The Burlingame Voice

Podcast: Mark Lucchesi and I talk B'game (#103)

I'm honored that B'game podcaster Mark "Mark at the Mic" Lucchesi asked me back for another episode of Burlingame - It's a Small Town.  Over the course of about an hour we covered numerous topics that will be familiar to regular Voice readers and some new stuff too.  If you want to invest the time, around cocktail hour is recommended, then settle in with your favorite beverage and listen to the "Voice of the Voice".  The link to Episode #103 is here.

Thanks again, Mark.  He has me queued up for another one in a few months since there is always something to talk about in our Small Town^TM.

High Cost Rail - Part 163 The DOGE commeth

There are multiple news reports that relay and expand on Vivek Ramaswamy's tweet about our very own high-cost rail boondoggle.  As co-head of the DOGE, he's got some pull to make things happen--or in this case, hopefully to make things not happen.  Regular Voice readers who are familiar with the first 162 posts on our boondoggle, know the ugly truth.  The project is mired in an expensive quagmire.  It's original questionable value just keeps sinking.  Here is a three-and-a-half-year-old reminder.  The DOGE tweet notes

Late last month Ramaswamy pointed out on X that “This is a wasteful vanity project, burning billions in taxpayer cash, with little prospect for completion in the next decade. President Trump correctly rescinded ~$1BN in federal funds for this boondoggle in 2019, but Biden reversed that & doubled down. Time to end the waste.”

The California Globe digs a bit deeper on the numbers

This led to Thursday when proposed DOGE co-Commissioners Ramaswamy and Elon Musk were in Washington talking to GOP leadership about the proposed DOGE. Potential targets were discussed, with California High Speed rail being one of them, along with Medicare, Social Security and electric vehicle subsidies.

While California lawmakers have yet to publicly respond to a possible cut of all federal funds for the high speed rail project as of Friday afternoon, critics of the high speed rail plan have said that federal cuts of that magnitude would put the project in a real bind, perhaps even delaying opening of it further into the 2030s.

“If DOGE does become reality and they deliver on their promise on getting rid of all federal funding for the project, then the state will have to deal with that shortfall,” transportation industry accountant Derrick Clark told the Globe Friday. “Right now, the project is trying to get $4.7 billion in federal grants to stay at their current spending levels. Biden is likely to get them $200 million of that before leaving office, leaving it up to Trump to approve the other $4.5 billion in grants. And that he is likely not going to do, especially if DOGE highlights that.

High-cost rail is such low-hanging fruit for a early DOGE win that I cannot see any way that another $4.5B gets released.  The next question is how does Newsom react?  He's termed out in 2026, so reputational protection is pretty much his 24-hour raison d'etre at this point.  One lame duck should kill the other.

High-Cost Rail - Part 162 A boring discussion

The insane HSR money pit dig just continues on in the face of fiscal cliffs for local rail, potholes all over the state, unfunded grade separations and more taxes and bonds on the horizon.  This week the last section into LA got its environmental rubber stamp (the last one was two years ago) as noted in the Comicle:

California's bullet train project reached a major milestone: The entire 463-mile route from San Francisco to Los Angeles is now environmentally cleared for construction.  The High-Speed Rail Authority’s board signed off Thursday on a preferred route and environmental clearance for the 38-mile segment that would carry bullet trains from Palmdale to Burbank. It was the project’s last segment between San Francisco and Los Angeles that had yet to be cleared.

If you thought this has any effect on the overall fiscal disaster, there are a number of bridges for sale.  The Comicle reporter, Ricardo Cano, blithely repeats all of the PR missives from the Authority.  Here are a couple of the 

Bullet train service on the Central Valley segment — 171 miles from Bakersfield to Merced — is expected to start between 2030 and 2033, featuring four huge stations.  The project is $7 billion short of completing the Central Valley segment and needs $100 billion to finish the route from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

That will make for a lot of driving up and down I-5 to get to the four huge stations, but no worries--they won't be very busy.  And then

Connecting Merced to San Jose will require tunneling 15 miles of tracks through Pacheco Pass in the Diablo Range. The Palmdale-to-Burbank segment will necessitate boring 30 miles of tunnels that will run along State Route 14 and underneath the community of Acton, Angeles National Forest and the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.

The authority’s Board of Directors spent much of Thursday’s vote debating whether the mountainous segment and its tunnels would be able to withstand a major earthquake. Authority officials said they planned to present more details on the segment’s tunneling work early next year.

"We are fully engaged in planning to make a plan, but don't worry.  In our universe time isn't money and even if it was, we have plenty of it--we just don't know where it is at the moment."  BART is a certifiable mess.  Meanwhile Caltrain, with a mere 49 miles, is insolvent and in need of millions for grade separations, bridge repairs and whatever else we aren't being told about until it's an emergency that requires more taxes for "equity".

EssEff: Carl Nolte asking train questions

Columnist Carl Nolte is one of the last remaining vestiges of the SF Chronicle before it transformed into the SF Comicle.  His Sunday column (front section, page 2) is always worth the read and he mixes nostalgia for the lost Bagdad by the Bay with keen observations and, in this week's piece, actual letter grades for the City on a number of aspects.  One snippet caught my attention because it is symptomatic of other screw-ups.  Nolte notes: 

I rode the 30-Stockton bus into Chinatown on the first day of summer, a shopping day. It was packed, standing room only. I rode the subway back. It was nearly empty, plenty of seats. Why did the taxpayers pay $2 billion for a subway when the customers clearly prefer the bus? Good question for the urban planners. It will be on the next test.

Don't expect those urban planners to pass.  The greenwashers keep trying to get people to abandon how they want to travel in favor of how a "planner" wants them to travel.  Look no further than our high-cost rail boondoggle.  Forget $2 billion, think $200 billion and still not "complete" per the promised route.  We'll have electric commercial flights to LA before we have an HSR trip that will take three times as long.  Will Caltrain avoid the fiscal cliff?  I hope so, but it's looking perilous--and expensive for the Bay Area taxpayers.

Transit Poll Says the Quiet Part Out Loud

I doubt we will see a more honest news headline this year than the Merc's take on the latest poll about transit issues in the Bay Area:

     Bay Area voters in support of better transit, if rich people and companies pay

That's the OPM Syndrome that affects a lot of people (the majority?) in California.  57% of 600 people polled support taxing someone else to pay for "affordable and coordinated transit".  I'm surprised it's not eight out of ten.  The poll is gauging support for yet another Sen. Scott Wiener reach into other people's pockets (SB 925).  He wants to better connect the Bay Area's 27 transit agencies.  The problem here should be obvious, but not to "Throw more money at it" Wiener.  Here's the worst part:

Wiener's bill contains no details on how money would be raised, what improvements it would pay for, how a streamlined transit system would be managed, or how spending would be overseen.

Get ready to fill in the "No" box on your ballot.  Meanwhile the giant sucking sound from the Central Valley is unabated.  And give that headline writer a raise.

BART: Bay Area Rapidly Toppling

We don't spend much time talking about BART since it stops in Millbrae (except for some train car storage in B'game) and isn't likely to ever expand south down the Peninsula.  But watching the South Bay expansion plans topple over due to climbing costs is instructive.  As the Merc notes:

The extension would create six miles of new track — including a subterranean tunnel underneath San Jose — looping BART service from the north part of the city to downtown and then up to Santa Clara at its Caltrain terminal.

South Bay residents shocked by last fall’s price jump for the San Jose BART extension — from $9.1 billion to $12.2 billion — may need to brace themselves again.

In a turn of events that could have major consequences for an extension already struggling with exploding prices and timeline delays, an independent assessment set to be released this month from federal officials may peg the project’s cost even higher than the agency’s $12.2 billion estimate, the Valley Transportation Authority’s chief megaproject officer told The Mercury News in an exclusive interview this week.

In October, VTA announced its most recent cost jump and an expected completion date of 2036 — a decade later than originally expected. The announcement sparked the VTA Board to create an oversight committee investigating issues facing the project.

You know things are bad when a governing body creates an "oversight committee" to shield themselves from criticism for not doing the job they were elected or selected to do themselves.  And then there is this common refrain:

The report states, “Due to frequent turnover and vacancies in key (BART San Jose extension) positions, (the Project Management Oversight Contractor) is concerned about the lack of succession planning and inadequate transition periods in dealing with attrition and turnover.”

All of this uncertainty and cost explosion is over just six miles of track!  Just imagine what the real numbers for High-Cost Rail are if anyone from Newsom on down were actually paying attention.  It can boondoggle the mind.

High-Cost Rail - Part 161 The waste continues unabated

We noted in High-Cost Rail - Part 159 back in March that costs for our own little train-to-nowhere were spiraling out of control.  But would that cause the Fed and the Bidenflation team to reconsider giving more drugs to the addict?  Nope.  Here, have another hit, California--the largest one ever from the Feds.  Apologies to Quicksilver Messenger Service.

This week the Authority blared out the award of another $3.1 Billion of good money to pour after bad.  It will go to

• Fund six electric trains for testing and use
• Fund design of train facilities
• Fund design and construction of the Fresno station
• Fund final design and early works, including right-of-way acquisition and utility relocation on the extensions to Merced to Bakersfield
• Fund construction in the Central Valley

You read that right.  Fifteen years into this boondoggle, they are still acquiring right-of-way down near Merced.  That is reason #25 why costs are spiraling out of control.

Closer to home, a former mayor of Brisbane is defending his tiny town (pop. 4,850) regarding meeting the outrageous RHNA scam foisted on them by the state--1,588 units over the next eight years.  They are trying; even though doubling the size of their burg in eight years is ridiculous and likely to create numerous Unintended Consequences but are still being criticized in the Comicle.  Here is the response:

The city of Brisbane has worked well with the Baylands project developer, especially since the passage of the General Plan Amendment in 2018. 

Environmental impact reports are being prepared by a hired firm, not the city’s staff. The firm cannot complete its analysis until it has all the necessary information on the ongoing toxic remediation, the source and transmission route of the required water supply and the resolution of a conflict with the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

The real story is how the rail authority is undermining the Baylands project. The city and the developer have sued to persuade the authority to change the proposed configuration of a railyard maintenance facility at the site, which makes the Baylands plan financially unfeasible. 

The proposed railyard and maintenance facility requires a substantial proportion of the land area east of the Caltrain track. The developer’s plan for the west side of the Baylands is negatively impacted by a long flyover elevated track proposed by the authority to get southbound trains over to the railyard and maintenance facility.

It’s the state that needs to get its act together, not the city.

Raymond Miller, former mayor, Brisbane

Even towns that are trying to comply and "do their fair share" get chastised.  That is the nature of the beast and "it can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with, it doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear, and it absolutely will not stop".  Apologies to Kyle Reese (The Terminator).  Sometimes it seems like the California taxpayer is Linda Hamilton.  A regular reader sent this along

High-Cost Rail - Part 160 Gavin Newsom is no Rishi Sunak

Sometimes you get a good up-close view from someone who far away.  I like to pick up the pretty pink Financial Times out of London for a distant view.  You can buy it at Safeway at the customer service counter since we don't have a "newsstand" shop on the Avenew anymore.  I miss that corner cigar newsstand stand.  But I digress.  Thursday's FT carried an editorial about the U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's slow change of heart on various issues as he faces a tough re-election campaign next year.  Funny how the thought of losing one's job can focus the mind.  Among the smart things PM Sunak is doing to survive is kill the high-cost rail project that was to service the north of California England.  Here is the quote:

Some in northern England, the Midlands and beyond may welcome cancellation of the heavily over-budget Birmingham-Manchester leg of HS2.  There is a superficial allure to the promise of spending £3bn instead on "hundreds" of rail, road and bus schemes, including strengthening east-west connections in what the governments has dubbed "Network North".

It goes on to fret about the "squandered" years of preparatory planning--none of which anticipated the massive cost overruns.  Sound familiar?  The Gavinor doesn't have to worry about his California vote-buying; it's intact.  But if he wants to move to Washington, DC perhaps Mr. Sunak is setting the example.

While we are pondering what sort of local east-west road "scheme" might benefit from a smidgen of the California high-cost rail boondoggle gusher, let's refresh our memory thusly from the DJ on Tuesday: Broadway Station grade separation ‘within reach’

It’s been nearly 20 years since a train has stopped at Broadway Station in Burlingame during the weekday, and Caltrain officials said it will take raising the tracks there for that to happen again.

However, the $316 million project is still seeking funding through the federal government. Councilmember Emily Beach said the project is about 83% locally funded through Measure A’s half-cent sales tax. Beach said the project needs the rest of the funding before it breaks ground, anticipated in spring 2026.  “It is well within reach,” Beach said. “And we are going to get it done very soon.”

If one is 17% percent behind something that is moving faster than you are, you are losing ground.  If Gavin were in Sunak's shoes, we would be closer to fixing the daily disaster that is the Broadway interchange.  But he is not, and neither are we.  We are relying on the Inflation Production Act to save our bacon.  Can you say "grease fire"? 

High-speed Rail that works

LOS ANGELES, CA — When U-Haul announced an investment in a massive project in California, the state leadership's panic over continued population loss subsided. The relief was short-lived, however, as it turned out U-Haul's big project was just building a bullet train to accommodate the moving needs of everyone fleeing California for Texas.

"We were initially ecstatic when we saw the U-Haul corporation begin construction on this bullet train in our city – until we saw it was pointed East, towards Texas, rather than North towards Sacramento." Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass broke the bad news to California Governor Gavin Newsom, say sources familiar with the situation, and apologized for her premature call to the Governor bragging that she had finally attracted people to her crime-ridden city in the expensive state.

It has since become clear that U-Haul was just helping more people and businesses leave the state more efficiently, to reduce the burden on U-Haul's truck fleet, which has been buckling under the strain of all the Californian refugees.

High-Cost Rail - Part 159 Costs spiral out of control...again

Dan Walters and Ralph Vartabedian, both of Calmatters.org, are on the watch over the high-cost rail boondoggle as it claims to "create" tons of jobs (Walters) and as the costs just continue to boggle the mind and veer even further from budget reality (Vartabedian).  Here's some of the numbers from the latter piece

The headline reads: New cost estimate for high-speed rail puts California bullet train $100 billion in the red.  That's "in the red" which heretofore has been my working number for the whole budget.  Now it's just the missing billions!

The latest report from the California High-Speed Rail Authority projects costs for the initial segment at $35 billion, which exceeds secured funding by $10 billion. Other segments of the system are likely to have their projected costs increase, too. The state hopes it will get more federal aid.

New cost figures issued in an update report from the California High-Speed Rail Authority show that the plan to build the 171-mile initial segment has shot up to a high of $35 billion, exceeding secured funding by $10 billion.  The cost of that partial system is now higher than the $33 billion estimate for the entire 500-mile Los Angeles to San Francisco system when voters approved a bond in 2008.  What’s worse, that full system cost is set at up to $128 billion in the update, leaving a total funding gap of more than $100 billion for politicians to ponder....The $128 billion price tag does not include cost updates for two separate segments between Palmdale and Anaheim

This nightmare is apparently lost on one UC Berkeley law professor

Ethan Elkind, who watches California transportation issues as director of the climate change program at UC Berkeley’s law school, said the mounting problems cloud the project’s future.  “It is in jeopardy,” Elkind said. “It is dicey. There is no path forward for the full Los Angeles to San Francisco system. It is important that they get something done.”

The only thing that must get done is to kill this turkey before we blow through enough money to solve tens of serious infrastructure issues.  A smarter UC Berkeley guy piles on the tale of woe

Bill Ibbs, a retired UC Berkeley civil engineer who serves on the group and has consulted on international high speed rail projects, said he is concerned about the lack of attention to engineering risks.  “They don’t directly address the hard core engineering issues,” Ibbs said, particularly the 38 miles of mountain tunnels that are planned for Southern California alone. “What are the major engineering challenges that lie in front of you and why aren’t you talking about them in this report?”

The piece goes on to question the ridership forecasts and lays out the funding morass in more detail.  Click through if you can stand it.