Skip to footer

California's high speed rail hits a speed bump

The head of California's multi-billion dollar high speed rail project has resigned, and the question remains: can the state really finance such a big project?

|
AP
China's CRH high-speed trains sit on tracks at a maintenance base in Wuhan, in central China's Hubei province, Wednesday Jan. 11, 2012. California's own high-speed rail project has hit a few snags, including a lack of financing and the recent resignation of California High Speed Rail authority CEO Roelof van Ark .

The head of California's High Speed Rail project has resigned.  You would think that a multi-billion dollar, 30 year project would offer some intellectual challenges for its leader but "Roelof van Ark, chief executive officer of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, announced this afternoon that he is quitting, the latest setback for the state's beleaguered campaign to build a nearly $100 billion rail network in California."

What is going on?  We know that California and the Federal Government both have large fiscal deficits and this may be part of the issue but what happened to the momentum?  

As a guy who flies to Northern California often, and who has traveled on a Chinese Bullet train,  I haven't supported this train.  I figure that for political reasons that it will stop too often between San Fran, LA and San Diego and thus never achieve the MPH that it has promised.   I assume that its ridership will be too low to cover the enormous fixed cost of constructing it.  Once people arrive in these cities, and get off the train --- they will still need a car to connect them with their ultimate destination --- so, the real issue here is what is wrong with air travel?  I know that HSR has a smaller carbon footprint than air travel but what would have to be the value per ton of GHG emissions for HSR to be a wise investment?  I would guess that it would have to be close to the $200 per ton that was calculated for the Cash for Clunkers program.

In the absence of Federal subsidies, how will California finance this train?   $100 billion dollars in a state with 35 million people works out to $3,000 for each man, woman and child.   Are we willing to pay that average cost? 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to California's high speed rail hits a speed bump
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Green-Economics/2012/0113/California-s-high-speed-rail-hits-a-speed-bump
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe