Delivering (Or Not) on Big Projects

We look at big, hairy infrastructure projects, and share why we think government can't seem to get them done anymore

My head just about exploded over the weekend — and not because I started to get prices on home and auto repairs needed as a result of a hellacious hail storm that hit Central Texas the previous weekend. It was my regular Saturday morning reading that caused the conniption.

I’m a big fan of Andrew Sullivan and The Weekly Dish, another Substack publication. Andrew’s always got an interesting, thoughtful, well-reasoned take on the politics of the day and has long welcomed and published dissents on those takes from his legion of Dishheads. He’s a model opinion journalist IMO. He does his homework, draws on historical precedents, is whip-smart and isn’t afraid to admit when he’s wrong.

He’s also generous. Every week he shares a list he calls In the ’Stacks, where he curates some of his favorites pieces from other Substack writers. It was from this little trove that I found the latest example of why trust in government is rapidly swirling down the toilet.

It came from Pirate Wires under the headline Florida Has High Speed Rail and California Never Will.

My first thought was, Florida has high speed rail? Is that a joke? Intrigued, I clicked the link and read the lede.

In 2008, California voters approved a plan to create a high-speed rail line connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles. They were told the project would be complete by 2020 and cost them $33 billion. Now, three years past the original deadline, not a single mile of track has been laid. The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA), which oversees the project, no longer even bothers to speculate when San Francisco and LA will be connected by rail, instead telling Californians that they hope to connect Merced, Fresno and Bakersfield by 2030 to 2033. This one segment could cost more than the entire initial budget — between $25.7 and $35.3 billion according to recent estimates. This boondoggle gave the impression that America was incapable of building high-speed rail. But Friday, in Florida, Brightline’s high-speed rail service began between Miami and Orlando. At 125 mph, it’s the fastest train in the country outside of the northeast. It’s starting to look like America’s high speed rail problems might have just been California's after all.

To which I thought: Whoa and whoa.

First whoa: Like many folks, I was aware that Cali’s high-speed rail project was way behind schedule and way over budget. I just didn’t realize it was by a factor of are-you-freaking-kidding-me?!?! What really got me was the fact that in 15 years not a single mile of track has been laid.

Second whoa: I was in Orlando, Florida, last month for a conference. I had no idea the Sunshine State was even building a high-speed rail project, much less about to cut the ribbon on one.

I feel like I should have known. Getting more commuter rail has been a thing in Central Texas for years now, albeit a small thing. There’s one line that runs from the northwest suburbs into downtown Austin. One. It has two cars. Two. As it happens, Beloved Wife and I were driving back from Beloved University of Texas at Austin last Saturday when we had to wait at a rail crossing while it passed. It was the first time in her five years living here that she’d ever seen it. “That’s it?” she mused.

The Central Texas rail project had looked at extending into Round Rock, where I worked for nearly 24 years, so I had some professional reason to be aware of successful rail projects around the country. Of course, could be I’m just an idiot for not knowing. (And, yes, I understand there is a difference between high-speed rail and commuter rail. I’m not a total idiot.)

Regardless, it was a “whoa” moment.

Here’s what the story opened with about the Florida project:

When Florida East Coast Industries, Brightline’s parent company, announced their plans to run passenger rail from Miami to Orlando in 2012, they said the project would be finished by 2014 and cost $1 billion. This estimate proved overly optimistic. The project was completed 9 years and $4 billion dollars later after facing numerous delays caused by bureaucratic red tape and lawsuits from two Florida counties in its path (Martin and Indian River), among other issues. The Transcontinental Railroad, which connected San Francisco and New York, began in 1863 and only took 5 years to complete — despite the ongoing civil war. So it is, frankly, a bit ridiculous that with all of our modern wealth and technology it should take more than twice the amount of time to lay the mere 240 miles of track connecting Miami and Orlando. 

The first train from Miami to Orlando cuts the ribbon Sept. 22.

So, like, good for Florida! Even if the project was way over budget and way over time, at least they got it done. But hold up. Reading further, I find out it wasn’t a government project. Au contraire. So, I stand corrected: good for Floridians!

Because of course state and federal governments can’t build something like this. At least, not these days. Back in the Civil War days, sure.

Just to make sure you’re as fully galled as I was, let me share one more critical set of facts about the California project:

… it's worth repeating that California hasn’t laid a single mile of track in 15 years, and that somehow these zero miles of track have cost $9.8 billion dollars — nearly double the $5 billion Brightline spent to actually complete their project. What exactly this money was spent on is unclear. CHSRA’s website offers few clear answers, although it does assure voters that the money was wasted locally, noting that 97% of the $9.8 billion “invested” went to California firms and workers. Earlier this year, the agency released a document called “The Economic Impact of California High-Speed Rail,” which boasts that “more than 1,000 private sector firms have been contracted to work on the system.” You’d think at least one of them would have laid a little bit of track, if only by accident, but again, not a single mile. 

It was the zero miles of track costing $9.8 billion that produced my Scanners moment.

So, what was the difference between the two projects? Why did the private one succeed while the public one is ginormous money pit?

I’d say it was a sense of responsibility.

For the Florida project, which was privately financed and constructed, it appears the financial obligation of private firm Brightline provided the necessary incentive to slug it out in the legal and political battles these kinds of big infrastructure projects inevitably produce. From the story:

Brightline executives had a vested financial interest in making the Miami-Orlando line a reality. Additionally, after the company issued bonds to fund the project, this financial interest also became a legal, fiduciary responsibility.

In case you’re wondering exactly what fiduciary means, here’s the Merriam-Webster definition:

I would argue the State of California, based on the above definition, also had a fiduciary responsibility to its voters. The 2008 ballot measure passed with 53 percent support. One of the ways we decide which big projects to fund is through bond elections like this one. When voters say yes, I view it as a moral responsibility on behalf of elected leaders and staff to go get it done. The good people of California deserve no less.

According to the story, Brightline went head to head with the two Florida counties opposed to the project, “fighting them in court and negotiating safety guarantees.” If you’ve been involved in infrastructure projects that cross multiple jurisdictions, as I have, you know that’s an absolute necessity. These projects Are. Not. Easy. The folks who live in the future right of way of these projects, who will not receive any direct benefit, of course will fight it. That’s the way of world. It’s a Good Government Truism that sometimes you’ve got to get up on your hind legs and make your (wholly justified) case in the face of fierce criticism, make reasonable adjustments to minimize negative impacts, and keep moving forward.

Or you could try to make everybody happy and compromise the mission of the project in the name of political expediency. Good luck with that. Here’s what that approach looks like in California:

The state has continuously caved to local gripes and demands, producing ever-shifting plans as to where production would start and where it would go. By the end of it all, the train that was supposed to connect LA and San Francisco wouldn’t start in either place, but rather in West-Central California, because it would be easier and cheaper to build on the cheap farmland there. Only then, they decided that they didn’t want to run the train through farmland, as this would “encourage new sprawl,” so they decided to start the project in the urban area of east-central California, as this would ensure that the line “served existing cities.” As it currently stands, this means that a regional line connecting the central California cities of Merced, Fresno and Bakersfield is supposed to be completed by 2030 to 2033. From there, at some unspecified date, the line is then supposed to expand north and south in an extremely complicated fashion, weaving through the state with deep regard for political considerations and little for cost or efficiency. Notably, one of the earliest detours approved involved rerouting the train across a mountain and into the Mojave desert. According to the New York Times, “the route's most salient advantage appeared to be that it ran through the district of a powerful Los Angeles County Supervisor.” 

Sigh.

Looks to me like the CHSRA could have used some help in consent building from our friends the Bleikers, who happen to be based in California. Prophets and hometowns, I guess. And in the battle of Politics Vs. Governance, politics is the victor with frustrated Californians the losers.

Frankly, I do think government can still build these kinds of projects. But they take political courage and long-term thinking, and that’s in short supply these days. They also take a clear-eyed, well-thought-out citizen engagement program that anticipates and prepares for over-my-dead-body opposition.

I’ll close this rant with a quote from Jonah Goldberg, another opinion journalist I read and listen to on the regular. Jonah notes the clear-and-present danger of too little long-term thinking — which requires a backbone, not a wet finger in the air — by our elected leaders.

Democracy can work only when enough of the people in charge do the right-but-hard thing in the moment it’s required. The dysfunction of our entire political system stems from the fact that too many people make the wrong decision for the long run because they think they can maximize the benefits for themselves in the short run. Some do it on the assumption that the “system” can handle their self-indulgence …

Either way, the only way “our democracy” can die is when we reach a critical mass of leaders who think that way. We’re not there yet, but a lot of people worried about the fragility of “our democracy” are part of the problem.

Speaking of long-term thinking, our next couple of newsletters/posts will focus on strategic planning. Well thought-out plans, informed by effective public input, are strong medicine for the ills that befell the California rail project.

Good Gov/Bad Gov

Time for another round of Good Gov/Bad Gov, our semi-regular take on the best and worst in the wide, wide world of governing.

The Bad

From the Wall Street Journal, under the headline Migrants Entering U.S. Illegally Complain About Government’s Border App:

EAGLE PASS, Texas—Many of the thousands of migrants who crossed the Rio Grande into this small border city over the past week have one thing in common: They got sick of waiting for an appointment on the smartphone app the government wants them to use.

You know the system is broken when we create an app for people illegally entering the country, and then it doesn’t work.

The Good

Finally, a palate cleanser on strategic thinking from a Chris Stirewalt column in the Sept. 19 edition of The Dispatch:

Calvin Coolidge is the author of what I think is the best ever quote on the subject, so I repeat it often: “There is only one form of political strategy in which I have any confidence, and that is to try to do the right thing and sometimes to succeed.”

Onward and Upward.