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Assuming 640 billion passenger-miles of air travel, the railway still makes rational sense.

Once the land is purchased, levelled, and conditioned you now have a space that can have trains running on it for the next fifty, one hundred, or more years. Look at the UK's railway lines, some of them have been operating for two hundred years and counting.

This type of short term thinking is why infrastructure spending in the US is at an all time low. Instead of spending for tens of years into the future, we only evaluate the costs relative to the next five years and therefore make decisions more valuable to tomorrow than next week.

Once CA buys this route, they own this route forever. And in a state gaining more and more people every day, cutting out land for infrastructure is only going to get more painful in time.

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> Once the land is purchased, levelled, and conditioned you now have a space that can have trains running on it for the next fifty...or more years

Look at the route California's HSR takes [1]. That's a map drawn for short-term political gains, not long-term utility.

Unless we develop technology that cancels out inertia, that track is speed limited for much of its route. Comparing non-American infrastructure costs and benefits to American infrastructure is misguided because American infrastructure costs unreasonably more [2].

[1] http://www.ushsr.com/images/632_CA_HSR_Phasing_632.jpg

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

> Comparing non-American infrastructure costs and benefits to American infrastructure is misguided because American infrastructure costs unreasonably more

Can you elaborate why you believe the comparison is misguided?

It costs more because it costs more is self evident, but doesn't suffice as an explanation in depth.

> It costs more because it costs more is self evident, but doesn't suffice as an explanation in depth

I linked to a New York Times article [1] that analyses the issue well. For a shorter, bloggier read try this CityLab piece [2].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

[2] https://www.citylab.com/life/2014/04/7-reasons-us-infrastruc...

The Citylab article provides 7 Reasons U.S. Infrastructure Projects Cost Way More Than They Should.

That doesn't explain why you believe a non-US comparison is misguided, rather it supports the notion of a non-US comparison.

US infrastructure projects cost more because the US isn't Japan or Europe would be a neat summary.

> The Citylab article...doesn't explain why you believe a non-US comparison is misguided

So you skimmed one article and didn't read the other. Here:

"The Times observed construction on site in Paris, which is building a project similar to the Second Avenue subway at one-sixth the cost."

Most of the factors in the CityLab piece are uniquely American. We pay more for the same infrastructure. Something that makes economic sense for one country may not for America, just as a tractor may make sense for a farmer at $100,000 but not at $10 million. Our inflated costs throw out of whack the balance of costs and benefits that makes certain infrastructure value adding abroad.

TL; DR We can't automatically assume infrastructure that works abroad works here.

The question, again, is why is there such a big difference in the cost? What are taxpayers and consumers of this infrastructure getting in exchange for these higher costs? That is, what's the opportunity cost? Even if it's a cultural opportunity cost, knowing that is party of assessing if it's really worth it.

Not the OP. I imagine unions and insurance play a huge role.

I’m not interested in starting a union/anti-union fight. Please.

I find it hard to believe U.S. unions and insurance are more expensive than their equivalents in other countries, but maybe - seeing as health insurance is universal everywhere except in the U.S.

Did you read the New York Times link above?

The issue is in the absence of effective controls on corruption, it's in the self-interest of those holding the reigns to buy a $3 billion tunnel for $12 billion if the latter nets them $10 million in "campaign contributions"

> "The Times observed construction on site in Paris, which is building a project similar to the Second Avenue subway at one-sixth the cost."

I'm not taking issue with the fact that similar infrastructure projects have different costs in different countries, nor that there are reasons as to why this is.

I'm trying to understand why you think the comparison is misguided.

Only by way of comparison are we able to ascertain that the US is, probably, paying too much for infrastructure.

I mean, this whole conversation is predicated on the comparison.

It's not that the similar infrastructure can't work in the US; it's that for reasons-known similar infrastructure may be untenable. If the infrastructure was built anyway, say by an Act Of God, it would probably still function as expected.

Can you elaborate on why you think the route is drawn for "political gains"? I ask because the route makes sense to me geographically given that the initial useful core route is SJC/LAX.

Main use of HSR is going to be getting to and from peripheral cities. Fresno to SF and Bakersfield to LA in under an hour would be HUGE. That's going to get used more than the full SF to LA trip.

I'm not convinced the HSR is a good idea. But I actually suspect, if it turns out 50 years from now to have been, it's because it created a corridor through relatively undeveloped country (yes, there are significant cities but small relative to the endpoints) that could develop along a fast transportation link. Convenient (ADDED: somewhat) fast transit between SF and LA is almost beside the point.

Absolutely agree. Even just this first segment, from Fresno to the Bay Area, is going to be transformative.

While I obviously think cheaper and faster is better, connecting two of the worlds largest city economies with vacant land is a feature not a bug.

> Look at the route California's HSR takes [1]. That's a map drawn for short-term political gains, not long-term utility.

It did feel like this to me at the time (and was widely discussed as such) but having used the HSR Japan and Germany I reflected and realized they really helped the smaller cities to thrive. Tying Fresno and Bakersfield into the economies of LA and the Bay Area will be great for all concerned, relieving pressure on the megalopolises and expanding he economic opportunities of the Central Valley.

I second that. Having a <1 connection from smaller cities to SFO will make commuting from there a realistic option and could help to somewhat normalise prices in SF and Bay Area.

I had exactly this thought yesterday when thinking of my experience of China. The states are so disconnected exactly because there’s no rapid transportation that would also involve local centers. And don’t tell me about the country size, I’ve ridden large parts of transsiberian railway many times as a kid. Like 4 days on a train there and back again every year to see my grandparents.

Exactly. The comparison to non-US based projects is inadequate. California and other US states need to "earn the right" to spend this much money on one single monstrous project by proving it can handle smaller projects with 100% cost accuracy. BART extensions, LA Metro Rail and projects in the smaller cities should have near 1-to-1 precision in planning cost to implementation, before going after the big kahuna. Jerry Brown wanted to galvanize the population but instead it has bred cynicism state and nation-wide. Oh, and it will cost over $100 billion in taxpayer dollars before it's completed.

> The comparison to non-US based projects is inadequate

Can you explain why? For example comparing NYC's subway to Paris' subway. Why would one be more expensive than the other, since I don't think the base cost are that different

(I'm not from the US, I'm just trying to understand your point)

I think there are just a lot of intangibles so it's hard to compare mega projects, like the existing state of the subway where it is integrating into (like extensions), how many stations are being added, cost of labor, etc. I think comparing dozens of similar projects like the cost of replacing one street light, overpass or kilometer of highway from a non-US project, or even better within a single city in the same country, would be more informative.

looks like the map is drawn to go into various city centers, unless I am mistaken

Well, even if you say that capital expenses are irrelevant considering the very long time frame, you still have to make the argument that operating expenses of the rail are smaller. What are they, and are they smaller than air travel (~$0.10/passenger-mile)? The only estimate of that I could find with two minutes of googling is ~$0.39/passenger-mile (via http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=88 supposedly using the National Transit Database). That means that a rail line is even _worse_ in the long run.

> That means that a rail line is even _worse_ in the long run

Critical qualifier: in the United States. The British rail system, as I understand it, runs with significantly lower variable costs than e.g. Amtrak or BART.

Rail costs go down as traffic and network expand. Most of the US is under-served by rail, and California is pretty ridiculous too. I was shocked by how few stations Amtrak had when I last visited (about 7 years ago). Like for most things, if you invest, costs go down in the long term.

The cost for Amtrak and other commuter train services is inflated due to the fact that the rails are owned and/or preempted by commercial rail services. The whole point of California building out the line, directly from tax dollars, is to go around that. A dedicated line drops in price, is far more reliable and can be managed by text according to traffic.

I'm slightly unsure but I think CHSR runs next to freight rail lines for a fair amount in the central valley. And I think CHSR is also paying for part of CalTrain's grade separation and electrification. So benefits aren't exclusive to CHSR.

You aren't saving those $.10 per mile, you're converting them to a different operating cost per mile, with fuel, maintenance, crew, and so on. Any well thought out cost benefit analysis says 64 billion is absolutely unreasonable.

You're right that short term thinking and underinvestment in infrastructure is a problem. But you have to choose your projects intelligently: things like revamping BART and New York's MTA, and taking better care of the most-used roads and bridges are far far better uses of public money.

Part of the reason we underinvest in infrastructure is that people see these pointless multi-billion-dollar boondoggles and cry out their money is being wasted. If you really want more spending on infrastructure, give up on your dream projects and spend on things that will actually make a big difference in people's lives.

> Any well thought out cost benefit analysis says 64 billion is absolutely unreasonable.

This desperately needs the support of at least one such “well thought out” cost/benefit analysis.

> Look at the UK's railway lines, some of them have been operating for two hundred years and counting.

Good point. The government may not run all the trains[0], but the rail companies help with congestion and up-keep as well. And that is just the trains running on the National Rail, not including private rail lines.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_operating_tr...

> Look at the UK's railway lines, some of them have been operating for two hundred years and counting

That could be the reason why flying is 4x cheaper than trains there.

No, the reason for that is that the semi-privatised model failed abysmally, compounding historical lag.

Most of Europe pays less for a superior experience. Reasons: Europeans literally rebuilt their networks from scratch post-WWII, and used the chance to electrify and modernise most of them - whereas Britain, that was bombed much less, just kept using very old lines (most of them are STILL not electric, in 2018, which is absurd). That's investment failure #1, driven by short-sightedness.

Then you have the privatisation shenanigans from the 90s onward. This is investment failure #2: in order to reduce running costs and avoid having to deal with running trains, every few years taxpayers end up paying huge one-off sums that basically offset any potential savings. In the rest of Europe, despite attempts at privatisation, the old state-funded companies still dominate, achieving economies of scale and efficiencies that private competitors will never be able to match.

Sorry to blow your rose-tinted bubble about public European rail companies, but they suck sometimes. In France, the push in the last decades for high-speed rail (called TGV) has left wide stretchs of the netword underfunded, there's a lot of short and mid-distance railway that are in terrible shape. Also we had train stations, starting point of long-distance trains in Paris, that had outage (as in no train arriving/leaving) lasting days this summer. Also not all the network is electrified, and never will be.

So maybe it would be worse with one or more private companies, but public companies are no silver bullet and will fail sometime.

I'm Italian, I know very well where the state-funded model can (and will) fail. But it's way, way superior to the UK rip-off experience. The fact that the UK basically doesn't actually make trains anymore (the few factories left are foreign-owned and don't really produce much anyway), unlike any other major EU country, is another clear symptom of a broken system.

Ok. I have nearly no experience with UK railways, so I can't say how bad they are.

Where did you get your info about train production? I would be interested how the figures vary from country to country.

You can have a look on Wikipedia, like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_locomotive_builders

But then there is some local knowledge to add, like the fact that pretty much all factories left are just tweakers for the internal market (narrow-gauging and so on), afaik the only one with significant production and occasional export is Bombardier in Derby - which got very close to shutting down around year 2000 and is basically run from Berlin anyway. Most European factories, despite some consolidation after the EU common market reached full gear, still pump out trains sold around the world - and then you have Japan and China that play on a different level.

Afaik the best trains in the UK are all bought from abroad at the moment. Things might change with the HS2 (high-speed) project that should be tendered out this year [1], but note how the main candidates are basically just reselling Japanese tech.

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38684010

Yeah, I found similar information, but I was interested if you had more information, like where the trains are built, since a company can have its headquarter in one country and factories elsewhere.

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