It would be a public policy tragedy of the first order if this wonderful project were allowed to die.
Steve Wiegand: High-speed train's near standstill
By Steve Wiegand - Bee Columnist
Published 12:00 am PST Thursday, February 1, 2007
In 1993, Arnold Schwarzenegger was starring in "The Last Action Hero." California politicians, meanwhile, were creating a commission to ponder the prospect of building an environmentally sound, cost-efficient, up-and-down-the-state high-speed rail system.
Now it's 2007. Arnold Schwarzenegger is starring in "Governor."
And after 14 years, $30 million, two oversight panels, a couple of postponed bond votes and a whole bunch of planning, the dream of a high-speed rail system in California is on the verge of being slowly but inexorably starved to death.
"It's very frustrating," said Quentin Kopp, who is chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority. The authority was created in 1996, after a predecessor commission decided a passenger train system within the state did indeed make sense economically, environmentally and technologically.
What's frustrating Kopp is the bread-and-water budget for the authority that the Schwarzenegger administration has proposed for the budget year that starts July 1.
The rail folks have asked for about $104 million. Most of it would be used to pay for design and engineering plans and to purchase rights of way for a system that supporters say would zip along at speeds of up to 220 mph, carry up to 68 million passengers a year and require no taxpayer subsidies to operate.
But the proposed budget the guv trotted out Jan. 10 contains a bit over $1 million for the authority -- or just enough for it to pay a small staff and the rent on an office across the street from the Capitol.
That's the bureaucratic equivalent of treading water, at a time when the project at long last is ready to begin picking up steam.
At an authority meeting Monday, for example, trustees unanimously approved $298.4 million in long-term engineering contracts for Sacramento-to-Fresno, Fresno-to-Palmdale and L.A.-to-San Diego segments. But there is only $2.5 million in the current fiscal year's budget to begin paying for them.
Even $104 million is chump change for a project that could take a decade to finish and cost $37 billion in state and federal funds.
