California Governor Doubles Down on High-Speed Rail

Newsom Releases Plan to Bring Passenger Trains to All Corners of the State

This viaduct over the BNSF tracks in Wasco will be one of the first locations where track will be laid for California High-Speed Rail. California High-Speed Rail Authority photograph.

I did not plan to write about California High-Speed Rail (CAHSR) this week but significant developments last week made it too compelling to ignore. With Republican officials from President-elect Trump on down having the project in their crosshairs California Gov. Gavin Newsom appears to have doubled down on high speed rail.

A week ago Monday, before the Los Angeles County wildfires flared up, he came to Kern County for a ceremony to mark the start of construction for a railhead. The railhead, located along the BNSF Central Valley mainline, will be used to hold and stage materials, such as ties and steel rails, for delivery to construction sites. Ten years after breaking ground for the project the California High-Speed Rail Authority will soon be laying track.

The following day Governor Newsom revealed the latest state rail plan, a vision for what its passenger system would look like in 2050 as well as the pathways for getting there. The plan intends to connect all corners of the state by rail to increase mobility in all regions.

The first HSR tracks to be laid will cover 22 miles of right-of-way from a point one mile south of the border of Tulare and Kern Counties to Poplar Avenue in Wasco. This is the southernmost section of the line currently under construction. It contains 11 completed civil structures that include overpasses, underpasses, and viaducts to allow high-speed trains to run above roadways, waterways, and existing rail lines.

Trackwork could soon begin in at some of the other 25 active construction sites along the Central Valley corridor, as well. More than 60 miles of guideway and five miles of bridges and other structures are ready for ballast, ties, and rail. The first section of the line, running between Bakersfield and Merced, 172 miles apart, could be in service by 2030.

CAHSR is advancing in other areas. The Authority completed environmental reviews for 463 miles of the 490-mile Phase 1 route between San Francisco and Anaheim via Los Angeles. Caltrain, the Bay Area regional rail line, last summer turned on its electrified line between San Francisco and San Jose. CAHSR will use these tracks between those cities. In addition, the Authority anticipates later this year selecting the trainsets it will run.

Part of the Authority’s strategy calls for developing a regional HSR network in collaboration with Brightline West and the High Desert Corridor. Brightline West is building a high-speed line between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga that it plans to open in 2028. The High Desert Corridor route, which runs east from Palmdale, would connect CAHSR and Brightline West.

“We’re committed to working collaboratively and ultimately developing a modern, interstate high-speed rail network that will not only boost ridership in the Southwest part of the country but bring to the forefront the possibility of delivering high-speed rail benefits sooner,” said Mr. Choudri.

The three railroads are jointly addressing design and operational issues with the ultimate goal of creating an interoperable system. Once all three lines are completed it would be possible to travel by high-speed rail between Northern California and Southern California as well as to Las Vegas.

The new state rail plan, which Governor Newsom unveiled January 7, would go even further. It aims to connect every region of the state by rail by 2050. In addition to the Anaheim – Los Angeles – San Francisco high speed line currently being developed it calls for new routes to northern and east sections of the Golden State that would connect large urban areas and smaller cities and towns.

California wants to make passenger rail a mode of choice within the state by making train travel more attractive than driving or flying. Currently, the state’s passenger rail and transit lines account for only two percent of miles traveled in California. Governor Newsom is calling for a tenfold increase, to 20 percent, by 2050.

This would shift nearly 200 million daily passenger miles from highways to railways. It would significantly reduce highway congestion and pollution from fossil fuels. The high-speed line now being built would form the backbone of the network by enabling people to travel quickly between Northern and Southern California.

However to get people to their ultimate destinations the network will also include conventional intercity, regional, and local transit systems. This would enable "many more connections for many more people, with more frequencies, on a largely electrified rail network that can be operated far more efficiently than the services in operation here today.”

Conceivably, someone living on San Francisco’s Nob Hill would be able to take a cable car to connect with a light rail train headed to the Salesforce Transbay Terminal in downtown. There they would board a high-speed train to Los Angeles Union Station. From LAUS, they could take the Red Line subway to the Pershing Square station and ride the Angels Flight funicular to the top of LA’s Bunker Hill.

The multimodal network would greatly expand the high-speed line’s impact on intrastate travel by make it accessible to people traveling to and from more destinations. This is similar to how Amtrak California’s bus connections to the Pacific Surfliner, San Joaquin, and Capitol routes generates incremental traffic.

The San Diego market provides a good illustration of the kinds of improvements California has in store:

• LOSSAN Corridor tracks would be reinforced or relocated in Del Mar and San Clemente to reduce exposure to coastal erosion and mudslides.

• Pacific Surfliner trains would operate on hourly frequencies between San Diego and Los Angeles with the ultimate goal of departures every 30 minutes by 2050.

• The high-speed line would be extended to San Diego via a route that would also serve Escondido, Murrietta, and San Bernardino.

• Sprinter, Coaster, and Metrolink train frequencies would also increase: Every 30 minutes on the Coaster and Metrolink and every 15 minutes for the Sprinter, the light rail line between Oceanside and Escondido.

The plan estimates $310 billion in direct capital investment would be needed to carry out its recommendations. This would be raised through local, state, federal, and private funding. By 2050 the investment would yield $540 billion in economic benefits, the report states.

California already has $65 billion in rail projects in the pipeline that it expects to complete by 2035. This is roughly one fifth of the total cost of the entire rail plan. Funding has been identified for these projects and in many cases they are already under construction.

Officials need to overcome numerous obstacles that could derail the plan. President-elect Trump and congressional Republicans have derided the high-speed line as “wasteful spending” and want to deny it further federal funding.

California HSR has been plagued with delays and rising costs. According to the Sacramento Bee, the cost of one construction package rose from less than a billion dollars in 2013 to $3.7 billion today.

Mega transportation infrastructure projects are difficult to keep on schedule and on budget. The high costs and lengthy delays result from a lack of sound funding mechanism the complex planning and permitting processes, according to Devin Rouse, former director of the Federal Railroad Administration passenger rail division.

“You can’t build a $100 billion project while not knowing where you’re going to get the money from and if you’re going to have the money to build,” he said. “By nature it causes the project to be inefficient with those funds.”

No one disputes the California High-Speed Rail Authority has made mistakes. But a supporter in Congress, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass, points out that even with the rail line’s inflated cost it will still be less expensive than building more highways and airports.

Moulton believes not all Republicans oppose the project. Once the first project gets built it will be easier to get bipartisan support, he contends. “Until you pick one and give it enough money to efficiently get built they’ll just continue to die on the vine.”

Governor Newsom says he is not fazed by opposition to the project. “No one’s naive about the headwinds that are coming our way, but we withstood those a few years back,” he said, “and we were able to continue to move forward and I have all the confidence in the world that we will move forward.” With the Authority ready to begin laying track it can “get this project to a point where success becomes irresistible, success becomes inevitable.”