The California High-Speed Rail Blog, a relatively new blog, devoted to the California High Speed Rail project. The site is mostly specific interest, though some of these posts, like the one above are general interest to any transportation discussion.

The post points to this article in the Fresno Bee about the cost of doing nothing. This bit is particularly interesting:

Opponents of the high-speed system often sound as if this is a choice between spending the $40 billion or spending nothing. That notion is just dead wrong.

Take just one instance. Expanding existing highways and airports to meet the transportation needs projected to come with growth in the state’s population would cost two or there times as much — and would make air quality and congestion even worse. In some cases — San Francisco, Los Angeles — existing airports can’t be expanded. Bigger and better freeways? Expanding Highway 99 in the Valley to an eight-lane interstate would cost as much as $25 billion alone — and that’s just to serve the Valley, not the entire state.

We have a similar effect here, replace “high speed rail” with “transit” and “airports and highways” with just plan old “highways”. Adding one lane each direction to I-5 was projected in the late 90s to cost $25 billion, just within the city limits. The I-405 widening is an $11 billion project, and increasing capacity on I-90 would cost more than SR 520, and just that will cost about $4 billion.

We can’t hope to pave our way out of congestion, and if we tried, we might end up worse off, with a sicker economy and a less healthy region. Transit in general, and light rail specifically, is the cheapest way to move people around this region. We can’t afford to do nothing.

12 Replies to “Cost of Doing Nothing is Not Zero”

  1. Another concern ignored by those that want road solution: peak oil.

    I’m currently watching the 2004 documentary “The End of Suburbia”, and they bring up a good point I hadn’t thought about. When oil becomes more scarce (like, um, now), it will be more and more expensive not just to run cars, but also to maintain freeways. What is pavement made out of? Rocks and asphalt(which comes from oil). So we already have a massive infrastructure that will be unsustainable even if we somehow convert all vehicles to another fuel.

  2. The elephant in the room in the whole peak oil conversation is that coal can be made into fuel for cars at about $200-ish a barrel at which point we’ll stop using oil and start using coal.

  3. But we won’t, unless we absolutely want to kill our world. Coal is an enemy of mankind. It produces a huge amount of carbon dioxide, and is already responsible for most of global warming.

  5. Thanks for the link, guys. You’re absolutely right that the logic I used about HSR is applicable to Sound Transit. The cost to the Puget Sound metro area of not doing Sound Transit 2.1 is FAR larger than the cost of actually building it. With gas prices in Seattle over $4 now (I assume) this logic should be easily understood by everyone except the usual suspects at the Times.

    I lived in Seattle from 2001 to 2007 before returning to California, and it was always stunning how folks would freak out at higher initial capital investment but not bat an eye at the huge sums of money being paid out in rising oil prices, or to subsidize freeways and driving. Madness.

  6. Sadly, I think China (among others)will go the coal route unless an alternative is found :(

  9. My very quick informal research (aka Googling) said something like $30/bbl for coal liquefaction. I believe that figure is from 2004 though, so the price of coal was fairly cheap compared to what it is now.

    Not inflation in the strictest economic sense, but certainly an increase in commodity price. ;)

  10. If I remember correctly, Ben mentioned that liquified coal is already one of our much-touted “alternative fuels,” and may qualify for tax breaks?

    Even if he was mis-informed, I would bet that politicians would destroy the enviornment in order to “keep the economy moving.” Anyone in office who said “Too bad, no coal. You just have to pay $20/gallon for conventional gas” would be voted out instantly.

    With our current transit situation, I don’t think the american people would put up with not driving their cars… espically if the Chinese and Indians were seen driving around on “cheap” coal power.

    In the BEST non-transit scenario, people will use electric/ hydrogen/ compressed air cars to make that daily 10-50 mile commute. I would bet that we could figure out some way to make roads with less/little oil, we will just have to pay for it.

    In the end, all of this just gives us more reason to build good mass transit now, so that people have an attractive alternative to driving. I agree, the cost of doing nothing is enormous… but hey, that’s why I am here…

  11. Ryan, liquefied coal plants are already receiving federal grants:

    http://www.ultracleanfuels.com/articles/lancaster_062506.htm

    (And I take offense at the URL.)

    Robert, it’s great to see you commenting here. I’ve been following CAHSR for a few years, and it’s been heartbreaking to see the ballot measure pushed back over and over. We need it here, but I’m focusing on ST2.1 first. When CAHSR passes, I think there might be momentum in the next few years to spin off WSDOT’s Urban Rail division into something similar, and start asking for money for Amtrak Cascades independently of highway funding.

  12. Nice justification of the ultra cleanliness of coal:

    ” “People can throw stones at what we’re doing but this is an environmental improvement,” he said.

    The waste coal the plant will use is a major ground water contaminant. “

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