Governor rejects criticism of project and calls for “America to think big again”
by Robert Cruickshank
30 years ago, Governor Jerry Brown brought the concept of high speed rail to California. He fought hard to get Caltrans to embrace it and when a group of Japanese investors proposed a Shinkansen-style train from Los Angeles to San Diego in the early 1980s, Brown helped their project along, including giving it a CEQA exemption. The project died after Brown left office in 1983, but the concept remained.
As California is on the verge of building its first set of high speed tracks in the Central Valley, there’s been a lot of criticism of the project from longtime opponents. They’ve been getting traction given the general political movement towards reckless and insane austerity. But Jerry Brown, once again occupying the governor’s office, refuses to give in and abandon support for this transformative and important project.
In a meeting with the Fresno Bee editorial board, Brown reiterated his commitment to the project:
Gov. Jerry Brown said this afternoon that California’s embattled high-speed rail project should move forward, despite growing criticism about the project’s management and cost.
While the nation is in a “period of massive retrenchment,” Brown told The Fresno Bee’s editorial board, “I would like to be part of the group that gets America to think big again.”
Brown gets it, completely and entirely. The HSR project isn’t perfect, but we need to get it done and get it right for the future of our state. We are in no position to sit around and do nothing while our economic crisis continues. We learned during the Great Depression that the only way out is for government to take the lead and spend, especially on infrastructure projects that help create long-term value.
Brown also spoke about criticisms of the project:
Brown said he is “really getting into” the project and that “we’re working directly with the authority to get their act together.”
He said he will appoint a commissioner to fill a vacant seat on the agency’s governing board this week, though he declined to say who.
“I’m doing the best I can to keep this train running,” Brown said.
These are positive statements that suggest Brown is interested in ensuring HSR is built – and built right. He is not likely to give in to the small but loud chorus of voices who believes we should do nothing about our transportation needs, our jobs crisis, or our energy problems. That’s now how Brown operates.
Brown is going to engage more deeply on the issue over the next few months, as he spent the first half of 2011 focused on the state budget. This is a good opportunity for HSR advocates to help get a better project – and serves as a reminder to HSR opponents that the Governor is not going to help them kill the project he spent 30 years championing.
More from the Fresno Bee:
Brown said the statewide system of 220-mph passenger trains would put California into a league of “important countries [that] are investing in high-speed rail,” joining Germany, England, France, Japan and others.
High-speed rail, he said, “could reshape the Valley. … But it is expensive, and people are coming out of the woodwork to oppose this, whether they’re from Atherton or farmers.”
Translation: Brown is paying attention, and knows about the anti-HSR criticism…and is unfazed by it.
“The numbers look big,” Brown said, but he added that the investment is small when compared to the state’s economic productivity over the life of the system. That, he suggested, is why the state needs to “look to the future instead of the past.”
This is the best quote of all. Brown understands the value of investment, the dividends that HSR will create, and the need to build for the future.
Today was not a good day to be an opponent of California high speed rail.
Interest rates are ridiculously low – to the point where investors are literally willing to pay the US to own US debt. We should use this opportunity to build 21st Century infrastructure, including HSR.
We know California’s (and the United States’) infrastructure needs a serious upgrade. We’ve known that for thirty years. This is the best time to make huge infrastructure investments: interest rates are low, construction costs are down, and there are tons of engineers, contractors, and construction workers out of work.
The one problem with HSR may be its Board. It looks like a bunch of political cronies who aren’t aggressively moving the project forward. With Brown as an advocate, he can help fast-track CEQA and get things moving.
One thing the Board will have to resolve is the final route. They know there will be winners and losers, and they should just acknowledge that fact and get on with it. Too many big projects get bogged down and end up with inflated budgets because Boards think they have to pay off the losers to maintain political goodwill. Nonsense. HSR can’t have a stop in every city, so just get the route picked, take your political lumps (they will be very short-term) and get on with it.
I want my High Speed Rail!!
Unfortunately, in the same session, governor Brown also came out for some sort of peripheral canal from the Sacramento Delta.
Unlike high-speed rail, this is an idea the voters have soundly rejected. Plus the bill the Assembly passed during the last administration is badly flawed. It ignores other plans that could use existing infrastructure to move water less expensively. It only covers part of the cost. And it only solves part of the problem–doing nothing about upstream pollution, groundwater salinization, or attempts to circumvent long-established water rights. There’s nothing in it about water conservation, which has been enormously successful in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. But there’s a nasty provision that leaves the door open for privitization of the whole system.
So, while I share your pleasure in his support for HSR, I’m almost equally worried that he might move to support this deeply flawed idea. Hopefully he’ll at least send the whole mess back to the drawing board before he gives it formal support.