More Passengers Choose Trains Over Planes In Spain

For several decades, the world's busiest air route was the "Puente Aereo" (air bridge) between Madrid and Barcelona. At a distance of about 400 miles on the ground, it's also a perfect distance for high speed rail. Ever since the AVE line was completed to Barcelona's Sants station early last year, high speed rail has been winning a greater and greater share of the Spanish travel market - despite Spain being hit extremely hard by the global recession, with unemployment of around 20%.

Now the AVE line has surpassed the Puente Aereo in terms of travelers. More people are taking the train rather than the plane between the two largest cities of Spain:

Spain’s bullet train is beating the plane in the race to win passengers. For the first time, more passengers have chosen to travel on the high-speed AVE rail link between Madrid and Barcelona than have opted to fly — a switch that could influence British ambitions for a high-speed rail network and add impetus to the creation of a second high-speed line in the UK.

Between July and September, 651,498 passengers made the 314-mile journey between Spain’s biggest cities (slightly farther than London to Newcastle), a rise of 21 per cent compared with the same period last year.

In comparison, 643,512 travellers made the journey by aircraft during the same period, a fall of 7.5 per cent compared with the third quarter of last year.

Madrid-Barcelona is the fifth busiest air route in the world, with four airlines offering 116 flights a day, according to the Official Airline Guide in July. Since the rail link opened last year, Renfe, the Spanish state rail operator, and the airlines, led by Iberia, the national flag carrier, have fought a fierce battle to win passengers. The high-speed train, which takes 2hr 40min to travel between Madrid and Barcelona, at 236.3 kilometres per hour (146.8mph), has won over commuters with competitive fares, greater comfort and the absence of elaborate airport security. It also offers promotions to attract tourists, as well as business travellers.

Once again, it is worth reminding readers that Spain offers a very good comparison to California in terms of not just high speed rail - but population density and geography. SF Transbay to LA Union Station is 432 miles, and our trains are projected to have a higher operating speed.

Ultimately, the Spanish experience suggests the SNCF report and the Brookings Institution are both correct in suggesting the LA-SF route, the nation's second busiest, will support a high HSR ridership. As our airports already burst at the seams during flush economic times and with rising oil prices, it's clear that we need the HSR option in California. Spain's success story will soon be replicated here.

Sort of fitting given Spain's role in California history...

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.

WaPo Joins The HSR Stupidity

Robert J. Samuelson is one of the more right-wing writers at the Washington Post. His previous columns have proposed privatizing Medicare, for example, just to give you a picture of who we are dealing with. And like Ed Glaeser and Ed Morris before him, he has decided to bring a right-wing frame to his attack on high speed rail in today's Washington Post.

The column turns on two basic arguments. The first is that somehow HSR will not pencil out. The fact that every HSR system in the world covers its operating costs is lost on Samuelson, who passes off as fact Glaeser's bad math that we've already debunked. Perhaps expecting HSR supporters to respond with the fact that European and Asian HSR systems cover their expenses through fares, Samuelson then tries to argue the USA is different:

What works in Europe and Asia won't in the United States. Even abroad, passenger trains are subsidized. But the subsidies are more justifiable because geography and energy policies differ.

Densities are much higher, and high densities favor rail with direct connections between heavily populated city centers and business districts. In Japan, density is 880 people per square mile; it's 653 in Britain, 611 in Germany and 259 in France. By contrast, plentiful land in the United States has led to suburbanized homes, offices and factories. Density is 86 people per square mile. Trains can't pick up most people where they live and work and take them to where they want to go. Cars can.

As Bianca pointed out in the comments to yesterday's post, however, California HSR will have a much higher density than the figures Samuelson provided above:

Okay, I pulled the numbers from the US Census site (linked above.) Note these are numbers based on the year 2000, so current numbers are likely higher.

San Francisco County – 9,999
San Mateo County- 1,575
Santa Clara County- 1,303
Merced County- 109.2
Fresno County- 143.1
Tulare County- 76.3
Kern County- 81.3
Los Angeles County 2,344.1
Orange County- 3,607.5

average: 2,138 persons per square mile over nine counties served by HSR.

This is just for the San Francisco to Irvine section, but I think we can safely lay density to rest as an argument.

It is true that the Central Valley cities have smaller densities. But one of the purposes of HSR is to spur that density by providing HSR stations in city centers that can serve as magnets for transit-oriented development. Even with that in mind, the average density of the CAHSR route from SF to Anaheim is significantly higher than the numbers Samuelson provides. It blows his entire argument out of the water.

But as James Carville once said, "when your opponent is drowning, throw him an anvil." We can go further and show that the European nation most closely resembling California - Spain - has had dramatic success with HSR. Bruce McF made that point at Daily Kos today, and Matt Melzer made it here in July 2008 using the following charts:







That last chart in particular is of immense value in discussing American HSR plans. Spain was not the stereotypical European nation that already had a large share of its population using trains. Spain, like California, was primarily dependent on cars and planes to get around the nation. And yet it is Spain that has had the most dramatic success with HSR in the last 20 years.

Samuelson also made another point above, that trains don't work as well as cars because they don't give you door to door service. There are two flaws with this. First, a high speed train from SF to LA is still faster than driving, getting you from point A to point B in about half the time. Sure, you have to drive to a train station, but the HSR stations in both the Bay Area and SoCal will be centrally located.

That leads to the next point that Samuelson almost totally ignores. Yes, as he says, beyond 400 or 500 miles high speed trains don't compete well with planes. But most US HSR plans, including California's, fall into the sweet spot. SF to LA via HSR will be a 432-mile journey. Madrid to Barcelona is about 385 miles. And that corridor, once the world's busiest air corridor, high speed trains have had a smashing success, grabbing 40% of the market share in just its first year of operation.

It should be quite clear that Samuelson's attack on HSR is not based on evidence at all. Rather, as Dean Baker points out, it seems based solely on hatred of trains. Weak stuff indeed.

Finally, as Rafael noted in the comments to yesterday's post, it's a shame we're even having these discussions. California voters have made their decision - they want high speed trains. President Obama ran on a winning platform that included frequent and prominent references to high speed trains. Glaeser, Morris, O'Toole and Samuelson seem interested in using their prominent media platforms to try and reverse these outcomes. Yet they cannot do so on the evidence alone. They either have to structure their analysis in such a way that ignores the whole context and leaves a lot out, as Glaeser and Morris have done, or they have to ignore evidence entirely, as O'Toole and Samuelson have done.

One wonders when the NYT and WaPo will be publishing pro-HSR op-eds in their pages and on their blogs.

Ray LaHood's European Vacation

US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been touring European HSR systems in recent days and is coming away impressed:

Spain's bullet train system is a model to follow as America plans how to spend the money the government is injecting to stimulate the economy, the U.S. transportation secretary said Saturday....

The Spanish network is likely to interest the U.S. government because its specially designed, electrified tracks — first devised for the French TGV system — are not as expensive to lay and run as some German or Japanese alternatives.

And Spanish state-of-the-art tunneling technology has proved successful in boring efficiently through mountain ranges to reach the cities of Valladolid and Malaga.

LaHood met with Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to discuss how investing in such a train system could stimulate job creation in the U.S.

"Yesterday I traveled on a train at close to 350 kilometers (215 miles) per hour, the fastest I've ever ridden on a high-speed train," LaHood said. He said he had enjoyed a conversation and beverage aboard and found the experience very civilized.

"Our leaders have made the decision that America will have high speed rail," LaHood said.

As a longtime aficionado of the AVE system I am pleased, but not surprised, to see LaHood taking to the Spanish system. Because the Iberian Peninsula had its own rail gauge, Spain had to build all-new tracks using standard gauge for the AVE - meaning they have dedicated HSR tracks just as California will. Of particular interest is the tunneling technology Spain has employed, as The Transport Politic points out:

What is clear is that the distinctively Spanish obsession with using tunnel boring machines (TBM) seems to be a model for the Transportation Secretary; these semi-automated devices save on both time and cost in building underground rail corridors. For example, the 3.5 mile tunnel under downtown Barcelona, which is part of a larger project that will allow high-speed trains from central Spain to reach France, will only cost 180 million Euros to build. That’s far cheaper per mile than any similar U.S. tunneling project, and part of the explanation is the efficient use of those TBMs.

TBMs will be a godsend here in California where significant tunneling in the Pacheco Pass and Tehachapi Mountain areas will be needed to complete the system. Of course, I am sure that the Peninsula NIMBYs will seize on this as well as an argument that their tunnel is financially viable - which it probably isn't, and besides, they need to defend the position that their tunnel is more important than the all-important Pacheco and Tehachapi tunnels which are sorta necessary for the whole project to work as intended.

It's also possible that the tour is going to reconfirm for Ray LaHood the importance of adopting European safety standards for HSR trainsets. The FRA's weight rules need to be modernized - the current rules are an embarrassment and an impediment to proper HSR development in America. As the head of the Department that includes the FRA, LaHood is in a strong position to insist that the FRA enter the 21st century.

Perhaps the most important aspect of LaHood's visit is intangible - a renewed commitment to building European-style HSR here in America. Currently the only project that meets that standard is California's. I have every reason to believe this trip to France and Spain will bolster LaHood's demonstrated conviction that California's HSR project is deserving of robust federal support.

How The AVE Is Changing Spain

Today's Wall Street Journal offers a fascinating look at how Spain's AVE high speed trains are changing that country in some interesting and generally positive ways. As you know from our previous posts on the topic, not only do I have a personal affinity for the AVE, but their dramatic success in a nation whose pre-AVE travel habits, population densities and natural geography are very similar to those of California is a strong indicator of how HSR will be successful here in California.

To sell his vision of a high-speed train network to the American public, President Barack Obama this week cited Spain, a country most people don't associate with futuristic bullet trains.

Yet the country is on track to bypass France and Japan to have the world's biggest network of ultrafast trains by the end of next year, figures from the International Union of Railways and the Spanish government show.

Although the AVE was initiated by a Socialist government in the early 1990s, both the PSOE and the right-wing Partido Popular are strong backers of the AVE trains, and now Spain will have a large network of fast electric trains connecting its major cities. Already Sevilla, Málaga, and Barcelona are linked to Madrid - Valencia, Bilbao, and some of the northwestern cities are next in line. But they don't plan to stop there:

But the AVE-which means "bird" in Spanish- proved to be a popular and political success. Politicians now fight to secure stations in their districts. Political parties compete to offer ever-more ambitious expansion plans. Under the latest blueprint, nine out of ten Spaniards will live within 31 miles of a high speed rail station by 2020.

That's some amazing penetration of the HSR network that is planned for the next ten years. And it's even more fascinating considering that until the first AVE line opened in 1992, Spain's travel habits closely resembled those of California:







And although those numbers stem from the Madrid-Sevilla AVE line, they've been repeated in particular on the Madrid-Barcelona line, which has taken nearly 40% of the market on what was one of the world's busiest air routes.

The WSJ article suggests that the AVE has not only reshaped travel habits, but social and economic habits as well, maybe even cultural habits:

"We Spaniards didn't used to move around much," says José María Menéndez, who heads the civil engineering department at the University of Castilla-La Mancha. "Now I can't make my students sit still for one second. The AVE has radically changed this generation's attitude to travel."...

The AVE was originally designed to compete with the airplane for commutes between major cities around 300 miles apart. But the biggest, and least expected, effect of the AVE has been on the smaller places in between.

Perhaps the most striking example is Ciudad Real, a scrappy town 120 miles south of Madrid in Castilla-La Mancha which, Mr. Ureña says, "had completely vanished from the map." In medieval times, the town was a key stopover point on the route between the two of most important cities of the time, Córdoba and Toledo. But the railway and the highway south later bypassed the town, and Ciudad Real began to wither.

Now it has an AVE station that puts it just 50 minutes away from Madrid, and Ciudad Real has come alive. The city has attracted a breed of daily commuters that call themselves "Avelinos." The AVE helped attract a host of industries to Ciudad Real, and the train is full in both directions.

Ciudad Real is a town somewhat analogous to Merced, and one can imagine that the California HSR trains will make UC Merced a more attractive option to students in the Bay Area and in Southern California. You can be sure that Central Valley cities are looking to the experience of places like Ciudad Real as a possible model of how their towns can provide more stable and lasting economic growth built around the high speed train.

Of course, the article does mention some criticism of the high speed trains:

Not everyone is pleased. ETA, the militant Basque separatist group, has said it would target anyone involved in the construction of a high-speed train line that will connect the restive northern region with Madrid and France. In December, ETA killed the owner of a company working as a contractor on the project, and in February detonated a bomb at the headquarters of Ferrovial SA, another contractor working on the project.

This issue is not so relevant to California, for obvious reasons, and it's worth noting that ETA's concern is that the AVE will be so successful that it will erode the Basque Country's autonomy by linking it more closely with the rest of Spain. The other main criticism voiced is that Spain's HSR focus is leaving other transportation infrastructure less funded:

Other, nonviolent critics say the country's massive investment in high speed rail has come at the expense of other, less-glamorous forms of transportation. Starved of funds, Spain's antiquated freight-train network has fallen into disuse, forcing businesses to move their goods around by road. That means the Spanish economy is unusually sensitive to changes in the price of crude oil.

And yet that's not really an argument against the successful HSR project - instead it's an argument for the investment in freight rail. It doesn't have to be an either/or proposition.

Critics say the AVE will never stop losing money. Even its backers say high-speed rail can only be economical if the state bears much of the construction costs. But they say the train's benefits-lower greenhouse-gas emissions, less road congestion and, in Spain's case, greater social cohesion and economic mobility-make it an investment worth making.

Of course, Spain's roads were built with state money as well. Here in California our airports and freeways were built with state and federal money. Freeways are not expected to turn a profit. The whole notion that our transportation infrastructure should turn a profit is absurd, even if most HSR systems break even or generate surpluses, more than covering their operating expenses. And that's a sensible approach - the state makes the investment in the infrastructure, and the ongoing operations are self-sustaining.

Spain is like California in another way - it's getting extremely hard hit by the global recession. Like California, Spain experienced a significant property bubble and is now paying the price with high unemployment. I don't know how this will impact the ambitious AVE construction plans. But at least Spain spent the last 20 years investing in sustainable transportation - whereas California frittered away its economic boom on sprawl, roads, and tax cuts. Spain is in a better position to weather the economic storm and recover from it thanks to its investment in the AVE.

It's not too late for California, of course. With Prop 1A and President Obama's support we can start down the trail Spain blazed nearly 20 years ago. HSR will change California in interesting ways, and although we're already a far more mobile population than Spain apparently is, HSR will still provide economic and environmental benefits that so far we can only imagine.

The Five Year Curve

One of the best train bloggers out there is DoDo, and over at the European Tribune he offers one of his best pieces yet - an examination of the AVE system's ridership growth and a comparison to other HSR systems around the world. He draws two key conclusions, which I'll explore in some detail below (though you need to read his full post to get the full picture), the first of which is:

What should be striking is that traffic seems to reach its full potential in at least five years. (Air/rail market share data would have been more appropriate for this purpose, but it's harder to come by, and you get the picture.)...

The lesson from this: high-speed rail (and not just high-speed) is a long-term investment. Do not insist on instant success -- but do expect a permanent change in travel patterns.

In short, if the LA-SF route is fully opened around 2018, then we will not see the "full potential" reached until 2023. However, we WILL see a permanent long-term shift in how Californians get around this state, which is of course the core goal here.

DoDo uses as his model the AVE line from Madrid to Barcelona, which was finally completed about a year ago. It replaced the "Puente Aéreo" - the "air bridge" between Madrid-Barajas and Barcelona-El Prat that was the world's busiest air route by flights. The "Puente AVE" as DoDo calls it has eaten heavily into the Puente Aéreo, to the point where the AVE trains now take about 50% of the market share of Madrid-Barcelona travelers.

But as DoDo also notes, the Madrid-Barcelona AVE, despite those impressive gains in modal share, has yet to meet ridership expectations:

RENFE missed its own expectation for the entire line by almost 250,000 -- and that for the Madrid-Barcelona relation alone by 300,000. Only the last few months of Spanish intercity traffic were affected by the economic crisis, so there is something else at play here. I criticised high ticket prices a year ago, and I find that this has indeed become a theme in the Spanish media over the past year. Even at the anniversary press conference, where new airline-style last-minute discounts were announced.

What explains this? To DoDo the answer is obvious: "all potential customers won't try out a new offer instantly - you have to wait for people to discover that the new alternative is better."

This leads to DoDo's second key conclusion - that there are certain bad decisions that typically get made by HSR builders and governments in response to the slow start (though some of these bad decisions are made in the design and construction phase):

It happens actually quite often that a major new rail project gets off to a really bad start, generating bad publicity -- and then turns into a solid mainstay of the transport system a few years later (with less media coverage). To sum up the reasons:

1. an expectation that people will change travel patterns instantly;



2. financing (e.g. interest rates and period of maturity) and rosy projections themselves are tailored for short-term expectations on profitability;



3. after diverse construction delays, (especially high-speed) lines are often opened half-finished (missing sections, stations, local transit connections, trains, signalling), and thus can't realise their full potential instantly



4. when the builders become nervous about their ridership projections (be it due to cost overruns or 'half-finished' openings as per above), they tend to bet on passengers accepting higher ticket prices -- which usually doesn't work out.

I can all too easily envision some or all of these coming true in California. And though DoDo explains how SNCF successfully handled some of these issues in the early 1980s, under the Socialist leadership of François Mitterand (bringing down ticket prices to encourage long-term ridership growth), I think that at this stage in the process we have the opportunity to avoid some of these problems.

First, we cannot expect ridership goals to be met immediately. DoDo's analysis shows they will be met but not until around five years have passed. This will produce hackles from the usual HSR deniers (who will still be with us in ten years' time) - the Wendell Coxes and Martin Engels who will say that "omg you haven't met ridership - the HSR train is a boondoggle! kill all remaining extension plans!" We must resist them patiently but firmly and let the project steadily attract riders.

Second, we need to oversee the financing process to ensure that the project's finances are not going to be imperiled by expectations of high ridership out the gate. This is a long-term project; its financing should be long-term as well. This is one reason I am skeptical of some of the more broad public-private proposals for how to fund the train. Government has the luxury of waiting for the system to mature and work properly; the private sector instead demands immediate profits at the expense of long-term planning (and we see how well THAT worked out).

Third, construction delays. I have always said that we are likely to see both delays and cost overruns, but that we can and should work to ensure the are minimal. Sometimes the two are linked - Peninsula NIMBYs are inherently arguing that it is OK to both make the HSR project more delayed and more expensive to suit their demands. We may well see similar problems on other sections of the route. We cannot let these delays compromise the overall system. The route has always been intended to be opened in stages, as was BART, but the finances, operation, and political support for the project cannot be made dependent on that staging. Further, the stages should be opened for practical reasons, and not in an effort to cut corners or costs. Again the long-term vision for the system must be kept in mind at all times.

Fourth, fares. Whether the $55 fare from SF-LA is possible even in 2018 dollars is an open question. But the system cannot raise ticket prices to try and cover financial shortfalls or cost overruns if they are to build a long-term ridership base.

It is entirely possible that ten years from now the short-sighted short-term political and economic worldview that helped create the present economic mess will have been replaced with a renewed emphasis on long-term planning and infrastructure, and that Californians will be willing to wait a few years for HSR ridership to rise to expectations.

But I wouldn't bet on it. Instead we are going to have to continue to fight to ensure that HSR is built the right way, the proper way, without compromising for people who put all sorts of petty and small concerns above the HSR project itself.

Spain: AVE "Steals the Show"

As we've been focusing on the details of HSR funding or its implementation on the Peninsula, it's worth returning to the big picture - HSR's potential to transform transportation in California. Last week's issue of The Economist examined Spain's HSR success, showing how that country's heavy investment in high speed rail is paying significant rewards:

EARLY morning at Barcelona’s railway station and the platform crowd looks smarter than it would have done a year ago. But these are not ordinary weekday commuters. They are besuited businessmen heading for Madrid, almost 500km (310 miles) away. A sleek new high-speed AVE train will whisk them to the capital at speeds of up to 300kmph in plenty of time for their morning meetings.

The new passengers reflect a revolution in Spanish travel. Domestic airlines have lost a fifth of their passengers in the space of a year. And long-distance trains have gained almost a third.

It is not difficult to imagine that scene unfolding at LA Union Station or SF Transbay Terminal in ten years' time. The distances are about the same, and the traveler profile similar - there's plenty of business travel between LA and SF.

This shift is the consequence of an ambitious programme for high-speed rail. The streamlined AVE trains, with their sleek corridors, work tables and spectacular views, are stealing the show. Those used to the tedious taxi rides, security checks and crowded shuttle flights traditionally endured by Spanish businessmen will not be surprised. The opening of the Barcelona-Madrid line a year ago marked the beginning of the end of airlines’ dominance. In its first ten months it carried 2m passengers; in 2008 its share of the total market rose from 28% to 38%. Josep Valls, of the ESADE business school, predicts that trains will carry most long-distance travellers within two years.

This paragraph alone shows the huge advantage HSR has over other forms of transit between two major cities, and why the AVE is experiencing such success on the all-important Madrid to Barcelona route. The trains are fast, convenient, and efficient. Like the AVE lines, California's HSR system will serve the city centers; no need for a taxi to LAX or SFO. The shift in travel habits described here is both dramatic and immediate.

Critics still complain that politics has loomed too large. The first AVE line did not connect Madrid to busy Barcelona but to sleepy Seville, the home town of the then prime minister, Felipe González. Even now, whereas small provincial cities like Valladolid and Segovia are connected to a new line, it will still take several years to link up with France’s network.

In retrospect this actually looks to have been a smart move. Madrid-Sevilla was a much easier engineering job than Madrid-Barcelona. When the first AVE line opened in 1992, its success showed that Spain was ready for more high speed trains. And while towns like Valladolid and Segovia may not have the same utility for a continental traveler as the planned link with the TGV, it makes political sense to show Spain that HSR is a solution for the whole country, and not just a few lucky areas. The result is the building and sustaining of political support for HSR that, in Spain, remains strong in both of the two major parties (PP and PSOE).

And as frequently predicted here on the blog, HSR is having a significant impact on the environmentally-damaging short-haul airline industry:

Prices vary and can be hard to compare. Budget airlines tend still to be the cheapest on the Madrid-Barcelona route. Fernando Conte, chairman of Iberia, Spain’s biggest airline, also insists that “point to point we are quicker.” Yet that assumes aircraft take off on time and there are no traffic jams. Savings on taxi fares plus a 99% punctuality rate are usually enough to push people on to the train. Tellingly enough, Iberia is planning to cut domestic flights by 7% this year.

Given SFO's frequent fog and rain delays, and LAX's overcrowding, 99% punctuality rates on California shuttle airlines is next to impossible to achieve. But the HSR trains can operate in that weather, and maintain their punctual schedules alongside their convenient city center to city center route.

California's plans aren't yet as ambitious as Spain's. But both California and the United States would do well to learn from the Spanish model - especially as we debate economic recovery and the future of our transportation network.

"A Revolution In Travel Habits"

That's how the Guardian describes the dramatic success of Spanish high speed trains (h/t to lydik in the comments to the last post):

Spain's sleek new high-speed trains have stolen hundreds of thousands of passengers from airlines over the last year, slashing carbon emissions and marking a radical change in the way Spaniards travel.

Passenger numbers on fuel-guzzling domestic flights fell 20% in the year to November as commuters and tourists swapped cramped airline seats for the space and convenience of the train, according to figures released yesterday.

High-speed rail travel - boosted by the opening of a line that slashed the journey time from Madrid to Barcelona to 2 hours 35 minutes in February - grew 28% over the same period. About 400,000 travellers shunned airports and opted for the 220mph AVE trains.

Last year's drop in air travel, which was also helped by new high-speed lines from Madrid to Valladolid, Segovia and Malaga, marks the beginning of what experts say is a revolution in Spanish travel habits.

lydik is right, I have a huge soft spot for the AVE trains, which were my first HSR experience - and also because I love Iberia (my wife and I are going to Portugal later this spring). It's also because while many Americans have a stereotype that Europeans are all a bunch of train-riding sophisticates, in fact air and auto travel in Europe is still a major form of transportation.

That was particularly true of Spain - but no longer:

In a country where big cities are often more than 500km (300 miles) apart, air travel has ruled supreme for more than 10 years. A year ago aircraft carried 72% of the 4.8 million long-distance passengers who travelled by air or rail. The figure is now down to 60%.

"The numbers will be equal within two years," said Josep Valls, a professor at the ESADE business school in Barcelona.

This is worth noting since Spain and California are very comparable in terms of travel habits and population densities. As with Spain, California's big cities are often more than 300 miles apart (379 miles from downtown SF to downtown LA). Like California, Spain experienced a property-fueled economic boom during this decade. But unlike California, Spain has devoted a significant portion of the tax proceeds from that boom to building sustainable high speed rail, particularly under the PSOE government of José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Lines to Barcelona and Málaga have opened within the last year, along with a Madrid bypass enabling faster travel from Barcelona to destinations in Andalusia. Connections from Madrid to Valencia, Galicia, and the Basque Y are also under construction.

Spain has also had success at lowering carbon emissions via HSR:

The high-speed train network is also helping Spain control carbon emissions.Straight tracks and few stops mean AVE trains use 19% less energy than conventional trains. Alberto García, of the Spanish Railways Foundation, has calculated that a passenger on the Madrid-Barcelona line accounts for one-sixth of the carbon emissions of an aeroplane passenger.

All of this is something we can look forward to here in California - and further reason to ensure that the state gets its act together, passes a budget, and gets back to economic stimulus via infrastructure projects like HSR.

PS: On that note, the Obama Transition Team has a "Citizens Briefing Book" where users rate up projects and ideas they feel are most important. "Bullet Trains and Light Rail" are currently the #1 most popular idea. Login and be sure to vote for this to further communicate to the Obama Administration our conviction that HSR is a vital part of this nation's future.

HSR Rolls On Around the World

A few items for a lazy Sunday afternoon from around the world:

• RENFE to open new HSR link between Málaga and Barcelona - a bypass of central Madrid that shortens the journey between the two cities to 5 hours 40 minutes. Further evidence of how Spain, which compares well to California in terms of population density, landscape, and travel distances, has built one of the world's great HSR successes in the AVE system.



• Italy's new HSR line to Bologna gets notice in the NY Times



• British HSR plans continue to evolve, with Labour proposing an HSR hub at Heathrow as part of a third runway project. Labour's support for a third runway has aroused opposition from nearby residents, environmentalists, and even the Conservative Party, whose stronger support for HSR has pushed Labour into its own HSR proposals. Labour is trying to link HSR to the third runway plan in a bit of greenwashing. It may or may not work, but the upshot is that Britain is now warming to HSR in a big way, a shift from 30 years of refusing to seriously endorse the concept.

Madrid-Barcelona in 6 Minutes (via YouTube)

luis d. in the comments has been linking to this video produced by RENFE advertising their new Madrid to Barcelona AVE service that opened in February. It's a great overview of the route, which passes through terrain that is VERY similar to that which our own HSR line will encounter:



RENFE also has a great YouTube channel with more excellent AVE videos.

I also like this because I have a soft spot for the AVE trains, which were the first HSR trains I ever rode. Seven years ago on a trip to Spain, we took the AVE from Madrid to Sevilla. I remember turning to my then-girlfriend as we pulled into Sevilla Santa Justa and saying "we have GOT to get one of these back in California." My own advocacy for HSR trains began that afternoon in December 2001. It also doesn't hurt that the video includes shots of Barcelona, which currently holds the title of "my favorite city in the world." If only I spoke Catalan...

Here in 2008, we have taken the most important step to making that dream a reality. So I dunno about you all, but this video gets me *really* excited about what our own HSR line will look like when it is finally built. Compare the above video to this one put out by the CHSRA, which you've seen before - I can't wait to see this computer simulation become as real as the video shown above.

Why Is Adrian Moore Lying in the LA Times?

The LA Times is running a "dust up" in its opinion pages - a weeklong discussion of high speed rail between Adrian Moore of the oil company funded Reason Foundation and Dan Tempelis, project manager for the CHSRA on the Palmdale-LA section of the route. It's something of an unfair fight, as Moore is trained to push misleading framing into the media, and Tempelis is a project engineer trained to build things. Tempelis isn't bad at this, but neither is he equipped to undermine the truthiness Moore spews.

Here's an example of Moore's misleading claims:

There are several reasons why high-speed rail does not stack up as the best infrastructure investment we can make today. Let's start with ridership. When high-speed rail systems were built in Europe and Asia, they served corridors that were already very dense and where a large share of travel was already by train -- and there was still no reduction in overall air travel in those corridors. Most riders of high-speed rail were already train riders. The California High-Speed Rail Authority's estimates for the state show that riders will not come from existing trains (there are very few of those) or much from the airlines. Rather, their plan rests on getting people to ride the train rather than drive. Given the more modest gas prices here, the lower density and car culture, to predict that the California high-speed train will get far more riders than systems in Europe and Japan is ridiculously optimistic.

This is a classic example of what Stephen Colbert called truthiniess - this "feels" true even though Moore hasn't provided any evidence. In fact Moore is passing along a huge pile of outright lies.

For example: "and there was still no reduction in overall air travel in those corridors." Um, WTF?

• Madrid-Barcelona AVE takes 30% of market from airlines in six months



• Eurostar Grabs Even More Passengers From Airlines



• Romance of Rail Jeopardizes Domestic Air Routes (Taiwan)

We could go on, but there's more Moore misinformation to correct, like "Most riders of high-speed rail were already train riders." Wrong again. As NARP's Matt Melzer pointed out in July Spain's experience proves that many HSR riders are in fact new train passengers. The images below compare the before and after the inaugural AVE line opened between Madrid and Sevilla in 1992:





Melzer's post also destroys another of Moore's claims, that California lacks the density for HSR, showing that in fact CA and Spain are very comparable on this basis:



Moore's left with lame defenses of California's "car culture" - never mind the fact that Amtrak California intercity routes are setting monthly ridership records. From here Moore moves on to equally truthy claims:

This despite that fact that every other high-speed rail line in the world, all with many advantages over a California system, are subsidized.

Wow. Just...wow. This is a bald-faced lie. In France the situation is reverse - HSR subsidizes all other trains. France alone disproves Moore's lie.

there is no doubt that the high-speed train will need to be subsidized; the Reason Foundation's middling estimate is that it will require about $3 billion per year.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office reported that in the worst-case scenario only $1 billion would be required. This isn't the end of Moore's careless numerology:

Taxpayers should expect the final bill for this train system to be closer to $80 billion.

Moore has NO evidence for this claim. He uses a discredited study to claim there are 45% cost overruns on rail - Angelenos can look to the Metro Gold Line extension to see an on-time, on-budget rail project. Further, if Moore is going to give a specific figure, he needs to explain precisely where the cost overruns will come from and why they will amount to $80 billion. Since he can't, he's merely pulling the numbers out of his ass, an effort to mimic Dr. Evil.

Much of the rest of Moore's argument comes from a discredited Reason Foundation study. It would be nice if more members of the media would challenge this study instead of allow Moore to cite it as if it were gospel.

Dan Tempelis does a good job explaining the economic stimulus benefits of high speed rail and the fiscal safeguards in Prop 1A. But it's an unfair fight, since he's up against someone who will lie to readers to make his points. Yes on 1A advocates need to do a better job pushing back against the bullshit coming out of the Reason Foundation - they are lying to the public and will kill HSR if their lies are not countered.

Sadly that is the story of the 2008 election - lies, lies, lies everywhere. We're dealing with the same problems in the presidential campaign and the fight against Proposition 8. This blog has been consistently willing to debate HSR deniers on the issues. But instead all we get are lies.

If Prop 1A is going to pass, we need to fight back hard against these lies. The official campaign would do well to take a more aggressive tone here.

How Sacramento (and other CA cities) Will Benefit From Prop 1A

Today's Sacramento Bee examines what Sacramento gets out of Proposition 1A and high speed rail. The article wants to generate some controversy about the fact that Sacramento is going to be included in a later phase of construction, but few of the folks interviewed were willing to play along. Instead the article provides one of the most detailed and strongest arguments for voters not living along the SF-LA "spine" to support Proposition 1A.

Rail Authority executive Mehdi Morshed said his agency's studies indicate the first segment will be a moneymaker – and income would be used to extend the line to Sacramento and San Diego.

That's the rub for Sacramento.

"Unless somebody builds the San Francisco to Los Angeles segment, Sacramento will never be built because it will never pencil out," Morshed said. "You need to have the cash cow (first)."

Morshed isn't just speaking in the abstract. Both the French TGV and Spanish AVE systems have followed a similar trajectory, where an initial line became so popular it created the political will and the financial capacity to expand new lines. The TGV puts SNCF in the black and subsidizes not only new HSR lines but the rest of SNCF's passenger rail operations. The first AVE lines helped pay for expansions of the system, including the route from Madrid to Barcelona.

Representative Doris Matsui, whose district is primarily comprised of Sacramento, agrees, especially on the need to use a starter line to build momentum for more extensions:

"For me it would be easier to look favorably on this if Sacramento were in the loop early on," said Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento. "We are the capital city. Why not?"

But, she said, "We're never going to get there unless we take the first step. If California comes out ahead, we benefit."

Matsui's approach is sound - realizing that Sacramento benefits when the state as a whole benefits - which it will once the SF-LA line is under way.

Sacramento benefits in more tangible and immediate ways and the article's author, Tony Bizjak, should be commended for explaining to readers that Sacramento's existing passenger rail systems are in line for a much-needed financial boost from Prop 1A:

The bond measure sets aside at least $47 million for improvements to Sacramento's popular Capitol Corridor passenger train line.

Sacramento Regional Transit, which runs light rail and buses, also is in line to receive at least $21 million.

Capitol Corridor train chief Gene Skoropowski is a vocal bond measure supporter, and said his trains between Auburn and the Bay Area would work in tandem with bullet trains, at first in San Jose, and eventually in Sacramento.

"Our service would likely become a major feeder-collector," he said. "People would take our train to Sacramento or San Jose to connect up with the high-speed trains."

The Capitol Corridor trains, RT light-rail trains and Amtrak trains would meet up with bullet trains at the downtown Sacramento railyard transit depot.

$47 million can go quite a long way for the Capitol Corridor, as would $21 million for Sacramento's RT. For the Capitol Corridor that money could purchase new train cars, and upgrade existing sections of track to improve the route's already remarkable on-time percentage - 93.8% in September 2008.

Other passenger rail systems around the state will receive immediate benefits from Prop 1A. The Pacific Surfliner that connects SLO, Santa Barbara, Ventura, LA, Orange County, and San Diego is in line for about $45 million, as are the San Joaquins. The San Joaquin money would be significant since upgrades there could help passengers in Sacramento reach the Merced HSR station more quickly. Metrolink is to receive some money, and the long-planned Coast Daylight, a train from SF to LA via the coast route (Salinas, SLO, Santa Barbara) could also get fully funded.

The article closes by showing how Congress is already poised to begin directing federal money to the HSR project:

Congress also recently established a $1.5 billion grant program to promote high-speed rail. Rep. Matsui said California should line up well for a chunk of that money if voters approve the bond.

That money isn't the full federal match that will be needed, of course - but it IS a clear indication of Congressional willingness to provide money, especially when the US Senate is prepared to push a much larger HSR funding plan in 2009.

Of course, Sacramento can expect to someday be included on the HSR route. We here in Monterey will never be included. But both of our cities will benefit, immediately, from Prop 1A when it passes. And we will benefit in the long term from the HSR line that will make passenger rail travel in our state much quicker, efficient, and available to all of us, even we folks on the Central Coast who make regular trips to Southern California.

Flawed LA Times Article on Prop 1A

The Los Angeles Times editorial board wrote an excellent argument for Prop 1A earlier this month. Unfortunately Eric Bailey's feature article in today's paper misses the mark and fails to provide readers an accurate picture of the HSR project - particularly by presenting some flawed claims from HSR deniers without independent verification or refutation.

First up is Richard Tolmach who engages in some of the worst kind of exploitation - using the horrific Chatsworth disaster to argue that HSR is somehow similarly unsafe:

"After all the crashes -- the train crash and the market crash -- supporters may have a lot more trouble than they anticipated," said Richard Tolmach, president of the nonprofit California Rail Foundation, a Proposition 1A foe.

Eric Bailey does provide refutation of this egregious bit of nonsense:

Metrolink-type collisions wouldn't be an issue, they say, because the train would run on tracks separate from freight lines. Bridges and other grade separations would keep the rails away from cars.

But unfortunately Bailey does not include refutation of the Reason Foundation's nonsense - even though this blog has provided a thorough deconstruction of that deeply flawed study, including the following points:

A report commissioned by the Libertarian think tank Reason Foundation and other foes compared California's plans with what is rolling on the ground right now in Europe and Asia.

Instead of a profit, the California trains could yield financial losses up to $4 billion, the report contends, predicting at least 60% fewer passengers than promoters project.

mike specifically refuted that point:

So [the Reason Foundation study's] claim that CA HSRA is using numbers higher than those achieved on any other system in the world is absurdly false - in fact, CA HSRA's numbers are only 1/3rd of what has been previously achieved.

Unfortunately Bailey just lets them rant on:

The final construction tab, they say, would swell beyond $80 billion, and other studies support that sort of conclusion. A Danish researcher who analyzed more than 250 big infrastructure projects around the world determined that new rail lines typically cost 45% more than originally estimated.

That Danish study has been challenged before. The LA Times can look a few blocks from its downtown headquarters to see the Metro Gold Line extension is on-time and under-budget. It is entirely possible that we will see cost overruns, but you can't pull a number out of thin air like $80 billion. If you're going to talk about overruns you need to explain precisely why and how those costs will rise. If you can't, then you're just making stuff up, and the LA Times shouldn't be allowing its pages to be used for that purpose.

The article also digs up an anti-HSR prof at USC:

Professor James Moore, director of USC's transportation engineering program, calls it "a dumb project" with overblown ridership and construction estimates, inflated profit forecasts, and wildly optimistic speeds and travel times.

"It's technologically impossible to do what the High-Speed Rail Authority claims can be done, for any amount of money," he said. "When it comes to predicting the actual cost of systems like this, I just say a zillion and leave it at that."

But Moore doesn't explain himself. At all. "A zillion?" That's not intellectually defensible.

The deeper issue Moore is likely referring to is whether the 220mph speed can be achieved. It's worth noting that 220mph is not intended to be the average speed, but the top achievable speed. The HSR deniers' strategy is to claim that if we can't meet the exact specifications that the CHSRA is promoting, then the entire concept is bad and should be rejected.

Which doesn't make any sense. HSR is a good idea not because we can achieve 220mph but because we can get quite close, providing very fast service that will still attract riders and meet our fundamental goals of sustainable, non-oil based, profitable transportation.

We don't have to speculate here. We can look at the evidence. The Madrid-Barcelona AVE line was intended to accomplish 217mph (350kph) with Siemens train technology. But the best they've been able to accomplish is 186mph (300kph). 186mph is still VERY fast, and it hasn't hurt the success of the new AVE line. In six months the AVE trains have taken 30% of the market on the Madrid-Barcelona route. The AVE trains are so successful that Spain's airlines have had to cut flights because their passengers are flocking to HSR.

Madrid-Barcelona is in fact a very good comparison to SF-LA. The Madrid-Barcelona corridor was one of the busiest airline routes in the world, and are Spain's two primary urban centers. SF to LA is one of the USA's busiest airline routes and are California's two primary urban centers. Madrid and Barcelona are 385 miles from each other by rail; SF to LA via the HSR route is 432 miles. Even if we cannot achieve 220mph, which IS technically possible, a top speed of 186mph would put the cities roughly three hours apart. Given the convenience of train travel and the added time costs of flying this still compares favorably to the airlines, especially when you consider the cost of expanding airports to meet demand, and especially the cost of fuel (and therefore airfares) in ten years' time.

The details do matter. And the details are likely to change. That's the nature of large infrastructure projects. You don't always come out with exactly, precisely the same thing you went in with. That's not a bad thing - projects need to be adapted to conditions if and when they change. Those who claim "omg they can't reach 220 so this is DOOMED!" are merely trying to pull a fast one on Californians, hoping that voters' lack of knowledge about HSR and general distrust of government can cover up the basic fact that even at 186 mph HSR is going to be profitable and popular.

Sadly, this is how American journalism works these days. Journalists become stenographers, quoting "both sides" and leaving it at that, even if one side's flawed arguments are left unrefuted. That's a major reason why this blog exists - to push back against this and provide Californians the truth.

Note: I've had to turn on comment moderation for the time being, since one particularly determined spammer chose to repeatedly post the same personal attacks. I will approve submitted comments as quickly as possible. As usual, I will not reject comments merely for criticizing HSR and Prop 1A. The only out-of-bounds comments are those that engage in personal attacks or those that are cut-and-pastes of entire articles. If you have any problems submitting comments, send an email to my last name at gmail dot com.

Update: Air France is getting into the HSR business, and will operate trains between Paris and London that reach a maximum speed of 224mph.

Do the HSR deniers still want to say that 220mph is impossible?

Prop 1A Endorsements: The Good, The Bad, and The Stupid

First, the good news. The California transit and environmental community is beginning to unite around high speed rail and Proposition 1A. Last week the board of the Transit Coalition, based out of Southern California and usually focused on improving Metrolink and Metro Rail, unanimously voted to endorse Prop 1A. One of the major statewide rail advocacy groups is about to finalize its Yes on 1A endorsement, and tomorrow we expect one of California's leading environmental groups to announce its strong endorsement of 1A as well. Apologies for the lack of specificity on the latter endorsements, but the specifics are embargoed until tomorrow, when you'll see much more detail and analysis from me.

We already knew that the CA Chamber of Commerce opposed Prop 1A, for reasons that are backward and nonsensical - after all, we already used part of the state's bond capacity in 2006 to pay for "other priorities" such as new freeway lanes. Time for passenger rail to get its share, a share that will reduce congestion and promote economic growth.

That was the "bad" endorsement. The stupid, "wow this makes no sense" endorsement against Prop 1A comes from the Media News Group of papers, which includes the Oakland Tribune and the Contra Costa Times. Their arguments are full of the usual HSR denier claims - it's as if they turned the editorial page over to Martin Engel for a day. Nowhere in the editorial is global warming mentioned, nor energy independence, nor the airline crisis. And on many of their points, they are just plain wrong. The Media News Group editorialists clearly don't know the first thing about the project, and should have remained silent instead of speaking out against the project from a position of profound ignorance.


Some of the most egregious examples:

But the costs, now estimated to be at least $43 billion, are excessive and likely to be far higher before the project is completed.

Does anyone who has followed the saga of the Bay Bridge debacle really believe the high-speed rail system will cost less than $60 billion, or $80 billion?

This is the usual argument from the anti-government crowd, that any government infrastructure project will inherently be so far over budget as to be not worth it at all. But here they show their willful ignorance. The Big Dig and the East Span of the Bay Bridge involved first-of-their-kind engineering that caused the costs to soar. Stupid political meddling - the Massachuetts Legislature in the first case, the mayors of San Francisco and Oakland in the second - also helped drive up costs. But the editorial ignored the numerous passenger rail projects around the country that have come in on time and on budget, including urban rail such as LA's Metro Gold Line extension and Seattle's Central Link light rail.

Further, while some cost overruns are inevitable with the declining dollar and rising construction materials costs, these are likely to be on the order of one or two billion. The 50% to 100% cost increase projections that the editorial throws out there are not only lacking evidence, but lacking credibility.

Besides, the timing couldn't be worse. California has many far more pressing needs. The state faces a huge budget shortfall, a weakening economy, a home foreclosure mess, a drought and the need to expand its reservoir system and repair levees.

Moreover, California's highways are among the worst in the nation. A recent study by the Reason Foundation found that California leads the nation in congestion and ranks among the worst on cost-effectiveness in spending on roads.

We are 48th in the condition of urban interstates, 41st in rural highway conditions and 44th in state highway performance and money spent on maintenance.

Wait a minute. I thought the editorialists just got done telling us how bad government infrastructure projects were. Now they want us to give government the green light to build dams and freeways? The editorialists' hypocrisy is laid bare.

As to the economic problems, high speed rail is a solution to those problems. If job losses are the concern, wouldn't the editorialists support a project that will create 160,000 construction jobs and an estimated 450,000 long-term jobs? If finances are their concern why are they ignoring the Green Dividend and leaving billions on the table? I'm all for rebuilding existing freeways, but why don't we stop the construction of new roads and lanes and rechannel that money into rehabbing what we've already got?

High speed rail will also help solve congestion problems in the Bay Area and Southern California by providing fast commuter service. The grade-separated lines will also allow commuter rail services like Caltrain and Metrolink to achieve faster speeds and quicker travel times - further reducing congestion.

Additional money is expected to come from a federal government that simply does not have it. Backers of the train also believe there will be billions in private investment. Really?

This is perhaps the most blatantly ignorant part of the entire editorial. It never ceases to amaze me how newspaper editorial pages believe that the same practices fact-checking and adherence to basic journalistic standards they enforce on every other page don't seem to apply to the editorials. We have strong indications of interest from members of Congress and from one of the presidential candidates. As to private enterprise, at the June CHSRA Board Meeting a group of potential investors explained the results of their survey of private backers, showing strong levels of interest from the private sector.

Yes, one of those was Lehman Brothers, which just went belly-up. But they weren't the only ones to indicate interest. Companies from SNCF to Alstom to Goldman Sachs all submitted statements of interest. In fact, the current financial crisis actually makes HSR a more attractive investment for capital - instead of being stuck in increasingly precarious financial instruments, or dependent on rapidly fluctuating commodity prices, HSR provides a stable and reliable source of return on investment. Rafael explained this very well in a comment from yesterday's open thread, which deserves to be put on the front page:

paradoxically, institutional investors may now be more - rather than less - interested in the opportunity afforded by California's HSR project.

Since no-one really knows when the US housing market will stabilize, lenders will be reluctant to pump more money into it for quite some time. Meanwhile, falling house prices and a low savings rate mean that US consumers will be keeping their wallets closed, which will depress stocks. On the other hand, US treasury bonds generally feature low yields.

As an investment, HSR should fall in-between these extremes of risk and reward, which makes it an attractive proposition for institutional investors. However, CAHSR still needs to make that case in a prospectus.

Exactly. Back to the editorial:

Making matters worse, Union Pacific Railroad has told the state's High-Speed Rail Authority it won't sell its rights-of-way for the planned 700-mile bullet train network.

The Authority never counted on that ROW. The plan was always to follow the UP route, up to but not over the ROW itself.

Even if the $43 billion were on hand, it would be a colossal mistake to spend it on a high-speed rail system that is likely to cost riders more than airline service and have the same security issues as airports.

More important, the number of potential riders simply does not justify the costs. The money would be far better spent on highways, schools, reservoirs and levees.

The current estimate is that a ticket on HSR from SF to LA will cost around $55. You can't get that cheap a ticket on the airlines unless you buy early and get a really sweet deal. Further, it is highly unlikely that airfares will remain where they're at. The airline crisis is already driving carriers to raise fares and fees, cut back on flights between LA and SF, and in some cases go out of business entirely. As oil prices continue to rise it is likely that airfares will cost MUCH more than an HSR ticket.

As to "number of potential riders" the editorial gives no specifics here, but soaring ridership on California passenger trains should suggest the silliness of that particular argument.

Not content with being in a deep hole, the editorialists keep on digging:

California already has a huge bond debt to pay off and certainly cannot afford to add tens of billions debt on such a questionable project.

The only kind of "good" bond debt is infrastructure bond debt, where money is borrowed to build infrastructure that lasts beyond the life of the bond, creating long-term value and spurring economic growth. HSR certainly fits that model. Should we not have built the bay bridges during the Depression? Should we not have built the State Water Project during a recession? The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst already determined the budget can afford Prop 1A. So what exactly are these editorialists talking about?

One might think by now that the high-speed rail plans for construction, operation and investment have been worked out in great detail with considerable confidence in their success. Even after spending $58 million over a decade in planning, that is decidedly not the case.

Yet voters are being asked to finance the fantasy of duplicating a 200-plus mph rail system like the one in Japan or France through the Central Valley.

But those plans ARE worked out in great detail - or do the editorialists not know how to read an EIR? Their use of "the Central Valley" is a deliberate attempt to mislead readers - the HSR line will run through much of the Bay Area and Southern California as well. There are plenty of low-population rural spaces the French TGV runs through as well, same with the Spanish AVE - California's proposed system compares quite favorably to those successful trains.

Embarking on this rail system would be highly questionable at any time, but it is particularly irresponsible now. California is in financial trouble and is in need of massive investment on a number of far more important projects.

We trust voters will place reality ahead of fantasy and soundly reject Prop. 1A's Boondoggle Express.

California is in financial trouble because we misinvested our money on a deluded and ultimately failed attempt to prolong the 20th century. The surest way to dig our financial hole deeper is to ignore environmental, energy, and economic realities and refuse to invest in the only transportation system that can thrive in 21st century conditions. We need massive investment in passenger rail if our cities and our economy is to thrive.

We trust voters will place reality and facts ahead of ignorant nonsense and soundly reject the Media News Group's stupid editorial. Instead voters will embrace Prop 1A, embrace high speed rail, and embrace the future.

HSR Grabs 30% of Market in Six Months

Spain's AVE high speed train service was finally completed between Madrid and Barcelona earlier this year, with the first passengers riding in February. Since then the line has taken 30% of the travel market between Madrid and Barcelona, which was one of the world's busiest air corridors. That's a stunning level of ridership that is surely going to grow as more Spaniards become used to the service.

The Madrid-Barcelona line shares many similarities to the California high speed rail project. It connects the two major metro areas of the polity (sorry, Sevilla) in 2 hours 40 minutes - and even though a flight between the two is about an hour, Spanish travelers are flocking to HSR. Like California, the Madrid-Barcelona line serves a few intermediate-size cities - Zaragoza, Lleida, and Tarragona are sort of like San José, Fresno, and Bakersfield (though not necessarily in that order, and surely not culturally). As Matt Melzer explained last month, Spain's population densities are much like those here in California and a third of the ridership on the AVE trains was "induced demand" - new travelers brought out by the promise of fast and comfortable rail travel.

Lest we think that Europeans are somehow different than Americans in their travel habits, the Acela has over 40% of the market on the Northeast Corridor between Washington DC and Boston, despite the fact that the Acela isn't true high speed rail. Here on California's intercity trains ridership is booming, straining the existing capacity of Amtrak California. Standing room only is now common on many Capitol Corridor and Pacific Surfliner trains, and LA Metro Rail continues to set new ridership records.

As gas prices will continue to rise well into the future, causing airlines to cut back on flights and charge higher fares for those that remain, demand for high speed trains will only continue to rise. If ridership is already this high on Spain's and America's high speed trains, imagine how it will look here in California in ten years' time.

If Californians want a fast and affordable way to get around their state in the years to come, they need to vote for Prop 1.

If Spain Can Do It, We Definitely Can

In a joint presentation to the CHSRA last month, a delegation of rail companies from Spain described their experience with ambitious construction and expansion of HSR. Renfe (Spain's national train operator) provided the most striking slides, showing that Spain and California are kindred spirits, both equally capable of building HSR to provide their citizens convenient, non-oil-based transportation options.

As you can see in the comparison below, the population profiles of the two are similar, yet California has a much more robust economy, again shattering the myth that we can't afford HSR. Further, California's population is heavily concentrated in the metro areas that HSR will serve (and California is actually smaller than Spain). Along with the millions from more rural areas who will be able to access HSR through feeder trains and buses, the critical mass of a customer base is there (and will only increase along with airfares, oil prices, and the state's population).



By 2010, Spain will have the largest HSR network in the world. Even if China one day surpasses the figure, this puts California's wrangling over whether to build any HSR to shame.



As you can see, very few of the early adopters of the Madrid-Seville AVE route were previous train passengers (and the 34% induced demand represents a stimulated economy):



Overnight, the Madrid-Seville line positively transformed the travel landscape as the modal market share for trains went from 14% to 54%:



The rest of the world is leading, and Spain is truly visionary. It is high time for California to show the rest of the United States that HSR is as viable here as it is elsewhere, including less affluent economies.

Wednesday Open Thread

Note: Robert is honeymooning all week. Regular posting will resume August 3. Until then use these open threads to discuss anything related to the California high speed rail project.

Comment Starter: How did you first become interested in high speed rail? Was it a trip on a European or Asian HSR system? Repeated trips on California passenger rail that led you think "a bullet train would make this SO much easier?"

June 2008 CHSRA Meeting Report

Dennis Lytton attended the CHSRA board meeting in Los Angeles on June 11, and wrote up this report of the meeting. The next meeting is July 8 in San Francisco. Thanks to Dennis for writing this! - Robert

HSR Board Meeting in LA:
The Spain/California Connection and the Coming Campaign

Early this month the High Speed Rail board traveled to Los Angeles Metro Headquarters for their monthly board meeting.

Newly appointed board member Tom Umberg was at the meeting. The board also voted, wisely, to keep Judge Kopp as chair.

It was also heartening to hear Republican appointee to the board Curt Pringle rail against UP’s opposition to the project. This is an opportunity for both the state and UP, Pringle opined. Things seem to have changed in the last several months as climate change and oil prices have brought mainstream Republicans in Congress together on boosting rail and public transit recently (see below). Maybe the state’s Republicans will finally come around.

In other business, the Authority entered into an agreement with Fresno COG to cooperate on their project to consolidate the two freight railroads together, BNSF and UP. Potentially, like the Alameda Corridor, this could lead to better passenger and freight train service while reducing the rail lines' already small footprint (compared to freeways) through their community.

There was a fascinating presentation from the Infrastructure Management Group and Lehman Bros. They were hired as consultants by the Authority for the issue of bringing private equity investment into HSR. Their presentation to the board was based on the responses they received to their Request for Expression of Interest (RFEI), sort of like a pre-RFQ (request for qualifications). Diverse operators and contractors, including SNCF (the French National Railway), Britain’s Angel Trains, and giants like Alstom, Parsons, and Goldman Sachs responded.

Long story short, there's lots of interest in it but it would require at least 60% public financing. Probably at least 75%, IMHO. The good news is that if we get both the bond money and a matching federal amount under veto proof legislation (S.294 and HR 6003) pending in the Congress we are there. $20 billion S.F. to L.A. and beyond to Sacto and San Diego.

There was also a presentation from the L.A. to Palmdale consultant team on their planning work for the first several miles of the alignment north of Los Angeles Union Station. The Taylor Yards region around the current Metrolink yard has been a social justice issue for the neighboring Glassel Park neighborhood in Los Angeles. The consultants recognized the need to expand the developing Taylor Yards Park and also access to the L.A. River and are working with local stakeholders and elected officials staff to this end.

There was also a great presentation on the Spanish HSR system presented by Spanish HSR contractors and train manufacturers Talgo, Insolux Corsan, and Renfe. The Spanish will soon have the largest HSR system in the world. They have the added complication of having multiple track gauges in Spain, which we don’t have. More importantly however, Spain and California are comparable in terms of area and population. Spain's conventional railways were also in poor shape by European standards 20 years ago.

At the end of the meeting I made public comment for my two groups, the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP), and the Rail Passenger Association of California (RailPac). We are supporting getting the bond passed this November and are looking forward to working with the campaign and the grassroots/netroots on this important issue.

Also, reportedly, the campaign machine for HSR is ramping up. Kopp and Umberg are looking forward to a vigorous and well funded campaign for the project and expect some Republican support to be garnered up by board member and former Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle.

Just a few months ago I would have been doubtful about California Republican support. However, with the way gas and climate change have gone lately, and with Congressional Republicans recently joining House Democrats to pass a bill to aid local transit agencies to the tune of $1.7 billion over two years by a vote of 322-98, you’re got to wonder whether the anything-but-transit/trains Republicans like Tom McClintock will still dominate.

Dennis Lytton

HSR Benefits Property Owners

We all know that many of the HSR deniers are property owners who live in Menlo Park and Atherton, two of the wealthiest communities in our state. They worry that HSR is going to lower their home values - although exactly how is not clear. As Matthew James Melzer pointed out to me today, HSR would most likely increase their property values - providing for electrified trains (no more diesel fumes) and a fully grade-separated track that would dramatically lower the number of accidents along the route. Their property values seem to be holding up just fine even with frequent Caltrain service - so what are they worried about?

As Trains 4 America pointed out today the benefits would extend beyond the Peninsula. Spain's AVE system has produced significant property values gains. They didn't provide Here's a link to the actual article, but and here's the portion that Trains 4 America quoted:

To prove this theory Kyero has launched a new Spanish house price index, which shows property prices in towns and cities served by AVE stations outperform their provincial averages. For example, house prices in Málaga, which is served by the AVE line, are currently 24.7 per cent more expensive than in Andalucia and 23.7 per cent higher than the national average across Spain. Prices in Seville and Córdoba also show a similar trend, where properties are within easy reach of AVE stations.

Currently California cities such as Stockton, Modesto, and Fresno lead the nation in home foreclosure rates. As energy prices soared beginning in 2006 it became difficult to pay the cost of driving and the mortgage, causing the housing bubble to finally burst. HSR will help these cities provide economic growth and jobs that will be desperately needed. And because of the ongoing high prices and HSR's propensity to produce transit-oriented development that growth is likely to come within the city centers themselves, instead of in the form of exurban sprawl.

California's homeowners ought to be looking to projects like HSR to help them meet their 21st century needs, instead of continuing a foolish 20th century "rail merely hurts us" attitude.

You're Not Credible If You're Not Talking High Gas Prices

I've been traveling around California a lot in the last few weeks - mostly by train - and everywhere I go the most common topic of conversation is gas prices. The relentless march to $5 continues - we blew right past $4 a few weeks ago - but more important than the volatile day-to-day price is the underlying fact that gas prices have risen by nearly 400% in the last nine years. This is due to the phenomenon of peak oil - the shrinking supply and rising global demand for oil. Since the production of oil is at or near its all-time peak, we will have to either reduce our demand or pay ever-rising prices. Simple supply and demand law.

So you would naturally think that any effort to assess the high speed rail project - whose primary selling point is that it allows people to travel between metro areas within our state without being beholden to the ever-rising price of oil - would consider this point. Of course you would be mistaken - the State Senate didn't mention it at all in their report. Most newspaper editorials on HSR neglect the issue as well.

Not surprisingly the issue is completely ignored by the group that passes for HSR opposition in California. DerailHSR.com is founded by a group of Menlo Park property owners who don't want high speed trains running near their homes, even though the trains were there LONG before they were (the SP Peninsula route opened to passenger train service in 1863). If these folks wanted to have a discussion about the impact of the train on their property, that's a fair discussion to have out in the open. But they realize most Californians won't be moved by their "plight" - the median household income is $84,000 and most homes are valued near or above $1 million. So instead they try to "derail" the HSR project by making spurious claims about its ridership projections, its leaders, even its basic concept.

Recently these opponents published a paper that supposedly debunks the ridership projections on which the HSR project depends. But nowhere in this paper are fuel prices discussed. Nowhere at all. This despite the fact that passenger rail in America is setting ridership records due to high fuel prices.

It is simply not credible to discuss ridership and not include fuel prices in that analysis. On that basis alone the HSR deniers' paper is worthless.

But the paper is so full of half-truths and misstatements that I would be remiss if I didn't call those out. After all, if this is what passes for HSR opposition in California, it's best we nip these ridiculous claims in the bud, before they spread any further. The article states:

Construction costs could be 2 to 3 times projections or $80 to $120 billion instead of $40 billion. Ridership and revenue will probably be one-half to one-third of forecasts.

Nowhere is any basis for these figures given. The author, Arthur J. Ringham, appears to have made up these figures entirely. He goes on to cite a Danish study that purports to examine an "inherent forecast bias" in transit ridership projections - in other words that transit systems overestimate their projected riderships. But we can look to California to see this is not so. The Metro Orange Line saw 20,000 daily boardings in 2007 - a level they were not expected to reach until 2020! The pro-transit group Light Rail Now! offers a list of light rail lines that exceed their projected riderships - and that study was done in 2001. New lines in Minneapolis and Charlotte, opened in the last few years, have also met projections.

Demand on intercity rail lines in California is also soaring, stretching available capacity to the breaking point as ridership skyrockets. Finally, the airline crisis suggests that high fuel prices will mean fewer flights and higher fares on the LA-SF route, yet another indication that HSR ridership will have little trouble meeting expectations. Taiwan's new HSR system exceeded ridership projections and turned a profit earlier than was anticipated, and there is every reason to believe the same will occur here in California.

The DerailHSR folks admit that "most claimed benefits depend on ridership" - and so if their criticism of the ridership numbers has little merit, does any of the rest of their argument have merit? Of course not:

California and Japan are quite different. Japan has far higher population density and shorter distances between major cities, conducive to train travel. Their Bullet train system was well established before freeways, and gasoline has been about twice as expensive in Japan as here. Air fares between major cities within Japan are much higher than rail and a lot more than California air fares for the same distance. Californians have been wedded to cars and freeways for over two generations. It is absurd that California high speed rail travel can even approach its popularity in Japan.

What isn't said here is that in Spain - where population densities and distances between major cities are very much like California's - HSR is a stunning success, having little trouble attracting riders.

The only basis for their ridership claims is a belief that "Californians are wedded to cars and freeways." As a cursory glance at reality shows, this just isn't so. Californians were wedded to cheap oil, which made commuting and driving between cities a reasonable proposition. But with the end of cheap oil, Californians are showing themselves to be quite flexible and adaptable. The demand for passenger rail alone, whether in cities or between them, should remove all doubt.

The rest of the HSR deniers' essay mentions rising costs (yes, the costs will rise, but that is due to global inflation in construction materials - an argument for beginning construction ASAP), and even the threat of derailments along - you guessed it - the Peninsula corridor (no HSR trains have ever caused damage to surrounding homes via derailment). But since their claims on ridership were shown to have no merit, even those easily debunked points don't matter. If you don't assess the impact of high gas prices on transit, you are just not credible.