The Reality-Based Community

Not a good time to be talking about how wonderful the Big Dig is. Despite all, though, I think in 25 years it will be seen as a huge asset for the city, if it hasn't flooded or collapsed.

yosemite is one of the jewels of the National park system, not state park system. With 3 million visitors to Yosemite and a state population of about 38 million, it's pretty easy to figure out that either close to 10% of all Californians visit Yosemite every year (unlikely) or that Yosemite draws visitors from around the country and, indeed, the world (which is, of course, the case).

It also would not take much work to discover that the Park Service for years has been worried about portions of Yosemite being overtaxed and the Service would desperately like to reduce traffic impacts.

also, billion is perfectly acceptable american word. why the awkward "thousand million" formulation?

there is a real mishmash here of economic / environmental / social costs and benefits that really should be teased out a little better.

the destruction of the dam is the easiest part.

what price San Francisco's water security? what alternatives are available and what would those cost? how would that fit in within California's larger water crisis?

what scientific benefits would accrue from the experiment? what natural habitat benefits would accrue? what economic benefits from the massive increase in tourism? what lifestyle costs would accrue to the local community from the traffic increase?

The problem with billion is that it means a million million outside the US and this blog has a fair number of non-US readers, so I've decided to follow the Economist on this.

Your list of issues is a good one; BC analysis of something like this is quite daunting. I hope the decision isn't made on sentiment.

Be careful to distinguish visits from visitors. Lots of people go to (for example) Yosemite more than once a year, some once in a lifetime. The info NPS has is visits, definitely representing many fewer people.

As I understand it, the cost estimate assumes that the price of water will remain the same, so that usage will continue to grow at current rates. The federal subsidization of water is one of the most important causes of environmental degredation, and it's also a prime reason that the Midwest has emptied out as people have moved to the Southwest. If people in LA had to pay the real cost of their water and electricity, Detroit would be a much more lively city today. So, as a regional loyalist, whenever I hear someone saying that California needs another $10 billion for a water project, I say, pay for it your damn selves.

NYC's subway wasn't built by the city, but by a private investor group headed by August Belmont (of Belmont Park fame). He operated it at a profit until the city intruded itself into those operations and destroyed its profitability.

The city took it over in 1940 and it's needed taxpayer subsidies ever since.

Don't know the entire history of the New York PT system, but they may have been afraid that it would be bought and shut down by the car companies. They did this to most of the small-city PT across the country.

1. '700 Miles' fantastic book about the history of the NYC subway system.

2. the problem for all public transport systems is they compete with 'free' roadspace. Ie a big chunk of the benefit of the NYC metro is for the people who *drive* in NYC who could not do so if there was no Subway. Just check any day when the Subway is on strike!

Since public transport can't catch that externality benefit, it can never be economic relative to private cars

*however*

London now charges £8 ($12) per day to drive into the central core. Which is beginning to be a proxy measure of the harm driving into the City on a workday (7 to 7) causes.

London also has the highest public transport fares in the world (£2.20 ie $3.80 for a 1 way ride in the Zone1 area (there are 6 Zones) which is about 4 miles by 2.5).

Until we have uniform congestion charging, and full charging for carbon usage, public transport is always going to be on a hiding to nothing.

3. there is some good data about changes in commercial and residential property prices when a new public transport amenity is opened up close by. *this* provides a way to at least proxy the gain from new public transport.

The short answer is, if you fully price private transport for its noise, congestion and for the Carbon it produces, you would have a lot more public transport**

** but a train 40% full produces 2/3rds as much CO2 per passenger mile as a car (?), so it's not so obvious a calculation.

As to San Francisco (and Boston's Big Dig) spending that money on the schools and universities of the area would probably have done far more long term good. $1k per poor family per annum in the greater Boston area, say.

What Northern California needs is a plan to price water on the marginal cost of getting more of it, not on the historic cost of providing it.

There is a reason desert civilisations, throughout history, were so frugal with water. California is a desert civilisation and it needs to think of itself as one.

Well, I do know the history of the NYC subway. They could have had one in the 1870s, but for the corruption of Boss Tweed and his Tammany cronies.

Alfred Beach--the founder of Scientific American--built a short subway in two months IN SECRET under what is now City Hall Station. The lobby had all kinds of opulent appointments including a grand piano and chandeliers. When he opened it thousands of people paid to ride it for the amusement value.

He then proposed to the state legislature, and both houses passed the bill, that he build a real subway for transportation all the way to Central Park, for $5 million all of which he would raise himself.

The governor, a Tweed crony, vetoed the bill and substituted a Tammany one for $80 million to build an El system. It wasn't until 30 years later that NYC's political structure was such that it was possible to built a subway. Which, again, took a private investor group headed by August Belmont to accomplish.

Also, the idea that 'the car companies' bought up and shut down public transport in America is a total myth. Before you waste any time trying to challenge me, I warn you I've written extensively on The Great Conspiracy to Destroy the Streetcars,. Which is archived and only a cut and paste away, for me.

While you extol the virtues of the NYC subway system, plenty of people are thrilled to drive their cars to work and to where they want to go. They don't have to deal with walking from where they live to a subway stop and then from a subway stop to their office, they don't have to rub shoulders with people they'd just as soon avoid, they like having driving cars with trunks so they can carry more than what fits in two hands (going shopping in NY with a baby carriage... not fun). And I wouldn't let my kids ride the subway alone these days and think the parents who do are rationalizing away the dangers in order to avoid having to think they're exposing their kids to unnecessary dangers.

Had those present-day billions not been spent on the NY subway, then Manhattan and the surrounding areas wouldn't be as densely populated and as crowded as they are. People would be able to walk the streets of Manhattan without getting jostled six times per block walked. There'd be room to walk with an umbrella on the sidewalk without worrying about either hurting someone with yours or being hurt by someone else's umbrella. Sure, they'd be sprawl, but, aside from those who like living crammed in on top of one another and having to wait six deep for a bagel in the morning, people tend to like having space to live...

Steve,
As someone who has lived in cities both with and without good public transportation let me say you're living in a fantasy world. That said, nothing compares to the Moscow Metro- the most heavily ridden in the world, with very frequent trains, clean cars, often beautiful stations, large service, and cheap prices (even considering that it's doubled in the last 5 or six years.)

given the degree of involvement of both the state and federal governments in California's water projects since the early 20th century, it is essentially impossible to calculate the "real" cost of water in California.

and don't just blame California; the Army Corps and the Bureau of Reclamation have built tens of thousands of projects across the whole country that have completely reshaped how we live. (and there's no particular reason to stop at water. we, as federal taxpayers, have subsidized air traffic, rail traffic and ground traffic in ways that have distorted the "real" price of doing things.)

I'm in the midst of planning a trip to Yosemite, and just learned a few hours ago that Hetch Hetchy used to be a twin of the Yosemite Valley and was flooded.

Also, why can't I format my posts with html tags?

Patrick R. Sullivan,

Could you post a URL to your debunking of the myth of "The Great Conspiracy to Destroy Street Cars?"

It's a topic I know very little about but it sounds quite interesting.

thanks!

The CALVIN group at UC Davis did a very nice analysis of the water supply/security implications of hetch hetchy removal and found that replacing the water would be quite doable. They are pretty much the only people who have an integrated understanding of the hydrology, engineering, and economics of the state water system.

The proper measure of the potential recreational benefits is 1) consumer surplus from projected beenfits +2) option value of people who might visit +3) existence value for people who won't visit but will still value the creation of another major national park.

California doesn't have an overall water supply problem. Ag uses the great majority of water and does it at a far lower marginal cost than urban rates. A small switch of water from Ag to cites through better water markets could supply all urban needs and at a lower cost than present. This aplies to the bay area as much as Los Angeles. Urban water scarcity in Cal is a problem of institutions, not physical supply.

NOT ONE BLOODY MENTION OF TRADE UNIONS meretricious political role in whole bid dig dissertation. renders entire discussion not credible.

Old-Mayor- Daley- Chicago-unionist-Mike

Steve Sturm

Yes Manhattan might be less dense, but that means greater NYC would be *bigger*. And it is sprawl that creates traffic congestion, not density. Dense urban masses encourage non car journeys.

Car journeys take up so much road space that even in a city where over half the surface area is devoted to roads and parking facilities (Washington, DC) there is congestion.

As to danger on the subway, the NYC Metro is massively less dangerous than it was 20, even 10 years ago. Most of the central core is pretty safe, most of the time. Your chances of getting raped or murdered or even mugged are not high, relative to the number of passenger journeys.

Now if your kids drive, or you drive them, you expose them to a completely different set of risks.

First there is the risk of death or serious injury in a car accident.

Then there is the risk of death by car accident to *other* children, eg those walking or bicycling.

Then there is the lost life expectancy because your children don't *walk* or exercise.

Then there is the loss of life expectancy because of air pollution and other environmental consequences. World asthma death rates are soaring, we don't know why exactly but auto particulates and ozone are highly implicated. Beyond that there is global warming.

We know a lot about this in the UK. 90% of UK kids no longer walk or cycle to school-- the majority are driven in cars by their parents. The result is implicated in the explosion of obesity amongst children in the UK. We have a relatively low death rate in road accidents, but a high one of children killed on the road.

So whilst sprawl is inevitable, it doesn't make public transport a bad idea, particularly where the geography suits density.

Los Angeles is probably probing the limits of the passenger car as the sole means of transport. The traffic is bad, everywhere, all the time. Los Angelenos are either going to have to give up some of their vaunted mobility, or find other ways of getting around.

For the older North Eastern cities of North America, the transport infrastructure laid down in the last century makes the problem less chronic. Chronic, but not as bad.

Interestingly, there's an analogous though smaller scale story going on in my state of North Carolina, which might be titled, "What's a rock worth?" The "rock" is Chimney Rock Park in the Blue Ridge Mountains, privately owned, and now on the block for an asking price of $55 million. The state is looking into its acquisition. Everyone I talk to is skeptical about it.

Not too much.

I haven't studied this but it is typical for the reservoir of a dam to fill with silt, which must be removed or, eventually, there is no place for water.

Also, it seems a little unlikely that a dam built so long ago is still 'state of the art'.

All in all, I'm guessing it's time to re-do the project, and an appropriate time to re-think the project before re-doing it.

Incidentally, the fastest subway line in NY was built by the people under the leadership of Fiorello LaGuardia.

caldem: the people at Met (Metropolitan Water District of Southern California -- the 800-lb gorilla of the state's water system) aren't too shabby either.

Ag to urban transfers will inevitably be part of quenching the thirst of cities. but that's not the crisis i was talking about.

The Bay-Delta system is close to collapse. The Colorado River is still over-allocated. And global climate change may have far more rapid impacts on the annual accumulation of snow pack than earlier anticipated. (witness the rapid deglaciation in Europe.)

I just got back from Hetch Hetchy yesterday. It is a beautiful valley, but I doubt it would ever be the true twin of the Yosemite Valley. From the vantage of the resivoir level trail, there are wonders galore. But nothing at the same level as the sheer drop off of El Capitan.

My suspiscion is that it would never get above 50% of the visits count of it's sister.

As a restoration for it's own sake, I worry that a habitat restoration of that scale has never been done by humans. Nature did it after the last ice age, but that is a different timescale than we are willing to wait for. Lets try it out on a smaller scale first, please?

And for the monetary side, could that same cash be used on other habitat preservation more effectivly? There are already many Sierra national parks. Would it make more sense to save more ocean areas, old growth forests, Everglades, etc. Or even making sure that existing habitats stay viable.

That, and I like my San Fransisco water quality, selfishly.

MobiusKlein

Excellent analysis!

1. opportunity cost of doing something else more valuable, like protecting Redwood forests.

The true cost of any economic activity is what you might have done with the money.

2. Benefits of mega projects are normally overstated. An alternative to massive water projects is that people and companies learn to use water more efficiently.

The best investments tend to be in human capital (just giving each poor family with children another $1k a year is likely to have huge benefits, long run, because $1k to a single mother who works at WalMart is a lot of money and the lower stress will feed through to her kids) and long range Research and Development (particle physics, bioscience etc.)-- both the internet and the current genetics revolution were created by such long range programmes.

Another very profitable area of investment is pollution and human impact abatement. Rather than have new water projects, buy out some farmers. Because ecosystems recover slowly (and in the case of the likes of deforestation, never), you are offsetting long term damages.

Every dam accumulates silt. If a dam is removed after many years, the public will gasp at the vast mud flats that weren't there before the dam was built. Ugly, smelly, unnatural mud flats.

The mud will go away eventually - normal erosion and river flow will carry it downstream, as would have happened if the dam had never been built. But the fact that this normal erosion was held up for many years means that the flow of silt from the mud flats will be many times greater than normal. The river water will be brown rather than clear. Temporary mud flats will form at every bend in the river downstream. Fish will die. People will be appalled. And this will go on for years.

The question is: How will the public respond to this? Will they say "We never should have torn down the dam!" or "We never should have built the dam!" Here's hoping for the latter, but it could well be the former. Plan ahead.

When you are talking American dollars, a "thousand million" is called a "billion". British number usage with American dollars is a strange choice. Otherwise, very interesting article.

Twill00

I think most literate British people now know how to translate numbers from American to British!

So in an American context saying 'a billion' ie I unconsciously translate it back. Similarly when I say 'a billion' I mean 'a thousand million'.

Call it the curse of The Economist ;-).

V.

Sierra club page on Hetch Hetchy restoration issues, with links:
http://www.sierraclub.org/ca/hetchhetchy/index.asp

JR, if Los Angeles was paying the true cost of water, Detroit would still be a vast, empty slum. But Portland would look more like Seattle, and Seattle more like San Francisco.

Thre’s bloody few Brits left who think that a billion is anything other than a thousand million. All of them probably work on subs desks anyway, just to make sure it’s printed right. Which is, now, the US way. Have a quick skim through any of the UK papers to see what I mean.

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