This high-speed rail project is a warning for the US

California's "train to nowhere" shows the challenges ahead.

In 2008, voters in California passed Proposition 1A, giving the state the go-ahead to build a high-speed rail line. In theory, it was a great idea. The train would whisk passengers between San Francisco and Los Angeles in less than 3 hours. Eventually it would also link San Diego and Sacramento. It was estimated that it would take until 2020 to complete.

But now it’s 2022, and so far California’s high-speed rail line is just a few concrete bridges and viaducts strewn across the rural Central Valley. Much of the plan had to be changed, redesigned, or even abandoned all together. Now the project is decades late and way over budget. And that isn’t just California’s problem. Because among the many factors that plagued the project, several are baked into the power structure of the US itself.

Watch the video above to understand just how difficult the US makes it to build infrastructure like California’s high-speed rail line.

Chapters:
California’s plan: 00:00
Local control: 1:48
Federal funding: 3:45
Lawsuits: 5:09
The experience gap: 6:37

Further reading and sources:

You can find more of Ethan Elkind’s high-speed rail research and analysis here:

And we highly recommend reading Ralph Vartabedian and Tim Sheehan’s reporting to learn more about how this project has affected communities on the ground:

The California-High Speed Rail Authority’s 2022 business plan was a key source for mapping the routes in this video:

Older business plans, like this one from 2005, helped us understand which alternate routes were being considered before the 2008 vote:

This is the 2015 CEQA lawsuit report we refer to in the video:

Exactly how much the federal government ended up spending on this project and when can be hard to pin down, but funding agreement documents like the ones below are publicly available and very useful:

We also found this funding timeline from the Eno Center for Transportation extremely helpful in understanding the funding and cost projections related to CAHSR:

A key part of this story is understanding how far behind its peers the US is in building high-speed rail. This fact sheet on global HSR from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute offers valuable insights on that:

[sannh]

The problem isn't HSR, the problem is politicians who think transportation money should instead be used to widen highways and build toll roads and freeways.

[-cheshire-cat]

US: Builds roads in every square inch of space they can find, in every direction. No opposition.
Also US: Tries to build a railroad in a very specific path. Massive opposition. Claims of environment destruction.

[mugl]

As a German with a functioning high-speed train connection through the whole country it is just astonishing how incapable the US is.

[_.FX._]

A train "to nowhere" was how the trains going to now Brooklyn and Queens (NewYork) were called back then, a few years later Brooklyn and Queens became huge boroughs with millions of residents, thanks to the trains

[camdened]

It's rather incredible that bus lanes are considered large transformative infrastructure projects. It's really shocking that they aren't already in place

[davidwave]

Alan Fisher pointed this out in his video on California HSR, but the project is actually making progress. And the countries that did do it -- France, Japan, China -- had to contend with ballooning budgets and setbacks. No one remembers them as being disasters because, once they're done, folks love them and they enjoy wide use.

[monkeybusiness]

By the time the US actually has its own high-speed rail, countries like Japan and China would probably have moved on to other tech like teleportation.

[monkeyrun]

The fact people call those trains to nowhere tells you how little people understand city planning. Everywhere governments in the world build rail roads to nowhere. But then they start building commercial/residential building around those areas. That's how you develop public transportation. It's called city planning.

[Token_Nerd]

Notice how VOX didn't talk to a civil engineer here. If you look at a geographical map, it's painfully obvious why the Central Valley section was chosen: to reduce tunneling and shoring requirements along the coast.

The US has high construction costs because we have some of the best worker safety practices/laws and highest wages for skilled labor. That's the main reason this project increased cost (not schedule), not because of realignment. 

Also, building a rail line with zero concern for intermediate cities is a recipe for disaster. There is a reason the Tohoku and Tokadio Shinkansen lines are so well used: because of the intermediate cities on each line. The Tohoku Shinkansen does not just serve Tokyo and Hakodate, it serves Sendai, Morioka, Fukushima, Koriyama, Utsunomiya, Hachinohe, and dozens of other smaller cities, plus connections to Yamagata, Hakodate, and Akita.

Same goes for the Tokaido Shinkansen. The line does not exist to serve just Tokyo and Osaka, but it serves Nagoya, Yokohama, Kyoto, Shizuoka, Odawara, Hamamatsu, Okazaki, and a bunch of other smaller cities.

The same is happening with California HSR: adding an additional 30 minutes to an already ridiculously fast trip if it means you can serve San Jose, Bakersfield, Fresno, Tulare/Visala, Madera, Bakersfield, Palmdale, and the cities in the greater LA area makes economic sense. Not everyone is traveling between city centre LA to City Centre San Francisco. The proposed alignment also allows the future project to better serve Sacramento and San Diego, which also are significant population centers that have a lot of traffic between LA and San Francisco.

[Hiro_Trevelyan]

I wanna add that people always forget that building HSR in France or Japan wasn't easy either. Costs skyrocketed too and people were skeptical of the project overall. But now that we have it, nobody thinks about the difficulties anymore... except when we have to build a new HSR line.

[kyleadams]

It's a slap in the face when California comparatively gives more to the federal budget than any other state, but can't get that same funds back to support much needed infrastructure 😑

[faketaxidriver]

US Government

Trillions of $ for building HSR: "Noooo, that's wasting alot of money."
Trillions of $ for wars and military budgets: "OH YES YES!"

[jnels]

As a Californian this is sad because this project is SO NEEDED, travel between Los Angeles and the Bay is huge and long

[Sinisteredgirl]

This is the first time I’ve heard of people actually being against trains as a principle. Wow.

[Jytami]

In Germany, also a federal state, projects of over-regional importance OVERRIDE the local government in being the main planning authority. High-Speed-Rail, Railroads, Highways/roads or also select kinds or other infrastructure. When this happens, other planning and participation procedures take place other than if the local authorities would do it

[TysonIke]

Vox needs to redo this video. They make the “bad route” argument which is invalid. Cities like Fresno, Bakersfield, and Palmdale all have huge populations. Avoiding those cities wouldn’t make any sense. Also the Pacheco pass route in the Bay Area made no sense as it would mean that San Francisco and San Jose would have to split the trains 50/50 resulting in significantly less frequent service and lower ridership.

[emilybooth]

As someone who watches the high speed rail be built everyday on a commute from Reedley to Fresno, there is progress being made. It is evident around the valley. The Central Valley has been forgotten by CA and the rest of the country for too long! There are millions of people who live, work, and produce food (that you eat) throughout the valley. These people have family in Nor and SoCal. "A faster route" that services no one makes no sense. I have a lot of respect for Vox videos and trust them for meaningful analysis. This video doesn't garner that respect from me. It just misrepresents the project and fosters doubt and hopelessness. :(

[noahnavarro]

This was a pretty good deconstruction of the problems California HSR has faced though I wish you guys had re-emphasized the importance and value of these projects a little more instead of just highlighting the issues.

[cachi.mp]

This is a good video overall, but there are a few problems with it. California HSR chose to stop at Palmdale because of the topography of the area, and to avoid extremely expensive tunneling. The route chosen in the Bay Area was also chosen (I believe) to bring electrification to Caltrain, as well as avoiding mountains, like in Palmdale. This project is helping existing rail networks become more modern, and is also creating lots of jobs. There are some systemic problems with how infrastructure is built in the US though, and before we make any changes, we’ll trail behind the rest of the developed world when it comes to financially and environmentally sustainable mass transit.

[caleblaw]

Good Video but I do want to point out a few things about the route selection arguments. In the Bay Area, the current route through Gilroy was selected because of a few reasons. 1) The current route benefits San Jose, which actually has larger population than San Francisco. A lot of people commute to the Silicon Valley from those Central Valley cities every day. 2) If we choose the more northern approach by-passing San Jose, we'd need to build a new bridge or tunnel across the San Francisco Bay which will be extremely expensive. 3) The current route share the tracks with the electrified CalTrain system which further bring down the cost. For the "detour" thru Palmdale, I think the main reason is avoid the steep mountainous areas along I-5. Additional benefits are serving commuters travelling from Palmdale to LA to work and connection to the proposed highspeed rail to Las Vegas. In summary, I think the current route selection is not totally about gaining support and votes from the local governments. They are trying build a system that serves multiple purposes, not just connecting SF and LA in the shortest possible way. This decision may or may not be a good one but since the decision has already been made, it is too late to change and let's just finish it