It is a sure winner for our state to reduce the need to fly between north and south, and one hopes it moves forward with the dispatch it deserves.
Steve Wiegand: High-speed rail going nowhere fast
By Steve Wiegand - swiegand@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PST Thursday, December 20, 2007
Sitting for any length of time in Room 112 at the Capitol, one gets the feeling of being in a frosted shoe box.
The room's ceiling – which is as high as the room's floor is wide – is decorated with what looks like wedding cake moulding. Three multi-globed chandeliers light the room, one end of which is dominated by a giant oil painting of Yosemite.
Wednesday, more than 100 people crammed into Room 112 to participate in what might turn out to be, sadly, a pipe dream.
The occasion was a hearing by the California High Speed Rail Authority, which was created by the Legislature 11 years ago and charged with putting together a train system that links the San Francisco Bay Area to the Los Angeles area. The goal, someday, is to move tens of millions of people between the two areas in around 2 1/2 hours.
Wednesday, it took four hours for the authority's board of directors to give de facto approval to the proposed route the train will take from the Bay Area into the Central Valley and down to Southern California.
By not voting otherwise, the board accepted a staff proposal that the rails go through San Jose and cut across at Pacheco Pass. They would basically follow State Route 52 and come out in the Valley near Merced.
