California crawls toward fast trains

© 2004, NCI, Inc.
Destination Freedom
Newsletter of the National Corridors Initiative, Inc.
Vol. 5 No. 7, February 16, 2004
Used with permission

Imagine stepping out of a downtown San Francisco office building, strolling down the street to the Transbay Terminal and climbing aboard a sleek modern train. Settle into a high-backed seat, read a book, nap or gaze out the window as the train zips down the Peninsula, shoots through the Central Valley and surges into the Los Angeles Basin.

Two and a half hours later, walk off the train into bustling Los Angeles Union Station, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Michael Cabanatuan told his readers on February 6.

Sound like a dream? At this point, it is, but advocates of a 700-mile high-speed rail system say it’s a vision within the Golden State’s reach. They also say California needs to build the system to handle the state’s growing population and travel needs.

A key environmental study released one week earlier supported that conclusion, saying it would be far cheaper, less polluting and faster than building more highways and airports.

The idea of a California high-speed rail system has been discussed and debated for a decade, but with the state budget crisis and political controversy waiting down the tracks, the high-speed rail movement could slow to a stop.

Backers say it’s time to get moving.

“It’s not a question of if we will have high-speed rail,” said Joseph Petrillo, a San Francisco attorney who is head of the California High Speed Rail Authority. “It’s a question of when.”

The authority, a state commission charged with planning a potential fast train system, proposes building a railroad that links the Bay Area and Sacramento to Los Angeles and San Diego via the San Joaquin Valley with trains traveling up to 220 mph. By 2020, the authority says, 68 million passengers a year would ride the high-speed trains. They would pay one-way fares between the Bay Area and Los Angeles of about $50.

“It’s the kind of dream that Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Collis Huntington and Mark Hopkins had of building a (transcontinental) railroad across the Sierra,” said Rod Diridon, a member of the California High Speed Rail Authority.

But standing in the way of the nation’s first true high-speed rail system are obstacles as formidable as the rugged mountain peaks and canyons of the Sierra Nevada.

Since 1999, the price tag for the system has swelled to between $33 billion and $37 billion from an original estimate of $25 billion, and state budget woes have caused the governor to urge removal of a high-speed rail bond measure from the November ballot. Controversies have erupted on both ends of the state over which route the fast trains should traverse.

As with any transportation project, finding the money to pay for high- speed rail will be the biggest challenge.

The bond measure, which state lawmakers voted last year to put on the ballot, would raise money to link downtown San Francisco with downtown Los Angeles by high-speed rail – the first phase of the system – with another $9 billion coming from matching federal funds that project backers hope to win.

An opinion poll conducted last summer by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 65 percent of voters would vote for the measure, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed removing it from the ballot indefinitely, saying the state can’t afford to finance more bonds.

“Notwithstanding the potential merit of providing high-speed rail as part of the transportation system, and given the state’s financial situation,” said Schwarzenegger spokesman H.D. Palmer, “we think it’s premature to put a bond measure of that magnitude on the ballot at this time.”

Some high-speed rail supporters think it would be wise to wait until 2006. That, they say, would allow the state’s economy to recover and would give the rail authority more time to hold public meetings, complete the environmental review process and better publicize the plan.

Others want to stick to a November vote, saying California can’t afford to delay starting construction on the Bay Area-to-Los Angeles stretch of the project, estimated to take about 10 years.

“We need to be under construction by 2006 or 2007,” said Diridon. “Otherwise, we’ll lose $1.5 billion a year (in cost increases) with delays.”

The rail authority won’t sell the bonds until it needs the money, beginning when construction starts, Diridon said, “so there is no reason we shouldn’t keep the bond measure on in November.”