The Burlingame Voice

Higher-Cost Rail - Part 145 Newsom's Dilemma

The Chron is covering yet another audit report on the ballooning costs of Jerry Brown's train to nowhere.

Pushing to break ground on California’s high-speed rail project before critical planning for the Central Valley line was in place drove up its cost by $600 million, with that “flawed decision” potentially increasing the price tag by another $1 billion, state Auditor Elaine Howle said Thursday.

And more financial problems are looming for high-speed rail. The state could lose $3.5 billion in federal grant money if the first segment of the line is not completed by December 2022 as planned, Howle warned in a report. The auditor’s office said to meet that deadline, the pace of construction must double over the next four years.

Incoming Gov. Newsom will have an early decision to make come January as he has a number of other big ticket items on his plate of promises.  And his dilemma is how to split this baby

Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom has been less enthusiastic about high-speed rail than Brown, saying he would focus on completing the portion from the San Joaquin Valley to the Bay Area before deciding whether to make a push to Los Angeles.

Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, a critic of the rail project, said the report shows that high-speed rail is “dead in the water.”  “There will never be a completed track from the Bay Area to Los Angeles,” Patterson said. “This project cannot be revived in its current state, and this audit is further proof that the best we can hope for is a rump railroad running from Bakersfield to Madera.”

The problem is a "rump railroad" - great term which I will adopt-- is not what the original Proposition promised and thus likely illegal.  It's really time to stop pouring good money after bad and dump the rump.  Will Gavin have the guts to do it?

High-Cost Rail - Part 144 Revolving Door, Reduced Expectations

The revolving door at the High Speed Rail Authority continues to spin.  As a member of the Community Working Group (courtesy of the city of B'game), I got an update from the Northern California HSR Authority team last night.  There were a lot of new faces from a year ago including a new Regional Director (Boris Lipkin) and a new Project Manager (James Tung).  But the working group attendance was sparse to say the least.  I am using the term "update" loosely, since there is not a lot of news and very little of it is good for the Peninsula, taxpayers or people looking to go somewhere at high speed.  There were some other attendees who appeared interested in handouts for of all things, "affordable housing" from the HSR money train.

Decisions that are still pending include whether to have passing tracks from 9th Ave in San Mateo south to Whipple with all that implies for taking property and whether to build a viaduct in the South Bay to get to Diridon Station more easily.  The big kicker was an apparent lack of progress on how to get through Pacheco Pass via tunnel.  It's estimated to cost from $6-9 billion, but the engineering studies have yet to start.  And the extension to the Transbay Terminal is totally in limbo as SF Supe Aaron Peskin considers withholding funds until project management improves.  And anything south of the metropolis of Bakersfield just doesn't get mentioned.  But the gravy train continues to ladle out money at least until the election in two weeks.  Even if Newsome wins the governor ship as expected, he may have to flip-flip a third (or is it fourth?) time and kill HSR in hopes of paying for even 10% of what else he says he wants to do.  Here is the new team for Norcal.

And here is the timeline that still shows "Valley to Valley", i.e. Silicon Valley to the Central Valley up and running by 2029.

The only good news of late is that the Western U.S. earthquake warning system is plodding along so that by 2029 when a high-speed train goes off the tracks it will do so at a slower speed.

High Cost Rail - Part 143 $27M per Day

Not much else to add besides what the LA Times is reporting on burgeoning expenses that aren't even burgeoning enough

LOS ANGELES —The California bullet train project has cost state taxpayers an average $3.1 million a day over the last year —a construction spending rate higher than that for the Bay Bridge, Boston's Big Dig or any U.S. transportation project in recent history.

But still it's not enough, planners say.  In order to hit its 2033 deadline and $77 billion budget, the California High Speed Rail Authority will have to increase daily spending by up to nine times over the next four years or risk putting the already-delayed system further behind.  Russell Fong, the authority's chief financial officer, acknowledges the goals will be difficult to achieve.

Still, officials said they are beginning to ramp up spending, and the estimates were officially adopted by the rail authority board in its 2018 business plan.  But outside infrastructure experts question whether the $27 million-a-day outlay necessary under the plan would even be possible.

"That burn rate is ludicrous," said civil engineer James Moore, director of the University of Southern California's transportation engineering program. "It is so far outside standard experience that it doesn't make sense to assume it will occur."

"Outside standard experience".  I like that and will use it going forward.

Quelling the Infernos

The headlines are burning up with reports of numerous wildfires all over the state.  Today's headline notes that Gov. Brown thinks we are in "uncharted territory".  That's only because he has been ignoring the obvious precedents that have peppered his whole time in office including the Tubb's Fire of last year that should have been a third or fourth wake-up call.  Luckily some state Senator from Orange County that I have never heard of, John Moorlach, has a firm grip on the obvious as noted in this piece in the SF Chronicle.  I'll chop it down to the essence, but you can read through it at your leisure while you ponder the foothills and Mills Canyon as the potential next hotspot while also pondering that the B'game Fire Dept. is doing its part to help up north by sending some of our team elsewhere--just like they did last year.

    3 practical steps to reduce wildfires in California

1. We should revisit Senate Bill 1463, which I authored in 2018 but was killed in committee even though no one testified in opposition to it. Called “Cap and Trees,” it would continuously appropriate 25 percent of state cap-and-trade funds to counties to harden the state’s utility infrastructure and better manage wildlands and our overgrown and drought-weakened forests.
2. We should stop funding the high-speed rail project with cap-and-trade dollars — $621 million this year, according to the analysis of the fiscal 2018-19 budget by the Legislative Analyst’s Office — and divert it to protecting our forests.  Some of this may involve prescribed burns in our forests, as authored this year in Senate Bill 1260 by my Democratic colleague, Hannah-Beth Jackson of Santa Barbara. 
3. Where such burns are impractical, such as around homes and developed property, we can employ mechanical thinning. 

Moorlach also notes

A single forest fire can release four or five times as much greenhouse gas than are reduced by a year’s worth of government-regulated industry and personal vehicles emission. Oddly, the California Air Resources Board doesn’t even count wildfire greenhouse gases in its carbon-reduction reports.

With the Ferguson fire (Yosemite) nearing 60,0000 acres burned, I'll bet that estimate is way low.  #2 is so obvious that I hope even Gavin Newsom gets it.......

High-cost Rail Part 142 Losing Steam

Yesterday's Daily Post recapped a recent LA Times - USC poll that shows high-speed rail losing steam in the court of public opinion.  When asked the question with the context of the costs doubling to $77 billion and the schedule stretched to 2033, 49% said they would halt construction.  "A sizeable 19% did not know what to do about the problems".

The new poll shows Bay Area voters are the train's strongest supporters.  Just 27% of poll respondents in the Bay Area said they would stop the project with 41% in Los Angeles and 56% in San Diego and Orange Counties and 64% in the Central Valley.

9% of respondents had not heard about the high-speed rail project!  I wonder what the percentages would be if they asked even better questions like "If the budget has tripled to $100+ billion and there is still no engineering plan to safely traverse the Tehachapi Mountains and the train is likely to be on-balance damaging to the environment?

Most of you have probably already voted (postmarked by next Tuesday) but if you haven't yet, here is a reminder of where the gubernatorial candidates stand on HSR.

High-cost Rail Part 141 Gubernatorial Candidates

The Chronicle has done the public a service by getting each gubernatorial candidate to state his or her position on high-speed rail.  With some waffling aside, the responses are enlightening.  Remember, this is at least $100 billion dollars of taxpayer money regardless of whether it comes from bonds, pollution credits, federal funds or whatever scheme comes next.  So here with a couple of my comments in italics is the Chronicle's reporting.

Travis Allen:  There would be no place for high-speed rail, which he calls “the train to nowhere,” in Gov. Allen’s California.  “I’d defund high-speed rail and return the money to the people of California,” he said. “But I’d leave what’s up there now as a monument to Jerry Brown’s folly.”

John Chiang:  Chiang sees it as a way of uniting California.  High-speed rail “can connect the people getting STEM degrees at UC Merced with jobs at Google and other technology companies” in Silicon Valley or Southern California, he said.  Finding the billions needed to complete the project is key, Chiang admitted. (From the guy who is state treasurer!) “If the Central Valley to Santa Clara was the only leg, people would be investing in it, because it connects (affordable) homes to jobs,” he said. “That piece has to be built.” (Never mind that building half the system would be illegal because it violates the original Proposition).

John Cox:  Cox opposes what he calls “the crazy train” and has promised to stop construction if he’s elected. The project “is a monument to corruption,” Cox said, arguing that it shouldn’t have been built down the middle of the Central Valley, where its right of way has claimed farmland and businesses and provoked a flood of lawsuits.  “Why not put it down the middle of Interstate 5, where we already have the land?” he asked.

Delaine Eastin:  Eastin admits to mixed feelings about the rail plan and argues that she — and the state — have higher priorities.  “I’m a fan of the concept, but I don’t want to see general obligation bonds used, since they make everything more expensive,” she said.  If there were an identified revenue source for the project, she would be more supportive, Eastin said.  (IHOP's waffles aren't as good as this).  One way to raise money for high-speed rail, she said, is with an oil severance tax on companies that extract fossil fuels, something the state has been talking about — and rejecting — for years.

Gavin Newsom:   While Newsom has become less enthusiastic about the project as the schedule has lengthened and the price tag has grown, he still wants the rail system built.  (Flip-flop alert) Connecting the Central Valley to Silicon Valley could be a huge boost to the state’s economy, he says. Extending bullet trains to Los Angeles “is a question of resources,” but “if we get the first phase done, we can develop the technology and get the private sector involved” in a Southern California expansion.  (The technology is 30+ years old and fully-developed).

Antonio Villaraigosa:  Villaraigosa calls it essential to California’s economic development.  The rail system will “connect the two engines of the California economy,” providing the coastal giants with a link to the affordable housing in the Central Valley and allowing valley residents access to the good-paying jobs on the coast, he said.  The changes in the rail construction plan and the more realistic funding figures have made a difference, Villaraigosa said. “I’m for it now.”  (What changes in construction plans and funding figures?  What planet is this guy from?)

There you have it.  Pretty much straight down the party lines with the candidates who need union funding and votes being cautiously for it amid a bit of hand-waving.  And those that know they will get neither union money or endorsements are clearly ready to kill the boondoggle.  Any questions?  The primary is June 5th via all mail-in ballots in San Mateo County.

Honoring a Mentor

The City Council honored local activist and frequent mentor to other activists, Charles Voltz, last Monday night at the council meeting.  The list of Charles' notable contributions in the Proclamation are long and deep--from co-founding the Washington Park Society with Dan Anderson to the Citizens for a Better Burlingame (CBB of Safeway fame--read the 74 posts here) to High-speed Boondoggle and several groups in between.  As an active Rotarian and man-about-town, Charles has epitomized the type of civic engagement that helped Burlingame through some very tough issues--and he will continue to do so because that is the kind of guy he is.  Several people, including several council members, noted that Charles is generous with his time and knowledge when mentoring people.  It was great to see him and his significant other Mary Hunt honored at a council meeting.  You can watch the accolades on the City website here.  And here is Charles with Mayor Michael Brownrigg who put the ceremony together and ran it with panache.

Charles Voltz and Michael Brownrigg

High Cost Rail - Part 140 Audit, Audit...We Don't Need No Stinking Audit

The SF Comicle tried to appear responsible last week by calling for a "clear-eyed audit" of the high-speed rail boondoggle.  The editorial postulates that "The sore points and failures an audit probably will find could produce the right responses to get the idea back on track...Ways to save money, trim costs and get the system rolling more quickly should be explored."  Good luck with that wild goose chase.  San Jose Democrat state Sen. Jim Beall requested the audit along with Fresno's Republican assemblyman and the Comicle thinks this "dual parentage" will ensure a quality audit.  Somehow the Comicle editors feel they can just assert that "A state with 40 million residents can't rely on freeways and airports."  We just never get even an inkling of why not.

A much more clear-eyed observer of train issues, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. of the Wall Street Journal, gave us some very insightful facts and figure this past week.

Of the 719 people killed in U.S. rail accidents in 2016, two were paying customers and 581 were “trespassers,” individuals killed by a train while violating some barrier or warning sign. Another 117 were “nontrespassers,” or people on foot or in cars who were killed while not in violation of any barrier or warning signal.  If 719 people were killed by airliners every year, Americans would go ape.

And the faster the train, the greater the risk. Take a 2008 federal study promoting a “high-speed” service between Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C. It estimated that the difference between 79 mph and 110 mph would produce three additional deaths per decade (for a total of 51 in the absence of major changes to crossings).

While the Comicle bleats on about how "These benefits (of HSR) will happen only if there's a public and political enthusiasm that the bullet train doesn't have now", Jenkins finishes with

California’s bullet-train project is the tutti case in point. Hundreds of millions have been spent to rearrange places like Fresno in anticipation of a sealed corridor for 220-mph trains. The relentless Ralph Vartabedian of the Los Angeles Times last Sunday described how, up and down the planned route, properties seized by the state have become an arson- and crime-prone “linear ghetto.”

California’s bullet-train controversy is turning into a culture war between Sacramento’s liberal dreamers and the people in its path who increasingly know in their hearts they are being pushed around and inconvenienced for a train that will never run.

Let's hope Jenkins is right about that last bit and that we don't fritter away another 5, 10 or 50 billion dollars before the axe falls.

High-Cost Rail - Part 139 Cost Overruns and Commuting via HSR

There was more horrid financial news about high-cost rail today as reported by the LA Times here.  This should be no surprise as most big government project overrun their estimates; usually by a lot of dough.  The Times notes

The estimated cost of building 119 miles of bullet train track in the Central Valley has jumped to $10.6 billion, an increase of $2.8 billion from the current budget and up from about $6 billion originally.

The new estimate was presented Tuesday by Roy Hill, who leads the main consulting firm on the project, WSP (formerly Parson Brinckerhoff). Hill said the cost increases were mainly driven by problems including higher costs for land acquisition, issues in relocating utility systems, the need for safety barriers where the bullet trains would operate near freight lines and demands by stakeholders for the mitigation of myriad issues.

"The worst-case scenario has happened," Hill bluntly told the rail authority's board at its regular monthly meeting.

Some news that was not as widely reported came from someone with his hand reaching for our pockets

The 21 years that it has taken California’s high-speed rail project to move from creation to today’s construction in the Central Valley were largely occupied dealing with political, legal and financial obstacles.

But the head of the German-American consortium that just signed a contract intended as a preamble to a deal to run the railroad said overcoming California’s car culture is the biggest obstacle to high-speed rail’s success.

“On mega-projects all over the world there is a political and financial challenge in there,” said Carsten Puls, president of DB Engineering & Consulting USA, the American arm of Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s rail system and the lead company in the 13-member consortium. “We have the same challenges in Germany on our mega-projects … That’s why they are mega-projects.”

What makes California stand out, he said, is the need “have to have a mind change here from a car-driven society and shifting to more public transportation.”  Connectivity with public transportation is weak in the Central Valley although the state’s draft rail plan, now circulating for comment, calls for improvements. With five other passenger railroads including BART and Caltrain scheduled to connect to high-speed rail at Diridon Station within eight years, San Jose will have the highest level of connectivity for the entire system.

Considering the initial operating segment of the project from San Jose to near Bakersfield, Puls sees high-speed rail’s primary utility at the start as a commuter link to and from Silicon Valley, which is supposed to happen in seven years.

As one highly informed observer noted about Mr. Puls' comment:  Certainly the statement that HSR initially is going to be a commuter train does not fit criteria incorporated into Prop 1A (but that is certainly not a new issue is it?). Lots of luck getting California to give up on cars!!!  Gov. Brown's last day in office cannot come soon enough.  All of the press about his fiscal responsibility in his last budget pales in comparison to his fiscal irresponsibility on high-cost rail. 

CEQA Hypocrisy from the Gov.

When you can find a copy in B'game, the Daily Post is still an informative read--and I don't mean just the Police Blotter.  Last week, Tom Elias had an editorial titled "Brown helps Facebook evade enviro laws".  Enviro is short for environmental and the law he was referring to is the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) signed by Gov. Reagan in 1970.  Elias leads off with this quote

"I've never seen a CEQA exemption I don't like."   --Gov. Jerry Brown

Brown made that observation shortly after starting his second go-'roiund as California's chief executive in early 2011.

This is the same guy who flies all over the world to tout his green policies.  As Elias notes, "He's gone along with the developer and union-influenced Legislature time after time."  The headline refers to a current measure in the Assembly that would

entitle any project that costs more than $100 million and meets union-level wage standards, plus standards for green house gas controls, to get final resolution of any CEQA-related lawsuit within nine months.

You can bet the "final resolution" is not to err on the side of caution and deny the project.  Elias reviews a number of projects besides the Facebook headquarters, but leaves out the biggest, least-green albatross of them all-- high-speed rail.  It bears reminding that a UC Berkeley study found that HSR will never recoup the pollution generated by its construction--and that was true even while accepting crazy ridership numbers.  He finishes with "All this is sure to go down in state history as one of the least green and least positive legacies of his long political career."