Next month, the governors of Florida and California are scheduled to debate eachother, setting up a clash of strikingly different models of governance and worldviews. Republican Ron DeSantis has already won the debate, given the real-world, reality-based results. Florida's population has expanded dramatically in recent years, especially as the Sunshine State followed real science and became a beacon of rationality and freedom during the pandemic. By contrast, California imposed some of the most draconian and harmful lockdowns, mandates and school closures in the nation. More than half-a-million residents left the state, with the first ever population reductions in state history happening on Gavin Newsom's watch. Florida outranks California on virtually every quality-of-life metric, including on the economy and education. People are fleeing the Democratic bastion, and flocking to the redder-than-ever GOP stronghold.
If and when the planned confrontation happens, words will fly and rhetorical blows will be exchanged -- but, again, the substantive, outcomes-driven debate is settled. California has lost. It's even losing in areas of emphasis for "progressives." For instance, years ago, the state's blue electorate decided to embark upon an ambitious and expensive high speed rail project. This would be good for the planet, they were told. We'll revisit how that adventure is going below, but first, here's a recent and relevant development out of Florida:
A big test of whether privately owned high-speed passenger train service can prosper in the United States has launched. Florida's Brightline runs trains between Miami and Orlando. Stops along the route include Fort Lauderdale, Aventura, Boca Raton and West Palm Beach. pic.twitter.com/755PYMRyen
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 2, 2023
The market will determine whether this business model will ultimately succeed or fail, but it's been compelling enough thus far as to expand service:
Brightline, which began its long-awaited South Florida-to-Orlando route less than two weeks ago, will double its train service starting Monday, the high-speed train line announced Tuesday evening. Brightline will run 30 trains daily between Miami and Orlando starting Oct. 9, with 15 daily departures from Miami and Orlando. Brightline currently runs 16 daily trips between the areas...Brightline kicked off its South Florida-to-Orlando route Sept. 22...Brightline tickets from Miami to Orlando range from $79 to almost $300 for a one-way ticket. Tickets from West Palm Beach are about the same...Back in 2012, the company was called All Aboard Florida. It was a venture led by Flagler's legacy company, Florida East Coast Industries, with backing from the hedge fund Fortress Investment Group...Next up, Reininger said, could be an Orlando-to-Tampa leg, which by then would connect 75% of the state's population via a Brightline train. The rail line also is looking to add stations between West Palm Beach and Orlando along the Treasure Coast and Space Coast corridors.
This endeavor started four years after California's 2008 vote. A little over a decade later -- driven by private industry and investment, and nurtured by a pro-business regulatory environment -- the product is live and growing. On the other coast, here's how the New York Times described California's humiliating boondoggle last year:
Political compromises, [public] records show, produced difficult and costly routes through the state’s farm belt. They routed the train across a geologically complex mountain pass in the Bay Area. And they dictated that construction would begin in the center of the state, in the agricultural heartland, not at either of the urban ends where tens of millions of potential riders live. The pros and cons of these routing choices have been debated for years. Only now, though, is it becoming apparent how costly the political choices have been. Collectively, they turned a project that might have been built more quickly and cheaply into a behemoth so expensive that, without a major new source of funding, there is little chance it can ever reach its original goal of connecting California’s two biggest metropolitan areas in two hours and 40 minutes.
When California voters first approved a bond issue for the project in 2008, the rail line was to be completed by 2020, and its cost seemed astronomical at the time — $33 billion — but it was still considered worthwhile as an alternative to the state’s endless web of freeways and the carbon emissions generated in one of the nation’s busiest air corridors...Fourteen years later, construction is now underway on part of a 171-mile “starter” line connecting a few cities in the middle of California, which has been promised for 2030. But few expect it to make that goal. Meanwhile, costs have continued to escalate. When the California High-Speed Rail Authority issued its new 2022 draft business plan in February, it estimated an ultimate cost as high as $105 billion. Less than three months later, the “final plan” raised the estimate to $113 billion. The rail authority said it has accelerated the pace of construction on the starter system, but at the current spending rate of $1.8 million a day, according to projections widely used by engineers and project managers, the train could not be completed in this century.
The vision may not be realized "this century." It's already three years late and counting, with no realistic end in sight, and approaching $100 billion over budget. But hey, they're starting to think about purchasing the trains that will not run on the promised but yet-unbuilt tracks:
[California High Speed Rail's] board of directors began the process of obtaining possible vendors for the state’s most ambitious transit project in history. The High-Speed Rail Authority’s Board approved the release of a Request for Qualifications, which clears the way for the Authority to obtain and screen vendors as well as establish a pool of possible manufacturers for the project’s trainsets. Interested companies will need to submit a statement of qualification to the Authority to attest they can meet the demands of the project if ultimately selected as the winning bid. Statements of Qualification will be due by November and the total pool of vendors will be whittled down by the first quarter of 2024, the Authority said.
The entire thing was supposed to be operational three years ago. By early next year, they're hoping to have narrowed down a list of vendors from which they might eventually buy some actual trains. And those trains may literally never run between Los Angeles and San Francisco, which was the driving force behind the extremely costly plan. Welcome to California. This endeavor has been strangled by bureaucratic red tape, choked by regulation, and obstructed by the many special interests that snarl California governance. It's a fitting monument to the state's failed model, which national Democrats fully embrace and wish to impose upon the whole country.
