Bullet Trains Shot Down
Adam O'Neal | Nov 15, 2011 | Comments 6
Over the ages, Californians have, through an infinite number of decisions and conditions, decided that they like driving in cars and flying on airplanes. For whatever reasons — and the reasons do not really matter — Californians prefer to be in a car or flying on an airplane than on public transportation. Every major attempt to alter California’s transportation culture, externally or internally, has been an utter failure.
HOV Lanes? Any use of them is coincidental. No one gets up in the morning and says, “Gee, I’d better go out of my way to find someone to carpool with so I can avoid traffic.”
Public buses? They are seldom populated with enough travelers to make them environmentally or economically sound. They’re slow, inefficient and poorly maintained. All of this occurs despite massive government subsidies.
Trains? No one uses them and it isn’t just because they aren’t fast enough, even though they are deathly slow. A train trip from Irvine to Santa Barbara costs twice as much as the required gas would in most cars.
Public bicycles? I really wonder if a politician somewhere out there actually thought that people would use them or if he was just trying to help his cronies make a buck selling bikes to the city. My better judgment tells me to assume the latter.
Unfazed by an abundance of total failure, liberal “progressive” politicians and their expectant campaign donors have rallied around another popular fantasy: high-speed rail. What’s terrifying about the latest incarnation of unrealistic “progressive” excess is its price tag. The original cost of the “bullet train” for California’s taxpayers, just two years ago when they approved a “temporary tax increase” in Proposition 1A, was $10 billion.
Perhaps, if Californians would actually use the high-speed rail system en masse — and we won’t — this absurd cost might be worth it. I don’t doubt that there would be an occasional convenience from having an extra transportation option. It would be nice to take a two or three hour train ride from Los Angeles to the Bay Area every so often. I would be willing to pay more in taxes if I knew that the tax money would be well spent. Ten billion dollars actually isn’t that high for such a massive public infrastructure project.
The problem, however, is that the original estimate, like the entire concept of high speed rail, was a lie. The project will actually cost at least $100 billion. Officials intimately involved with the project almost certainly knew of the real cost, but lied and delayed releasing the real figure to ensure the Proposition 1A’s passage.
Eleven zeroes for a social experiment.
For some reason a government that produces a multi-billion dollar deficit each year has taken it upon itself to spend nearly $100 billion on a high speed rail project that connects Chowchilla to Bakersfield. Still, radical “progressive” hubris demands we trudge on, no matter the cost — even if we don’t know how successful the project will be.
Driving locally and flying greater distances is the quickest, most efficient method for travel in the Western U.S. Smaller airports like John Wayne and Burbank make air travel quick, cheap and efficient. The freeways are bad — no one doubts that — but spending billions on a train isn’t going to get anyone off the freeway. A commuter would rather sit in traffic and enjoy the freedom and mobility that his car provides than take the Metrolink. It is part of being Californian, the sense of individualism in as many aspects of life as possible. Or at least it used to be.
If politicians are truly beholden to their campaign donors and absolutely have to spend money on overpriced public works projects, perhaps they should consider building a second story on every freeway in California. Sure, it won’t be easy, but it would actually solve a problem by accommodating — gasp — and not trying to change our culture.
A civilization that is on the brink of budgetary collapse has no business wasting $100 billion trying to change a culture that defines its own preferences.
Adam O’Neal is a second-year biological sciences major. He can be reached at aoneal@uci.edu.
Filed Under: Opinion
I think this article is worth a point-by-point commentary:
HOV Lanes: Use of them cannot is not coincidental. In fact, if anyone is in the carpool lane when they shouldn’t be (less than 2 people in the vehicle), they can be fined $340. Thus, mostpeople who aren’t allowed to use them, won’t. Furthermore, if you’re in a more-congested area (like San Diego or Los Angeles) a carpool lane can be a MASSIVE boon. In hyper-congested areas(Washington DC), HOV access is so treasured, that there are areas where you can get picked up (or pick up others) or for free rides out of the city. The practice is called “Slugging”.
Public buses in concentrated areas can be amazing. The Bay Area, Los Angeles, North Orange County — all have fantastic ridership. Central Orange County and South Orange County, on the other hand, have been built to be difficult to access– the suburban seclusionist dream. This makes it tough for people to access buses and buses to travel efficiently. Still, like in Irvine, there are some relatively good arteries like Culver drive which gives travel to OCTA’s Route 79– the only route south of North County with a favorable fare-box recovery ratio.
Public bicycles are already hits in European countries and have recently been brought to the United States. Again, Washington DC has shown incredible success as people are not willing to sit in city traffic to get to or from work. Alta (the company running the DC Bikeshare) was just brought on to make a bikeshare system in New York City. While there is a certain component of green politics capital earned for the sake of political capital in such endeavors, the endeavors, if planned appropriately, beneficially affect the health of the users and the environment (when a car trip is replaced by a bike trip).
The high-speed rail system is a great idea, but it’s not without severe complications that have nothing to do with the concepts of public or mass transit. First, the plan was made before land was secured and land speculation (despite the mortgage crisis) is still a lucrative endeavor (thus costs go up). Also, the High-Speed Rail Authority set a goal of using 100% green energy to power the train. Wow, that was stupid! Green energy makes up some 15% of California energy production and other people have green energy commitments… so the energy is going to come a major premium. While I think a high-speed rail could be a great thing, I think it was planned with political idealism and not engineering and economic concepts in mind.
Lastly, I’d like to comment on the author’s over-estimation of the value of the independence of the automobile. “A commuter would rather sit in traffic and enjoy the freedom and mobility that his car provides than take the Metrolink.” Really? All the daily Metrolink, Amtrak, OCTA, Carpool, Vanpool, and bike commuters would severely disagree. Why? Because few people actually utilize that spur-of-the-moment freedom that a car is supposed to facilitate. Really, just how many people, while on their commute home after work, declare “Screw this, I’m going to Vegas!”?
Too few, honestly. The most frequent use of the “car freedom” is used for quick stops here or there as needed. But that’s not “freedom”. That’s irregular scheduling and it’s a good reason to commute by car if you come across the sudden need to stop on a daily basis. Otherwise, somehow, bus riders, train riders, carpoolers, and bike riders run all the same errands. What do they know that daily drivers don’t? Might not constant subsistence in one’s private automobile be the only convenient way to get around?
Have you ever been on a bus, Metrolink, or Amtrak? I use them frequently, and quite often there’s only standing room available. People do use public transport. And yes, some people deliberately carpool so they can use the carpool lanes. Did you do any research of real numbers, or is this all based on your personal perception?
I would like to point out that freeways and roads receive BILLIONS of dollars in government subsidies every year. Why is it that that is acceptable, but spending a fraction of that money on another mode of transportation is not?
I also disagree with the author’s perception of California culture. In cities like San Francisco, public transportation systems are very heavily used. Even Los Angeles, the quintessential car city, has 1.5 million public transit rides per day.
If the author is against politicians trying to change our “culture”, then why not cut off all government support for transportation and let the market decide? If we were to do that, I guarantee you that we would all gravitate to the cheapest option, which will in most cases be public transportation, because the subsidies will be gone.
Hi Jim,
Freeways and roads aren’t subsidized by the government. They’re entirely paid for by the government. I’m not some absurd ultra-libertarian who thinks that’s wrong. I just don’t think the government has any business spending money on modes of transportation that don’t work well, or are extremely unpopular. Yes, we spend billions on our freeways and roads. But every single person uses them. Buses and public bicycles are much less common.
I have been to the Bay Area several times and I used the BART. I’m aware. I’m not sure why it’s necessary, though, to connect random cities in North and South with a massive train project when freeways and airplanes are perfectly fine modes of transportation.
I also don’t think people will choose public transportation if we let the market decide. But you and I can’t predict the future, so that’s a pointless argument.
Just consider it this way: why is tuition going up so frequently? The state has no money. Yet, you want to spend $100 billion dollars on a high speed rail project? I’d rather pay less in tuition than more in taxes, more in tuition and have the option to take a train once every several years.
Happy to see you read the article!
You don’t think the government has any business spending money on modes that “don’t work well”, but where do you show they don’t work well? Public transit works well in high-population, high-density areas.
As it pertains to the high-speed rail, connecting major cities in Northern California to those in Southern California, it’s going to take a lot of money on the side of the government to pioneer the concept, but that’s the way growth works. The government shows proof of need and concept and then the private sector comes in with more evolved technologies and efficiencies to do the same job for less… years later.
Internet: government created, private business-expanded.
Air flight: supported by war time technology (gov’t funds) and is now almost 100% private.
Space flight: government created, private business is now breaking in.
Exploration and being the “first” has always been the place of the government to spend money.
You mention “the market”, but here’s the thing– if “the market” was allowed to be genuine and the subsidies were removed, which do you think would be cheaper to support? The state highway system or a rail/bus system? How cheap would gas be? How difficult would it be to get an auto loan? People choose cars over buses and trains because they’re trained to do so. The personal automobile is a massive industry that survives on the culture of private car ownership. But it’s an expensive endeavor and as people have had their wallets pinched, they’ve been resorting to cheaper modes of transportation: carpool, vanpool, bus, and train. That’s the market deciding.
You mention tuition going up, but it has nothing to do with money already allocated to the high-speed rail. If you want to look for spending efficiencies, look at the guaranteed loan program. Guaranteed loans are a gold mine for university bloat and corporate exploiting. If less money guaranteed, the University would learn to live with less.
This guy is a moron!