Two Tenths of One Percent
The high range of cost estimates to build high speed rail between San Francisco and Anaheim is $98 billion over the next 22 years. There’s no doubt that $98 billion is a pretty big number.
But so is $1.9 trillion.
That’s the estimate for California’s Gross State Product – the state version of Gross Domestic Product, or GDP. That $1.9 trillion sum is about the same as Italy ($2 trillion) and not so much less than the United Kingdom ($2.2 trillion). If it were its own country, California would be the world’s 9th largest national economy.
So let’s consider $98 billion – again, the high end of the cost estimate for HSR – against California’s GDP. Over 22 years, California’s GDP would be $42 trillion, and that assumes it stays flat at 2010 levels, never once growing in absolute size or inflating to a higher value. In that scenario, $98 billion is just above two tenths of one percent of California’s GDP – specifically, 0.233333333%. The Transport Politic has a great visual representation of this comparison, using the lower end of the cost estimate spectrum ($74 billion):
Similarly, $4.45 billion per year is about two tenths of one percent of the state’s annual $1.9 trillion GDP.
To get a sense of the comparison, California’s per capita income as of 2010 was $51,914. Two tenths of one percent of that sum is about $138 per year, or 38 cents per day.
Of course, California is not yet an independent country. So the state would not and should not be expected to shoulder that entire $98 billion cost on its own. The annual GDP of the United States of America is $14 trillion. Over 22 years, again assuming no growth or inflation, that gets you to $308 trillion.
How much of that sum is $98 billion for high speed rail over 22 years? A whopping 0.0318181818%.
Let’s run our per capita income comparison again, this time using those national numbers. The per capital income of the United States of America is $48,147. Three hundredths of one percent of that sum is about $15.31 per year, or four cents per day.
It’s couch cushion money.
Yet you never see high speed rail costs described in these terms in the media. When they describe the cost of high speed rail they give the $98 billion figure out of context, without any comparison to the state’s or the nation’s 22-year GDP. In fact, they rarely ever explain that $98 billion is a 22-year figure itself. $4 billion a year sounds a lot more manageable than $98 billion all at once, which is the implication often given.
How would HSR coverage look if the number were given in context? “The California high speed rail project, which costs two tenths of one percent of the state’s overall economy…” And that’s the high end of the estimate. I’m sure it would change the media’s perception of the project dramatically.
But I won’t hold my breath. The media is much too wedded to the idea that infrastructure costs should be evaluated in a vacuum, without ever being compared to the cost of doing nothing, to the cost of alternatives, or to the overall economic productivity of the state and the nation. Instead they prefer to treat high speed rail like a high-end luxury vehicle on a dealership lot – sure, you might drive by and ogle it, you might even get out and kick the tires, but surely you wouldn’t actually buy it because of course you don’t need it.
If something cost me 38 cents per day, however, and promised to pay its own operating costs, maybe even generate a surplus for me, while saving me money on gas, cleaning my air, and reducing my exposure to global warming, I think I would be pretty fucking stupid not to purchase it.