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Tuesday, May 22, 2012
City supports high speed rail for the north state
by Melissa Corker, published on December 6, 2011 at 8:49 PM
Storyline: Politics
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The city of Sacramento responded to the recently released California High Speed Rail Authority business plan with a letter of support – and a couple of suggestions for the authority to consider as the project develops.
City Councilman Steve Cohn said Tuesday that the city is in support of the project overall, but Cohn and the council want to emphasize two points: recognition that the high-speed rail project must be phased in, and funding should also upgrade existing connecting infrastructure.
“It can’t all be built at once,” Cohn said at the Law and Legislation Committee meeting at City Hall Tuesday. “The revised business plan does a more realistic job of explaining this phasing process (than the initial plan).”
The new business plan, released Nov. 1 to update the 2009 plan, outlines a “building block” approach to connecting the state’s major northern and southern California population centers with high-speed trains.
By building the project incrementally, the plan states, it allows for completion in stages as additional funding is identified.
Cohn said that, from the city of Sacramento’s standpoint, the 20-year project will need to connect well to local and regional transit services as it unfolds.
Some inter-city connectors will need to be upgraded and expanded – and that will not be cheap, Cohn said.
“So far, only $950 million of the original (Proposition 1A) initiative has been set aside for inter-city connections,” Cohn said. “We think that roughly 10 percent of total spending on high speed rail should go into these inter-city connections.”
With an estimated total cost of nearly $98 billion, that means $10 billion over the life of the project directed at essential infrastructure, Cohn said.
Cohn said that upgrades to inter-city connectors and existing rail lines will go a long way to increasing the overall efficiency of rail travel even before high-speed rail is fully realized in the state.
“If we invest money in the tracks and signal equipment between here and the Bay Area,” Cohn said, “We can reach the Bay Area in less than an hour with the exact trains we already have. Those trains are capable of going over 100 miles per hour. The problem isn’t the train, it’s in the track and signaling equipment.”
Cohn said the infrastructure work needs to be completed alongside the high-speed rail project so that, when everything is connected, it will create a smooth transition.
California voters approved $9 billion of public funding for the proposed high-speed rail project with Proposition 1A in 2008. Additional funding for the project will come from both federal and private dollars, according to the California High Speed Rail Authority.
The rail project is planned to ultimately connect Sacramento to San Diego via 800 miles of track, allowing upwards of 44 million riders annually to travel quickly from place to place.
The initial 130-mile stretch is slated to be built in the Central Valley at a cost of approximately $6 billion – including $3.3 billion in federal funds and $2.7 from state funds.
The estimated total cost of the first phase of the high-speed rail project, which would connect the Los Angeles basin to the San Francisco Bay Area, is $98.1 billion.
According to Lance Simmens, deputy director of communications for the high speed rail authority, construction on the initial segment – the “backbone” of the rail line – should start in late 2012.
The first segment of the rail project will extend from just north of Fresno to North of Bakersfield, and construction is expected to take approximately five years to complete. Work to connect to Sacramento would begin in 2026.
“The backbone (segment of the project) will be available for Amtrak San Joaquin (passenger rail) service,” Simmens said, “but it will not be high-speed rail yet.”
Trains on the initial segment will travel at normal speeds – typically between 80 to 100 miles per hour, Simmens said. True high speed rail is capable of speeds up to 220 miles per hour.
Simmens said that further construction will allow for faster speeds.
“We appreciate that the high speed rail authority business plan acknowledges the need for inter-city upgrades,” Cohn said. “Sacramento shouldn’t have to wait until 2040 to benefit from high-speed rail. We should be benefiting all along the way.”
The letter of support from the city of Sacramento will be sent to the high speed rail authority within the next week.
Read the California High Speed Rail Authority draft business plan HERE.
Explore an interactive map of the proposed high speed rail routes HERE.
Melissa Corker is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @MelissaCorker.
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http://land-of-fruits-and-nuts.blogspot.com/2008/10/lets-derail-plans-for-government-run.html
How many badly needed local transportation projects go begging as it is?
Even if you are a "rail fan", simple actions like double tracking the entire routes of the existing Altamont Commuter Express, Capitol, Pacific Surfliner, Metrolink and San Joaquin trains would speed up that service--at a fraction of the price of a "high speed" (sic, the article already admits as much) choo-choo project. Currently, existing passenger trains often have to pull onto single track sidings to let the freight trains go by, with delays of up to one half hour as a result.
But your dismissal of rail as "choo-choo" trains makes clear that you don't want to see any sort of rail improvement--you're probably just obsessed with vroom-vroom cars and can't bear attention paid to a transit mode other than your favorite toy.
OUR problem is not getting from downtown Sac to downtown LA in less than four hours (which the airports could handle perfectly well). OUR problem is getting from work to home in less than ONE hour.
The lack of this reporter's skepticism is stunning. It would be good to keep in mind, when talking to any City Council member -- "What planet does this person live on, and what is the average Intelligence Quotient of the rulers that planet?"
And then ask your questions accordingly. For instance:
* Given the distinct lack of accurate ridership estimates, why does the City Council support the high-speed rail plan?
* Given that the original budget estimates have doubled, does the City Council think the project can be built for the current $100 billion estimate?
* And then, if the Council still supports the rail plan, one could go with , "What planet do you live on?"
* A lawsuit filed on behalf of the Kings County Board of Supervisors and two area farmers contends the scaled-down project fails to meet construction and financial requirements approved by California voters in 2008. The suit asks the courts to bar state officials from using state bond funds on the proposed initial section.
* Republicans, who control the U.S. House of Representatives and oppose the rail plan, have scheduled a special Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing Dec. 15 solely to hear about the California project.
* California's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office last week issued a report asserting that as is, the project can't tap into state funds because it doesn't meet requirements imposed by Proposition 1A, the 2008 ballot initiative.
"The suit first claims that the Authority plans to spend billions constructing a NON HSR [high-speed rail] SYSTEM in the central valley — a conventional rail system that is not even electrified, and that the voters of California never intended for their money to be used for conventional NON HSR projects," assserted a news release accompanying the Nov. 14 lawsuit.
Read more here: http://www.voiceofoc.org/state/artic...9bb2963f4.html
When even the Euros are finding their trains don't pencil out, I have to laugh at such claims of cost savings. And to ignore the reality that *time* is money and also matters is dishonest.
If you like cho-choos so much, let me give you one word: FREIGHT. Freight doesn't mind when it sits on a siding, so long as the perishable goods are in working refrigerant cars. Freight actually IS more cost effective to ship by rail. Freight has been and will be the salvation of the railroad industry.
Those same investments often both benefit the public while creating opportunities for private industry. That is why they tend to get widespread support.
Shared risk equals commitment to provide public funding — i.e., taxpayer subsidies — should ridership or revenue come up short. That’s illegal under Proposition 1A. And that is what the business plan for the project contemplated all along — except voters weren’t told about it until days after giving their blessing (and $9.95 billion) to the project.
So while the current scandal over heavy PR costs plays out, the bigger picture must not be forgotten. The bullet train was built on dishonesty from the start, when voters were told they’d never have to give another dime to the project — even as train planners and executives knew taxpayers would have to “share risks” going forward to attract the billions in private investments needed for the project to come to fruition.
The biggest con job in our history. They do not even have enough funds to finish phase one. They want to run Amtrack on the tracks as they will not be electrified until phase two IF they get the money. It does not even meet the bond qualifications to use the money. But the HSR spends millions. What a joke. Except its not funny. In the Senate hearing the HSR could not even give answers. They just came back with BS replys. Those that are for it need to cough up the money to lay the track between Fresno to Bakerfield. Until then it need to go back to the voters.
All of them. That is how fuel taxes work. Shipments and other commerce by truck move that much faster, as do the workers.
And they would even work better if the money was spent as intended, and not raided since the first "enfant terrible" incarnation of Moonbeam, often for programs having nothing to do with roads *or* transit.