 billion Transbay extension?

Rae: We're "struggling" with how to handle such megaprojects, of which there are many across all modes, that demand huge resources concentrated in very small project areas. Some of these issues could be addressed in the transportation reauthorization bill. Criteria for numerous federal transportation grant programs could conceivably evolve.

Representative of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers: Union Pacific is grappling with Positive Train Control, which system is best, and how to implement it. Shouldn't the feds lead the charge for one interconnected PTC system?

Rae: FRA and the Rail Safety Advisory Committee are working to support the federally-mandated effort for a national PTC standard. We hope that PTC will be as interoperable as other standard railroad equipment.

Gardner: Interoperability is in the law (S.294, the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act [PRIIA], the Amtrak/passenger rail reauthorization and rail safety bill that passed last year). Train control will be a critical issue as we develop corridors that exceed 79 mph.

IBEW Rep.: UP gave the impression that they didn't know about the interoperability requirement!

Paul Dyson, President, Rail Passenger Association of California and SW Division Leader, National Association of Railroad Passengers [Disclaimer: I, Matt, serve under Paul on the NARP Council]: There's a lot of talk of partnerships today. Look at the three providers of passenger rail in Southern California: Amtrak, Metrolink, and Coaster are crummy partners [along the Surfliner route], with passenger-unfriendly schedule coordination. Who's to say states like Arizona or Nevada would ever be willing to work with California as regional "partners" in HSR development, as FRA is encouraging states within regions to do?

Rae: "It is not an easy conversation." But there's nothing like competitive grants to provide an impetus for partnership. "There's not nearly enough money to go around," but best practices in multi-state compacts will emerge from this process.

Representative of Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen: Amtrak is mandated to be profitable; will HSR operations be?

Nissenbaum: Capital subsidies will be required, but it's the responsibility of applicants to account for operating expenses. Amtrak or other operators will seek assurances so that they're not exposed to any risk of operating losses.

Gardner: The profitability clause is gone from Amtrak's mission due to PRIIA, which did stipulate that Amtrak must still minimize the need for federal coverage of their operating losses. States must also cover the losses of any new services.

Rich Tolmach of California Rail Foundation (and plaintiff in the lawsuit seeking to invalidate CHSRA's EIR): Will the same FRA safety standards still apply to new high-speed equipment?

Nissenbaum: Absolutely, yes. We will need to create new standards for equipment that operates about 150 mph, since they don't currently exist.

Rae: FRA Administrator Joe Szabo isn't here today because he's touring European HSR equipment, seeing how they achieve both efficiency and safety.

Ryan Stern, State Representative, National Association of Railroad Passengers: Given the moribund state of the domestic passenger rail supply industry, how do we create an environment that allows for ongoing production of rolling stock, so that cars can be purchased quickly and affordably?

Gardner: This falls under the work of the PRIIA-mandated Next Generation Corridor Equipment Pool Committee [which is developing national standards for various types of passenger rail cars]. But we do have to live in the world we have now.

Rae: The White House is in active talks with our domestic industrial manufacturers to retool underutilized production capacity.

Matthew George, Caltrans: Do Amtrak's agreements with host railroads provide for HSR?

Gardner: They apply at any speed, hypothetically. But we'll work collaboratively with our partners and not just "show up" with high-speed passenger trains intermingling with slow freights.

George: How much can you rely on those agreements?

Nissenbaum: You can't; there must be operational agreements specific to each service. But "master agreements" can be a starting point.

Beverly Mason, AECOM: What is FRA's policy on adapting European and Asian HSR trains to domestic use?

Rae: "We will not compromise our safety record." But new technologies are being explored. Sealed HSR systems especially could support more exotic equipment.

Lastly, there was one hour of breakout groups to address the following three sets of questions, which we randomly called upon share with the whole audience at the end. At least a good 60 percent of attendees stayed for this, whereas crowds had apparently thinned considerably in other cities' workshops. Rae emphasized that FRA is taking all feedback seriously, since the entire national HSR effort is a nascent work-in-progress. The questions were:

1. What does success from a national perspective look like in 2 years, 5 years, and 10 years? How do we measure success?

2. What factors are critical for implementation of the program? What is the role of the federal government, states, and others?

3. What does your region need to succeed, in the short or long run?

All groups wrote their ideas on worksheets, which were ultimately collected. The FRA is expected to make the presentations given at the meeting available on the web "at some point in the future."

-Matt Melzer

"Context Sensitive Solutions?"

Back to the Peninsula this Saturday afternoon, where Palo Alto is working to find allies to demand a "tunnel or nothing" approach to HSR:

At the same time, city officials have been getting a plethora of free assistance from a group of city residents who, over the past few months, immersed themselves in rail-related issues. One of the group's leaders, Sara Armstrong, has been reaching out to neighborhoods both inside and outside Palo Alto to strengthen the citizen coalition. Residents Rita Wespi and Elizabeth Alexis have been tracking the web of rail-related bills passing through the state Capitol, while Nadia Naik has joined Councilwoman Yoriko Kishimoto in advocating a "context-sensitive solution" to the design of the new system.

We will be doing the same kind of work in tracking rail-related bills - if anyone wants to help, drop me an email (my last name at gmail).

But the part that really stood out to me, as you can tell by the title of the post, is Kishimoto's "context-sensitive solution." Just as with Redwood City and "stakeholders" how you actually define these terms matters a great deal. What is the "context" that Kishimoto describes? Is it a very narrow notion of context, including the 1/4 mile next to the Caltrain ROW? Or is it a holistic notion of context, including the community as a whole, the economic, environmental, and energy context? Do finances play a role? As the news this week shows, there isn't exactly a whole lot of money lying around to build a tunnel. Or are those things arbitrarily excluded from Kishimoto's notion of "context"?

The residents recently formed a new group -- Citizens Advocating Reasonable Rail Design -- which lobbies for more transparency for the $40 billion project and for the context-sensitive approach, which requires outreach to stakeholders before development of a transportation project and a focus on local context when designing the project.

So what looks to be the case here is "local context" which is probably defined as "whatever a small group of Palo Alto residents who bothered to organize the group want the HSR to look like." I would be pleasantly surprised if finances, job creation and ability of ALL residents to afford travel, impact on air quality and global warming, and on energy independence are included as part of the "local context." If those things are not included, then this "context-sensitive solution" will not be context-sensitive at all, and it certainly would not qualify as reasonable rail design.

Dominic Spaethling, project manager for the San Francisco-to-San Jose segment of the proposed line, said the rail authority and Caltrain are both sensitive to the concerns of the various communities. But he warned that cities could have different ideas for how to collaborate with the rail authority on design ideas.

"It's important to acknowledge the need for collaboration in design, but it's not a 'one size fits all' situation," Spaethling said. "Charrettes may be fine for Palo Alto, while other cities may have other approaches."

Which is a key point, since Palo Alto is trying to impose a solution on the CHSRA and Caltrain - and the whole of the state. And unfortunately, the city is still trying to undermine Caltrain service by demanding that the 101 corridor be studied:

On Monday, the City Council attempted to make this dialogue smoother by adopting a set of guiding principles for its newly established ad hoc committee. The committee, which includes Kishimoto and councilmen Pat Burt and John Barton, is authorized to speak on behalf of the full council on rail-related issues whenever the city's input is needed on short notice.

The principles proclaim the city's support for consideration of alternative alignments (other than the Caltrain right-of-way). They also call for a collaborative approach to urban design, more transparency in the design process and an economic study that would help determine which design alternatives are feasible.

Councilman Greg Schmid, who wanted the principles to explicitly state the city's concern about elevated trains, was the only council member who voted against adopting the principles (Barton and Vice Mayor Jack Morton were absent).

Hey Greg: if you're going to have a process where all implementations are fairly studied, you can't stack the deck by saying "we hate elevated trains." Of course, the rest of Palo Alto's work is merely an effort to stack the deck using more subtle means.

It's entirely possible that Kishimoto's efforts are well-intentioned and meant to get HSR built in a way that's acceptable to both Palo Alto and the state they are still a part of. But the way the efforts are set up and defined strike me as being too much of an effort to force CHSRA and Caltrain to accept a tunnel. And in the absence of a reasonable discussion of finances, it is difficult to take seriously those that demand a tunnel.

BNSF: HSR Funds Should Be Targeted

So says BNSF CEO Matthew K. Rose:

An estimated $13 billion in new federal money for high-speed passenger rail service should go to a single project that demonstrates its effectiveness, the top executive of freight railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (BNI) said Thursday.

"I'm concerned (the money) will be spread like peanut butter" nationwide and have little impact, said Chief Executive Matthew K. Rose, speaking to the Austin Economic Club, a local business group. "I'm afraid it'll be a missed opportunity."

The federal stimulus package includes $8 billion in seed money for development of high-speed passenger rail service, and U.S. President Barack Obama also has called for an additional $5 billion over the next five years.

Rose said Fort Worth-based Burlington Northern and other freight railroads likely won't see much benefit from the new federal money, aside from possible funding for small projects such as crossing upgrades, because high-speed rail lines require separate, dedicated corridors.

Hmm. "A single project that demonstrates its effectiveness" on "separate, dedicated corridors." Remind you of any state HSR project in particular?!

Rose isn't saying that HSR is a bad idea, far from it:

Still, he described himself as a supporter of efforts to improve the nation's transportation network overall. Rose recently served on a federal commission that examined U.S. transportation needs and potential funding sources.

He estimated Thursday that it could cost $1 trillion over the next 20 years to fully develop 10 to 15 high-speed rail corridors in the U.S.

Despite the daunting sum, "I really do think it's an investment our society ought to make," he said.

But he stressed that the $13 billion to get the effort off the ground won't make much of a dent unless it's targeted.

Separately, Rose noted in an interview after Thursday's event that he has seen little momentum for development of high-speed passenger rail in Texas, despite the new federal stimulus money.

I don't think any of us could imagine that the Obama Administration, which heavily targeted the Midwest for votes in 2008 and will surely do so again in 2012, would stiff them and give the whole pot of money to California, as Rose seems to imply here. But Rose is making a good point that $13 billion is a paltry sum when you get right down to it, and won't do a great deal to build HSR networks or improve freight rail (by moving passenger services onto different tracks).

I also wonder if Rose's comments are designed as a shot at the Texas HSR plan, which doesn't seem to have been making much forward momentum lately. Perhaps someone more familiar with Texas railroading can tell us whether that plays any role.

Still, it's nice to see that there is a major national freight railroad that does not actively hate passenger rail...

(thanks to Matt Melzer for pointing me to this article)

Keeping Perspective on HSR and State Budget

The failure of the budget propositions yesterday have led some to wonder how this will impact high speed rail. It's been discussed in the comments, and is mentioned in a George Will column. George Will has been on a kind of jihad against sustainable policy lately, with his silly attack on Portland and his dishonest misuse of data to undermine action on global warming. So it should be in that vein that we read this:

California’s voters are complicit in their state’s collapse.

They elect and re-elect the legislators off whom public employees unions batten. Also, voters have promiscuously used their state’s plebiscitary devices to control and fatten the budget. Last November, as the dark fiscal clouds lowered, they authorized $9.95 billion more in debt as a down payment on a perhaps $75 billion high-speed rail project linking San Francisco and Los Angeles — a delight California cannot afford.

As you can tell, facts and evidence no longer mean anything to Will - there is no basis for the claim that HSR will cost $75 billion. If "perhaps" is the only justification to toss out numbers, then I think HSR will "perhaps" cost $1.50. I mean, really. WTF.

Of course, Will's argument is deeper. He claims that HSR is unnecessary (a "delight") that we "can't afford" and its mere presence on the book as a partly-funded proposal is to him further sign of how California got into the crisis.

So, here we go again, with arguments that to me were decisively won by our side in 2008. I won't completely repeat myself - go read The Cost of Doing Nothing is Not Zero and Prop 1A and State Bond Debt for starters.

But, it is worth reminding ourselves of the key points:

• If we don't build HSR, that does NOT represent savings to the budget. HSR is itself savings. The cost of expanding airports and freeways to meet the expected future demand has been estimated to be anywhere from $80 to $160 billion. HSR can meet much of that demand for much less of the cost. Further, it does so by providing sustainable transportation, saving money to workers and businesses by liberating them from the vagaries of oil prices.



• HSR is absolutely necessary to economic recovery. Our budget mess isn't the product of overspending but of the worst economic crisis in 60 years. If it were up to folks like Will we'd still be in the Depression - massive public works projects like HSR provide short-term stimulus and long-term economic growth. The 100,000+ jobs the construction will create will pour money into the state's economy and into the state's treasury. On the converse, NOT doing public works like this will help create a downward spiral that will leave California in perpetual crisis.



• HSR does NOT come at the expense of any other budget line item. It's not a matter of firing teachers to build trains. This is because the money for HSR is going to come out of bonds and federal funds. Some might say that's disingenuous since we have to pay for the bonds somehow. But the point I would make is that HSR's costs are amortized over 30-40 years. Teachers need to be hired and paid now. Cutting HSR won't save other services (especially when the current amount of spending on HSR is barely $100 million, whereas the budget deficit is $25,100 million). The problems with the ongoing budget deficit have to be resolved through a mixture of new taxes and economic stimulus. Cutting stuff will actually make the problem worse.

It's not that we support HSR because we are train junkies. We support it because it is an essential part of our economic recovery and vital to providing long-term prosperity in the 21st century. We should not be surprised when the usual suspects and, yes, HSR deniers like George Will use the budget mess to try and push through their usual attack on government and on passenger rail. But we can and should push back against their nonsense.

How Does Redwood City Define HSR "Stakeholder"?

Redwood City has been one of the better local governments on the Peninsula when it comes to dealing with the HSR/Caltrain project, unwilling to follow Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Atherton down a NIMBY path of trying to impose unworkable changes onto the project, and certainly unwilling to threaten outright opposition to it. And yet Redwood City's staff are still capable of framing the debate in rather skewed terms.

Tonight the Redwood City Council is going to discuss a plan for public outreach (PDF) on the HSR/Caltrain project. It's nice to see a proactive approach to engaging city residents, rather than Palo Alto's quick cave to a small number of HSR critics.

In the comments on recent Peninsula-related posts here, there has been a robust discussion of NIMBYism, how to challenge it, whether it's a serious threat to the HSR project or is something we're giving too much attention to - the squeaky wheel getting the blog's grease. What the Redwood City plan suggests, though, is that the problem is with how the Peninsula cities define "stakeholders" in such a vital project. Redwood City's approach provides a too-narrow definition that excludes the most numerous group of stakeholders of all - the thousands of city residents whose lives will be improved, who will save money and time and be freed from the dangers of at-grade diesel trains by the HSR/Caltrain project.

(Note: it's not immediately clear to me if this is Redwood City's document or Caltrain's - I believe it's the city's, but even if it's Caltrain's the criticisms offered here still apply.)

Here's how the city's packet reads:

1. Overarching Principle: From a community relations standpoint, the development and implementation of the HSR/Caltrain electrification facilities must take place with profound attention to the interests of the surrounding communities, stakeholders, and sensitive audiences, offer an augmented level of community outreach, communication, and involvement, and minimize negative impacts and effects on the communities in which the project will operate.

Although that sounds reasonable, the way it's framed is setting HSR/Caltrain up to fail, even in Redwood City. The goal here shouldn't be to just "minimize negative impacts" - shouldn't we also be trying to "maximize positive impacts"? Of more concern is the list of proposed stakeholders:

2. Redwood City Stakeholders:
a. Property owners/residents/businesses within 1/2 mile of the alignment
b. Sequoia Station retailers
c. Boards and Commissions (Bike/Ped, Housing, Planning, Historic Resources)
d. Downtown Business Group
e. Chamber of Commerce
f. City staff
g. City elected officials
h. Supervisor Rose Jacobs Gibson
i. Assemblyman Ira Ruskin
j. Senator Joe Simitian
k. Neighborhood Associations
l. Redwood City Elementary School District
m. Faith communities within 1/2 mile of alignment
n. Advocates for a HSR station in Redwood City
o. Opponents of an HSR station in Redwood City

3. Sensitive/critical audiences
a. Residents and business within 1/4 mile of the alignment (particular attention to bilingual outreach)
b. Schools within 3/4 mile of the alignment
c. Motorists - in general
d. Caltrain users
e. Bicyclists/pedestrians

It's not that I object to the inclusion of specific groups or individuals here. Instead it's the premise, that privileges those next to the alignment at the exclusion of those who are not.

Don't other Redwood City residents deserve consideration? Even if they don't currently use Caltrain, but might use an electrified Caltrain or use HSR? Redwood City and Caltrain wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't find a way to do outreach to those near the line, but neither should they stop there. A full picture of the community's thoughts, and the fairest possible assessment, can only be gained if the city as a whole is involved.

It's not right that those nearest the line get more consideration. Everyone has to live with the effects of HSR/Caltrain, whether it's built or not. This is true of drivers, pedestrians, and so on. Yet we live in a state where our public review process, and our community outreach process, is skewed toward those who live near a proposed piece of infrastructure, often to the exclusion of everyone else.

In extreme cases, that would be good. When the Century Freeway (Interstate 105) was built, it destroyed numerous and entire neighborhoods. That's a classic case of where the interests of those most directly impacted by infrastructure should be emphasized. And yet when you're talking about rebuilding and improving an existing rail corridor, you're not talking about people losing homes, or whole neighborhoods being plowed under.

Redwood City's proposed public outreach plan is a good start. But for it to be an effective plan, it needs to cast a wider net, and ensure that the voices of the city's numerous HSR supporters are not unfairly excluded from the process, as they seem to have been next door in Menlo Park, Atherton, and Palo Alto.

National Train Day

by Robert Cruickshank

Today is National Train Day, and although I'm up in Seattle for the weekend, there are a number of California events going on today that you might find worthwhile. The CA events are mostly oriented toward Amtrak, but we support all passenger rail at this site, and these events are open and welcoming of high speed trains. After all, Amtrak does operate the only real high speed train in the country!

The main event is at LA Union Station. There's live music, train displays, including of historic passenger rail cars, galleries and exhibits - including one called "Trains Move Our Economy".

The Coast Starlight is also participating in National Train Day, with a group riding Train 11 from Emeryville to Paso Robles and back - you can follow their activities on Twitter @CSCN, and the Twitter feed for National Train Day is @trainday09. There are events at several stations along the route, and elsewhere in the state - find more by clicking here and scrolling down to the CA section.

RailPAC has more as well.

Richard Florida on HSR, Mega-Regions, and Our Economic Future

Over at The Atlantic, economic geographer Richard Florida has been writing about the economic impact of high speed rail. He believes HSR is a centerpiece of the long-term shift in America's economy - specifically in where economic activity is going to be concentrated. In a March 2009 article he argued that "mega-regions" would emerge from this recession as the location of most economic growth. Just as the "Long Depression" of 1873-1896 shifted the industrial economy from smaller towns like Rochester, NY and Lowell, Mass. to big cities like Chicago and New York, just as the Great Depression eventually produced a shift to suburbs, and as the 1970s stagflation produced a shift to the Sunbelt, the current crisis will accelerate a shift to 11 US "mega-regions". Two of them, "NorCal" and "SoCal", are here in the Golden State - and both are laid out exactly along the proposed HSR route.

The key insight of Florida's argument is that "mega-region" is more expansive than what we currently consider to be a "region." He argues that new technologies and proximity to dynamic economic centers will produce a new geography of growth:

New periods of geographic expansion require new systems of infrastructure. Ever since the days of the canals, the early railroad, and streetcar suburbs, we've seen how infrastructure and transportation systems work to spur new patterns economic and regional development. The streetcar expanded the boundaries of the late 19th and early 20th century city, while the railroad moved goods and people between them. The automobile enabled workers to move to the suburbs and undertake far greater commutes, expanding the geographic landscape still further.

Mega-regions, if they are to function as integrated economic units, require better, more effective, and faster ways move goods, people, and ideas. High-speed rail accomplishes that, and it also provides a framework for future in-fill development along its corridors. Just as development filled-in along the early street-car lines and the post-war highways, high-speed rail will encourage denser, more compact, and concentrated development with growth filling in along its routes over time. Spain's new high-speed rail link between Barcelona and Madrid not only massively reduced commuting times between these two great Spanish cities, according to a recent New York Times report, it has also helped revitalize several declining locations along the line.

What exactly does this mean for California? It means the integration of Modesto, Merced, Fresno and Bakersfield into either the NorCal or SoCal mega-region. Someone can work in Silicon Valley and live in Merced. Now, you might argue "that happens already." But there's a key difference using HSR - faster commutes at a lower cost. Freed from dependence on oil, workers will carry more take-home pay and can invigorate the economies of Central Valley cities. And companies that want to take advantage of the "knowledge economy" using the "creative class" of workers that Florida emphasizes can relocate to one of these mega-region towns, like Fresno, and attract workers from what we now consider to be a "reverse commute".

Already I'm sure this is setting off some folks' sprawl alarms. But as I have consistently argued before on this blog, there's no real reason that revitalizing Fresno or Bakersfield has to mean sprawl at all. HSR stations will themselves encourage greater urban densities. And sprawl itself was a product of the 20th century economic conditions that are dying, and in whose death the mega-region is emerging as the basis of future growth. Sprawl requires cheap oil, cheap credit and favorable land use laws. We're pretty much done with the first, done with the second (even when the credit crunch is over, credit will never again be as cheap as it was in the late 20th century), and laws like AB 32 and SB 375 are changing the third component.

Today Florida expands upon this point, responding to a point Seeking Alpha made about the resurgence of Baltimore and Philadelphia thanks to HSR, enabling those cities to tap into the prosperity and creativity of Washington DC and NYC:

Mega-region hubs are becoming more economically central to our spiky world. There's no getting around this. Chicago has in effect sucked up scads of economic functions that used to be done by other second- and third-tier Midwest cities. On the east coast, Baltimore and Philadelphia and, yes, Washington, D.C. have prospered because of transit connections, including relatively fast rail, which has allowed them to grow by hiving off pieces of economic activity attracted into the world city orbit of New York.

What we are seeing is the further deepening of the spatial division of labor: Suburbia is being stretched in a process of ever more intensive and expansive geographic development.

There's a lesson there for the industrial Midwest and for other regions of the country, North America, and the world. Those places that positon themselves for this new era of spiky, geographic growth and which have the infrastructure that connects them to major centers will prosper, while those that do not will likely fall behind even further.

In short, Florida helps us provide a very clearly argued explanation of exactly how high speed rail is vital to California's economic future. Whereas some in this state delude themselves that the 20th century model of automobile dependence and sprawl can still somehow produce growth, Florida says that is a recipe for turning California into Michigan - too deeply locked into an economic geography that is no longer able to provide economic growth.

California has to change if we are to thrive and prosper in the 21st century. High speed rail is an indispensible component of that shift.

CHSRA and Peninsula Cities Agree On Planning Process

As reported by the Mercury News:

In the first signal that individual Peninsula cities will have a direct voice in high-speed rail planning, a state official Thursday unveiled plans to launch working groups in which local representatives will help shape the massive project.

San Mateo, Santa Clara and San Francisco counties would each get a working group that would meet eight times with high-speed rail officials between May and April 2011, said Tim Cobb, project manager for the San Francisco-to-San Jose section of the high-speed rail line....

Cobb said after the meeting that the working groups were based on similar setups already in place in Southern California, where planning of the train is further along. The "technical working group" meetings will take place during project milestones, such as when key planning documents are released.

The Santa Clara County group will consist of representatives from the five cities along the Caltrain line — including Palo Alto and Mountain View — plus the county government. The San Mateo County group will be made up of representatives from the 11 cities along the train tracks, as well as a county official.

It would be up to the cities and county governments to choose who would be their representative, said Cobb. Ideally, each delegate would remain through the duration of the planning process, he said.

Obviously this is the right thing to do, although as usual, the devil is in the details. It's good that the cities have a formal seat at the table with CHSRA, and that should do much to ease the concerns of the cities that their concerns are being ignored. As I've argued before though, that never really was the issue here. Instead the issue is the desire of some Peninsula cities to exercise a veto over the project and interject themselves into decisions, such as operations, that they really have no place or right dictating about (and make no mistake, many of these cities will want to dictate terms).

It will be very interesting to see how this group approach proceeds, especially when the astronomical cost of tunneling becomes clear. That's when the big fight will take place.

The above was announced at sn HSR info session in Belmont last night. Not much else took place, although this was worth noting:

While going underground in general is expensive, it might be worth it in areas where there are many grade separations with which to work.

“At this stage, I don’t think we can talk about the costs of the alternatives yet and I don’t think we want to,” said Tim Cobb of the High-Speed Rail Authority.

At the same time, even if a tunnel is listed among the alternatives, cost will likely be the deciding factor. We'll see what happens.

Note: This weekend I'll be here in Sacramento for the California Democratic Party convention. If there's any HSR news to report, I'll be sure to post it here. Otherwise I'll leave you in the capable hands of Rafael and the open threads!