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Funding is a major, underappreciated contributor to the high construction costs and long timelines that hold back electrification. In our new policy paper, Against Patchwork Funding, we propose a smarter way to fund rail: Multi-year Investment Frameworks. 🧵 calelectricrail.org/against-patc...

CA’s State Rail Plan has over $300 B in capital projects, about half of which are incremental improvements like Metrolink’s SCORE program. But with 3 years to go, SCORE has completed only 1/21 projects, due in part to funding. Without reform, the State Rail Plan could face a similar fate.

As we’ve previously written about, California funds construction at 0% design, when costs are virtually unknown, guaranteeing cost escalations. Having funding on hand provides 3rd parties leverage to demand expensive design changes that further drive up costs. calelectricrail.org/project-deli...

To make things worse, partial awards force agencies to piece together funding from many sources with different requirements, adding uncertainty and paperwork & driving up soft costs & timelines. LinkUS, Metrolink's transformative thru-running project, has 7 funding sources and still has a $1 B gap.

Finally, most rail funding – unlike highway funding – comes from competitive, discretionary grant programs. Like SCORE, the State Rail Plan has no dedicated funding. Regional projects must compete against local projects with more political buy-in from those filling applications.

Service led planning is also not required to receive funding. Last year TIRCP funded H2 buses, planning, payment systems, light rail state of good repair, and parking lot EV chargers – worthy in a way, but not improving regional rail service. If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.