Crunch Time for High Speed Rail

by Robert in Monterey [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Over the last few months I've been writing about high speed rail and the ongoing legislative efforts to save the project from Arnold's efforts to kill it. As the budget negotiations reach their climax in Sacramento, the future of California's high speed rail project - and of transportation funding itself - remains as uncertain as ever.

As the BayRail Alliance notes, the legislative budget conference committee didn't resolve differences between the chambers on what to do about overall public transportation funding or about high speed rail funding itself. As I noted  last month Arnold is looking to gut public transportation funding to the tune of $1.3 billion. Both the Assembly and the Senate want to restore some or all of this funding but disagreed on how much should be restored.

How does this impact HSR? And why is it critical that HSR get funding in this budget? Keep reading...
The California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) has been working toward completion of necessary environmental studies, analysis of ridership, and final route/station selection ever since Gray Davis signed the original high speed rail bond act in 2002. Earlier this year the CHSRA requested $103 million to finish these studies and begin property acquisition.

Instead, Arnold only offered $1 million in his January budget, upped to $5 million in the May revise. Arnold and his advisers seem to believe that this will allow them to "keep the lights on" at the CHSRA until they can find private and federal commitments.

This thinking is flawed - private investors and the federal government simply do not commit to a project like this without the state taking the first step. That's how these things always work. But without completed studies, even a state vote to fund HSR will not alone attract investment. Every major development needs to have all of its important environmental impact studies completed before it can be considered viable, and without a finalized route, including station selection, no private investor will be willing to take on such an uncertain and risky concept.

Both chambers of the legislature seem to recognize this - one chamber supported giving CHSRA $50 million, another supported $40 million. But as I noted above, the conference committee was unable to reconcile these numbers and, along with public transportation funding as a whole, chose to let the leadership decide. High speed rail funding is now in the laps of Senator Perata, Speaker N??ez, Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman, and Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines.

The next two weeks, then, are critical for marshaling support for this project. The BayRail Alliance has created a contact page for getting in touch with these key legislators and, of course, the governor. State legislators need to know that the public takes this project seriously and expects to see it given enough funding to make it to the ballot.

Obviously to mobilize the public to save high speed rail, and to begin building support for it ahead of the November 2008 vote, we need to ramp up public outreach. There have been some significant positive steps in this direction - Fiona Ma's trip to France to be a part of the TGV speed record event generated a lot of publicity and support for California's project, with some in Sacramento believing that her actions helped push Arnold to make a public statement of support for HSR.

But certainly more must be done. The key may well be the Central Valley. As wu ming noted, inland Californians are used to seeing the Bay Area and SoCal hog all the infrastructure funding while highway 99 rots. One of the *main* beneficiaries of high speed rail will in fact be the Central Valley, which will be connected to the other major metro regions of the state, making it easier for residents of Fresno and Bakersfield to travel not only to SF or LA but to the rest of the country and the world (thanks to easier connections to major airports). Virtually every Chamber of Commerce along the line in the San Joaquin Valley supports HSR, but Assemblyman Mike Villines needs to hear this again.

With so much going on in Sacramento these days surrounding the state budget - especially on the health care issue - it can be easy for HSR to be lost in the shuffle, as it has been for the last few years. But this is the most important project California has considered in the last 45 years. Now is the time to help give HSR the final push over the top so that we can move on to the next phase - getting a successful vote on the bonds in November 2008.