Thread by @Blipkin

🧵 Today marks 10 years of working on @CAHSRA for me. It was supposed to be a 6-month assignment but here we are. After 10 years I believe in this project more than ever but want to share some of what I’ve learned along the way. (1/n)

There’s a great quote from Bill Gates:

“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.”
(2/n)

10 years ago, this project was recently endorsed by the voters of California and had received federal funding, but was little more than lines on a map and the vision of what kind of system we wanted to see in California. That vision was the right one. It still is. (3/n)

@CAHSRA will connect the regions and cities of California with a fast, reliable, #HSR system powered by 100% renewable energy. Capable of competing with both air and auto travel, the system will help us achieve our economic, mobility, and environmental goals. (4/n)

In the last 10 years we’ve taken that vision and are making it reality. Today, @CAHSRA is the only #HSR project under construction in the US and also the largest (119 miles) rail construction project in the country. (5/n)

We are also advancing the entire statewide program and preparing for construction in the largest program development effort embarked on under the modern regulatory regime in the US. 200 miles are environmentally cleared with 200 more in the next 12 months. (6/n)

And that’s not all! We are also working with partners to electrify the @Caltrain corridor, rebuild LA’s Union Station (with @MetroLosAngeles), and complete key grade separations in @CityofSFS (Santa Fe Springs) and @CityofSanMateo. (7/n)

bit.ly/35M0jXm

All of that is to say, an amazing amount of work has happened in the last 10 years to bring #HSR to California and real progress has been made. There is plenty to be proud of. (8/n)

At the same time, there is still a long way to go and there have been many lessons learned. A few of my personal observations: (9/n)

When I started working on the program as a consultant in June 2011, the state staff was 16 people. This is the entire org chart from back then. (10/n)

Today the @CAHSRA has close to 300 staff with an integrated team (including consultants) of over 600. This is critically important. It is impossible to manage a program of this scale without sufficient owner capacity.

bit.ly/2TMb3Cx

(11/n)

This is one of the lessons from @CAHSRA. We’ve been building the organization as we’ve been building the program. At times, that’s meant the State’s management capacity has not been there at the time when it was needed. There is a whole audit report on this. (12/n)

While I think the organization’s management capabilities are stronger than they have ever been, we will need to continue to expand those functions as we expand the program. (13/n)

The other thing that’s been a challenge is having to make decisions in the face of funding uncertainty. Two things are true at the same time: (14/n)

1. Thanks to the voters of California, the Legislature, and Congress, this project has attracted more funding in the last decade than any other transportation investment in the country. (15/n)

2. A lot more funding is needed to complete the system; what the voters approved was only a down payment intended to start construction (1/5 of the cost at the time) that gets perceived as a full funding plan. (16/n)

That means there’s a constant tension between investing to build as much as you can in one segment to get trains running vs. investing to advance the rest of the system to attract additional funding. We have been doing both, but exactly where you draw the line is tricky. (17/n)

Federal investment will be essential to completing the system. Highways were built with 80-90% federal funding. So far, high-speed rail gets over 80% of funding from the State and less than 20% from the federal government. This has to change. (18/n)

The last thing I want to touch on are some of the challenges related to scale and what it does to perceptions of the #HSR program. (19/n)

In 2008, before I started, the plan was to build 500+ miles of #HSR and open it all in one day. That was never going to be feasible and is not how these projects get done, so we introduced phasing in the 2012 Business Plan (and refined it in subsequent plans). (20/n)

We also got more realistic about what was necessary to meet the system’s goals (including travel time). E.g. the blended system on the Peninsula is a no-brainer, but it went against the vision of “true” HSR that early backers had at the time. (21/n)

bit.ly/3wQnhc6

None of this is different from any large infrastructure program but because those early conceptions of how the system would be built get ingrained in public perception, they set the rubric that the program gets judged against. (22/n)

The more accurate way to think of #HSR in CA is as a program of (mega)projects that are all part of achieving the vision set out by the voters. That means that individual projects will be at different stages of development and will have their own sets of expectations. (23/n)

We have tried to start moving in that direction through a stage gate process that will systematically advance each part of the program (and again learning from some of what’s come before). (24/n)

So to wrap up, while it might not seem like a lot has changed with @CAHSRA in 2 years, there has been tremendous progress on delivery, organizational development, program management, funding, lessons learned, and a lot more in the last 10 years. (25/n)

If you want to see some more of my thoughts on lessons learned for other megaprojects, I had a chance to present on this to the Colorado Front Range Passenger Rail Commission last December. Slides are here:

bit.ly/3gR2iiu
(26/n)

Finally, I want to say thank you to all of my colleagues who have inspired and taught me so many lessons over the last 10 years. Nothing on #HSR is easy and it takes an amazingly dedicated group of people who believe in the vision to keep making this system a reality. 🙏

(27/27)