Trains and Economic Sustainability in Britain and California

All the way back in 2008, in the midst of the Great Recession, California voters approved Proposition 1A, authorizing the state’s High-Speed Rail Act. At the time, California not only viewed having a high-speed rail network as a way to combat carbon emissions but, just as importantly, to enable job creation, economic investment in underdeveloped regions, and economic mobility by tying people in less wealthy regions to existing transport and investment hubs. On the positive side, the High-Speed Rail Authority recently celebrated a milestone in creating 10,000 jobs over the life of the project. On the negative side, it has been 15 years since high-speed rail was approved in California, and since then, other than the construction activity, the promises and potential of the system have remained unfilled.

While Britain first modernized its rail network starting in the 1970s by adding faster trains, such as the Intercity 125, it still lacked the capacity to support truly high-speed rail when the Channel Tunnel first opened in 1997. Fortunately, it recognized this need and passed the 1996 Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act, which then led the way for the construction of HS1, the first UK high-speed rail link in 2007, and helped lead to the dramatic restoration of St. Pancras Station. What is significant about this development is that while it was intended, pre-Brexit, to dramatically increase linkages between London and cities such as Paris and Brussels, cutting travel times and reducing emissions, it also served to have a number of additional benefits centered around the actual utilization of the route itself for domestic traffic. The construction of stations, such as Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International in Kent, provided sources of significant local economic activity and further helped to facilitate access into London by way of the new Southeast High-Speed route, which also linked other parts of Kent to the capital.

In many ways, HS1 has worked as intended. The main wrinkle in the ointment has been the impacts of Brexit, particularly on providing access from non-central London to Europe, as train provider Eurostar has since cut all services to the UK outside of London, including Ashford International. Until these services are restored, or a new competitor for Eurostar steps in, the full regional benefits of HS1 will be constrained to the domestic services o the route.

In contrast with HS1, its companion line, HS2, has followed a path that can draw a number of parallels with the California experience. Cutbacks to the line due to cost overruns in 2021 and, more recently, in October 2023 are certainly more significant than the numerous delays facing California, but they also have served to bring up a number of key questions facing both projects. Just as the California High-Speed Rail project has been consistently pitched not only as being environmentally friendlier than road and air travel, HS2 has been touted not only as saving on car and plane trips but also in utilizing the least environmentally disruptive methods. The lines are also intended to be incredibly fast and modern to lure in business travelers and other key users. In addition, in both cases, the lines have been pushed as both engines of local economic activity as well as ways to empower local communities so that they will be invested in the projects.

The problem, however, in each case is that when compared to the clear aims of the HS1 project, which was driven both by an existing user in Eurostar, an impending need in the 2012 London Olympics, and clearly defined goals and will, the HS2 falls short. If the project is intended to invigorate economic development in cities such as Birmingham, Crewe, and others, then that needs to be the primary focus. If in cutting the funds, the money is intended to build and strengthen regional rail links to allow workers to access jobs in centers of economic activity such as Manchester through schemes such as the Northern Powerhouse Rail project, it would also make significant sense, especially if combined with a modified HS2 plan to ensure investment could still flow up from London. This also requires still devoting the money to regional transport and not other line items like potholes in London.

For California, there has been a long history of developing the line to encourage economic activity in California’s economically neglected but agriculture-rich San Joaquin Valley. Of the over 100 miles constructed so far, all of it has been located in this region, including planned maintenance facilities and other major investments. One significant reason for this is geography: Getting the right of way and navigating the path to San Francisco is politically fraught, and being able to effectively build a high-speed line through the mountains north of Los Angeles has proved to be a massive engineering obstacle. And more significantly, the California project has faced a number of the same challenges in terms of local rights-of-way, governance, and regulatory issues facing the British HS2 project. However, without the line actually linking workers to investment centers in San Francisco and San Jose or the employment and logistics center in Los Angeles, any boost from construction activity is only temporary.

California has been fortunate enough to receive $6 billion more for the project this past month from the federal government, but the dilemma of how to finish the line to either major center remains. The flight of workers and families from California’s more expensive coast is well documented at this point, but the lack of economic activity and access in more affordable cities such as Stockton, Fresno, and Bakersfield mirrors problems faced by those who cannot afford London rents but are unable to find sustainable jobs in the Midlands and elsewhere. This remains the single most significant challenge for California's rail project to succeed.

A counterpoint to both HS2 and the California High-Speed Rail project can be found in the story of the Brightline Rail in Florida and the recently announced high-speed line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The Brightline Rail gives both an example of how to utilize and upgrade existing infrastructure for purpose, as well as to take what had been a long-languishing project (LA to Las Vegas High-Speed Rail) and bring it to a level of federal funding. The opening of the Brightline service between Miami and Orlando in September as an expansion of its already successful service in South Florida is a good example of a public-private partnership to execute long-discussed services. The Florida line has the distinct advantage of relying on existing tracks for two-thirds of its services, which true high-speed rail cannot. However, the Brightline West project between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, which also recently received federal funds, is intended to be an actual high-speed line. While Brightline West is unlikely to address major economic mobility issues by terminating in suburban Rancho Cucamonga rather than Los Angeles, it is still focused on turning a decades-old idea into a viable, executable project.

Neither Brightline project is at the ambitious scale of either the California or HS2 projects. At the same time, the leaders for both projects have real tangible benefits they can deliver by cutting down commute times, attracting investors to regions that have fallen behind in garnering investment, and providing workers in expensive cities an alternative for jobs and lives. If these two projects can actually deliver on even a fraction of that promise, they will ultimately prove successful.