The California bullettrain, a high speed, electric train running a two-hour route betweenSacramento and San Diego, is a grand dream.
It is a grand dream broughtcloser to reality by the passage of Prop 1A in November, allowing forbonds to finance part of the project. It got even closer to reality byan $8 billion cut of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed earlierthis year by Congress. The bullet train is a real possibility,accelerating the speed of travel, commerce and communication inCalifornia. However, it is slowly getting mired in predictable andnarrow-minded resistance from NIMBY communities through which the trainwould pass.
NIMBY stands for "Not in My Backyard." NIMBY protestors resistprojects -- good and bad -- on a spurious environmental basis when theirtrue motive is to prevent a project in their neighborhood that may hurtthe value of their property or quality of life. NIMBY communities aremost often wealthy enough to fight projects, leaving largeinfrastructure concentrated in less empowered neighborhoods. NIMBYs maybe happy to benefit from the fruit of the project- power from apowerplant, in this case, transportation from a train-- as long as someother community has to house the infrastructure.
While defending one's community from a malicious or carelessdevelopment is rational, and often does yield higher environmentalquality, it is important to understand that planning (especially oflarge infrastructure) is a community project in which compromises mustbe made. Boycotting a project without participating in the publicprocess around developing it is rarely useful. This is particularlytrue when there are so many genuine structural, engineering issues todeal with first.
The communities legally fighting the bullet train are predictablyPalo Alto, Menlo Park and Atherton. These communities are fighting thetrain because they can; the main track does not even go through theircities. They are fighting the project because they want bargainingleverage; they want to hold the state hostage for their approval. Thisis not an environmental argument -- it is a power play.
The other argument these communities claim is that theenvironmental impact report and assessment failed to adequately accountfor, or mitigate for, the displacing people in the path of the route.That is salient; the government should generously compensate peoplethey need to displace so we don't get the situations created by BART,where the train kisses the roofs of homes in Oakland. Dislike ofeminent domain is not an environmental argument, though NIMBYs house itthat way.
The problem is that these communities are litigating theenvironmental impact report as a venue for political and economicconcerns. This misframes the issue. The environmental benefits of thebullet train are unquestionable. The bullet train does notable thingsto protect the environment, not harm it. There isn't anythingtechnically wrong with the environmental impact assessments orreports. Environmentally, the bullet train will take hundreds of carsoff the road daily and can be powered through renewable energy,reducing tons of emissions every day.
These indirect attacks on development projects of all kinds killgood and bad projects, eschewing rational, cooperative dialogues. Aproject like the bullet train is especially vulnerable because it canbe attacked by every community along the line for valid and spuriousreasons. The project is also primed for power struggles as communitiesjockey to influence the planning, and consequential fiscaldistributions, of the project.
That some communities feel the bullet train may be loud orunsightly need to come to the table and work with the state on it thansue to obstruct it. Lawsuits not only drain already strained statecoffers, but they are a bad faith move without exhausting other avenuesof less formal negotiations. Governor Schwarzenegger can avoidfinishing out his term as a lame duck by showing strong leadership onthe bullet train project, negotiating with communities into cooperationand support. Schwarzenegger must keep the states' focus on thecollective benefits of the bullet train, which are enormous.
A San Jose Mercury poll still shows the majority of those polledindicating disbelief that the bullet train will ever happen. Theirpessimism is more and less validated by state unity on the project andthe stifling of wasteful NIMBY lawsuits.