Judge Quentin Kopp defends high-speed rail

Quentin Kopp is a former San Francisco supervisor, a former state senator and a retired superior court judge. He was chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority when voters passed that nearly $10 billion bond in 2008, and he still serves on the board. Kopp helped the state secure $2.25 billion in federal funds, and he’s working on a proposal, to be submitted Friday, for up to a billion more. It’s a lot of money. And before we go ahead and spend it, let’s hear once more from planning expert Bent Flyvbjerg. He studied hundreds of major infrastructure projects around the world and found that 90 percent of them go over budget. Flyvbherg spoke with KALW’s Nathanael Johnson in his documentary, “The Planning Problem.”

BENT FLYVBJERG: Urban rail projects in the U.S. generally have a dismal track record. There are a few successes, but most of them don’t look good. Therefore you would have to be extra careful in the planning of a big thing like the California high-speed rail.

So we presented that to California High-Speed Rail Authority board member Quentin Kopp.

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QUENTIN KOPP: Well there’s no question about the fact of a project like this, which is unprecedented, has to be watched carefully. That’s the responsibility of the nine-member board of directors of the Authority. To say that every transportation project has caused overruns is gilding a lily because that’s not true. There are examples, I can think of one light rail line project in Seattle, Washington, which was under the estimated and budgeted amount. So it’s an overstatement to cast the high-speed rail project as inevitably being subject to a cost overrun.

And secondly, the estimated cost of the first phase, which is San Francisco to Anaheim, through Los Angeles and some other cities, which I can explain as requested, is $42.6 billion. But it is erroneous to put that amount in terms of 2009 dollars. That figure is based on year of expenditure dollars. And it’s based on year of expenditure dollars precisely because of a requirement of the Secretary of Transportation of the United States in order to qualify for federal funds from the American Recovery and Investment Act. So that $42.6 billion is realistic, not in terms of 2009 dollars, but in terms of 2012, 2013, so forth, up to the year 2020.

BEN TREFNY: So just to be clear, you’re saying then that come 2020, it will still be at $42 billion.

KOPP: That’s correct. That’s as good a figure as the High-Speed Rail Authority and the Department of Transportation of the United States and the Federal Railroad Administration, which participated, achieved.

TREFNY: So with a history though, as Bent Flyvbjerg, who studies major program management at Oxford University has found, and has covered in this documentary, he found 90 percent of major projects end up having cost overruns. And those also have numerous watchdogs on them. But still, the Big Dig goes $10 billion over.

KOPP: Oh, the Big Dig is not even in the same class.

TREFNY: The Bay Bridge goes billions over.

KOPP: The Bay Bridge isn’t in the same classification. The extra costs on the Bay Bridge, I’m somewhat familiar with because when I was in the State Senate, it was my legislation that created the original funding based upon an estimate from the Department of Transportation of the state of California, which did not take into account two or more years of delay caused by the then mayors of Oakland and San Francisco because of their insistence that a different design alignment be established and then implemented by Caltrans.

TREFNY: But then we have costs tripling by most estimates at that point. I mean, two years delays and…

KOPP: I don’t argue with the fact that transportation projects often incur cost overruns from estimated original costs. But that is not universally true. And most of those projects are not based upon year of expenditure costs. That is a significant difference, and that’s a policy established by the Secretary of Transportation and it’s a sensible policy. And that’s the policy that the California High-Speed Rail Authority has used as of December 2009, and will continue to use.

TREFNY: How can you make sure when you’re projecting costs and ridership, which are two of the big things in question, when you’re projecting 20 years down the line, how can you be sure that your estimate is as good as it can possibly be?

KOPP: By the quality of the engineers and the cost experts and the ridership experts who supply the data for those estimates. You get the best possible firms and the best possible people that you can. I’m satisfied that the High-Speed Rail Authority has obtained the services of the best experts in terms of ridership forecasts and in terms of construction costs and engineering and design costs.

TREFNY: The researcher who we spoke with, Bent Flyvbjerg, he said there are three general reasons why costs go over. Statistical mistakes is one, over optimism is another and strategic misrepresentation is the third, which is what he then described as a euphemism for just trying to sell something to people.

KOPP: Hyperbole about a project.

TREFNY: Which is a reality in a lot of cases.

KOPP: Well, it may be a reality for many people in public office, with the public trust, but it’s not this public official’s reality, and never has been. I’ll let my reputation for fiscal discipline, for preaching it, for practicing, speak for itself; for 26 years of elected office on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the California State Senate. With respect to statistical errors or statistical fallibility, of course that’s always possible. And that was identified about a year ago with respect to one of the ridership projections, and it was a decimal point error. And it’s corrected and then recalculated. Same thing is true, for example, two, three years ago in terms of projecting what a one-way ticket on high-speed rail to Los Angeles would be. As I recall, the estimate was $55. That was corrected as of last December to about $103 to $105.

TREFNY: Doubled.

KOPP: And that data will be refined as conditions change. Some costs will decline. For example, two years ago, in the program EIR, it was estimated the cost of right away acquisition would be about $4 billion. That estimate is less than $4 billion now because real property values have declined over the past two years. The same will occur with respect to construction bids, construction bids for other projects, because we’re not going to construction until the year 2012, but 2010 construction bids are less than they have been for major governmental and private projects, such private projects as are being built now.

TREFNY: Well, with cost projection for how much it would cost for a one-way trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles, if that estimate has almost doubled since the time that voters helped pass this nearly $10 billion bond, I mean, that’s a much different number from what it was before.

KOPP: It’s different, and so the…

TREFNY: It could affect ridership.

KOPP: It could affect ridership, and price increases could affect ridership by air, and could affect ridership in terms of motor vehicle traffic. Nobody sits down to predict what a one-way airplane ticket from San Francisco to Los Angeles will be in the year 2015 or 2016. Nobody predicts what it will cost to drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles in the year 2015, 2016, 2020. The High-Speed Rail Authority has an obligation and has, to the best of its ability, to calculate what that will be for high-speed rail. The High-Speed Rail Authority is conveying a sense that is deeply felt of responsibility to provide, to the extent humanly possible, the best kind of forecast, whether it’s a right of way acquisition, an engineering design expense, a construction cost, or operational costs, including ticket prices.

TREFNY: So for Californians who are still dealing with a very difficult economy, a lot of people have lost their jobs, even since they passed the bond measure, and they’re able to fly or drive to Los Angeles from here, and they may be souring on the idea of putting so much money into such a large infrastructure project at this point. What would you tell them that says this is still worth doing?

KOPP: Well, I don’t have to tell them because they already believe it. What basis do I say that? As indicated in the last couple of days, two firms, Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin Metz & Associates and Public Opinion Strategies, pursuant to request, surveyed Californians, and the result of the survey was perhaps surprising to those who might express the same question in the same way as you just expressed it. Some 76 percent indicated support for the project. 34 percent said they want the project to move as fast as possible. 42 percent said they’d like to see the trains operate with some concerns over costs and timing. And that’s expectable and entirely natural. Only 13 percent indicated outright opposition to the project. As a matter of fact, in the Bay Area, where 277 residents were surveyed, 40 percent wanted it built as soon as possible, which was six points higher than the statewide total, and just 10 percent in the Bay Area wanted it stopped, which was three points lower than the California average.

TREFNY: So those numbers and statistics, they show favorable feelings toward high-speed rail, but it’s possible to use statistics in any way that you want, really. You surveyed X number of people. These are the ones you’re going to then publicize and share because it shows favoritism.

KOPP: Well, I don’t understand that. This was a poll with questions. Do you support California high-speed rail? Yes or no?

TREFNY: Did it offer alternatives?

KOPP: Yes, yes. It offered alternatives, how would you get from here to Los Angeles?

TREFNY: What if we expanded the airports?

KOPP: It showed more support for high-speed rail than either rail or motor vehicles.

TREFNY: Than improving the highway system or doing…

KOPP: I can’t recall if that was a specific question. I think it was. I think it was.

TREFNY: Was that commissioned by you?

KOPP: It wasn’t commissioned by us. It was commissioned by Ogilvy, which is...

TREFNY: Your public relations firm.

KOPP: The public relations firm, but it was not part of our contract with Ogilvy. In other words, Ogilvy did this independently.

TREFNY: So you’ll be going to DC to compete for more funding because there’s another $2.3 billion that’s on the table there, that was not claimed by other high-speed rail projects from around the country. What will you tell DC about why you need that money?

KOPP: Well, when you say go, you mean in a figurative sense.

TREFNY: Not you yourself…

KOPP: We’re submitting an application by April 6.

TREFNY: Your paperwork will go to DC.

KOPP: Yeah, right. The paperwork will go to DC.

TREFNY: Your electronic documents will go to DC.

KOPP: It will be based upon the schedule of the project, the fact that we’re on schedule to have a certified EIR by Sept. 30, 2011. We’re scheduled to obligate funds that are granted by Sept. 30, 2012.This particular survey, I’m sure will be a part of the presentation to assure people in the Department of Transportation that Californians want high-speed rail. And anything else that…

TREFNY: And that your budget predictions are holding true?

KOPP: Yeah. Yeah. That we’ve complied with the requirement of estimating cost and time in terms of years of spending the money. And that ought to count for a lot.

TREFNY: And everything that you’re going to be telling the federal government, this is not strategic misrepresentation in any way?

KOPP: No.