The Los Angeles Times published a truly remarkable article today: “MTA Fears A Bottleneck At OC Line.”
Basically, Metropolitan Transportation Authority is complaining the Orange County Transportation Authority‘s ongoing program of freeway widening is making MTA look bad. OCTA’s freeway-centered investment collides with MTA’s lightrail-centered priorities at the LA-OC county line in the form of traffic bottlenecks. It’s a vivid illustration of the different outcomes of the two agencies priorities.
OCTA has funneled its money into transportation modes the vast majority of people actually use: freeway and roads. As a result, our freeways move faster than those in Los Angeles. The MTA, by contrast, has prioritized its money into modes of public transit that far fewer people use, i.e. light rail. Or as OCTA Director Jerry Amante put it:
“We build lanes, not trains.”
And we’re supposed to be proud of that? OK, so widened freeways may be useful in relieving traffic in the short-term. As long as we have all these cars on the road, we have to have something for them to drive on. But really, wouldn’t some long-term solutions also help here?
Follow me after the flip for more as I explain why OCTA shouldn’t exactly be gloating over this…
So why should LA County MTA not feel so bad about not keeping up with the freeway expansion happening across the county line in Orange County? Perhaps because MTA has surpassed all the other transportation agencies in Southern California in mass transit? After all, MTA was named “America’s Best Public Transportation System” due to record high ridership, very high commuter satisfaction, and the amazing success of the Orange Line rapid bus service in the San Fernando Valley. MTA should really be proud of the high quality of transit service that they offer to Los Angeles County.
But what do I know about this? What does some “crazy environazi, anti-car zealot” from Orange County know about how successful MTA has been with its transit lines in Los Angeles? Well, I actually use the subway and the bus whenever I’m in Los Angeles, and boy is it great! I can take the Red Line from Downtown LA to Hollywood, and I never have to wait too long for a train as there’s one about every 10 minutes. I can take the 720 Rapid Bus down Wilshire Blvd. from Koreatown to Santa Monica, and I can be at the pier in about 45 minutes. That actually isn’t bad when compared to the nasty congestion often seen on the freeways (with OR without widening). And even late at night, I’m never stranded as there are now 24-hour bus routes throughout LA. Just look at the MTA system map, and try to tell me that Los Angeles County’s transit agency isn’t doing a terrific job of moving people.
Obviously, LA County has figured out the secret to success in not just relieving traffic, but also reducing air pollution and doing something to stop the climate catastrophe. We all know that our vehicles emit much of the carbon dioxide that’s causing climate change. So what can we do about it? Well, how about riding the clean, efficient local mass transit service?! And with all these people riding Metro buses and trains, LA County MTA really is doing its part to fight climate change. But of course, pollutions isn’t the only thing that’s reduced by all this mass transit service. We have to realize that more people using these buses and trains also means FEWER CARS ON THE STREETS AND FREEWAYS. And fewer cars on the streets and freeways means LESS TRAFFIC! If anything, LA County is really
Now compare and contrast what Los Angeles County is doing to Orange County’s preferred “traffic relief” plan. Now yes, we do have buses. And yes, there is Metrolink rail service to Los Angeles and the Inland Empire. However, our transit network in Orange County doesn’t really cover the whole region like what MTA is trying to do in LA County. Perhaps this is because our transportation “solutions” have been centered on expanding freeways and streets. And oh yes, let’s not forget the toll roads. Now don’t get me wrong, roads are important. And so long as we have all these cars on the road, we have to improve our roads to help people with their commutes. However, this is only a short-term solution.
Over the long term, we can’t sustain all these cars on all these roads. So long as we continue developing farther and farther away from urban cores, and all we do about this is build more roads that only spark more development, we’ll never see long-term traffic relief. This is why we need smarter development and smarter transportation planning. And when it comes to smarter transportation planning, Los Angeles County is doing this. If we want long-term traffic relief, environmental health, and an overall better community, we need to figure out how to take these cars off the road and get people moving in a more efficient manner.
This is why Jubal/Matt shouldn’t be gloating about temporary bottlenecks in South LA County. LA County MTA might have a temporary problem that they will have to solve by improving the 5 and 405, but they are implementing a long-term solution to their overall traffic problem by expanding bus and commuter rail options. Hopefully one day soon, more people here in Orange County will push OCTA to do the same.
Will California’s high speed rail project survive Arnold’s budget cuts – and if so, how will it get built? George Skelton’s Monday LA Times column turns its attention to the issue, with some important insights about the current status of the plan. With an excellent excoriation of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s unwillingness to lead on the issue, despite his public claims of support for the project, Skelton also questions some recent decisions of the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) regarding the implementation schedule of the project.
The first part of the column focuses on Arnold’s lack of support for the project. A few weeks back he published an op-ed in the Fresno Bee claiming to support the project. As I noted in response, this seemed to be a bit of smoke and mirrors, as Arnold continued to seek cuts for the plan behind the scenes.
Skelton’s column lays this point out further, noting that such an interpretation is prevailing wisdom in Sacramento, and that Arnold wants to preserve the funding capacity for more dams and freeways, despite the obvious environmental benefits of high speed rail. Quentin Kopp, the longtime San Francisco supervisor, state senator, and judge, who now runs the CHSRA, argues that if Arnold would come out and champion the project publicly, the battle would be “80% over.”
Skelton also correctly points out the flaws of Arnold’s claim that the CHSRA funding plan is inadequate – that there’s no way federal or private financers will commit until the state has indicated its support through a vote:
Most everybody outside the governor’s office considers this naive. Until California voters commit to the project, seasoned pols note, no private investors or government officials will. Besides, no one knows who’s going to be in charge in Washington after 2008. And about the only Sacramentan with the ability to coax Boxer, Feinstein and Pelosi into a negotiating room is Schwarzenegger, who isn’t lifting a finger for high-speed rail.
In short, Arnold himself is the key to the CHSRA funding plan – and he refuses to act in that capacity. What better place to get some of CA’s tax money returned from DC, as Arnold famously claimed he could do during the 2003 recall election, than to secure federal aid for the project?
The contrast between Arnold’s stated support and his actual efforts to kill the project led State Sen. Dean Florez, a Central Valley Democrat, to bitterly remark “Obviously, the governor’s budget writers don’t read his Op-Ed pieces.”
To Skelton, however, a bigger problem may be self-inflicted. He argues that the CHSRA’s decision to make an Anaheim-SF line the first phase of the project built is a recipe for political disaster. He quotes some important legislators who argue that by leaving Sacramento and San Diego to “some future lifetime” – implying that the plan to build to those cities is merely a vague promise – it will become more difficult for voters to support it, especially if their region is left out. Some of the quotes:
“If the project actually has a life, it’s going to have to include Sacramento,” says Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento)…
“I don’t see how they could leave out San Diego and have this make sense,” [Senate Budget Chair Denise Moreno] Ducheny says. “I can’t imagine why anybody in San Diego would vote for it.”
Given these alarmist quotes, what exactly happened at last week’s CHSRA board meeting? Clearly the board believes that the HSR system, like all other rail systems in the country as well as HSR systems around the world, cannot be built all at once. That seems a sensible point. They focused on Anaheim to SF via Merced for the following reasons, as defined in this report:
-This route is the “backbone of the network” which will likely bring in the most riders and the most private financing.
-The SD to LA route is plagued by “considerable uncertainty.” CHSRA argues that SCAG (SoCal Association of Governments) and SANDAG (SD Association of Governments) are more interested in Maglev technology to finish the route.
Granted, I’m somewhat new to this issue, but that doesn’t strike me as a very good reason to leave SD out. Someone need to coordinate CHSRA, SCAG, and SANDAG on finalizing a route and a technology. There’s no need to let local governments go their own way, and if we had leadership coming from Sacto, this might not be a problem (and I am not yet sure that it really is).
Arguments were made during the meeting by Commissioner Lynn Schenk that leaving out San Diego would cripple the potential for the project goals stated above, and probably bury that extension for a very long time. She “could not vote for the plan as proposed if San Diego were left out.”…
Jackson goes on to note that in the 1980s a plan to build a bullet train down the I-5 corridor along the San Diego County coast was killed for a number of reasons, including uncertain funding, lack of US Marine Corps approval to use Camp Pendleton land, and NIMBY opposition – but that CHSRA avoided that mistake by choosing an inland alignment, along Interstate 15.
It seems that not enough has been done to resolve these local issues. Why on earth is SCAG and SANDAG pushing for the expensive and untested maglev technology when CHSRA’s plan is much more solid, reliable, and utilizes existing and successful technology? And why hasn’t this dispute been resolved by now, some 7 years after the initial planning for the HSR project began?
Obviously no project of this scale can be built all at once. It might make sense to give voters a clear timeline – LA to SF by 2020, Sacto extension by 2022, LA to SD by 2025, something like that. But there must be a clear plan to tie the main metro regions into the network, something that can suggest to voters that the plans to get to their metro area are not just made out of thin air.
Voters – and interested members of the media – should also be reminded that the 2002 enabling legislation approving the CHSRA plan and scheduling a November 2004 vote on the bonds (pushed back twice) mandated that LA to SF be the first route funded (scroll to page 23). This would help justify the emphasis on LA to SF while also reminding folks that is just the start of a system, not its end.
For most rail systems, getting the first line built is the most difficult. Once a segment is in operation other regions clamor for inclusion. This was true of the LACMTA’s lines, it’s true here in Seattle, where a light rail system is a year or two away from its first segment completion, and it’s been true for European high speed rail networks as well.
However, without restoring CHSRA’s funding in this budget cycle, the questions over phasing are moot. Happily there seems to have been some improvements in the budget outlook. In a comment on a HSR diary at California Progress Report, John Shields claims “A California Senate subcommittee on the 22nd May approved a $45.2 million budget for Cal HSR”, which comports with some of the things I’ve heard as well. It’s not the full $103 million but it’s also a far sight better than the piddly $5 million Arnold had offered.
Russ Jackson of RailPAC offers this assessment, which I endorse:
In this writer’s opinion, by eliminating San Diego and not resolving the issue over Maglev with SCAG, not serving the Riverside area, without defining its route into the Bay Area, not serving Sacramento in the initial phase, and not serving the Bay Area to Sacramento segment, the CAHSRA has doomed itself to losing large blocks of votes for the $9 billion bond issue (if it ever gets on the ballot). As desirable as high-speed rail is for the state, it’s what the local folks think they want to approve for other areas to benefit from that will determine the project’s future.
Ultimately the CHSRA plan will require a champion. It took Al Gore to convince the world global warming was a fact, something that we should have realized over a decade ago. It will take Michael Moore to convince America that our health care crisis is real and that universal single-payer care is a viable solution, although Americans have been fighting for this for over a hundred years. Who will step up for high speed rail?
Around Earth Day, Newsweek ran a memorable cover of Arnold Schwarzenegger posing with a globe, to symbolize his supposedly environmentally aware political stance. It was an apt recognition of how Arnold had successfully “greenwashed” himself in 2006, glomming on at the last minute to a Democratic proposal to mandate cuts in greenhouse gases. In doing so Arnold sealed his reelection victory and had many Californians – even a lot of Democrats – convinced he really cared about the environment.
But underneath the green veneer, Arnold is still the same conservative Republican who seeks to destroy the environment. His recent budget includes $1.3 *billion* in cuts to California public transportation, from the high speed rail project to local bus and light rail services. Speaker Fabian Núñez aptly denounced these cuts:
There’s a bait and switch on transit funding here, too. You can’t pose for the cover of Newsweek as the savior of global warming one day and then turn around and slash funding for public transit the next. You can’t have a press conference urging commuters to take public transit after a highway collapses one day and then turn around and slash funding for public transit the next.
The link between widely available public transit and environmental health, and addressing climate change, should be obvious. As greenhouse gas emissions soar, Americans need to cut back on those emissions, and driving less is a core method of doing that.
It also has an added and obvious value in an age of soaring gas prices. Californians are bearing the brunt of the oil companies’ gouging, paying over $3.50 a gallon. As a result usage of public transportation in the state has SOARED over the last few months. California’s intercity trains, such as the Capitol Corridor and the Pacific Surfliner, are seeing record numbers of riders. The LACMTA’s Orange Line, a bus rapid transit system in the San Fernando Valley, hit its 2020 ridership projections…in 2007.
The combination of environmental awareness and soaring gas prices has led millions of Californians to turn to public transportation. Millions more want to make the change but aren’t yet served by the required frequency or capacity. An example:
Anyway, if we had decent, reliable, accessible public transportation to take, we’d sell every car but the toy car and take public transportation to work. We checked into it at one point. If [my partner] took the train, he’d have to shift his work hours to ridiculously early or ridiculously late. They designed the train schedule to suit those living in Santa Barbara (median cost of single family home $1.2M) and working in Ventura. Yeah, that makes sense. Because I know lots of people who want to live in one of the most expensive towns in the country so they can commute to where housing is about half that. And me? To get to my job, 9 miles away, I’d have to transfer three times, and it would take me almost two hours each way, vs. my current 15-20 minute commute. Hell no.
Our only realistic choice is to own cars and commute to work.
In addition, many local public transportation agencies are facing financial stresses of their own – added users are requiring more buses, more train cars, and more operators.
The main agencies facing this stress aren’t small suburban carriers, but instead at the major urban systems of the state – San Francisco MUNI and the LA County MTA. For them, Arnold’s cuts are truly devastating.
“It’s just going to add to the misery,” said Roger Snoble [head of the LACMTA], whose agency would lose $230 million under Schwarzenegger’s plan. “It’s going to affect everybody who moves in Los Angeles County.”
In other words – less public transportation means more people driving, meaning more traffic on SoCal’s already congested roads.
San Francisco’s MUNI system includes dozens of bus lines and several light-rail lines. All of them are heavily traveled. So heavily traveled, in fact, that they don’t have enough buses and streetcars and drivers to meet demand. So what is Arnold going to do to help? Cut a further $146 million from their budget too.
Finally there is the matter of high speed rail. In other diaries I have explained the importance of this project – a fully planned and detailed system to build high speed rail lines to link the state’s major metro areas – the Bay Area, Sacramento, the San Joaquin Valley, LA, OC, the Inland Empire, and San Diego.
Arnold claims to support the plan, and has written op-eds professing to want to see it built. But behind the scenes he continues to do all he can to kill it. The California High Speed Rail Authority needs $130 million in funding to complete its work and move ahead with a scheduled vote in November 2008 on $10 billion in bonds to start building the system. Arnold plans to give them only $3 million in funding, and that funding is to come out of the Orange County Transportation Authority’s budget.
I have written several diaries about the high speed rail project. The plan is fully developed. It’s all ready to go. All we need is $10 billion in state bond money to seed the project and convince private investors to contribute to it as well. But Arnold wants to kill that too, despite the fact that it is a green and sustainable technology that will get Californians out of their cars, out of the planes, and provide for the state’s growing transportation needs.
What explains Arnold’s desire to destroy public transportation? It’s two interrelated factors. The first is that Arnold simply is not an environmentalist. He is fixated on the automobile as a form of transportation. He thinks more freeways are the solution, not more public transportation. The screaming demand of millions of Californians for public transit don’t register with him.
The second is that Arnold is in the pockets of Big Oil. They have donated well over a million dollars to his various funds since November, even though he isn’t eligible for re-election in 2010. As their gouging of Californians continues, the oil companies know that a backlash is coming. They want to prevent that at all costs, want to ensure that they hold the line in California lest they set a trend for the rest of the nation.
If Arnold destroys California’s public transit systems, Californians will not have any alternative but to pay the exorbitant costs at the pump. The middle class will sink further into financial ruin.
Arnold’s public transportation cuts are a catastrophic disaster for the state of California. Not only will they make global warming worse, not only will they make our environment more polluted, more prone to fire, and mired deeper in drought, but his cuts will ruin family budgets, eventually causing lost jobs and further destroying the state’s middle class.
California Democrats must reverse these cuts. They are unconscionable and unaffordable.
Since then there has been a great deal of activity in the state, ahead of a crucial meeting in Sacramento this week on funding for the project. There now appears to be some significant movement from Arnold’s office toward a supportive position. However, there is still a long way to go, and your help is needed to ensure that California does the right thing and saves this project.
Note: For a full explanation of the California high speed rail plan, see my diary from last week
Is Democratic Pressure Bringing Arnold Around?
As of a few weeks ago it looked like Arnold was trying to kill the project outright. The CHSRA (California High Speed Rail Authority) plan was originally slated to go before voters in November 2004. That was postponed to November 2006 and again to November 2008. In Arnold’s initial budget proposal he suggested postponing the vote indefinitely and slashing CHSRA’s budget to a mere $1 million, barely enough to keep the office open.
Since news of this got a wider hearing, there has been a significant amount of pushback, especially from Democrats. The California Democratic Party, at its annual convention in San Diego two weekends ago, passed a resolution strongly supportive of the plan. Activists from around the state began calling their legislators and rallying support for the project.
But let me be clear: I strongly support high-speed rail for California, and especially for the San Joaquin Valley. Increasing the Valley’s transportation options, especially after voters passed Proposition 1B to repair Highway 99, would better serve the region’s growing population and enhance the Valley’s critical importance to our state’s economy.
The promise of high-speed rail is incredible. Looking forward to the kind of California we want to build 20 and 30 years from now, a network of ultra-fast rail lines whisking people from one end of the state to the other is a viable and important transportation alternative and would be a great benefit to us all.
On the surface this sounds great. Clearly Arnold understands that this project – the most important project proposed for California in the last 45 years – cannot be allowed to die. And that is a major victory for our side.
However, careful parsing of his letter indicates how much work we have left to do to truly save this project, and just how little faith we can have in Arnold’s apparent “support” at this time.
The Outstanding Issues: Funding
The bulk of Arnold’s letter to the Bee is a claim that the CHSRA does not have adequate funding identified. The proposal that will go before voters in November 2008 will provide $10 billion in bonds, out of a projected $40 billion cost. Arnold’s letter asks where the rest of this money will come from.
The CHSRA has always maintained that the $10 billion is necessary seed money to convince the federal government and private investors that they can invest in the project and provide for the remaining costs.
Steven T. Jones, a reporter for the truly excellent San Francisco Bay Guardian, notes that these claims are not totally correct, and that major bond houses like Lehman Bros believe that state seed money – in this case, $10 billion – WILL bring in private capital and convince the bond market that the project is worthy of their support.
Arnold’s letter to the Bee makes the CHSRA plan sound like another flawed and unfunded government project and posits a false “chicken and egg” problem. In fact this is by no means the case, as the necessary starting point – $10 billion in state bonds – has already been identified, and a whole lot of people, from venture capitalists to the aforementioned bond market are convinced this will break the logjam and produce the remaining $30 billion. In short, CHSRA has already identified where the remaining money will come from, although they understandably cannot get a firm commitment from the private sector until they get a firm commitment from the public sector.
Instead the letter to the Bee suggests Arnold wants to do with high speed rail what he’s done with climate change – adopt a posture of support for action, but in practice do nothing that will actually produce action. Arnold claims to “propose additional funding” in his budget for CHSRA but this is unspecified and probably an effort to claim his paltry $1 million proposal for the 2007-08 budget as “additional funding.” Nor does he commit to a 2008 vote, which everyone else involved agrees is key to the success of the high speed rail project. Reading Arnold’s letter carefully, one finds he talks a big game, but does not actually provide any firm assurances that high speed rail will go ahead. Instead he seems to want “more study,” which as anyone with knowledge of politics knows, is pretty much a statement of nonsupport.
What might be at the root of Arnold’s opposition? Last week I speculated that his millions in campaign contributions from oil companies might have something to do with it. Surely that plays a role. But as Steven T. Jones notes, it is also partly because wants to use the state’s bond capacity for other things – like more prisons, more dams, more freeways. In other words, things the state needs less of, instead of high speed rail, a transformative project that will add much more to the state’s economy and long-term needs than a prison or a dam or a freeway.
How YOU Can Help Save High Speed Rail
As I said at the beginning, there is a all-important hearing in Sacramento this week regarding the project. A State Senate Budget Subcommittee will meet to determine the fate of CHSRA funding – whether Arnold’s paltry $1 million sum will stand, or whether the full funding needs of $130 million to keep the CHSRA alive will be provided. The Bay Rail Alliance has provided the crucial contact information:
Senate Budget Subcommittee 4 hearing
Thursday, May 10
@ 10 AM or upon adjournment of the previous session,
Room 112, State Capitol
item 2665, the High Speed Rail Authority’s budget
Members of Senate Budget Sub 4 Committee
1) Senator Michael Machado (Chair)
Senate District 5 – Tracy, Manteca and Stockton in San Joaquin County; Suisun City, Fairfield, Dixon and Vacaville in Solano County; Davis, West Sacramento, Winters and Woodland in Yolo County; as well as Walnut Grove and a portion of Elk Grove in Sacramento County.
Phone: (916) 651-4005
Fax: (916) 323-2304
State Capitol, Room 5066
Sacramento, CA 95814
2) Senator Robert Dutton (Republican)
Senate District 31 – southwestern portion of San Bernardino County and the northwestern portion of Riverside County: all of Big Bear, Grand Terrace, Highland, Loma Linda, Rancho Cucamonga, Redlands, Upland, Yucaipa, Yucca Valley, Crestline, Lake Arrowhead, Mentone, Running Springs, An Antonio Heights and portions of San Bernardino and Colton; all of Riverside, Glen Avon, Highgrove, Mira Loma, Pedley, Rubidoux, Sunnyslope and all but a small portion of Woodcrest.
State Capitol, Room 5094
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 651-4031
Fax: (916) 327-2272
3) Senator Christine Kehoe – Democrat from San Diego
Phone: (916) 651-4039
Fax: (916) 327-2188 State Capitol, Room 4038 Sacramento, CA 95814
Location:
State Capitol building, room 112, Sacramento
If you live in these districts, by all means, CALL! Even if you don’t there may well be value in calling them to let them know of your strong support for high speed rail. Of course, if you can attend the hearing, by all means do so. I wish I could be there, but unfortunately I cannot.
Some overviews of why high speed rail is a good and necessary project can be found:
There may also be value in contacting Arnold’s office, to explain how valuable the project will be in terms of transportation alternatives, traffic relief, sustainable development, reducing pollution, slowing global warming, and providing jobs. To contact the governator:
Over the last few months more and more of the netroots have recognized the importance of upgrading our transportation infrastructure to meet our capacity demands while also providing a sustainable and green method of transit. Diaries by apsmith, BruceMcF, quaoar and A Siegel have all zeroed in on high speed rail as a particularly useful and desirable way to provide Americans with an effective, reliable, and green way to travel between our cities.
So far their work has been largely in explaining the theory of why high speed rail would be a good fit for America. While other states kick around abstract ideas, California has had since 2002 a complete plan for high speed rail – with the all important EIR/EIS finalized – to link the state’s major metro areas – San Francisco, Oakland, San José, Sacramento, Fresno, Los Angeles, OC, Riverside, and San Diego – with a true high-speed system.
The governor wants “to quietly kill this – and not go out and tell the people that high-speed rail isn’t in the future,” said state Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter). The lawmaker from the southern San Joaquin Valley is counting on the trains to help bring jobs to his district.
Schwarzenegger asked the Legislature in his 2007 budget to slash money for the California High-Speed Rail Authority. The governor also wants lawmakers to postpone indefinitely a $9.95-billion rail bond issue that is slated to appear on the November 2008 ballot.
Background
The California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) was created in 1996 to devise a plan to link Northern and Southern California by high speed rail. In 2000 voters authorized the CHSRA to finalize a route and a construction plan, which was presented to the Legislature in 2002. The Legislature then automatically put it on the November 2004 ballot.
And then it was delayed. The early Zeroes were a period of fiscal crisis for California, costing Gray Davis his job and leading Arnold Schwarzenegger to seek to limit state spending. Tom McClintock, a notorious right-wing State Senator, authored a bill in 2004 to kill the project outright. A compromise was reached where the vote would be delayed to November 2006. However, that was the ballot where Arnold was pushing his various infrastructure bonds, for everything from roads to levees to dams, and worried that high speed rail might be a bridge too far and weigh down the vote of the other proposals. Another deal was cut, and now the CHSRA plan is slated to go before voters in November 2008. This is what Arnold is trying to stop.
The Plan
And it’s a shame, too, because the plan is really quite good. It’s worth spending a moment to examine it, to see just how good it is and therefore how awful its cancellation would be.
(From the CAHSR and assumed to be in the public domain)
As you can see, the planned line would link nearly all of the major population centers of California. And even those areas not included, like Monterey Bay (where I will soon be living) will benefit from the system – whereas it currently takes 6 hours to drive from Monterey to LA, it would likely take only 3-4 hours via a drive to San José and then the train to LA.
(A note: the shaded area between the Bay Area and the Central Valley is because the CHSRA hasn’t yet settled on whether to use the Pacheco Pass (along Highway 152) or the Altamont Pass (along I-580) to link the two regions.)
– 42 to 68 million passengers a year by 2020
– Fully grade-separated and built along existing highway corridors (to lower costs and minimize disruption to urban landscape)
– Trains capable of at least 220mph
– Powered by overhead electrical wires, providing a greener source of energy. Trains will also return power to the grid when they brake.
Scroll down to page 13 on the Implementation Plan, and you will see just how much time the high speed trains will save Californians on common trips within the state:
LA to SF: 7.5 hrs by car. 1 hour 20 by plane – but “door to door” (including getting to the airport, security checks, check-in lines, etc) it is nearly 3.5 hours. By high speed train it would be about 2.5 hours on the train and about 3.5 hours door to door – about the same as a plane, but at a much lower cost to our planet.
LA to SD: 2.5 hours by car (unless you hit traffic, then god knows how long!). 2.75 hrs by plane (but few people fly between LA and SD) and 2.25 hrs by train. A significant – and reliable – savings, considering that on the high speed line between LA and SD you won’t have to worry about the East LA Interchange, the bottleneck through Norwalk, the Orange Crush, the El Toro Y, the 5/805 merge.
The line will not be a single point-to-point route but a mixture of express, local, and semi-local trains. It will provide several levels of efficient and quick service to Californians.
What will it cost? The current estimate is around $30 billion. $10 billion of that will come from state bonds, which will seed the project and entice private investment to make up the other $20 billion. Ridership will help pay off these bonds.
Will the riders come? As every other high speed rail project has proven, absolutely. The Acela between Washington DC and Boston has already made a significant dent in air travel along the Northeast Corridor. The Spanish AVE line between Madrid and Barcelona is having a similar impact, even though the line currently only reaches Tarragona (just short of Barcelona, which will be linked by the end of the year). And even California’s existing slower-speed rail corridors are showing record numbers of riders. The demand is clearly there.
Why We Need High Speed Rail
CHSRA is the most important project facing Californians since Pat Brown built the California Aqueduct in 1960. It’s that simple. Here’s why.
First, the state’s existing oil-based transportation infrastructure is reaching the limits of its capacity. Although one can drive from LA to SF in about 6.5 hours (fast if you’re a leadfoot) this can take up to *10 hours* via I-5 on a holiday weekend. Within the megalopolis – SoCal or Bay Area – travel by car is becoming less and less possible, even when tanker trucks aren’t melting away the MacArthur Maze.
California’s airports are already stressed. LAX expansion plans have been frequently postponed because of soaring costs, and other SoCal airports from John Wayne to Burbank face similar limits. SFO cannot be expanded at all and OAK is nearing its limit. SAN (SD’s airport) is one of the nation’s worst, but efforts to move it to Miramar have been blocked by the US Navy. And yet more and more people are using California’s roads and airports – our population is pushing 40 million and may be nearing 50 million in a few generations. Clearly alternative capacity is needed.
And that doesn’t even take into account Peak Oil. As many of you know, the production of oil around the world is near or has reached its peak. From here on out we will not only be extracting less oil, but will be paying more for it because much of the remaining oil is harder to reach.
Already we are seeing soaring gas prices. Many Californians are now paying around $3.50 a gallon and will likely be the first in the lower 48 to hit $4 this summer. This will also make air travel even more costly.
To protect our environment, to slow global warming, to protect against peak oil, and to provide a less expensive way for residents of our great Golden State to connect with each other, we have NO OTHER CHOICE but to build high speed rail.
We have a solid plan. We have the clear need. We have pent-up demand.
WHEREAS, the CA High Speed Rail Authority has made significant progress since it was established in 1996 to create fast rail service between Southern CA and San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento and the Central Valley to give the public a travel choice between HSR, automobiles and airplanes – thus relieving the growing highway and airport congestion in a state in which the population is expected to grow by 12 million to a total of 50 million by 2025; and
WHEREAS, high speed rail is already successful in Japan, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Australia, China, Taiwan and South Korea, and construction is underway in North Africa, Turkey, Mexico and South America – setting a standard for California, where HSR could carry passengers between downtown San Francisco and Los Angeles in about 2 1/2 hours in more comfort and safety and in less time than it takes to travel to and from and check in and out of airports, thus enabling airlines to better serve long-distance travelers; and
WHEREAS, high speed rail will be a significant weapon against air pollution and global warming as it uses much less energy per passenger than cars and airplanes – and HSR will be even more essential if, as expected, petroleum supplies diminish in the future;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the CDP asks that all CA elected officials give full support to establishing HSR in CA at the earliest possible date.
Why Arnold Is Trying to Terminate It
Given the obvious arguments in favor of the project, and its widespread political support (virtually all cities along the proposed line have been clamoring for a stop, and workers and unions eye the good middle-class wage paying work that will come with building the line), why on earth is Arnold Schwarzenegger trying to kill it?
Although Arnold has received a reputation lately for being an environmentalist, this is complete and utter nonsense. Arnold gutted many of the mandatory trading provisions of the global warming emissions cap proposal. The League of Conservation Voters gave Arnold a 50 rating (out of 100) and said his record remained “mediocre.” And he has received well over $1 million in campaign contributions from Big Oil.
In his infrastructure funding priorities Arnold is as Republican as it gets in his emphasis on freeways over public transportation. LA and the Bay Area are getting showered with money out of the infrastructure bond to build more freeway capacity, yet Arnold’s budget still projects a CUT in public transportation funds. (Look for a diary on specifically this issue soon.)
Further, Arnold personally has little interest in mass transit. He owns a Hummer, and thinks environmentally friendly transportation is converting the Hummer to hydrogen – finding non-auto based forms of transportation seems totally off his radar screen. When he goes on MTV’s “Pimp My Ride” he’s not there to explain how California needs to adapt to the 21st century, he’s there to tell viewers that the fantasies of the 20th century regarding endless gas supplies and a limitless car culture can somehow still remain viable.
Between his own blinders, his very real debt to the oil companies (who have a strong motive to see HSR killed) and his fraudulent rhetoric on the environment, it is unsurprising, yet all the more maddening, that Arnold wants to kill this important project.
What You Can Do
But so far as I can tell, California remains a democracy, whatever else has happened to it on the national level. And we the people can still push back against Arnold and protect this transformative and vital project against his efforts to Terminate it.
Perhaps the first thing to do is let Arnold know that you think he is totally and completely in the wrong on this. Contact him!
Write him a letter! Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Equally as important is the state legislature. We need to target Democrats to ensure they stand by us and by their party convention in protecting high speed rail. Important Democrats include the following (links are to contact pages):
Sen. Don Perata, President of the State Senate (510) 286-1333 or (916) 651-4009
Sen. Alan Lowenthal, chair of Senate Transportation Committee (562) 495-4766 or (916) 651-4027
Fabian Núñez (e-mail link), Speaker of the Assembly. (213) 620-4646 or (916) 319-2046
Assemblymember John Laird, head of Assembly Budget Committee (hence a powerful person). (831) 649-2832 or (916) 319-2027
There may also be value in going to the dark side – that is, Republicans. Assemblymember Bob Huff was quoted in the /LA Times/ as saying he thought this might be a good transportation alternative but worried about the cost. Pushing him into a pro-HSR camp might pay big dividends. His webpage is here (it loads poorly on my Firefox, though) and phone numbers are 909-860-5560 or (916) 319-2060.
I supposed you could try Sen. Tom McClintock, who has repeatedly tried to kill HSR and is one of CA’s most notorious right-wingers. If you want to, a Google search for his name should provide all the info you’ll need.
Finally, there is this video put out by the CAHSR on YouTube about the project:
Spread the information far and wide. Let’s build support for this vital and sensible project, and stare down Arnold Schwarzenegger and save California’s high speed rail.
