The Multi-Pronged Attack on California HSR

Last year this blog led the fight against the staggering amounts of misinformation put out by opponents of mass transit in their effort to defeat Proposition 1A. Even though these opponents were frequently given room to spout their misleading claims in TV and print reports around the state, whereas pro-HSR forces rarely ever got that opportunity, we won the battle. Californians rejected the arguments of the HSR deniers, the people who tried to argue against the evidence that high speed rail would be a financial disaster or that it wouldn't work in California or that people would never ride the trains. The voters showed that they understood the value and need for sustainable transportation, for economic recovery, for giving Californians an alternative to soaring oil prices.

That was the easy part.

2009 has seen a different and much more challenging battle taking shape. The Reason Foundation is still out their with their talking points, but few are listening. Instead most HSR deniers, like Morris Brown, have shifted tactics. Instead of arguing against passenger rail - a losing argument in California - they are trying to play on the environmental concerns of Bay Area residents. In order to undermine high speed rail, which will be one of the most environmentally beneficial projects this state has ever seen, they have joined with misguided environmentalists to try and block the progress of California high speed rail by claiming the project as planned will harm the environment.

Environmentalists have made a deal with the devil (so to speak) and allied with people who are fundamentally opposed to high speed rail. The environmentalists in question - particularly those from the Planning and Conservation League - apparently believe that they can use the HSR deniers for their own purposes without enabling the deniers' broader attack on the HSR project. In this the environmentalists are very, very wrong. They are jeopardizing the viability of the project as a whole, are placing a parochial and small concern above the concept, and are enabling anti-environment, anti-rail arguments in order to achieve their goals.

Californians rightly want to protect their environment. They rightly want big infrastructure projects to be built affordably and properly. And even though the environmental/NIMBY alliance ultimately seeks none of that - in fact, they are pursuing methods that jeopardize those values - they are increasingly effective at spreading their misleading claims among both the public and the state legislature.

As longtime blog readers know, these criticisms of mine are not new. What is new is that the Planning and Conservation League and the BayRail Alliance, two normally progressive organizations that support environmental and mass transit projects, have allied with the vehemently anti-HSR TRANSDEF, the "Cal Rail Foundation" (and its three members), and the cities of Menlo Park and Atherton to launch a deeply misleading attack on the high speed rail project.

The centerpiece of the attack is a new website: HSR: Let's Do It Right. The site is chock full of misleading statements, and embraces messaging that will ultimately and fundamentally undermine the HSR project they claim to support.

Before taking an in-depth look at the flaws of this site, let's lay out the landscape of HSR opposition in California:

Peninsula NIMBYs. Concentrated in the Menlo Park/Atherton/Palo Alto area, these are a quite small but vocal group of well-off homeowners who are adamantly opposed to building a grade-separated railroad for Caltrain and HSR, despite the numerous safety and environmental benefits of doing so. They've been convinced that a tunnel is a better solution, but have not identified any funding source for such a ridiculously expensive solution. They have no organization, but have instead brought on board the cities of Menlo Park, Atherton, and Palo Alto to their cause.

HSR deniers. Contrary to those who criticize the use of the term, this refers to a very distinct group of people who deny the proven benefits of high speed rail and want to kill the project outright. They are called "deniers" as an analogue to global warming deniers, based on the HSR deniers' repeated use of claims about HSR's supposed lack of financial viability, its supposed inability to meet projected ridership, and/or its supposed lack of environmental benefit. They tend to be ideologically opposed to government spending and to passenger rail projects. Not all HSR opponents are HSR deniers. But HSR deniers have had a lot of success in allying with more mainstream and respectable groups to advance their cause - specifically, the NIMBYs. HSR deniers have achieved significant gains by convincing some Peninsula residents that above-grade tracks will be a horrible city-killing disaster and that a tunnel is a better alternative - despite the fact that a tunnel is too expensive to ever become reality. HSR deniers hope that NIMBYs will provide the political power they themselves lack, and kill the project when it becomes clear that there is no viable alternative to grade-separating the Caltrain corridor.

Parochial environmentalists. The state's main environmental organizations, like the Sierra Club, strongly embraced high speed rail AND worked to ensure Prop 1A was as environmentally strong as possible (particularly by writing a ban on a Los Banos station into Prop 1A). They recognized that HSR will be a revolutionary shift in California infrastructure in favor of truly sustainable transportation that helps fight global warming, reduces pollution, and grows mass transit while shrinking the ranks of automobile commuters. But a small group of environmentalists have chosen to reject these broad benefits in a fit of pique about the choice of the Pacheco Pass alignment. The Planning and Conservation League is the biggest offender here, apparently convinced that the Pacheco alignment is so horrible that it is worth risking the entire HSR project to block it. To do so they are now allying with the NIMBYs and HSR deniers.

Parochial state legislators. California's Legislature is a broken institution totally incapable of governing this state in a time of crisis. One reason for this is term limits, which encourage legislators to ignore long-term planning and focus on their own careers. This incentivizes a focus on their own districts at the expense of the state's needs. As it relates to HSR, it enables ideological opponents of HSR like Senator Roy Ashburn, a genuine HSR denier, to try and tie down the project through burdensome and unnecessary oversight rules. It also enables people who don't care about the project's stated purpose of providing sustainable intercity transit to try and use the Prop 1A money to fund pet projects in their own backyards, like Senator Alan Lowenthal. NIMBYs, HSR deniers and environmentalists are allying with both Ashburn and Lowenthal to try and kill the HSR project by running it aground on the shoals of the legislature.

All four of these groups are represented on the HSR: Let's Do It Right site. The website is an incoherent jumble of anti-HSR claims that are sometimes mutually contradictory, but together represent a formidable threat to high speed rail.

Let's have a look at some examples.

Lying About Altamont/Pacheco

The main intent of the site is to rally the public to oppose the Pacheco alignment and force its abandonment in favor of Altamont - despite the fact that the decision for Pacheco was made through a legitimate process a year ago, and despite the fact that it was ratified by voters at the November 2008 election. Their Why Altamont? page consists of this extremely dishonest graphic:



This is pretty ridiculous stuff. The notion of "fewer impacts on communities" is only true if you don't consider Fremont, Pleasanton, Livermore and Tracy as communities. As I'll explain in a moment the site is full of "concern" for the "livable communities" on the Peninsula that would be harmed by HSR, but no such concern is offered here for the East Bay cities along the proposed Altamont route. There are about the same impacts on communities in the Altamont alignment - but those communities do not count, are not relevant, to the PCL and the other backers of this website.

It is true that expanding passenger rail along the Altamont corridor would help ease congestion. Which is why Prop 1A created a high speed corridor along the Altamont Pass and directs the CHSRA to spend money upgrading it for the purpose of easing congestion. But you wouldn't know that from the site or this graphic.

Sure, a shift from the Pacheco to the Altamont alignment might serve more East Bay residents. But it would come at the expense of about the same number of people in Santa Clara County and the Monterey Bay Area. Given that San José is the state's third largest city and one of the state's key economic centers, you'd think that it would have a pretty strong argument for being included on the HSR line. But you won't hear that argument on the website.

The claim of "$2 billion saved" is not sourced or proved. Given the support for Peninsula NIMBYs, the site's authors are in no position to make claims about saving money.

As to the wilderness area, this is is complete bullshit. The graphic is designed to mislead people into thinking the whole wilderness as shown on the map is under threat from HSR. It isn't. The tracks will run close to the existing Highway 152 corridor, and will go underneath Pacheco Pass State Park in a tunnel - which is conveniently not mentioned anywhere in this graphic or on the site.

Another lie is the "no sprawl effect" claim made. The graphic labels "land speculation" as possible in the Los Banos area, not informing readers that a station at Los Banos was specifically outlawed when Prop 1A passed. No station is planned on the western side of the Pacheco Pass. There IS a station planned at Gilroy, but that alone doesn't induce sprawl - unless the site's supporters think Caltrain service to Gilroy does that already. South County has its sprawl issues, but those already exist without HSR, and residents of Gilroy have already shown their willingness to oppose sprawl (fighting a planned Wal-Mart supercenter, for example).

Embracing NIMBYism

Environmentalists who actually care about doing something to stop global warming should be extremely wary before getting into bed with NIMBYs. NIMBYs around the country have fought wind turbines, solar power generators, and the transmission lines needed to bring clean, sustainable, renewable power to cities that need them. Solutions designed to protect our environment and arrest the pace of global warming will necessarily impact communities in ways some won't like. We have to weigh their objections against the dire and pressing need to act to reduce pollution and reduce carbon emissions.

The environmentalists who put the website together have thrown all such caution to the win. Desperate to stop the Altamont alignment, they are busy fueling misleading NIMBY claims that WILL get used elsewhere in the state to attack the HSR project, presumably in places where the PCL (among others) claims to support HSR - like Pleasanton.

The site includes a paged titled Visualize What Disaster Looks Like. It's the old misleading "Berlin Wall" images from Menlo Park that we debunked back in March.

But that's not the most insane and crazy element of the unholy alliance between the PCL and the NIMBYs. On the contact page, which includes the list of organizations sponsoring the site, in bright red capital letters is written the statement "REMEMBER: THE CITY YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN!"

Umm...wow. Is that a message people who supposedly support the HSR project, as the PCL and the BayRail Alliance claim, want to spread? By claiming that HSR will destroy cities, they're inviting open season on the HSR project from other cities, including those along the Altamont alignment. Does the PCL want Fresno to sue? Do they want Fullerton to sue? This is madness.

Allying With Legislative Enemies

The final lunatic aspect of the site I want to examine is their alliance with a broken legislature and in particular with legislators whose opposition to high speed rail has frequently been demonstrated. The site encourages the broken legislature to exert "oversight despite the fact that the legislature is incapable of effectively doing so until that institution is repaired and restored to functionality. There is no better way to undermine the HSR project than to make it dependent on a legislature that can no longer effectively govern the state.

Especially when the site specifically calls out for praise known HSR opponents. One of these is Senator Roy Ashburn, who tried to postpone the Prop 1A vote beyond 2008. Here's what the site has to say about Ashburn, listing the members of the Senate Appropriations Committee (emphasis mine):

Below is a list of Senators on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Note that Senators Simitian, Yee, Cedillo, Corbett, and Oropeza, along with Senator Ashburn, are on both Committees. Senator Ashburn has been very sympathetic:

Perhaps the site would like to explain WHY Ashburn has been sympathetic? That he has worked hard in the last year or so to throw as many roadblocks and obstacles in the path of HSR as he can?

Although Alan Lowenthal is not singled out for praise (yet) on the site, he is one of the leading figures in the legislature trying to use "oversight" to destroy the project. This blog has frequently demonstrated Lowenthal's desire to chop the statewide project into disconnected pieces, to create a glorified commuter rail benefiting Southern California and presumably the Bay Area (although the alliance with Peninsula NIMBYs jeopardizes that).

There are more flaws with the website in question, but I've gone on long enough as is. The above should be enough to make it clear that the folks behind that site are not interested in telling Californians the truth about the high speed rail project, and certainly aren't interested in ensuring that HSR actually gets built.

In fact, as I will demonstrate tomorrow, the Planning and Conservation League has taken a leading role in trying to undermine California's application for federal HSR stimulus funds, thus jeopardizing the financial viability of the entire project. There's much, much more to come.

Is the State Legislature Going to Screw Up HSR?

The California State Legislature isn't exactly the most popular group of people these days. As the state budget crisis worsens - and as California's bond rating takes another hit - Californians are losing what little patience they had for their legislators, who remain unable to produce a budget solution. It's not for lack of trying, as the 2/3rds rule and Republican obstinacy has produced the ongoing delays and deficits. But it reflects poorly on the legislators, who are facing some of the lowest approval ratings ever.

It doesn't help matters when the Legislature proposes something that is manifestly stupid, wasteful, and unnecessary. And that is what has happened regarding high speed rail on the peninsula, where the legislature has caved to Peninsula NIMBYs at the possible cost of $1 billion in stimulus funds:

An obscure sentence inserted deep in a massive state budget bill could delay construction of the proposed high-speed rail route from San Jose to San Francisco, potentially costing the region more than $1 billion in federal stimulus money, high-speed rail planners said Monday.

The language requires that as a condition of getting $139 million next year from the state budget to hire staff and engineering firms, the state High Speed Rail Authority must study "alternative alignments" to the route along the Caltrain tracks, approved by the authority last July.

Though the bill has passed both chambers of the state Legislature, its fate is uncertain because it remains part of the bigger state budget imbroglio.

This is ridiculous. The CHSRA already studied the Peninsula corridor, already studied the Altamont alignment, and already concluded that the Caltrain corridor is the best solution. They spent 11 years on these studies. Neither the Legislature nor the Peninsula NIMBYs have any place calling for another study just because they didn't like the outcome of the first one.

This is especially troubling given the financial implications of the Legislature's meddling:

On Monday, Rod Diridon, a former Santa Clara County supervisor who sits on the high-speed rail board, said that restudying the route could jeopardize federal stimulus money that requires eligible projects have construction started by September 2012.

"If it were to stay in, only our corridor in the whole state would be penalized, and all the federal stimulus money would go to Southern California," Diridon said.

The San Jose-to-San Francisco route will be seeking $1.3 billion in stimulus money, Diridon said. Two other proposed high-speed-rail routes near Los Angeles also will be seeking similar amounts.

The Peninsula NIMBYs would be perfectly happy with this outcome - their goal is to kill the HSR project in their own backyard, and have shown no regard for fiscal responsibility (such as their proposal of an extremely costly tunnel without offering any method of paying for it).

But it would cost the state as much as $1 billion in HSR stimulus, which translates into thousands of jobs and a not insignificant boost to the local economy on the Peninsula, which in turn means rising tax receipts in Sacramento. I'm not surprised at the Peninsula NIMBYs for not caring about any of this. I am surprised at the Legislature for being incredibly reckless by approving this proposal.

Sen. Joe Simitian, who represents Palo Alto, understands as much, as he denied responsibility for this moronic provision:

Adding to the drama Monday was that neither Diridon nor any other member of the high-speed rail board said they knew who wrote the provision requiring the extra study.

"We're all mystified. The whole board was caught by surprise how the language got in the bill," Diridon said.

State Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto — whose constituents are most upset by the route — said he's not the author.

"That's not my language. I didn't have anything to do with it," he said.

Political skulduggery may not be to blame. In the rush to finish the budget, legislative staff members crafted the new requirement based on what Peninsula residents who testified at hearings and senators seemed to want, said Brian Annis, transportation budget consultant on the state Senate budget committee.

"We were incorporating many different comments and issues that staff and legislators were involved in," Annis said. "As far as the specific language, we drafted something we thought was workable."

So the problem seems to be in the Senate Budget Committee. There are a LOT of Senators on that committee - including one familiar name:

Senator Alan Lowenthal.

Now granted, we don't know whether he was responsible for this provision. But it would not surprise me if he were. Senator Lowenthal has been working for the last year to gut the HSR project. My assessment has always been that he wants to turn the HSR project into a vehicle to deliver funds to commuter rail projects in Southern California, and that he has no commitment to the statewide project, and certainly not to the route voters approved in Prop 1A at the November 2008 election.

Was he behind the provision in question that would undermine the HSR project AND cost California $1 billion in HSR stimulus? We don't know, but someone in the Legislature was, and they're currently trying to keep quiet. These things don't just wind up in the legislation by accident. California deserves to know who in the State Senate believes that a few NIMBYs should have the power to upend 11 years of studies and cost the state $1 billion in stimulus funding.

It's also time for the Legislature to stop meddling with the HSR project. The CHSRA exists to provide clear leadership and project management that isn't tied down by the vicissitudes - and, frankly, the incompetence - of the state legislature, which has shown itself incapable of offering anything positive toward the HSR project. The legislature needs to take advantage of the budget delay by stripping this provision from the bill, and ensuring that the legislature remains committed to the HSR project as approved by voters in November.

Questions for Senator Alan Lowenthal

I have to admit that after reading Senator Alan Lowenthal´s op-ed I am unconvinced that he has actually answered the charges leveled in the original ModBee editorial. And I remain convinced that the evidence shows Sen. Lowenthal does not support the HSR project that a majority of Californians approved in November 2008.

If he wants to ensure transparency and responsibility in how the funds are used, he can do that without messing with how the funds are allocated - including but not limited to the Central Valley maintenance hub.

These are separate matters. But Sen. Lowenthal has chosen to conflate the two, using concerns about "fiscal responsibility" as his cover to gut the system as he has always intended to do.

Since June 2008 this blog has tracked Sen. Lowenthal´s desire to gut the HSR system by turning it into a method to fund merely incremental commuter rail improvements in the Bay Area and SoCal. Nothing in Sen. Lowenthal´s apologia disproves that conclusion about his intentions.

Sen. Lowenthal has shown himself to be quite willing to distort the situation and leave out relevant facts to make the CHSRA look bad. This includes his refusal to mention in the op-ed that the 2008 Business Plan was delayed because of the 2008 state budget crisis, which left the CHSRA without the funds to pay for the business plan.

The report from the Legislative Analysts Office that Sen. Lowenthal requested earlier this year provides further evidence of his desire to cut the Central Valley out from the overall project.

Using "fiscal responsibility" to attack HSR is an old game, as we have also tracked at this blog for quite some time. It is distressing to see Sen. Lowenthal playing that game in order to undermine the HSR project. If Sen. Lowenthal wanted to truly and effectively defend himself, he would answer the following questions (I will give him space on this blog to do so, and will post his replies unedited):

1. Does he support the HSR project as approved by voters in November 2008 - which specified a 220mph train to connect SF to Anaheim via the Central Valley?

2. Will he refuse to be a party to any efforts to tear the HSR system into pieces?

3. Will he admit that the 2008 Business Plan would have been produced on-time had he and his fellow Senators approved the state budget by the constitutionally mandated deadline of June 30?

4. Will he apply his "fiscal responsibility" goals to the Peninsula portion of the project, namely the efforts by a small group of NIMBYs to force the CHSRA to build an tunnel that will cost many more billions of dollars than the business plans currently anticipate for both the Peninsula section and the project as a whole?

5. Will he promise the people of California that his efforts to ensure "fiscal responsiblity" will not jeopardize the state´s chances at winning billions in federal stimulus funding this year for the HSR project?

6. Will he commit to lobbying Congress to pass a Transportation Bill that fully funds the HSR Strategic Plan, and will he acknowledge that this would be sufficient to fully fund the HSR project as laid out in Prop 1A?

We await the Senator´s response.

Sen. Lowenthal Defends Himself

by Rafael

In a spirited op-ed piece in the Modesto Bee, Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach, pictured left) defends himself against earlier accusations ("Quit playing high-speed politics") that he was engaged in a "power grab" to prevent the use of prop 1A(2008) funds to construct a central maintenance facility for the HSR network somewhere in the Central Valley.

Lowenthal's claims his beef is not with the location of the maintenance site but something more profound: CHSRA's 2008 Business Plan, which he considers unsound. He notes that prop 1A(2008) only provides $9 billion of the $34 billion price tag he estimates for the entire starter line and that CHSRA has not yet actually secured the balance from non-state sources, i.e. Congress, local counties and cities and private investors. It also does not spell out contingency plans for coping with the possibility that the required funding will never materialize in full.

While claiming to be an ardent supporter of the HSR project, the State Senator has in fact taken a fiscally conservative stance: the state contribution should not be used for component projects such as a dedicated high-speed test track and maintenance facility that will only prove useful if and when HSR actually enters service in California - an outcome that is obviously contingent on securing all necessary funds for constructing the starter line. The whole public-private partnership concept allows CHSRA to remain rather more independent of financial oversight by the state legislature than is typical for a major public works project. Encouraging noises from Congress and the Administration are not enough to get this railroad built and as for private investors, those will come to the party late if at all. In other words, Lowenthal is a risk-averse pessimist who sees the glass as currently 3/4 empty.

Perhaps not as coincidentally as he would have us believe, spending the state funds conservatively implies priority for component projects at either end of the starter line. Orange County politicians, including Anaheim mayor Curt Pringle, insisted on tacking the LA Union Station to Anaheim ARTIC section onto the starter line to ensure at least a section of the BNSF Transcon line along highway 91 gets fully grade separated sooner rather than later. The ports of LA and Long Beach provide roughly one in seven jobs in the LA basin, so freight rail is a big deal both locally and at the state and federal levels. Note that the state-sponsored ACE project to eliminate or improve UPRR's grade crossings in the San Gabriel Valley is already underway.

Note that the Fullerton-Anaheim section is too narrow for quad tracking, so no more than 2-3 HSR trains per hour (each way, PDF p14) will actually serve Anaheim station.

By contrast, CHSRA has thus far taken an approach long favored by planners: build broad political support for the concept, accumulate funding contributions and proceed on the assumption that the balance will be forthcoming. Eventually, the sum already invested becomes so large that it makes more sense to finish the project than to scale back its ambitions or cancel it altogether. Once that tipping point is firmly on the horizon, negotiations with private investors will get down to brass tacks. In other words, the CHSRA board is a group of optimists who see the glass as already 1/4 full, with prospects for more brighter than ever.

This also explains why CHSRA want to prioritize not just the contentious SF peninsula but also the Central Valley test track and associated central maintenance facility: it anticipates these will be needed to secure the all-important "rule of special applicability" required before its engineering staff can pre-qualify vendors of proven, specialized HSR equipment and draw up a shortlist. If the history of HSR projects elsewhere in the world (e.g. Taiwan) is any guide, there will be significant political wrangling over manufacturing jobs etc. that CHSRA may want to stay out of.

On a related note, Susan A. Fleming, Director of Infrastructure Issues at the non-partisan Government Accountability Office released a statement to Congress yesterday underlining that FRA has a vision for HSR but not yet have a well-defined strategic plan or organization for developing it nationwide, beyond the disbursement of already-approved ARRA funds. In particular, she pointed out that $8 billion ($9.5 billion if you include the earlier PRIIA act) represents just a fraction of the federal funds needed to build the California network's starter line, never mind anything else. Implicitly, she questioned the wisdom of using short-term stimulus funds on HSR before Congress has decided to reorganize USDOT and allocate tens of billions in additional funds. To create lasting value for federal taxpayers, HSR must be elevated to a strategic shift in policy. Currently, the numbers suggest merely a make-work effort in the short term.

Fortunately, the next surface transportation bill outlined earlier this week would address the concerns GAO has raised. The snag is that this bill is still quite far from the President's desk.

Should CHSRA Be Abolished - Or Improved?

by Robert Cruickshank

Leaving no doubt as to where he stands on high speed rail (he hateses it!) Palo Alto Vice Mayor Jack Morton, who misrepresented reality to the Senate Budget Subcommittee last week in Sacramento is now demanding that the CHSRA be abolished:

Vice Mayor Jack Morton of Palo Alto caught City Council colleagues by surprise with a suggestion Monday night that perhaps California's High Speed Rail Authority ought to be dissolved.

He said the $40 billion rail project could be turned over to some other entity with staff that has experience handling large planning/construction projects -- possibly including even Caltrain.

Morton made the suggestion Monday night when he was reporting to the council and public on a trip he, Councilman Pat Burt, Deputy City Manager Steve Emslie and citizens and officials from other Peninsula communities made to Sacramento last Thursday to convey a key message: Don't allow the rail authority to override local concerns.

Morton said authority staff members at the subcommittee hearing revealed a general lack of experience in putting together a large-scale project, and there was a feeling that the planned $40 billion rail project needs a staff highly experienced with large-scale projects.

Unfortunately, as I have reported here before, Senator Joe Simitian seems to have fallen hook, line and sinker for this nonsense, agreeing to delay the CHSRA's $130 million bond money request.

Let me ask everyone this - if you believe an agency needs to "staff up" with people who have experience implementing a big project, why would you deny them the funding they need to accomplish this? It's like telling someone to repair their roof and then garnishing their wages.

Jack Morton and his fellow HSR deniers are hoping that if they kill the CHSRA, then they might be able to either destroy the project outright by neutering it along Sen. Alan Lowenthal's preferred lines (taking the money away from an SF-LA train and instead building glorified commuter rail) - or put it in the hands of a more pliable agency.

The CHSRA's strength is in its independence. It is an agency charged with the task of building a high speed train to connect SF to LA. Putting that power under a single agency is a smart move as it allows the agency to focus solely on building the train. Staff aren't being pulled away to look after the Pacific Surfliners as they might under a Department of Rail, or focus on a roads project as they might under Caltrans.

Further, "governance reform" has often been used as a trojan horse by those who want to kill a passenger rail project - as our friends up in Seattle discovered. Using claims that the Sound Transit agency was somehow flawed or in need of reform, various state legislators floated proposals that would have gutted the agency's ability to implement the light rail project voters had repeatedly supported. Sound Transit's supporters were able to fend off governance reform, although various forms of it still crop up from time to time.

That all being said, this blog's focus is, has always been, and will always be to support the best implementation of the SF-LA high speed rail plan. We want it built, but we want it built right. If there are legitimate ways to improve the CHSRA to help build HSR, we're more than open to it. What we rightly and strongly reject are calls for "reform" by known HSR opponents.

Which takes us to the state legislature, which already has several bills floating around that would impact the work of the CHSRA and the HSR project itself. Some of them are worth supporting, others are not. They include:

SB 455 (Lowenthal): Despite its author, this one actually looks workable. It would provide the CHSRA with more eminent domain power, which it needs to quickly, affordably, and efficiently build the system. It also provides for Senate confirmation of CHSRA board members, which might politicize the agency's work but is something I could probably live with. The bill would also mandate the creation of a project schedule, which I'm all for.

AB 289 (Galgiani): This would make clear that existing CEQA exemptions for building grade separations for existing tracks would be extended to the CHSRA as well. I am all for this, as it could prove an invaluable asset to ensure that the project gets underway in a timely fashion.

In fact, I believe we should go further and exempt the entire CHSRA project from CEQA entirely. Instead we should set up an alternative method to evaluate the project's environmental benefits, one that includes carbon emissions, impact on pollutants, impact on traffic and sprawl, and renewable energy and gasoline savings, while making absolutely clear that non-environmental issues, like aesthetics and "community values" are excluded from the evaluation process. NIMBYs have found ways to abuse the CEQA process, and a project like HSR is too important to allow to be held up like that.

Two other bills are less welcome:

SB 783 (Ashburn): Would mandate yet another business plan, this time by September 1, 2009. I do not believe this bill is being offered in good faith, since Senator Ashburn surely knows that September 1 is not enough time for an agency whose funds are once again the subject of political wrangling to produce this plan. This bill should be rejected out of hand.

SB 409 (Ducheny): This is the 2009 version of Senator Denise Moreno Ducheny's Department of Railroads bill. It would transfer the CHSRA to the new DOR as a specific division within that department, and move all other passenger rail projects to the DOR as well. I've always said I'm open to this concept, and I'm not going to close the door on it entirely - but it doesn't strike me as a necessary move, and brings with it the risk that passenger rail funding could be ghettoized.

Ultimately the key issue here is that there is no real or strong pro-HSR leadership in Sacramento. And that enables the Peninsula NIMBYs to fill a vacuum. Why aren't Central Valley, or Los Angeles, or San Francisco and San Jose legislators firing back against Palo Alto's effort to dictate terms to the rest of the state? Those regions have an enormous stake in this project and their representatives should not tolerate their colleagues' effort to kill HSR or to give fuel to a small and unrepresentative group of people who are trying to reverse the will of the people and destroy one of this country's cornerstone projects for the 21st century.

And just so we have a sense of perspective, two people have been killed in recent days along the Caltrain tracks. That is what the Peninsula NIMBYs are so determined to defend. Makes me sick.

Senators Lowenthal and Simitian Are Getting Played

by Robert Cruickshank

One of the drawbacks of using an independent authority to manage and build the high speed rail project here in California is that it risks not having enough political support to properly do its job. And that may be what we're witnessing here in California, as two state senators - Joe Simitian and Alan Lowenthal - are launching an attack on the California High Speed Rail Authority and its funding. Unfortunately, this attack, particularly in Senator Simitian's case, is based on outright lies being told to him by a very small group of people on the Peninsula who want Simitian to step in and overturn the will of the voters by changing the route of the high speed train.

As related in a recent Palo Alto Online article:

A state Senate subcommittee Thursday expressed concerns about the structure and business plan of the California High Speed Rail Authority -- the agency charged with building the $40 billion rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles....


Simitian said the community's message was "loud and clear." The subcommittee agreed to hold off on authorizing the funds and urged rail-authority officials to expand their outreach efforts.

The senators heard from about 30 concerned Peninsula residents who made a morning trek to Sacramento to lobby for more oversight and transparency.

"What we really asked for is for them to change the structure of who is running this," Palo Alto Vice Mayor Jack Morton, one of the speakers, said.

"It's quite clear that the high-speed rail staff is insensitive to the community and has no ability to be responsible for the funds," he said.

Simitian said the nature of the rail authority has changed over the past few months from a small study group advocating a high-speed rail line to an organization actually building the line. Now is the time to consider changes that would bring more oversight and more community outreach to the process, he said.

"We deferred action in part to ensure that before the funds are authorized for the coming year that we see a stepped-up program for outreach and oversight," Simitian told the Weekly.

Simitian is getting played. There's no other way to put it. Those "30 concerned Peninsula residents" include opponents of the high speed rail project, people who want to exercise an unfair and illegitimate amount of power over the project. They believe that unless the HSR project is compromised and weakened to suit their outdated and anti-environmental preferences, then the project should be killed - and they're working to line up Senate support for it.

I will be blunt here - Vice Mayor Jack Morton lied to the committee, if his words as quoted by Gennady Sheyner are accurate. "Insensitive to the community" is Morton's own distorted spin on events, since there is no evidence whatsoever of such insensitivity. Palo Alto has been regularly consulted. The CHSRA extended the Peninsula EIR comment period to accommodate Palo Alto. The CHRSA has also created a working group with Peninsula cities, including Palo Alto.

Even worse is Morton's lie about CHSRA irresponsibility with funds. As we have explained here the CHSRA's work has been hamstrung by financial factors totally outside its control - the state legislature refuses to pass a budget on time and CHSRA staff and contractors go unpaid; the state can't or won't sell the Prop 1A bonds; Arnold Schwarzenegger tries to zero out CHSRA funding (which he attempted to do in 2007).

Jack Morton should be ashamed of himself for making such blatant misrepresentations of the truth to a legislative committee like that. It is disreputable and makes the city of Palo Alto - which in reality has a diverse set of opinions on HSR, including a large number, probably a majority, of residents who back the project.

As for Joe Simitian, I don't really know where he has been, but as far as HSR is concerned he seems to have been out to lunch. The CHSRA has already worked proactively to provide even stronger community engagement.

Let's be clear here. This isn't about CHSRA's supposed failure to engage the community. This is about a small but loud group of NIMBYs who want to kill HSR outright who are doing the equivalent of whining to mom and dad when they don't get their way. They are making up things to undermine the CHSRA in pursuit of their actual goal - gutting the project - which is quite clear from the statements quoted in the article:

Hundreds have attended community and council meetings to raise alarms about the potential of an elevated wall splitting the city, and to express concerns about the possibility of having portions of their property's seized through eminent domain.

Palo Alto Councilman Pat Burt emphasized the eminent domain issue at Monday's council meeting, calling it the "elephant in the room."

Pat Burt is not being straight with the council or the public, since eminent domain takings are expected to be VERY small. I am also concerned with Yoriko Kishimoto's statements, which may indicate a "tunnel or nothing" attitude:

Councilwoman Yoriko Kishimoto, who organized a coalition of Peninsula cities that meets weekly to discuss high-speed rail issues, said city officials are now discussing a variety of proposals they'd like Sacramento legislators to consider.

The coalition, which met Friday morning, wants the rail authority to use the "Context Sensitive Solutions" developed by the Federal Highway Administration in designing the new rail line. The method emphasizes stakeholder involvement and design elements that integrate the project with the surrounding communities.

Kishimoto said the coalition also plans to request that the rail authority conduct an economic analysis for the various design alternatives concurrently with its environmental review of the options.

"We don't want to go through all the environmental analysis only to find at the very end of the two-year process that the tunnel is not feasible," Kishimoto said.

Yoriko, I can tell you right now the tunnel is NOT feasible from an economic perspective unless your city plans to pay for it. It's really that simple.

Further, this who "Context Sensitive Solutions" concept is total bullshit unless it includes the true context of HSR. That method must necessarily include:

• The impact of HSR on carbon emissions
• The jobs and economic benefits of HSR
• The benefits of high speed passenger rail and the costs of automobile congestion
• The impact of rising gas prices
• Safety upgrades of grade separations along the Caltrain corridor

Further, who exactly is the "community" that is at stake here? Palo Alto residents are implying they're the only community that matters, and that is nonsense. Such "Context Sensitive Solutions" need to be examined against the needs of the state as a whole if this exercise is to have any legitimacy whatsoever. Palo Alto believes that their needs trump the needs of everyone else. They are wrong about this, as they are about to discover.

The other part of the article notes that Senator Alan Lowenthal of Long Beach is on the subcommittee and joined in the attack on the CHSRA. At this point I am forced to conclude Lowenthal is an HSR denier - someone who not only refuses to acknowledge the benefits of HSR, but who persists in spreading incorrect information and even disinformation about HSR. We have discussed Lowenthal before - his report from June designed to undermine the HSR project ahead of the Prop 1A vote, and his successful effort to get the Legislative Analyst to produce a flawed report on the CHSRA Business Plan.

As long as Senator Lowenthal is in office it seems he is going to try and kill high speed rail. Unfortunately he may now be joined by Senator Simitian, who has gullibly bought the BS being sold by Palo Alto interests who hope to kill the project, or to severely weaken its ability to provide for California's needs.

CHSRA also needs stronger institutional support inside the Capitol. That was supposed to be Quentin Kopp's role, as he was a former state senator, but clearly more is needed. I don't know if that means some changes to the board, or whether it means other Senators need to step up and chide their colleagues for trying to undermine a core initiative not just of California but of President Barack Obama.

Make no mistake - Peninsula NIMBYs are trying to sneak a gutting of the HSR project through the state legislature. They are out of their minds if they think we're going to let them happen.

The first step is to contact Senators Simitian and Lowenthal and ask them why they are opposing the will of the people and trying to undermine the HSR project.

Sen. Joe Simitian
Email page
(650) 688-6384
(916) 651-4011 (Capitol office)

Sen. Alan Lowenthal
Direct email
(562) 495-4766
(916) 651-4027 (Capitol Office)

The LAO and Sen. Alan Lowenthal Attack the HSR Project

Over the last year it's become quite clear that the California High Speed Rail Authority is not exactly the most beloved of state institutions. Arnold Schwarzenegger has tried to kill its funding streams, notably in the 2007-08 budget. Quentin Kopp and Rod Diridon are distrusted by some on the Peninsula and in the Santa Clara Valley. The CHSRA's ongoing financial problems, a creation of the state budget mess, make it more difficult for the Authority to effectively plan the system, and wind up reinforcing some of the negative perceptions of the agency.

I have consistently rejected most of the more conspiratorial criticisms of the CHSRA. I don't see the point in making bogeymen out of Quentin Kopp and Rod Diridon. Sometimes I agree with the Authority's decisions, sometimes I do not, but as a supporter of the project and someone who believes in evidence and reality, I think they're generally a good agency that tries to make the best of a troubled state government, and an overall lack of political leadership for the high speed rail project in California. Quentin Kopp in particular has a tendency to be rather forceful in his public statements, but given the general unwillingness of California politicians to speak out in defense of the project, can you blame him?

One of the CHSRA's more persistent critics has been Democratic State Senator Alan Lowenthal of Long Beach. Lowenthal, you may remember, was behind the flawed report put out by the Senate Transportation Committee last summer that proposed gutting the high speed rail project in favor of turning it into a glorified commuter rail. One hoped that the passage of Prop 1A - which got 55% in LA County - would have shown Sen. Lowenthal the need to support the vision of fast intercity trains connecting SF to LA. But no dice. Sen. Lowenthal is now targeting the CHSRA, but in ways that suggest he is still out to undermine the project itself.

Sen. Lowenthal recently requested an assessment of the CHSRA from the California Legislative Analyst's Office, which you can find as a PDF here. Under Elizabeth Hill, the former Legislative Analyst, the LAO was seen as one of the most respected, informed, and nonpartisan sources of information in the Capitol. Under the new head of the LAO, Mac Taylor, I have instead noticed a steady rightward drift in the work product of the LAO. Sen. Lowenthal appears to have found a willing partner in his effort to undermine the high speed rail project, by using an attack on problems with the CHSRA to mask an attack on the project itself.

Some of the recommendations make sense, including having Caltrans play a larger role in helping vet some of the CHSRA's funding requests and acquisition of federal HSR money. Some are not that useful or necessary, but aren't objectionable, such as the "more oversight and accountability!" portions. Worth noting for a moment that what HSR needs most isn't oversight and accountability, but political support from California leaders and a commitment to getting this thing built the right way. That is nowhere to be found in this report.

One of the more troubling aspects of the LAO report is their lack of context when criticizing the 2008 Business Plan. The LAO lists some specific things that were missing, and concludes:

The information provided by the revised plan is very general and does not provide specifics that are included in typical business plans. In particular, the plan does not provide any better sense of how the authority would accomplish the objective of developing, constructing, and operating a high-speed rail system.

But this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, for the LAO report does not mention - anywhere, at all - that the 2008 Business Plan was delayed and undermined by the state budget delay, as Quentin Kopp explained last October. I wonder how the LAO would perform if it were asked to deliver their usual in-depth analyses of the state budget but were denied the funding to produce that study. It is quite dishonest of the LAO to criticize the business plan without mentioning the budget delay.

By far the most egregious portion of the LAO report is the reappearance of Sen. Lowenthal's effort to gut the HSR project - this time in the guise of a neutral analysis from the LAO. Here's the offending language:

Project Selection Criteria Should Encourage Immediate Mobility Benefits. The authority plans to commit the majority of the Proposition 1A bond funds early in the project. It is important that the funds be spent on projects that benefit the state's overall transportation system in case the high-speed train program is delayed or suspended. We recommend that the authority be required to adopt project selection criteria that prioritizes the use of bond funds to the delivery of projects with the greatest immediate mobility benefits.

Come on, admit it, until you read that you probably thought I was being overly dramatic. But there's no other way to read that section as anything other than an attack on the HSR project itself. Shouldn't the LAO be in the business of trying to carry out the will of the voters and ensure the project gets built? Sure, there's always a nonzero possibility the project will be delayed or suspended. But isn't the best way to prevent that to ensure that project funds actually go to the HSR project itself?

By prioritizing "projects that benefit the state's overall transportation system" the LAO is doing several things. First, they're saying that HSR is NOT part of the overall transportation system, which is nonsense. Second, they are saying that the long-term mobility needs of the state - which HSR is designed to serve - are irrelevant. Third, they are suggesting that the system planning be compromised in order to serve "immediate mobility benefits" even if doing so will undermine the ability of the project to be completed effectively, on-time, and on-budget.

Besides, virtually every part of the HSR proposal can provide "immediate mobility benefits" - from upgrading the Caltrain corridor to starting work on the Transbay Terminal to building track in the Central Valley or grade crossings along the Metrolink corridor in LA County.

Some readers might say I'm reading too much into this, that it's not necessarily an attack on the HSR project. But read this in the context of Sen. Lowenthal's nonsense HSR report from June 2008, which included this recommendation:

6. Ensure that the Authority stages its construction program so that state funds are used on regional segments of the high-speed rail corridor, before developing the long distance link between the state’s major urban centers, i.e., Los Angeles and San Francisco. It is possible that the rail bond program could be approved by voters before the Authority has an approved financial plan that includes state, federal, and private resources. In that case, it is important that the first expenditures of state money should be used for improving regional travel segments where rights-of-way may be shared with commuter operators, Amtrak, freight railroads, and eventually high-speed rail.

It's almost exactly the same language, and clearly making the same overall point. As I wrote at the time:

the State Senate Transportation Committee led by Alan Lowenthal wants to turn the HSR project into commuter rail, and gut the "killer app" aspect of HSR - providing sustainable, non-oil based travel within the state of California. It flies in the face of the stats listed in the study suggesting that the long-distance link is what will make HSR financially viable.

Unfortunately Sen. Lowenthal has gotten the LAO to join his attack on the HSR project. A shame.

I'm all for improvements to the CHSRA. I'm even open to the "Department of Railroads" concept proposed by Senator Denise Ducheny in SB 409. But not every recommendation is a good one. We must support the good ones, and fight the ones designed to gut the HSR project in the mask of "reform."

The California high speed rail system is still facing determined opposition from the usual suspects, even after the passage of Prop 1A. Passenger rail advocates need to not let up their activism at a time like this if we are to avoid becoming the third state to approve and then kill an HSR project. This project is too important to let die.

UPDATE: State Treasurer Bill Lockyer and the Pooled Money Investment Board are going to try and sell $4 billion in bonds this week - but they have not decided whether to give $29.1 million of that to the CHSRA despite Mehdi Morshed's stated concern that the CHSRA would have to shut down without it. However, things do look promising:

Tom Sheehy, who was sitting in on the investment board for Finance Director Mike Genest, said he came to the meeting prepared to support the high-speed rail loan, but decided to wait until the board meets again in two weeks. By then, he said, board members will know if next week's bond sale was successful.

Morshed said he would ask the project's engineering and environmental-review contractors to keep working, banking on the assumption that the loan will be approved in two weeks and they'll get paid.

"With the Department of Finance's strong support I think we're probably in good shape," he said.