Pandemic and the high-speed rail project

California Policy Center

The recession and the state's budget deficit caused by the pandemic gives Governor Newsom the best chance to stop the dumb high-speed rail project.

For years Ralph Vartabedian in the LA Times has done the best---and devastating---reporting on this shockingly stupid project. His latest provides more of the same, along with some disappointing flab-gab:

When California voters approved bonds in 2008 to build a bullet train across much of the state, a ballot measure promised them that future passenger service would not require operating subsidies.

"A ballot measure"? Proposition 1A in 2008 was the only ballot measure passed by voters to approve this project. The bonds voters approved were for $9.5 billion for a project that supporters at the time claimed would cost a mere $45 billion. 

The high-speed rail authority now says the cost to build the system will be between $63 billion and $93 billion. Just paying for the $9.5 billion bonds, principal and interest, authorized by Proposition 1A will cost state taxpayers $19 billion!

The Proposition 1A bond act in 2008 contained what looked like an explicit ban on subsidies, saying, “the planned passenger train service to be provided by the authority, or pursuant to its authority, will not require operating subsidy.” In another passage, it said that if a partial segment or corridor were built, then “the planned passenger service by the authority in the corridor or usable segment thereof will not require a local, state or federal operating subsidy.”

"Looks like"? That's what it in fact says. The no "operating subsidies" promise of course refers to money from state and local taxpayers to operate the system after it's built. Supporters argued that fares paid by passengers of the train would pay to operate it , even though operating every high-speed rail system in the world is subsidized by taxpayers.

The no-subsidy by taxpayers promise was in the authorizing legislation (page 8(J) and page 9(D)):

“It defies the ballot measure approved by voters,” said Quentin Kopp, a former judge and state senator who was a key architect of the bullet train program and former chairman of the High-Speed Rail Board of Directors. “Once you establish the concept, the sky is the limit. There will be a lawsuit, and I want to be the lead plaintiff.”

...Authority spokeswoman Annie Parker also defended the plan, saying in a statement, “This model is allowable and consistent with the tenets of Proposition 1A.” 

But others take exception to the idea. The Legislative Analyst’s Office, a nonpartisan adviser to lawmakers, warned in a March report, “Operating subsidy expected” and asserted that a “subsidy of interim service appears inconsistent with the spirit of Proposition 1A.”

Some people think the earth is round. Others think it's flat.

What the state is doing is obviously inconsistent with the clear language of the authorizing legislation---and how Proposition 1A was sold to voters.

$2.5 billion for the project is in the governor's January budget proposal. Cutting that money would be a good place to begin stopping this costly, poorly-conceived project.

See also these brief critiques of the project.

And Quentin Kopp's high-speed rail declaration.