Welcome to Infrastructure Spotlight, a new series on Newshacker Blog examining major U.S. infrastructure projects in-depth. Today, we’re jumping back over to the West Coast to talk about California High-Speed Rail, a project that has long been in the works.
In November 2008, voters approved Proposition 1A. Thus was the birth of high-speed rail in California: the bill approved $9.95 billion in funding to the California High-Speed Rail Authority to link the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles via the Central Valley, with future extensions to San Diego and Sacramento.
Shortly before that, in August, Assembly Bill 3034 was passed by the state legislature and signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, which proposed creating high-speed rail in California in two phases: Phase 1, which was 520 miles long, would connect downtown San Francisco to Los Angeles, with a terminal in Anaheim and the route going through the Central Valley. Phase 2 would build a new branch to Sacramento and extend the route south to San Diego, for a total network that would span 800 miles.
The maximum travel time between San Francisco and Los Angeles was not to exceed 2 hours 40 minutes, and the train needed to have a minimum speed of 200 mph where possible. Initially, the Authority’s 2008 business plan indicated Phase 1 was expected to be operational by 2020.
After A.B. 3034 was approved by voters as Proposition 1A, construction slowly began as money was approved and bids awarded. The project broke ground in 2015; however, construction progress has been rather slow since then due to lawsuits and other funding issues.
The Authority’s plan to construct Phase 1 was to first build the 171-mile-long Central Valley segment linking Merced and Bakersfield, then to extend that line both northward and southward to reach San Jose and Burbank respectively, where the high-speed train would then run along upgraded intercity rail tracks into terminals at San Francisco and Los Angeles.
This might seem strange at first, considering the Central Valley is sparsely populated and a high-speed rail segment operating there would not likely turn a huge profit. But building that section is, politically speaking, the most difficult, despite being the easiest to construct. This is because the conservative Central Valley has been typically opposed to high-speed rail, and it is that area that has seen the most lawsuits against the Authority over issues of land acquisition and rights of way.
Also, it is the best way to guarantee continued funding for the high-speed rail, since it would look very bad on the politicians to leave just the central segment constructed without connecting it to the big cities. If the segment between San Diego and Los Angeles were built first, knowing the nature of U.S. transit projects, it would likely run far beyond its approved budget and totally whet the appetite of both voters and politicians to extend it. However, building the Central Valley segment first at least allows for San Francisco and Los Angeles to be connected at the bare minimum, since leaving a high-speed line unconnected to two major urban centers would not make sense.
Then, if the line proves to be financially viable, a case could be made to extend the line north to Sacramento and south to San Diego, or make it more integrated with the proposed high-speed rail line connecting Los Angeles and Las Vegas. If successful, it could also kickstart various other transportation projects in the region, such as building a second Transbay Tube for the Bay Area Rapid Transit subway.
Unfortunately, there have been a number of problems with construction, not least being the massive cost overruns and delays that have plagued the project. Originally projected to already be at least in part operational, the earliest we are likely to see any service begin is 2030 — years behind projections. Construction costs have ballooned to well over $80 billion from the 2008 projection of $30 billion. Per mile, this is a far higher cost than what European and Asian countries would pay for a high-speed rail project of a similar caliber, and that is just the Central Valley segment.
The Four Foot, one of the best YouTube channels for following railroad projects in the U.S., has made a video detailing current construction progress with extremely high-quality drone video footage of the various segments.
At the current rate, it is more likely we will see high-speed rail completed by private companies in Texas, connecting Houston and Dallas, and Florida, connecting Miami to Orlando, which are currently being built by Texas Central Railway and Brightline respectively. (Posts on these will come soon.)
Despite these problems, building the high-speed rail would be significant economically. California, the world’s fifth-largest economy, would finally see its two major population centers connected by a high-speed line, bringing it on par with other countries. Connectivity would greatly improve and it would spur massive development along the corridor. It could also provide a beginning to build other high-speed rail lines across the country.
Let’s get California High-Speed Rail built and give the state the modern rail infrastructure it deserves. It would greatly complement Los Angeles’s new Regional Connector light rail project.