Sustainability

Earlier this summer the price of a barrel of crude oil hit a record $147. Since then the price has declined dramatically to about $64. Gas prices here in Monterey have fallen from a high of about $4.60 to just under $3. Some might be tempted to argue this makes alternatives to oil less necessary, but that would miss the point - the current decline in oil prices is strictly a product of demand destruction.

What that means is we're in between a rock and a hard place. Our economy has been built on growth made possible by cheap oil. More cars need to be sold, more suburban sprawl needs to be built, more goods need to be hauled by truck in order for the 20th century economic model to continue. If you can't do any of that without risking a crippling oil price increase like that which burst the housing bubble, you are stuck in an economic trough that has no visible way out.

Unless, of course, you start building an alternative to oil.

Besides, the phenomenon of peak oil is going to rather quickly necessitate such alternatives, if OPEC doesn't do so first. If this current respite in oil prices is to be anything other than the eye of a hurricane, we must build our way out of oil dependence.

Just as the oil crisis has not gone away, neither has the climate crisis. Arctic sea ice nearly reached a new record minimum. Global warming continues unabated, as the carbon-burning industry merely takes a short breather.

2008 is therefore an opportunity to start transitioning away from a failed economic model, one that became so dependent on burning fossil fuels that the economy nearly collapsed and severe ecological crisis has taken place. If we are to turn the 21st century into a sustainable century - with sustainable prosperity, built on renewable resources and a better, more sensible ecology, we need to start NOW on producing alternatives to oil.

California High Speed Rail is one of those alternatives. It will:

-Reduce carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to removing 1.4 million cars from the road, and take the place of nearly 42 million annual city-to-city car trips (Final EIR)

-Reduce CO2 emissions by up to 17.6 billion pounds/year (HSR fact sheet)

-Reduce California’s oil consumption by up to 12 million barrels/year (same as above)

According to the Final EIR 63% of intercity trips over 150 miles in California are taken by car (scroll to page 12). This is a major factor in causing most of California to be out of compliance with state clean air goals. Given that HSR would be much faster than driving between California's major metro regions, and will likely be less costly as well by 2018, HSR would make a significant dent in those car trips and therefore in the pollution they spew.

And HSR provides a VAST carbon emissions savings over other forms of transportation:


(Image from Alberta High Speed Rail)

HSR can be powered entirely by renewable energy sources, a goal the California High Speed Rail Authority recently adopted. HSR will provide a guaranteed buyer for renewable energy projects, making their construction more likely and more economical.

Sustainability is also a smart economic strategy. We have talked repeatedly about the economic stimulus it will provide. It will also provide a Green Dividend to Californians in the amount of several billion dollars at least.

Sustainable transportation is both economical and necessary for California's 21st century future. Sure, we have a temporary respite from the worst of the oil price hikes. But does anyone here really want to gamble that such price increases will never return? That we can continue the 20th century sprawl model indefinitely?

If you don't want to make that sucker bet, then vote Yes on Prop 1A.

Sierra Club Endorses Prop 1A

It's now official - the Sierra Club of California has voted to endorse Proposition 1A. We all knew that high speed rail would provide a major boost to California's efforts to produce environmentally friendly, sustainable, and global warming-fighting policies, and the Sierra Club's endorsement will help communicate that clearly to voters. From their Yes on 1A statement (.doc file) authored by Stuart Cohen of the Transportation and Land Use Coalition:

Sierra Club supports Proposition 1A, which would provide $9.95 billion dollars to catalyze the development of the 800 mile High-Speed Rail (HSR) system, and to make improvements to existing rail networks. Building HSR in California will reinforce our cities as the hubs of our economies, promote sustainable land use, significantly reduce global warming pollution, and get commuters off congested roads and out of crowded airports. While it is an extremely expensive project, adding the same capacity by expanding highways and airports would cost at least twice as much.

The statement also mentioned safeguards that the Sierra Club helped include in AB 3034, including the elimination of a Los Banos station and protection of important ecological areas. It also mentions the cost of doing nothing - $20 billion to bring Highway 99 to interstate standards, and far larger sums for airport expansion. They also noted approvingly that the Authority approved the goal of powering the trains with 100% renewable energy, ensuring that we get maximum carbon reduction benefits from the project and spurring development of new renewables sources.

A small number of activists in Northern California have been trying to claim that high speed rail is somehow environmentally damaging or won't bring the promised benefits. The Sierra Club of California has resoundingly rejected those arguments by backing Prop 1A - with nearly unanimous support from those who cast votes on the endorsement.

Over the last few months the urgency behind global warming action seems to have eased a bit as economic and energy concerns have dominated the public mind. But all three - environment, economy, energy - are fundamentally linked. To grow the economy and provide affordable, reliable energy we need to reduce carbon emissions and build sustainable, green infrastructure in our state.

The Sierra Club has demonstrated that it understands the importance of what Van Jones called moving "from opposition to proposition" with their endorsement of Prop 1A. It will be a pleasure to campaign for high speed rail alongside their membership.

Menlo Park Wants To Decide For California Whether We Have HSR

Menlo Park and Atherton, two of the most affluent cities in the entire state, apparently believe it is their right to make decisions for the other 36 million people in California. At a study session last night in Menlo Park city officials and residents spouted off reasons why HSR was a bad idea for California as justification for their lawsuit and resolution against the project. While one might understand the city's desire to mitigate the impact of HSR on their landscape, the tone of the debate made it clear that HSR's impact on Menlo Park wasn't the issue. Instead the forum was a chance for HSR's few opponents in this state to push their anti-HSR arguments to the media in hopes that they could use Menlo Park residents for their own purposes.

The San Mateo County Times article on the session noted that Menlo Park and Atherton are the ONLY two cities along the proposed route that oppose the project. All others support it. Further, as Rod Diridon noted, the cities along the Altamont route oppose HSR as well - yet Menlo Park wants to saddle them with a line they don't want. Cities like Fremont and Livermore are more middle- and working-class, but the wealthy residents of Menlo Park and Atherton are quite happy to override their objections to keep the trains out of their own backyard.

Menlo Park in particular also seems interested in ignoring the fundamental reality that they are, and have always been, a railroad city. The tracks that currently carry Caltrain cars have been there since before the city was founded. Caltrain runs nearly 100 trains through Menlo Park and Atherton every day. But city staff and elected officials behave as if that doesn't exist:

The staff's consistent point has been that the train should not run through the heart of a residential city, splitting east from west and forcing the removal of old-growth trees and perhaps even city and private property.

That was the argument of Elizabeth Blois, who spoke for members of the Felton Gables Homeowners Association on Tuesday in pleading for the rail association to consider the impact on their homes.

Someone should inform city staff of Caltrain's existence. The other part of this argument should be turned around on Menlo Park - if preserving a residential city is their concern, why do they support dangerous at-grade crossings? Why do they support pollution-spewing diesel trains? The loss of a small part of city and private property seems a small price to pay for safety and clean air.

Blois and others who made similar comments revealed their true motives - classic, dictionary-definition NIMBYism. Not in their backyard - but it's apparently OK to force it onto someone else, someone poorer.

Menlo Park and Atherton also are taking a stand for global warming and against carbon reduction. They are telling Californians that the property and aesthetic values of a small group of people is more important than solving our climate and energy crises. The 160,000 construction jobs and 450,000 long-term jobs that HSR would create don't faze a community that enjoys a unique level of economic security, towns that can afford to reject a green dividend.

Some of the other comments at the meeting were of the usual, uninformed HSR denier sort:

Other arguments from the public were more far-reaching. Jerry Carlson, vice mayor of Atherton, said the high-speed rail project as a whole is a waste of transit resources.

"I think a much better approach would have been to put that money into regional plans," he said.

Now, perhaps I'm missing something, but a train that whisks passengers from SF to SJ in 20 minutes sounds like a regional plan. A train that gets commuters from Anaheim to LA in 30 minutes is a regional plan.

Atherton resident Jack Ringham said the project would probably run far over budget, take years longer than predicted and attract far fewer riders annually than the 117 million the rail authority's consultants predict.

We dealt with Ringham's nonsensical claims back in June - anyone who thinks ridership on HSR will not be high is just demonstrating their lack of knowledge about passenger rail.

Vice Mayor Heyward Robinson conceded the city may not be able to stop the project altogether. If that's the case, he said, it should work with the rail authority to get key concessions. For instance, he suggested the high-speed portion of the line could stop at San Jose, and those continuing to San Francisco could simply take Caltrain.

In other words, Robinson wants to break the entire project and force people to have slow commutes just because he wants to pretend his community is not the railroad town that it has always been.

Some HSR supporters showed up to fight the good fight:

Roxanne Rorhpaugh said "the time has passed'' for debates about the Pacheco vs. Altamont alignments. She said she's certain the train can come through Menlo Park without serious damage to nearby property, but even if there were damage, "It's 12 houses versus 117 million" riders. "Do the math."

Amen to that. Menlo Park is trying to dictate terms to the rest of the state, claiming that the interests of 12 million-dollar homes are more important than fighting high gas prices, global warming, and the energy crisis. Menlo Park's neighbors Palo Alto and Redwood City aren't opposed to the train yet they too have wealthy homeowners who live near the tracks, and Redwood City in particular has a downtown that will be rather directly affected by the trains.

They understand the need to build a sustainable 21st century future that allows all Californians to share in our prosperity, allows all Californians to travel around their state. It's a shame that Menlo Park and Atherton prefer to make the state bend to the will of a few wealthy individuals. If that's not aristocracy I don't know what is.

It Shouldn't Have To Be A Choice

A British organization, Friends of the Earth, released a report calling for greater investment in high speed rail in Britain as a way to reduce reliance on air travel and eliminate the need for further expansion of Heathrow Airport. One of the articles about the FOE report quoted an "industry-lobby group" as saying something interesting in response:

However, voters are more concerned with the cost of living than with the environment, according to a poll commissioned by industry-lobby group Flying Matters last year.

Flying Matters appears focused on promoting Heathrow expansion so their claims aren't surprising. And they may not be wrong. Certainly here in the United States we don't have to strain to see examples of people seeing this as a choice between keeping a low cost of living or helping the environment. We can expect the HSR deniers to continue arguing that HSR will cost Californians too much money as part of their effort to kill the project.

But it shouldn't have to be a choice. In fact, it is a false choice. High speed rail is a perfect example of this, because it shows that the environmental option IS the the low cost of living option. Sure, gas prices are on the temporary downswing, but they will continue to rise over the long-term. By the time high speed rail opens around 2018, it will likely be the more affordable option than driving or flying. Even if gas prices increase at a slower rate, it will still be affordable anyway, create jobs, and promote business development.

Nor should we forget the environmental benefits, which also save money in the long run in reduced pollution, reduced carbon emissions, and reduced oil consumption. The notion that helping the environment was an economic loser was never an accurate claim, but it holds even less water than usual with regard to high speed rail.

High speed rail benefits both the environment and the economy. In fact, it's probably time we started seeing the two as fundamentally linked. We who support high speed rail here in California would do well to emphasize those connections.

Perspective

The most important news of the week isn't about a lawsuit. It's the report from a top British government climatologist arguing that global warming is going to happen faster and at a higher temperature than previously assumed. A 4C increase - equivalent to 7° Fahrenheit - would have a devastating impact on rainfall patterns, agriculture, and sea levels. Even if 4C is the upper end of the scale, the more widely accepted 2C figure is damaging enough, and a sign that we need to delay no further on implementing global warming solutions.

California has just such a solution on the November ballot - Proposition 1. It's worth reviewing just what the true environmental impact of high speed rail will be:

-Reduce carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to removing 1.4 million cars from the road, and take the place of nearly 42 million annual city-to-city car trips (Final EIR p. 92)

-Reduce CO2 emissions by up to 17.6 billion pounds/year (Quentin Kopp op-ed)

-Reduce California’s oil consumption by up to 22 million barrels/year (same as above)

According to the Final EIR 63% of intercity trips over 150 miles in California are taken by car (scroll to page 12). This is a major factor in causing most of California to be out of compliance with state clean air goals. Given that HSR would be much faster than driving between California's major metro regions, and will likely be less costly as well by 2018, HSR would make a significant dent in those car trips and therefore in the pollution they spew.

HSR provides a VAST carbon emissions savings over other forms of transportation:


(Image from Alberta High Speed Rail)

HSR will also help reduce air pollution. A 2006 Fresno Bee article explained that lung problems have soared among residents in recent years, and the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District estimated that to counter this trend, the region needed to eliminate 400 tons of pollution per day by 2011. High speed rail would help accomplish that task.

The California Air Resources Board in June issued its draft scoping plan for implementation of the AB 32 carbon reduction goals. They cited high speed rail as one of the methods the state will need to use to achieve the targeted reductions.

Those who are willing to jeopardize passage of Prop 1 by suing because they didn't get their way on the alignment decision or because they don't want safer, cleaner tracks in their neighborhood are overlooking all of these benefits. This isn't anything like oil rigs on the Alaska North Slope or on the California coast. The worst that might happen are tracks through some ranches near Pacheco Pass. The trains will tunnel beneath the pass itself and Pacheco Pass State Park. If that's the price we have to pay for achieving important carbon reductions, I think it's well worth paying.

Because California has failed for decades to act on climate change and energy independence, we are past the point where we can make easy choices. Everything we do to solve the energy-environment-climate crisis will have a possible downside. What we need now is leadership and action. We need to get started on our long-overdue high speed rail project and pass Prop 1, because if it fails at the polls, it's not coming back to the ballot for a long time.

Van Jones, who knows a thing or two about environmental policy, is exhorting audiences to move from opposition to proposition. Without it, he argues, we have no hope of stopping the right-wing's destructive environmental policies. We don't have the political room to be fighting each other over the small differences, and we certainly don't have the time to be suing because someone didn't get their way.

It's not easy to advocate for mass transit in California. Anytime a project is proposed, parochial concerns often derail even valuable projects - witness LA County's MTA tax plan. We have a pathetic rail infrastructure partly because few are willing to accept a compromise in the interest of investing in a better system. How long will we go around in these circles before we finally decide to act?

HSR is one of the most environmentally friendly projects California has considered in a very long time. It won't solve all our problems, but it's the necessary first step. It's time we rallied together to support the passage of Proposition 1 and take the lead in fighting for a better 21st century environment for all Californians.

From Opposition to Proposition

Netroots Nation is winding down here in Austin and I'm headed back to the West Coast later this evening. Outside the convention center the road is closed for construction of the Cap MetroRail Downtown station. Texas High Speed Rail is revived and planning their "t-bone" system, including an Austin stop. Inside the center, however, is where the real action was.

The speakers and the panels showed an increasing emphasis on energy and the environment. For a group of people who became bloggers primarily to react against the Bush Administration and the Democrats' failure to respond, it was a striking shift. If this weekend produced anything it was not just recognition that our country faces a major crisis, not just that it is time to begin solving those problems. What we are beginning to recognize is the linkage of democracy and public action to deal with the energy and environment.

Obviously Al Gore's surprise visit was one of the highlights. Gore emphasized the need for the public to hold elected officials accountable on the climate crisis - politicians can't be allowed to put parochial and short-term concerns to distract us from the larger tasks at hand. We can surely relate, as California politicians have been slow on the high speed rail uptake. Whether it's Mike Machado casting a spite vote against AB 3034 or Roy Ashburn using 11th hour objections to rally Republicans against the same bill, we in California are plagued by politicians who don't seem to grasp the need for bold and dramatic change.

It's not that we have no leadership at all - Fiona Ma, for example, has done some crucial work on this. But if high speed rail, or action on climate change, energy, the environment is going to be successful, we need to get Californians informed and involved. WE are the ones who are rallying the public to that end. This blog isn't going to achieve that alone on high speed rail, but we have built a bottom-up network of supporters, particularly at the Facebook group where we have over 33,000 supporters.

Debbie Cook, Democratic candidate for Congress in the 46th district (Huntington Beach and environs) gave an excellent presentation at the Energize America panel. She reviewed the public's understanding of peak oil, that we still have a long way to go. But she also made some deeply insightful points that nobody else made.

First, that America functioned just fine without reliance on oil. She showed a series of images of urban American life from the early 20th century, including communities that were dependent on rail, and explained that people living in those days were quite functional. We have become so used to cheap oil that we have a hard time envisioning a life without it. But it wasn't so long ago that we were able to live that way. Of course we've made enormous technological strides in the last 100 years, and that enables us to build a rail network that outclasses anything we had prior to 1950, as well as maintaining some amount of automobile usage.

Second, and much more important, was her point that we need to craft solutions that help Americans change the way they live to be more energy efficient. It's not enough to put LED lights on city streets or give everyone a hybrid, useful as those can be. Nor is it enough to have a "new Apollo Program" or a "new Manhattan Project." We don't need some government project where only scientists are involved, we need long-term solutions that get EVERYONE involved.

High speed rail is just such an example of that program. It will help make major reductions in carbon emissions and reduce our oil consumption by around 22 million barrels a year. And it does so by providing a form of transportation that all Californians can participate in daily, monthly, annually - whenever they want to. Getting people to be participants in change and not just passive recipients of change is key.

But the moment that brought the house down was Van Jones' speech this morning. Jones runs Green For All, a nonprofit focused on environmental justice and green jobs.

Jones was on fire talking about what we as a nation need to do to change the politics around energy, the environment, and the economy. He rightly pointed out that conservatives and the right frequently claim to be acting to the benefit of the poor and the middle class by opposing new spending and taxes - but that this is an outright lie. Providing green jobs and green technologies HELP these people in extremely significant ways, providing jobs, a healthy environment, and long-term stability in transportation and energy costs. He specifically targeted the right's ridiculous push for oil drilling - a solution that will do NOTHING to lower prices at the pump and would merely provide oil in ten years' time to China and India at a massive cost to American jobs and health.

He also exhorted the audience to become more assertive in their goals and their activism. He hit a crescendo when he said we need to "move from opposition to proposition" - to reclaim the initiative and the agenda in this country from the drillers and those who would have us continue the failed policies of the 20th century. We know those policies have failed. It is time for us to propose something better - not just better for some, but better for everyone.

It was a stirring speech and even though he did not specifically mention it, Proposition 1 is a great example of what Jones told us. High speed rail's critics are not the friends of California's working people. Working people in LA and San José and Fresno need good, green jobs. They need cleaner air. They need affordable transportation. Even if the bonds cost them each $750 that would be more than made up for by the impact of new jobs, higher wages, and fast affordable transportation that, as we have repeatedly discussed here, is essential to this state remaining competitive in a global economy.

California is poised to lead a significant breakthrough in how our country deals with the environmental, energy, economic, transportation crisis. Passage of Prop 1 would be a signal to the rest of the nation that it is possible to take bold yet sensible action within our existing and largely broken political system. It offers Californians hope that there is a way out of this crisis, that we are not going to be permanently stuck with the consequences of 50 years of bad decisions.

High speed rail is just the start. But it's a necessary start. The journey begins in November when we pass Proposition 1.

HSR Seizes European Short Haul Market

So reports The Times today on how soaring fuel costs are driving passengers to high speed trains:

The airline industry has been crushed by the price of kerosene and deserted by passengers fed up with delays. After decades of disappointment, false dawns and virtually bankrupt Channel Tunnels, we have finally arrived at the age of the train and the evidence is in the crowd at St Pancras.

Only eight months after opening its doors in November, the new station is choc-a-bloc at peak hours, an exciting but slightly nerve-wracking development for Eurostar and its biggest shareholder, SNCF, the French state railway.

Traffic growth on Eurostar is accelerating like an Alstom locomotive, increasing by 21 per cent in the first quarter, compared with the same period in 2007, and revenues are up by a quarter. Those figures were no flash in the pan, a boost from all the hooplah at last year's opening of St Pancras. Traffic in the second quarter has grown at similar rates, insiders say.

While Eurostar thunders through Kent, the competing service to Paris and Brussels is lost on a never-ending building site west of London. The Terminal 5 fiasco has not helped British Airways's short-haul European business, but by next year (assuming no new operational disaster) it should have ironed out the wrinkles.

Then, BA is left with the awful question of whether short-haul air traffic has any future in Europe. The answer has to be a resounding “no”.

There are a LOT of reasons for high speed rail and we've covered all of those and then some on this blog (no really - check the archives!), including economic stimulus, the environment, declining oil supplies, and air quality. But it may be that the airline crisis is the tipping point that convinces Californians of the value of high speed trains.

For many years, even at the beginning of this year, a common reaction to the high speed rail proposal was "why would I take a train when I can take Southwest for $50?" Until this year Californians assumed that cheap air travel would always be there for them within the state.

No longer. As more and more media outlets report on the airline crisis, and as Californians make the correct link between higher fares and the higher prices they pay at the pump, they realize that cheap airfare is about to become a thing of the past. And since driving isn't an attractive replacement, owing to cost and time, high speed rail is the perfect solution for shorthaul intercity trips within our state.

I promise this isn't going to become "the airline crisis" blog. You'll continue to hear more about the full range of benefits of the HSR project. But it may be that the airline crisis is what cements in the public mind the need for high speed rail. And it should put the final nail in the coffin of the ridiculous ridership debate - as if there's any doubt about HSR's ability to attract enough riders with this knowledge in mind...

CHSRA Meeting: The Authority held its public comment meeting on the Final EIR today in San Francisco. Owing to my obligations here in Monterey I wasn't able to get to the meeting until around 3 PM, by which point it was already over. If only there were some sort of high speed train to get me to SF...oh well. As rafael told me there wasn't much new - the usual pro and con comments ahead of tomorrow's vote to accept the EIR.

The real action on HSR continues to happen at the State Capitol, where the Senate Appropriations Committee was expected to debate AB 3034 yesterday - but instead postponed that until Thursday at 10 AM. It's anybody's guess what's going to happen to the bill. We hope to have someone there for the meeting on Thursday.

CARB Endorses High Speed Rail to Meet Global Warming Targets

The California Air Resources Board has released its draft scoping plan for implementation of the AB 32 greenhouse gas reduction law. This is the law that was passed in 2006 that requires California to reduce carbon emissions by 25%, to 1990 levels. It is rightly seen as a landmark national, even global law.

And as CARB recognized, its goals cannot be accomplished without high speed rail.

The cornerstone of the CARB plan to implement AB 32 is to use a cap-and-trade system. I prefer an outright carbon tax, but cap-and-trade is what we're likely to see initially here in California. This is where the overall amount of carbon emissions is capped, and credits are created to allow pollution up to that cap limit. Those credits can be traded - so if, say, a factory wants to pollute, it must purchase more credits, causing those who sell them to reduce their emissions. Over time the number of available credits is steadily reduced to achieve lower emissions.

Transportation is one of the capped sectors of the economy - meaning we can no longer just fly around or drive around endlessly; there will be increasing limits and at the same time rising costs as the cost of the credit purchase is passed on to consumers. To achieve the required lower emissions, and to provide sustainable and cleaner forms of transportation CARB endorsed high speed rail as one of its recommendations.

Their explanation was not particularly detailed - basically an endorsement of the concept of HSR and a projection that it would save around 1 million metric tons of CO2 in 2020. That's around 22 billion pounds per year, close to the figure of 17.6 billion pounds that Quentin Kopp has been quoting.

This also gives me a chance to reuse one of my favorite graphics, from Alberta High Speed Rail:



The amount of carbon emissions savings for HSR is really quite dramatic. And let's put this in context. Airline emissions are much higher than initially believed. CARB doesn't mention airline emissions, which is one of several reasons I believe their plan will ultimately be inadequate. But that just makes HSR all the more important a method of greenhouse gas reduction - if we are to have any hope of making the AB 32 targets, which are modest targets, we need to be constructing alternatives such as HSR. Without HSR it just will not be possible to make meaningful reductions in transportation emissions - and those emissions are the single largest category of emissions in the state.

Some might ask about the electricity generation for the HSR project. The CHSRA is currently undertaking a study of how to power the system with zero greenhouse gas emissions that should be ready any moment now. Given the potential for thermal solar in the Central Valley and wind power in some of the mountain passes and the Delta, a carbon neutral high speed rail system is entirely possible.

These facts are more than compelling. They demonstrate why high speed rail is an absolutely necessary part of California's solution to the great crisis of the 21st century - global warming and its effect on our environment. Although there are several other important reasons for HSR, on the environmental basis alone this project is something California cannot afford to reject.

Mind the Gap

I've been running this site for just over three months now - the first post was on March 6 - and one thing has become extremely clear to me.

There is an enormous gap in this state between those who support the HSR project and those who do not. It's not really about HSR. It's about what kind of state, what kind of economy, what kind of society we will have.

This blog has consistently argued that we must assess HSR in context. We need to consider the of high oil prices on transportation and the economy. We need to consider the ongoing airline crisis caused by the high oil prices and what it means for intercity travel in our state. We need to realize that the cost of doing nothing isn't zero. We need to make realistic ridership assessments that include the high cost of oil instead of assuming against all available evidence that folks won't ride trains. We need to keep in mind the importance of cutting pollution and dealing with global warming. We also need to consider the economic stimulus HSR construction will provide to our economy.

Those who oppose the project never discuss any of the above. At all. It just doesn't figure into their thinking. To these opponents it is forever 1995. Oil prices are cheap, folks won't ride trains, global warming is something to doubt, the economy is doing fine. Instead of the energy-environmental-economic crisis facing our state, to them everything's just fine, so how dare HSR advocates threaten a handful of Peninsula homeowners with HSR? How dare we ask the state to drop $10 billion on this project? While the state faces a crisis as deep as any we've faced since the 1930s, the opponents seem to think we shouldn't do anything at all to meet the challenges of our day. They don't even acknowledge their existence.

California needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. HSR will be a neat system with lots of cool bells and whistles but that's no reason to support it. No, the reason to support it is that without HSR California will not meet the challenge of the 21st century, and we will fall behind the rest of the world. Hell, we might even fall behind Texas!

We owe it to Californians to ensure this system is built right - with the right routing, the right equipment, and the right oversight. But we also owe it to Californians to be honest about what this state must do to survive in the 21st century. Our recent prosperity, now coming to an end, was enabled by earlier massive infrastructure projects, from the bay bridges to the State Water Project. It is time for California to show foresight - or be left eating dust.

Over the next few weeks we will be rolling out more activist opportunities to help HSR to victory in November. If you have not already done so, fill out the pledge form to the right. Tell your friends what HSR is and why it matters. Together we will rebuild California.

"A New Manhattan Project"

A Georgia oil company executive, Tex Pitfield (really, with a name like that, how do you NOT go into the oil business?!), has an op-ed in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution calling for a massive national investment in alternatives to oil. And of course, high speed rail figures centrally in his argument:

History provides wonderful insight. Could we possibly reinvent the Eisenhower interstate system in the form of a nationwide high-speed rail system like they have in Europe? Needless to say, it would be powered by electricity or hydrogen, fossil fuel being a thing of the past. Not only do we create a huge beneficial infrastructure, but we put likely hundreds of thousands of people to work. The economy desperately needs jobs and a base to support them.

Way too many Californians have forgotten the role of massive infrastructure investment in the prosperity we enjoy today. Without the bay bridges built during the Depression, the State Water Project that was approved during a budget crisis in 1960, Eisenhower's foresighted (if ultimately flawed) Interstate Highway System, the construction of and paying the operating costs for schools and colleges - all those were acts of government that without which California would never have enjoyed the prosperity it did.

But those investments either need to be renewed, or in the case of transportation, remade. The era of cheap oil is over and instead of wasting money on trying to prolong our oil dependency - at a huge cost to our environment and therefore to our lives - why not do what our predecessors did, and invest in our future?

Those who attack the high speed rail project, those who say we should not build it, are saying we should do nothing at all to plan for our future. They offer no solution to high gas prices. No solution to the airline crisis. They have no plan for addressing climate change. They believe, against all evidence, that the status quo can continue indefinitely.

We need a new investment in our nation's infrastructure - to build a sustainable America. It begins here in California. We can show the rest of the country the way forward - or we can stick our heads in the sand and deny reality. The choice is ours and ours alone - if we don't make the right one this year, we're not going to get another chance to put it right. We've already squandered too many of those opportunities.

Britain's Wrong Turn on HSR

We're bound to hear about this from our local HSR deniers, so might as well deal with it ourselves. The British government has killed a plan to link London to Scotland because HSR supposedly is "not a green option":

In a letter obtained by The Times, Tom Harris, the Rail Minister, said: “The argument that high-speed rail travel is a ‘green option’ does not necessarily stand up to close inspection. Increasing the maximum speed of a train from 200kph [125mph – the current maximum speed of domestic trains] to 350kph leads to a 90 per cent increase in energy consumption.”

It's a controversial rationale, one that will be repeated by the usual folks who argue HSR isn't necessary. It's already drawing fire from British environmental groups:

[Chris Davies, Lib Dem MEP] said that Mr Harris had failed to acknowledge the environmental benefits of persuading domestic air passengers to transfer to high-speed rail. He added: “It is very disappointing to see the minister scrabbling around for excuses for the Government’s inaction on high-speed rail, especially when those excuses are so weak.”

A high-speed train produces about 90 grams of carbon dioxide per passenger-kilometre, compared with just over 50g/km for a conventional electric train. But a domestic flight produces 225g/km.

Moreover, the claims that British HSR would increase carbon emissions assume Britain will never move away from coal-fired electricity, and that HSR would not draw more passengers away from airlines, creating a net carbon savings. The British government's decision is completely ass-backward, although such things are now standard with the Labour government.

The situation here in California is even more stark. Intercity trains in California are all diesel-powered. And of course most intercity travel is still made with cars and airplanes, which spew enormous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. High speed rail, powered by electricity, is estimated by the CHSRA to reduce carbon emissions by 17.6 billion pounds per year - a truly stunning savings. Compared to the other transportation systems we use in California HSR is by far the most environmentally friendly, as this image from Alberta High Speed Rail shows:



Additionally HSR is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to removing 1.4 million cars from the road, and take the place of nearly 42 million annual city-to-city car trips and reduce California’s oil consumption by up to 22 million barrels/year. According to the Final EIR over 63% of trips over 150 miles in California are taken by car, and HSR would help take a significant chunk of those trips off the road, a significant carbon savings.

That in turn will also help the San Joaquin Valley in particular meet its air quality goals - the Valley has some of the most polluted air in the state, due largely to vehicle trips.

Of course, the most carbon emissions savings would be realized if HSR could be powered by renewable and sustainable resources. The CHSRA is undertaking a study on exactly that issue and it should be ready shortly.

What all of this demonstrates is not just that the British government is wrong - but that their rationale is completely inapplicable to California. HSR deniers, like their global warming denier cousins, prefer to ignore or dismiss the truth and the need to reduce carbon emissions. We know that Californians reject global warming denials. It's my belief they'll reject HSR denials too. California needs HSR if we are to meet our carbon emissions reduction goals, and I am confident that voters will recognize that fact this November.

Fresno Bee Slams Union Pacific

In their Saturday editions the Fresno Bee ran an editorial criticizing Union Pacific's efforts to block high speed rail. They didn't pull any punches:

There are several possible explanations for the railroad's move:

Union Pacific is positioning itself for negotiations on any future sale of right of way to the California High Speed Rail Authority.

Union Pacific, in the historically civic-minded nature of railroads in California, is genuinely concerned about the safety of rail passengers.

Union Pacific doesn't know what it's talking about.

The high-speed rail authority has never considered buying existing Union Pacific right of way. Instead, the proposed route would carry trains near the existing tracks in some areas -- not on them. High-speed rail requires dedicated tracks, with grade separations and barriers that keep the trains away from all other trains, as well as other vehicles and pedestrians.

Ouch. Personally I doubt the UP is being civic-minded - it's not really in their nature - but I understand where the Bee is going with this formulation. The editorial also makes a crucial point - we're not talking about putting HSR right next to freight trains, at least not on the sections UP owns.

Union Pacific is correct to preserve its ability to expand. Increased rail freight capacity is as important to California and the nation as building high-speed passenger lines. With the cost of diesel fuel soaring even higher than gasoline, and considering the tremendous pollution that diesel engines cause, we're all better off when freight moves by rail rather than by truck.

But Union Pacific's "safety concerns" might be more usefully focused on the dangers its trains and tracks pose in the neighborhoods they travel through, here in Fresno and elsewhere.

The Bee is right to point to freight rail's importance to our economy. I agree that UP ought to be able to expand - and the Bee is right that HSR doesn't impede that ability.

I also think we should keep in mind the relationship of the UP and the public. They were the original public-private partnership - we gave them huge land grant subsidies in exchange for building the transcontinental rail infrastructure that we realized was needed for the economic growth of the West Coast. Since then government has given them numerous subsidies and perks, such as protection from certain kind of state regulation, their own police force, deregulation of labor rules in recent years, and massive publicly-funded construction projects like the Alameda Corridor.

We need to keep in mind that UP isn't any random private company, but a company created specifically to serve the public interest. There is nothing wrong with insisting they not impede the public, and reminding them of that obligation is a good idea right about now. Political leadership, especially from our Congressional delegation, would help UP understand this - and that if they want to expand their freight operations, they should help us expand our passenger rail services.

High Speed Politics

High speed rail is an inherently political project. We can - and should - discuss the technological and transportation merits of the plan, defend its purpose, its value, its need. But to make it reality we must navigate the politics of California - never an easy thing no matter what the issue - as we've seen this week.

The main obstacle facing high speed rail is this state's political inertia. For the last 30 years California has slowly but steadily fallen apart as its public services are hollowed out from a lack of investment. Californians don't like $4.50 gas and are flocking to rail travel - but without massive investment this can never become the viable alternative to oil-based travel that we need to stay afloat and economically competitive.

That investment - in rails, in schools, in health care - hasn't been forthcoming despite the obvious need for it because politicians always find it easier to avoid having to solve the state's structural revenue shortfall. The state's media, convinced that the #1 problem facing government is how to keep spending down, certainly doesn't help matters, but state politicians from both parties remain locked in an obsolete view of financial risk, predicated on the belief that anything new, anything that requires a substantial investment, is a bad idea.

Perhaps it is - from their perspective. California politicians like taking the easy way out, using cheap and easy budget "solutions" to kick the state's underlying revenue problem a few years down the road. HSR threatens them because it demands a solution - a spending solution - right now.

This problem is compounded by their inability or unwillingness to accept new realities. I've spent the last two days on California's trains - the Coast Starlight, the Pacific Surfliner, the Metro Red Line. All were packed, no matter the hour of the day. Gas prices are on everyone's mind and virtually everyone I talk to here - conservative, moderate, liberal - agrees on the need for non-oil alternatives.

California is changing before our eyes, as I explained earlier this week. The desire for new investment is there and if the state's politicians and media understood this, we wouldn't have this HSR problem. The ridiculous notions of "financial risk" wouldn't be discussed with no reference whatsoever to soaring fuel prices, to the airline crisis, to the cost of doing nothing. HSR's finances must be examined in context - and weighed against $80 billion for new runways and freeways, or the far larger economic cost of high oil prices, HSR's finances look pretty damn good.

Still, the project isn't completed, and the CHSRA hasn't yet nailed down other funding sources. This is a chicken-and-egg problem - how can CHSRA get federal and private commitments unless we've staked our $10 billion? We have every indication that Congress will pony up big money for HSR but not unless we prove we're willing to do so as well.

The absence of these guarantees, combined with their unwillingness to seek new revenues, led the State Senate Transportation Committee to suggest spending the state's money on commuter HSR and abandon the long-distance trains. The thinking is that by building the commuter segments first, voters will flock to HSR, building public support for it, and helping earn federal money to finish the system. Many strongly pro-HSR people have supported this idea in the comments on the last post, but I am more skeptical.

Here's why:

• I don't believe the commuter HSR approach will succeed in its goal because it doesn't address the core political problem I outlined above. It would essentially leave the middle section unfunded, including the expensive Pacheco Pass and Tehachapi tunnel segments which will be difficult to find leveraged funding to support. If we can't get it now, what's to ensure that funding will materialize in the future?



• It will not be as lucrative as long-distance rail. The State Senate's own report is inconsistent - they note that commuters will bring in just 9% of the profits, whereas most money will be generated by the long-distance riders. If "financial risk" is really their concern isn't it more risky to try and build the system on commuters alone? Commuter rail in California, wonderful as it is, remains subsidized by government, and insufficiently at that.



• It won't generate the necessary public support to build out the system. Look at all the HSR activism that exists. 27,000 members of the Facebook group. Thousands of calls and letters generated by CALPIRG. The CHSRA's own popular online animations. All this was generated not by support of high speed commuter rail, but high speed intercity rail. Folks get excited and active about linking north to south - not by a faster Caltrain (as valuable as that certainly is). I am not confident that commuter HSR can be easily translated into long distance HSR. It serves a very different group of riders, and does not bring rail travel into a new area of life the way intercity HSR would.



• And it may torpedo the fall HSR bond. As wu ming, a Central Valley resident, explained in the comments on the last post, Valley voters are suspicious of big-ticket infrastructure projects that benefit the Bay Area and SoCal and leave them out. Voters, cities, and businesses there have been counting on HSR to lead them into a 21st century economy. Cutting them out with a commuter HSR system will hurt the bond vote there, and we're going to need every vote we can get.

I think that HSR is on much more solid ground by maintaining the LA-SF core, and guaranteeing a phased approach to construction. We have every reason to expect federal support. And if not, then we reexamine how to pay for it ourselves. That might cause the usual suspects to freak out - but their concerns are based out of their desire to see as little government spending happen as possible.

Our concerns are to grow the California economy, provide an alternative to skyrocketing gas prices, provide green jobs and help fight pollution and global warming. I will put that up against the small government zealots any day - because California is changing, and people now understand the need to make the right investment.

I'm willing to be convinced that a commuter HSR approach as Phase I - with guarantees on finishing missing links - is a smart solution to our political problem. We're all on the same side here - getting HSR built is one of our state's highest priorities.

California Changing Before Our Eyes

Recycling this for Tuesday June 3 - follow our state election coverage at Calitics

It wasn't really that long ago that rail travel was the primary method Californians used to get around the state - and even around the country. Even into the late 1950s passenger rail was thriving, although facing a growing challenge from airlines and the interstate freeways. By the 1960s and 1970s Californians came to believe that rail was dying and cheap oil would last forever - but the rumors of passenger rail's demise were exaggerated (if not greatly). It's clear now that the late 20th century dismissal of rail's role in transportation was shortsighted and based on temporary conditions like cheap oil, and as Californians watch global warming, congested freeways, and soaring fuel prices, they're reevaluating passenger rail. Ridership on Amtrak California's intercity routes are soaring - standing room only on some trains - making a mockery of claims that there isn't the demand to make high speed rail work:

"In the last three months, we've seen a phenomenal increase in all three corridors," said Bill Bronte, chief of Caltrans' division of rail. "Particularly on the San Joaquin and Capitol Corridor."

For the first seven months of this budget year, which ends in September, ridership is up 13.6 percent on the Capitol Corridor, 11.1 percent on the San Joaquin and 4.7 percent on the Pacific Surfliner compared with last year. The Surfliner, the state's busiest train, carried 2.7 million passengers in the 2007 budget year, while the Capitol Corridor hauled 1.45 million and the San Joaquin carried 805,000.

Such was the focus of a feature article in today's San Francisco Chronicle, Trains gaining as sensible alternative to cars, from where the above quote was taken. Newspapers tend to be lagging indicators, catching up on shifts in public opinion well after they are underway - but they're also helpful in solidfying a narrative - in this case, that Californians now see passenger rail as a valuable, viable part of their transportation infrastructure:

Zac Zacarias, 40, works for Cisco Systems as a financial analyst from his home in El Dorado Hills, near Sacramento, most days. But about twice a week he commutes to Santa Clara for meetings and to show his face. Riding the train not only spares him the frustrations of a long drive through some of the Bay Area's worst chokepoints, it allows him to get some work done.

While on his way home Thursday, Zacarias sat at a table in front of his laptop computer, pecking away and waiting to call in and join a conference call.

"I have a Prius, but I would rather just sit on the train and work - or sleep," he said. "It just depends on what's important to you - time to work, time to sleep or being able to leave when you want."

The frustration for Zacarias is that the trains, which often have to yield to freight trains and occasionally have to stop when there's something on the tracks, are sometimes late - usually, he said, on the trip home.

"The biggest problem is being late," he said, "because everyone wants to get home. Three hours on the train is enough."

Zacarias' arguments show the value of passenger rail, over driving and over flying. Especially considering that high speed rail will have wi-fi service, faster trains on dedicated tracks (i.e. no more yielding to freight) and connects to city centers, there is every reason to believe that Californians will continue to see that passenger rail provides a higher quality transportation experience, whether one's a commuter or a business traveler or riding the train for personal reasons.

And as the article shows, in its stats and its stories, the demand is clearly there for passenger rail. We spend a lot of time talking up the value of passenger rail here but I am beginning to suspect that Californians already grasp this. The key, however, is providing the service - if you build it, they WILL come. This seems to be at the core of the rising ridership on Amtrak California lines - an increase that actually dates to 2005:

Trains have seen year-over-year increases exceeding 9 percent for each of the past 18 months. Eugene Skoropowski, who manages the Capitol Corridor service, says the boom in ridership can be credited to an increased frequency of service as much as to rising gas prices and a desire to escape the tyranny of traffic.

The Capitol Corridor has added a number of new trains and brought new cars into service over recent years - without which the increased ridership would simply not have been possible. HSR would dramatically increase the frequency of passenger rail service in the state and increase the available capacity, which would induce demand (a theory borrowed from freeway planners).

Right now California has ONE train a day that links LA to SF - the Coast Starlight, which takes 10 hours to link LA to San Jose. It too has witnessed soaring demand, despite ongoing problems with freight delays and the slow travel time. Given the underlying conditions - long-term high gas prices, traffic, climate change and pollution - we can expect the HSR line that connects the Bay Area to SoCal to attract a significant, high level of ridership.

But more important than the numbers, more important than the physical capacity and the dedicated rails, is the changing attitude that Californians are exhibiting. We do love ours cars, and I'm no exception - but we're coming to realize that doesn't have to stop us from embracing passenger rail as a method of travel. Californians not only WILL ride trains, they're already doing it. HSR will make those trips more numerous, more easy, and more beneficial to our economy.

Fiona Ma: It's Now or Never

As you probably know by now, we here at the California High Speed Rail blog are HUGE fans of Fiona Ma. She has taken the lead on high speed rail in the state legislature, and her trip on the record-breaking TGV journey in April 2007 was the turning point in public awareness for high speed rail in our state.

Last month Ma attended the Ecocity 2008 conference in San Francisco, and gave a powerful speech explaining the environmental and economic benefits of high speed rail. Among the points she mentioned was that transportation is the largest source of California's carbon emissions, and that the only way we will meet our AB 32 targets is to build high speed rail. The video below covers the speech, at around 10 minutes long (Ma's remarks begin at 00:45).



One of the key points she made was that California's leadership is crucial for the rest of the country to embrace high speed rail. "If we do not pass it in November, we will never have high speed trains in the US," she told the audience to loud applause. She is probably right - California is seen as a national leader, especially on technology and global warming action. But if California doesn't pass the bonds this November, it will embolden HSR deniers and discourage HSR supporters - and even more importantly, might derail the momentum currently building in Congress to drop billions of dollars on HSR. And even if momentum continued in DC, we might find that places such as Texas, the Northeast Corridor, and the Great Lakes states will move ahead on HSR while California is left behind. A defeat of the bond this November WILL kill our chances for HSR for the next ten years.

But Fiona Ma was confident that we will win in November. As she told the audience:

I think this is the perfect storm. The high cost of gasoline, the congested roadways, the long lines at the airports, and now with the airline crisis, I really believe that this is the time that Californians will pass this bond in November.

The HSR deniers don't want to discuss any of these problems - but Californians understand these problems very well. No wonder 58% of voters back the high speed rail bonds. They get it, just as Fiona Ma gets it.

Fiona Ma also called on the bloggers to help publicize high speed rail - and we've been doing exactly that for two months now. The California High Speed Rail Blog: We Do Our Part!

The Cost of Doing Nothing is not Zero

One of the points I have repeatedly tried to make on this blog is that the choice is not between spending $40 billion on HSR or spending $0 and doing nothing. The cost of not building the high speed rail project is very high - at least double the cost of building HSR, if the $80 billion figure for road and airport expansion that the CHSRA has offered is accurate.

So it's good to see this crucial point get picked up by the state's media, including the Fresno Bee. In today's excellent editorial they write:

High-speed rail makes sense for a number of reasons -- economic development, environmental improvements, reducing highway congestion, smarter growth patterns -- but here's one more: The cost of not building the system would be much greater than $40 billion.

Opponents of the high-speed system often sound as if this is a choice between spending the $40 billion or spending nothing. That notion is just dead wrong.

Take just one instance. Expanding existing highways and airports to meet the transportation needs projected to come with growth in the state's population would cost two or there times as much -- and would make air quality and congestion even worse. In some cases -- San Francisco, Los Angeles -- existing airports can't be expanded. Bigger and better freeways? Expanding Highway 99 in the Valley to an eight-lane interstate would cost as much as $25 billion alone -- and that's just to serve the Valley, not the entire state.

And as that editorial rightly suggests, the cost of not building HSR isn't limited to the construction costs on new freeway lanes - but should also include the cost of pollution that is already causing health problems in the San Joaquin Valley. To that we can add the cost of fuel for drivers and airline passengers, the cost in lost economic development, and the cost of carbon taxes or passed-on cap-and-trade fees.

It is possible that through no fault of the CHSRA - as global inflation in construction materials continues and as the US dollar loses value - the overall tab for HSR might rise above $40 billion. Of course, Californians will only be asked to front $10 billion, in the form of long-term bonds to be repaid from fares. Can the same be said of the alternative? Without HSR Californians will have to shell out billions in higher fuel costs, freeway and airport expansion, and will have to do so from the worsening environmental and economic position that would result from not having built HSR.

As countries around the world - including Iran, Morocco, and Vietnam - plan high speed rail systems, surely Californians would want to remain economically competitive AND save themselves money by building HSR. Of the many good reasons for building the system, fiscal responsibility and economic common sense are among the strongest.

"Air Quality is the Key" to the Central Valley's Future

The Central Valley has long been the forgotten region of California - as Southern California and the Bay Area dominate the state's media and politics, the Central Valley's needs often appear to go unmet. Yet this region is one of the fastest-growing parts of our state, and will make up the bulk of the high speed rail route. The Central Valley needs economic development assistance, major transportation infrastructure development, and a program of smart transit-oriented development to replace the growing reliance on sprawl. And as rail advocate Alan Kandel reminds us, the high speed rail project will help with another core need of that region - cleaning up the notoriously polluted air of the San Joaquin Valley:

Here’s what’s puzzling. With as bad as the air in the Central San Joaquin Valley is alleged or purported to be, there isn’t a single Central Valley based municipality that has even a semblance of passenger rail service above and beyond what’s provided by Amtrak California, except maybe in Stockton and Tracy which are served by the hugely successful Altamont Commuter Express to and from the south Bay Area. To those folks, that must be a godsend.

What’s amazing is, over the years patronage numbers on Amtrak’s “San Joaquin” trains – right up there with their “Pacific Surfliner” and “Capitol Corridor” train counterparts – have soared! These three services are ranked in the top six in the national Amtrak system. These didn’t attain these noteworthy spots by accident either. And, I’ll bet an even greater number of Valley (and state) residents will be traveling via Amtrak in the days, weeks, months and years ahead even, given gas prices going up the way they are. Yet, understanding this and with as much as people embrace and use the passenger train service, why, it seems, the thinking isn’t directed to electrified light- and/or heavy-rail intracity services in Central California boggles the mind.

In fact, a 2006 Fresno Bee article explained that lung problems have soared among residents in recent years, and the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District estimated that to counter this trend, the region needed to eliminate 400 tons of pollution per day by 2011. High speed rail would help accomplish that task.

High speed rail is going to be a godsend for the Central Valley. It will link Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, Visalia and Bakersfield to the rest of the state, bringing jobs and economic opportunity to its residents. It will make travel much easier for them - and cheaper as well. Most importantly, it will help clean up the region's worsening, polluted air.

Instead Arnold Schwarzenegger and freeway advocates propose to drop $6 billion on modernizing and upgrading Highway 99 between Stockton and Bakersfield. With soaring gas prices - and diesel nearing $5 a gallon - is this the best use of money for upgrading Central Valley transportation?

In contrast to Southern California and Bay Area HSR critics like Martin Engel, the Central Valley is very strongly supportive of the project. Central Valley politicians like Cathleen Galgiani have helped provide leadership at the state level, and Rep. Jim Costa (D-Fresno) has been a strong advocate of HSR, helping create the project when he was in the state legislature and helping build support for it in Congress. Virtually all of the chambers of commerce up and down the Valley support the project, and local governments in towns like Fresno and Visalia are already beginning to plan their downtown developments and transportation strategies around high speed rail.

But it may have been a comment on Alan Kandel's post that said it best:

Being concerned about what you breath is the ultimate quality of life issue, and people who can leave some times do. I left due to the lack of any meaningful effort to address the issue. The Great Valley Center was talking about new towns of 80,000 to 100,000 people on the far western side of the valley and I knew AQI was only going to get worse.

You can defend yourself or at least take some action to limit your exposure to crime, or blight or school quality, or any number of issues in the community, but you can't take a break from breathing the air.

I said it at the time to my classmates in Leadership Fresno and here it is again; air quality is the key to nearly every issue in Fresno and the SJV.

Airline Emissions Much Higher Than Previously Thought

The Independent, a British newspaper, has a report on a study presented at an FAA conference recently that claims air travel is a significantly larger contributor of carbon emissions to the atmosphere than previously assumed:

An unpublished study by the world's leading experts has revealed that airlines are pumping 20 per cent more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than estimates suggest, with total emissions set to reach between 1.2 billion and 1.5 billion tonnes annually by 2025.

The report, by four government-funded research bodies, is one of the most authoritative estimates of the growth of pollutants produced by the industry. It was presented to a conference co-organised by the United States' Federal Aviation Authority but not given a wider audience.

Combining data produced by the leading emissions-modelling laboratories in the US, Britain and France, the study found that the number of people seriously affected by aircraft noise will rise from 24 million in 2000 to 30.3 million by 2025, despite the introduction of quieter jets, and that the amount of nitrogen oxides around airports, produced by aircraft engines, will rise from 2.5 million tonnes in 2000 to 6.1 million tonnes in 2025.

The CHSRA has not provided any firm estimates of how much carbon emissions will be saved from air travel specifically - their 17.6 billion pounds of carbon per year estimate includes air and auto travel - but this study suggests that even the CHSRA numbers may significantly understate the savings.

On that basis alone high speed rail is worth building, as part of California's strategy to fight global warming. The AB 32 goals - reduction of CA carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 - is a modest goal, but it will not have a chance of being met without investment in high speed rail. The full system won't open until around 2020, but portions of it will open before then, and will provide immediate action to stabilize our changing climate.

Opponents usually ignore this topic, since to acknowledge the need to act on global warming is to acknowledge the need for high speed rail. Instead they continue to suggest that airlines will handle the bulk of California's travel needs, or that airlines will adapt. The airlines themselves make this claim, from the same Independent article:

The International Air Transport Association, which represents 240 airlines, said it was working towards producing binding targets to reduce CO2 emissions. "With fuel costs doubling in the last year, airlines already have an incentive to work towards greater efficiency," a spokesman said. "There has been a 70 per cent improvement in fuel efficiency in the last four decades. Aviation is a benchmark of environmental responsibility for others to follow."

In fact, most of this "greater efficiency" is coming in the form of longer flying times or cutting service and reducing flights, including on the LA-SF route. New airline technologies designed to save on fuel, such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, are experiencing significant delays amid technical problems.

The fact is that the airline industry is in serious trouble. Rising fuel costs and the growing awareness of their impact on global warming both mean that we will see a reduction in airline services. The airline industry will not disappear, but where it can be replaced with more efficient forms of travel - like high speed rail to connect cities within states - it will. If the enormous levels of carbon emissions from airlines don't convince us of the need to build high speed rail, perhaps the fuel-induced reductions in airline service will.

High Speed Rail Is Simply a Better Way to Travel

John Addison publishes the Clean Fleet Report, a newsletter devoted to renewable automobiles. For Earth Day 2008 he wrote an excellent overview of the California high speed rail project that not only reinforces many of the major points in favor of high speed rail, but does so in a particularly clear and convincing manner.

The article opens with an anecdote about Fiona Ma's trip on board the record-breaking TGV trip in 2007, about how her initial worries were quickly overcome:

Fiona Ma was nervous about getting on a train that was about to set a world speed record. Just before Easter 2007 in the countryside outside Paris, she saw the people lining the green and flowered route. The French were flying flags, waving, and cheering. Less reassuring were those of faith who crossed themselves as the new train accelerated past 200 miles per hour. The people blurred into a collage of spring time colors. The train vibrated much as when a jet plane roars down the runway and starts to ascend. Fiona hoped that this train would not leave the tracks.

At three hundred miles per hour, the train was still on the tracks, accelerating. Out the window, only one image was distinct. A plane that was filming the historic event flew along side the train. Surrealistically, Fiona and the eleven other dignitaries could see what was filmed from the plane on a screen inside the train. Another LCD displayed their world record - 357 miles per hour on a train. Everyone cheered. The train slowed over the next few miles. Fiona took a deep breath, exhaled, and smiled; she took part in history.

It's a great framing device for Addison's article, especially as it mirrors some of the initial hesitancy that some Californians have about the project. By now we should be familiar with most of them - it's going to cost too much, Californians won't ride it, the budget deficit means we can't do it, construction will hurt the environment. These are the usual doubts and worries folks have before embarking on a major, transformative project. But once we look at how HSR works in practice - and once we evaluate the specific proposal - it is impossible to avoid having the same feelings of excitement and confidence that Fiona Ma felt on that train in France last year.

Addison goes on to describe the environmental benefits of HSR and the growing demand from Californians for this kind of system. He closes his article with a personal anecdote showing just how useful, efficient, and valuable HSR systems already in place - even quasi-HSR systems like the Acela - are in contrast to our decaying and sclerotic oil-based transportation systems:

As a manager covering several states, I used to travel weekly on airplanes. Point-to-point always required at least four hours to get to the airport, get thru security, taxi in the runway, fly, taxi in the runway, then rent a car. In contrast, when taking a train from Washington D.C. to New York, I found that train travel was faster than airlines and better integrated with public transportation. With high-speed rail, airline travel to cover a few hundred miles would never be a personal option.

Travel between Washington D.C. and Boston is now even faster with speeds of up to 150 miles per hour on Amtrak’s Acela, the only high-speed rail in the United States. Now you can get from the nation’s capital to downtown Manhattan in less than three hours; an impossibility with airline travel and the fastest taxi driver in New York history. Over ten million passengers road this Northeast Corridor in 2007, making it the most popular train route in the U.S. Acela is now profitable.

In 12 years, 32 to 68 million passengers may be riding on an even faster system in California. The high-speed rail will keep California’s economy moving forward, with more jobs, more energy security and far less emissions.

The US Capitol to downtown Manhattan in three hours. Downtown San Francisco to downtown LA in 2.5 hours. These are travel times that airlines simply cannot match - once you factor in total travel time including the trip to and from the airport.

Millions of Californians have stories such as this - whether it's of their travels on the Acela, the Shinkansen, the AVE, or like Fiona Ma, the TGV. While it certainly seems like the major political issues surrounding HSR will be financing and environmental impact, perhaps the most compelling and convincing arguments in its favor are those that come from personal experience. From Californians who know first-hand just how effective and valuable high speed rail really is.

What these personal accounts make clear is that high speed rail is simply a better way to travel. It offers advantages that the airlines cannot, and has a brighter, more affordable future that the airlines cannot hope to offer. HSR isn't a dragon-slayer - it's not going to put the airline industry out of business overnight - and nor is that its goal. Instead it will offer modern transportation that meets our 21st century needs - from cost to economic growth to global warming.

It just makes sense.

We'd ALL Rather Be Riding the Bullet Train

MNG Newspapers' transportation blogger Erik N. Nelson - aka the Capricious Commuter - has a pretty good post today, titled I'd Rather Be Riding the Bullet Train. Nelson's support for California high speed rail has been uneven at best, even claiming recently that "HSR isn't viable," so it's welcome to see a member of the corporate media starting to come around on the project:

It’s starting to look like the wind is behind this thing, what with college students campaigning for it all over the state from now until November, when voters will have to decide whether they like the $10 billion bullet train bond measure or not.

I’m still waiting to see what sort of borrowing plan Sacramento will cook up to get us through the current budget crunch. I get the sense, however, that even that won’t stop the bullet train measure from going before voters.

Of course, we should see HSR funding and the state budget deficit as separate issues. The solution to our structural revenue shortfall involves new revenue sources and tax solutions, separate and apart from an infrastructure funding bond. And Californians can look at the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge and realize we built them with bonds in the depth of the Depression - and realize a fiscal and economic crisis is not a sufficient reason alone to not invest in a vital infrastructure project.

The conventional wisdom is that California voters will link HSR to the budget deficit, decide we "can't afford it" and kill the project. This is likely to be the main issue we face as we work to pass HSR - but as the polls show Californians already support HSR in large numbers. Perhaps Californians understand this issue better than they are given credit for - and for many of the reasons Nelson goes on to explain:

Today we live in a world where Iran has gasoline riots, where the law of supply-and-demand has finally kicked in at California gas-n-gos and a lot of us know people who face death daily trying to keep one of our major oil suppliers from falling to pieces.

And a growing number of Californians are almost literally warming to the idea that an investment of tens of billions of dollars might be justified to make a major stab at carbon emissions from the millions of vehicles that sputter up and down I-5 and U.S. 101 between two of America’s megaregions....

But I don’t think it’s just me that pines for an alternative to driving-as-usual. The entire nation is talking about high speed rail. There are communities in Arkansas lobbying for Texas’ high-speed rail to come on by. It seems like every state with a major city has some sort of effort in the works, to say nothing of other nations, such as Morocco and India.

What Nelson is coming to realize is that bond debt is not the beginning and the end of how we evaluate HSR. As gas prices soar, carbon emissions rise and global warming's impacts grow more severe, Californians realize instinctively that the cost of NOT building HSR is going to far outstrip whatever costs we will incur in constructing it.

This is really the crucial point that has to be made again and again and again. The question here is not what HSR's cost alone is - it's instead what the cost of NOT building HSR will be for California. The CHSRA estimates expanding airports and freeways to meet the expected transportation demand that HSR would handle is $80 billion (as of 2004). Already Californians and their business are groaning under the weight of rising fuel prices - some experts think we could hit $200/bbl oil and $6 gas within three years. As these costs are expected to be rising and high for many years to come, California's economy is going to be crippled without a non-oil based alternative. And this doesn't even include the expected costs of carbon taxes or cap-and-trade carbon fees.

And as Californians sit in traffic, watching their hours waste away and their gas costs soar, the promise of high speed rails loom large, as they do for Nelson:

I also had to do some soul searching to report the minutes of my typical commute. I wanted to say two hours, as I normally tell people. But that’s really just the normal train trip. From the time I leave my house to the time I arrive at work is really closer to 2:20.

I’m not going to belabor my reasons for living way out in the Central Valley, other than I did it for love. But I am where I am, and that puts me on one of those pogo sticks, from a couple of perspectives, wearing one of those HSR t-shirts.

Clearly, then, Nelson understands HSR is an excellent investment in our state's economy, energy independence, environment and climate, and quality of life. Hopefully Nelson will continue to see the value of HSR and properly understand its financing and how it compares to our other options - and let's hope that others in the corporate media follow his lead.