When he was a boy, Jerry Brown must have asked Santa Claus for a
toy train set but not gotten one. How else can one explain the
California governor’s obsession with building a “high-speed” train
other than it being compensation for an unmet childhood desire?
Initially, the train in question would run between two
towns in the state’s San Joaquin Valley, the southern half of its
huge Central Valley. It is supposed to be the first section of a
520-mile network that would connect that big metropolitan centers
of Northern and Southern California.
In 2008, California voters, seduced by union-funded
advertising, voted for a $9 billion bond issue as “seed money” to
begin the system. Brown wants to use the first $2.7 billion of this
to get construction under way. The Obama Administration has
promised a $3.5 billion carrot for California along with a “stick”
in the form of a demand to get construction of the toy train
underway this year.
Since 2008 the cost of the network between the San
Francisco Bay Area and Orange County has been put at between $98
billion and $117 billion. The completion date has gone from 2020 to
as late as 2033. This phase of the network does not include either
San Diego or Sacramento. The bipartisan Legislative Analyst’s
Office estimates service of the bond issues for this phase will
amount to $700 million a year in a state that perpetually faces
large annual deficits and cuts such things as rural school buses
and in-home service for low-income seniors to deal with the
problem.
To put it mildly, enthusiasm for the “bullet train” scheme
has dimmed since 2008. A recent Field Poll found that by
two-to-one, California voters would turn it down if it were on this
year’s ballot.
The non-partisan California High-Speed Rail Peer Review
Group reported early this year that the project is “not financially
feasible” and urged the legislature to decline the governor’s
request for the $2.7 billion toy train bond money. Brown calls
anyone who opposes him a “declinist.”
Last year the governors of Florida and Ohio declined to
accept federal handouts for similar “high-speed” train systems in
their states. This did not dent the determination of the Obama
Administration. It responded by offering the declined money to
other states eager to get it. California was one of these; hence
the federal “free” money offer to get the project going.
Jerry Brown is now California’s oldest governor. The first
time around, he was its youngest. Nowadays he thinks about a
“legacy.” He probably thinks of the “legacy” of his late father,
Governor “Pat” Brown, in boom times: an excellent highway network,
expanded higher education system, and a comprehensive statewide
water system. To match all that he needs something BIG. The
“high-speed” railway seems to be it. Despite ample warnings by
disinterested parties that it will not draw the expected ridership,
will have huge cost overruns, take much longer to build than
expected, and will saddle the state with large operating costs,
Brown is determined to plunge ahead.
Will the state legislature approve the bond sale this
year? That’s uncertain, but here’s a clue: both houses are
dominated by Democrats. Many of them are beholden to public
employee unions that like the high-speed rail plan. And, Brown is a
Democrat.
