When California first authorized a network of high-speed trains connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles, George W. Bush was still president. More than a decade later, the bullet train has proven a nearly $100 billion failure. The state now says that the train, which was supposed to be completed by 2022, still won’t be ready for almost another decade, and rather than connecting San Fran and LA, the train will connect Merced to Bakersfield.
Evidently, President Joe Biden considers this a model. As a part of his push for (another) multitrillion-dollar spending package, this time for infrastructure, Biden mused about applying a Manifest Destiny of sorts to trains.
“You and your family could travel coast to coast without a single tank of gas on board a high-speed train,” Biden said. His proposed spending package would allocate $80 billion for Amtrak and freight rail service and another $85 billion for undefined public transit.
It’s a nice thought. Biden is a train guy. Amtrak Joe is the one who chose to take the Acela between the Senate and Wilmington every day for decades. Unlike plenty of other items clearly pandering to his base, Biden’s enthusiasm for train development is earnest. But Biden needs to learn from California and think smaller and smarter on his train planning.
The bullet train was a disaster from the start, not only because the California government is utterly inept but also because it was a solution to the wrong problem. The overwhelming majority of the drive between the Bay and LA is lovely. Once you reach the suburbs of LA, you can fly from the Valley to Oakland via the 5 in about as many hours. It’s getting to the suburbs that’s the problem.
Contrary to LA’s reputation, the metro area has actually developed a series of exceptional trains. The county’s Metro connects Hollywood, Koreatown, Santa Monica, Long Beach, LAX, East LA, and the San Gabriel Valley to the city’s downtown. It’s inexpensive and fast. Traveling from downtown to the beach, which by car can take a soul-crushing hour or more, takes just 45 smog-free minutes on the light rail.
But just as, if not more, successful is Metrolink. Southern California’s commuter rail connects suburbs from San Bernardino, Riverside, central Orange County, Ventura, and the Valley into LA’s Union Station, which conveniently connects all of the Metro lines. This could be a fantastic system — if not for the glaring void that is the entirety of central and west LA.
Biden could and should try and fill those holes. Nobody is going to use commuter rails if the city’s train system doesn’t connect them to their Brentwood office, and we don’t have nearly enough commuter rails for most families to justify selling their cars. Liberals are right that America has a car problem — but it’s commutes, not road trips, that suck.
This means dropping the grand goals of red-eye rail rides between Seattle and Manhattan and instead getting people to their jobs.
