They should've started high speed rail in the bookends, since any construction there would have immediate benefits for hundreds of thousands of riders, and instill public confidence in the project. That would've helped Caltrain electrification right there.
> They should've started high speed rail in the bookends, since any construction there would have immediate benefits for hundreds of thousands of riders, and instill public confidence in the project.
The bookends are the most expensive part to build in, and the parts with the best existing mass transit; their of the least marginal value until they are connected with each other.
San Jose into the Valley is quite a sensible initial operating segment, in terms of bang for the buck.
Well the Caltrain electrification is in one of the book ends.
The logic for starting in the middle is that it created economic assistance (as a side effect) in an area with a jobs problem. Why not start that part sooner rather than later?
Exactly -- the HSR Authority is investing heavily in upgrades to Caltrain and Metrolink; they provide tangible benefits to commuters in the cities while building the infrastructure they need to run the high-speed trains in the cities. They can't get the high-speed trains running between SF and SJ until electrification and upgrades to the corridor are finished.
And at the same time, they're doing construction in the Central Valley, which is cheaper and easier on a per-mile basis. Just wish they could find a way to do it faster though; 7 years for SJ-Bakersfield seems like an unreasonably long time.
The initial operating segment was always going to be near one of the Phase 1 endpoints (LA/SF) to somewhere in the middle (nothing else that doesn't require the whole north/south alignment to be built before running any trains makes sense.)
It's true that building the smaller initial construction segment in the Valley was driven by economic development concerns, but the Valley needed to be part of any sensible initial operating segment anyway, so why not start building their if the side benefits were greatest there?
> The logic for starting in the middle is that it created economic assistance (as a side effect) in an area with a jobs problem. Why not start that part sooner rather than later?
This is much like the broken-window-fallacy. The reason not to start in the middle is because the middle (especially on its own) doesn't have a lot of inherent value.
Heck, if the train here (minus wages) costs more than it is worth this is a straight-up broken-window-fallacy.
Congratulations! You've proved you can type the phrase "broken-window fallacy". Just be careful -- if you do it three times in a single comment, a ghost will appear in your bathroom mirror.
Meanwhile... if you're going to build a high-speed line from SF to LA, why not start the project by
1. In locations which already have rail infrastructure, upgrading that infrastructure to the required standard, and
2. In locations which lack existing infrastructure or connections to the planned stops of the line, get the construction on that going
And if as a side effect it boosts the economies of the places in (2), well, that's a nice side effect. But "we were going to do this anyway, doing it in this order gets this side effect that's useful" is not the broken-window fallacy.
Plus, you know, infrastructure isn't generally built for its high profit margins; it's built because of the profit it generates in other sectors.
>Heck, if the train here (minus wages) costs more than it is worth this is a straight-up broken-window-fallacy.
Not really. Lots of projects can start out in the red and then provide more value longer-term. This is particularly true when talking about improving transit to impoverished areas.
Because no one will ride that section. If you start on the ends people will actually pay money to ride the train, which then funds construction on the other part of the train and provides steady jobs instead of only temporary ones.
If you want to provide welfare to people without jobs, then provide welfare. Don't provide secret welfare and call it a high speed train.
> If you start on the ends people will actually pay money to ride the train
The initial operating segment runs through the Valley to San Jose; that's pretty close to the S.F. end , and is the third biggest city in California (and the second biggest covered by the whole Phase 1 LA-to-SF alignment.)
Obviously, the initial operating segment isn't going to connect both ends, and short of doing that, where specifically would be better than the actual planned IOS?
Sure, the initial construction segment is a small section in the valley that would probably see little ridership without being connected to some place nearer to the endpoints, but the ICS is not the whole IOS.
Politically it would've helped the project much more to have had tangible success in the economic heart of CA, impacting shitloads of people (and voters).
Yup. The train is a huge boondoggle, mostly because they are building it backwards. Building the middle part where no one lives is easier and will make a lot of jobs in a lot of poor areas, but then it is just a secret welfare program, not a useful piece of infrastructure. Let's just provide welfare if that's the goal, and then build some useful infrastructure like electrified tracks in the Bay Area and bullet train to Stockton that people might actually ride and then use those fares to pay for the rest of the train.
> Building the middle part where no one lives is easier and will make a lot of jobs in a lot of poor areas
The planned initial operating segment has one endpoint in the third largest city in the state, and passes through the fifth largest city in the state, so the idea that it's in a place where no one lives is, well, what recently has become known as an "alternative fact".
Actually you're the one pedaling in alternative facts. The initial operating segment was going to be Stockton to Fresno until people complained about how stupid that was, and then they added San Jose.
> The initial operating segment was going to be Stockton to Fresno until people complained about how stupid that was, and then they added San Jose.
Since we're discussing how the existing project is being built and is planned to be operated, and not historical plans that have been rejected as suboptimal, that would be irrelevant in any case. It's also, AFAICT, not true; in both the final 2014 Business Plan with the Merced to Burbank IOS, and the draft 2016 Business Plan (they are done in even numbered years) which shifted to the San Jose to Bakersfield IOS, Stockton was not only not part of the IOS, but not even part of the Phase 1 SF-to-LA plan, only the Phase 2 expansion to Sacramento and San Diego, which is more of a vague concept than a concrete plan.)
Given that government bond rates are virtually zero, it would seem to make more economic sense to issue bonds to pay for construction rather than using operating income from an earlier segment.
building the middle part where no one lives is easier and will make a lot of jobs in a lot of poor areas
It will make a lot of temporary jobs -- and transient workers will come from hundreds of miles away to work on the project and will leave when it's done so many of the jobs won't directly benefit local residents. Small towns will see a brief increase in business during the construction, then it'll die away, along with the small businesses that sprung up to support it.
I think the Central Valley was a giant fait accompli to get the rest of the project funded in case of a political crisis.
The prevailing mood in 08-09 was also that CAHSR would be used similarly to the economic stimulus passed by congress. You would think listening to CAHSR blog and their ilk back then that Fresno and Bakersfield were the navel of the world.
