Fresno Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth Is For Maintenance Hub

We've been following the growing contest among San Joaquin Valley cities for the main maintenance hub for the CHSRA system. Back in March CHSRA said Merced's Castle Airport was their first choice for the hub location, and Merced County officials have been strongly pursuing that. The contest has become more competitive, with Madera County proposing a site near Chowchilla, and Bakersfield proposing a site as well. Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin has been working to bring the hub to Fresno, an effort that may get a big boost from Fresno County:

Fresno County leaders may divert funds from Measure C, the county's half-cent transportation sales tax, to attract a high-speed rail maintenance yard that could employ 1,500 skilled workers....

But Fresno County is assuming it will need to line up a site to get serious consideration.

A task force of county officials and other local leaders has already chosen an undisclosed site along the system's route on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe corridor in rural southern Fresno County. The cost could be as much as $40 million....

But Anderson made clear that she thinks the most likely source is Measure C -- specifically a $37 million fund reserved for "new technologies such as personal rapid transit or similar system."

Although some in Fresno County raised cautions about redirecting Measure C money, I cannot imagine a better or more appropriate use for that $37 million than a maintenance hub. Personal rapid transit is a silly technology that shouldn't take priority over funding an HSR maintenance hub, should CHSRA decide Fresno is the best location for it.

Another possible funding pool is much less desirable for redirecting to the hub:

The council's staff also suggested that part of the measure's $106 million fund for moving the Fresno's BNSF tracks to the Union Pacific corridor could be diverted to the maintenance yard project. That drew fire from rail consolidation advocates.

"Make no mistake, folks: They're not talking about borrowing funds from rail consolidation," said Tom Bailey of Fresno Area Residents for Rail Consolidation. "They're talking about flat taking."

Fresno should move much more cautiously before diverting funds from consolidation to the hub. The Fresno rail consolidation project is a very good project that deserves to be supported, not defunded for a maintenance hub.

CHSRA has also evolved its own stance away from their March comments in favor of Castle Airport:

The authority's Central Valley regional director, Carrie Bowen, said the board is determined "to make this as competitive as possible."

Candidates will have to "identify what they can do" for the project, she said. In most cases, that will mean providing an estimated 154 acres in a shape appropriate for a train yard -- long and narrow.

A competitive process is desirable, but local governments shouldn't toss other worthy projects overboard to win the hub. Of course, PRT does not count as a "worthy project," so moving the $37 million in Measure C money is not only a wise policy move, it would seem to fit the letter and spirit of the voter-approved language, since HSR is after all a "new technology," at least as far as California is concerned.

CHSRA Staff Recommendation for Phase 2 Stimulus Funding

California High Speed Rail Authority staff have released their recommendations for funding applications for the Phase 2 of the federal stimulus this fall. They focus on "design/build" in four corridors:

1. San Francisco to San José ($1.28 billion)

2. Merced to Fresno ($466 million)

3. Fresno to Bakersfield ($819 million)

4. Los Angeles to Anaheim ($2 billion)

The application also includes funding for preliminary work in all the corridors of the planned HSR route, including the Sacramento and San Diego extensions.

The four "design/build" corridors would enable actual construction of trackage to commence, though to varying levels of completion. Only the Caltrain corridor would include full electrification, and there it would also include Positive Train Control (PTC), along with the San Bruno curve and other "high-priority" grade separations. Merced to Fresno and Fresno to Bakersfield would see tracks built, but no electrification or PTC. (Merced to Fresno is to be along the UPRR/CA-99 corridor, which is obviously going to be an issue; Fresno to Bakersfield is via BNSF corridor.) LA to Anaheim would be everything except electrification (including PTC).

Given the limited possibilities of the way the stimulus is written, this is a pretty sensible approach. Getting PTC and electrification on the Caltrain corridor is an extremely high priority both for Caltrain's survival and for getting HSR seeded on the Peninsula. The trackwork in the Valley will help enable the test track, and getting LA to Anaheim mostly built means it won't take much to get genuine HSR up and running in an extremely high-profile corridor.

Notice that the Merced-Bakersfield piece has been defined as two segments. CHSRA staff are recommending that both segments be pursued in the stimulus funding application. But the possibility that only one of the two could get funded is generating some unease in the San Joaquin Valley:

On Tuesday the Tulare County Board of Supervisors will vote to intervene in contention centered on a potential high speed rail line in the San Joaquin Valley.

The supervisors will take a stand on whether or not a segment of rail should stretch from Bakersfield to Merced, or only to the halfway point in Fresno.

Federal money to design and build the rail is now available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, however some have suggested that only one of the segments should be submitted to the Federal Rail Administration for funding.

The California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley has suggested that valley officials advocate for the entire system, as voters approved a statewide high speed rail system with the passage of Proposition 1A in 2008.

A decision on how the far the rail should extend, and to what counties, is expected to be made Sept. 23 at a special meeting held by the San Joaquin Valley Policy Council.

As you can see by the staff recommendation, CHSRA is committing itself to funding BOTH segments of the Valley corridor. But that may not be enough for key players in the Valley, who want to ensure that HSR isn't built in pieces.

Overall I think this is a sound approach to the federal stimulus, given the limitations of the ARRA law. The only concern I have is that there's nothing for the construction of the mountainous segments through the Pacheco and Tehachapi Passes, but there's probably no way those plans can be "shovel ready" by September 2012, as ARRA requires.

Have at it in the comments.

Bakersfield Gets A Look At the High Speed Train

The CHSRA is taking their scoping meetings to the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley this week, including a stop in Bakersfield:

As a structural engineer, longtime Bakersfield resident Ed Creswell is thrilled that America's first bullet trains will fly right through his city's downtown district.

"It's a great project," he said. "And I'm excited for our community."

But for Ed, his wife Judy and some of their neighbors there's also a downside: The 220-mph electric rail line is being routed right through his Rosedale-area neighborhood on an elevated track 30- to 40-feet off the ground. And that will affect property values and the quality of life in their horse-friendly tract.

"A lot of families have been out there 35 to 40 years or more," Creswell said. "They're not really anxious to move."

The article doesn't tell us what the Creswells came away from the meeting thinking about the HSR project. Obviously there are residents in Bakersfield who, as in Santa Fe Springs and Palo Alto, to name just a few cities, are wondering how to strike a balance between their desire for HSR and their concerns about how it will impact their communities. I am sure there will be some NIMBYs reading this saying "HA! See, it's not just us folks that are upset about this" - but that would be missing the point of a Bakersfield newspaper's anecdote of ONE homeowner who doesn't seem to be espousing any NIMBY ideas at all.

The rest of the article does a pretty poor job of informing readers about the route and the outstanding decisions left to be made. It does include this colorful quote from CHSRA regional director Carrie Bowen:

While there will be some noise associated with these rolling bullets, there will be no rattling, no clackety-clack of rail noise -- and the on-board ride will be so smooth, you won't spill your beer while walking back to your seat, Bowen said.

All I know is that on the first SF to Anaheim trip circa 2020 - and I fully intend to be on that first train - I'm going to have so much champagne I don't know if I will even be able to stand.

The Bakersfield Californian also had an interesting op-ed from Danny Gilmore, a Republican member of the CA Assembly (who won his seat last November in an extremely close and contentious race). Gilmore expresses strong support for HSR:

Moreover, as California and the state both grapple with a struggling economy, it is important to respond to the areas of greatest need when opportunities for employing our workforce exist. The Central Valley has the highest unemployment rates in the state with areas experiencing a staggering 40 percent of people without jobs. These are not the unwilling or unfit to work, these are former farm workers, mechanics, construction workers and others who have the skills, ability and desire to work.

The Depression-era reality for many rural communities of the Central Valley showcases the greatest need for new jobs that will help buttress the state and local economy as well as put people back to work.

The Central Valley has experienced hardships unlike anywhere else in the state. Restrictions on water to our farms, a crippled dairy economy and the ripple effect of high unemployment and businesses closing their doors have made the Central Valley the epicenter of this recession. When you pair the logic of starting this project, with the Bakersfield to Merced corridor, and the great need for such a project in these areas, the choice to do so in the Central Valley is a clear win-win.

I urge the Federal Rail Authority to award funding to the Bakersfield to Merced corridor as the best option for bringing high-speed rail to fruition in California. I hope that they also see that the intent of this funding is to address the need for good jobs in areas that are struggling to survive.

Kudos to Gilmore for understanding what too few of his fellow Republicans grasp: that federal spending is absolutely necessary to deal with this severe recession, and that HSR is as good a project as any to deliver those jobs.

CHSRA is hosting two more scoping meetings for the Bakersfield-Palmdale segment:

Tehachapi
September 16, 3:00-7:00 p.m.
Stallion Springs Community Center
27850 Stallion Springs Dr.
Tehachapi, CA 93561

Palmdale
September 17, 3:00-7:00 p.m.
Chimbole Cultural Center
38350 Sierra Highway
Palmdale, CA 93550

Will the California Farm Bureau Join the 21st Century?

So this is an odd article (from the California Farm Bureau):

As the state's High-Speed Rail Authority plans an 800-mile high-speed rail system that will help alleviate congestion on roadways and transport passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a little over two and a half hours, California's agricultural landscape is likely to change dramatically.

An estimated 300 miles of the project is expected to go through the Central Valley—one of the most productive farming regions in the world.

"There has been a real concern by agriculture about the route that the California high-speed rail project ends up taking and how it is going to impact those properties, as well as properties adjacent to the proposed project corridor," said Andrea Fox, California Farm Bureau Federation governmental affairs legislative coordinator. "While the routes of the project are being planned, we cannot lose sight of the many benefits of California agriculture, not only to support the state and nation economically, but to feed people locally and around the world."

This doesn't really make sense. The ROW they're looking at is very narrow, and follows an existing rail corridor. Sure, some farmland will be lost, but the amount we're looking at is a tiny percentage of the overall acreage in the San Joaquin Valley. It's not like this thing is a 12-lane freeway.

Further, it's totally unclear how HSR would itself have a negative impact on farmland or farmers. It would free up valuable freight rail space, and make it less necessary to have to widen either Highway 99 or Interstate 5, projects that could also wind up taking farmland.

What really seems to be going on here is a concern about sprawl, as well as a desire to use bond money for ag interests:

Merced County Farm Bureau Executive Director Diana Westmoreland Pedrozo foresees this project as creating real problems for the future of agriculture in the Central Valley.

"Unless the state has some real land-use rules to be attached to this project, it will be a nightmare for agriculture," Pedrozo said. "So far, my local, regional and state governments have not given me any confidence in their ability to actually protect and preserve our ability to feed our future generations and ourselves. You are talking about the only place on earth that can do what we do."...

"CFBF supports the concept of mass transit, but we must insist on protecting agricultural land and preventing urban sprawl. Because our success depends on a healthy environment, we are committed to solutions that work," Fox said. "Considering California's projected $21.3 billion budget deficit and the existing $100 billion bond indebtedness, coupled with the need for new water projects and improvements to existing transportation and other infrastructure, we are concerned about cost-effectiveness of this project."

The irony is that we who support HSR are some of the strongest supporters of preserving agricultural land and preventing sprawl. As we've explained numerous times on this blog, HSR is a much better way to limit sprawl, as it encourages in-fill transit-oriented development as opposed to sprawl. I have also repeatedly expressed my belief that the state should push through land use rules strictly limiting sprawl in critical agricultural areas like the San Joaquin Valley, the Sacramento Valley, the Salinas Valley, the Imperial Valley, Ventura County, and other places.

The rest of Andrea Fox's comment there shows that like many other local Farm Bureaus in the state, the California Farm Bureau is hopelessly locked into a 20th century model of how state infrastructure should look. They seem to want more freeways and roads, yet don't understand how that brings more sprawl than HSR would. Whereas HSR would channel population growth to existing cities, freeways would channel it to exurbs. Instead of making Fresno more dense, the Farm Bureau seems to support letting Los Banos sprawl all over the place. It makes no sense from the stance of preserving agricultural land.

California does have a water problem. But that problem is driven partly by global warming, which is causing less rain to fall in the state. Shouldn't the Farm Bureau, whose members are by far the largest consumers of water in the state, be supportive of methods to cut down on carbon emissions and slow the rate of global warming so as to slow the decline in average annual rainfall?

Further, the San Joaquin Valley has some of the nation's worst air quality. Surely the Farm Bureau supports clean air for its workers, its crops, and its neighbors?

The California Farm Bureau is picking a fight with the wrong people. HSR and its supporters are allies of California agriculture, not its enemies. It's time the California Farm Bureau embraced sustainable and carbon-neutral transportation. In return we will be more than happy to embrace their effort to stop sprawl. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Richard Florida on HSR, Mega-Regions, and Our Economic Future

Over at The Atlantic, economic geographer Richard Florida has been writing about the economic impact of high speed rail. He believes HSR is a centerpiece of the long-term shift in America's economy - specifically in where economic activity is going to be concentrated. In a March 2009 article he argued that "mega-regions" would emerge from this recession as the location of most economic growth. Just as the "Long Depression" of 1873-1896 shifted the industrial economy from smaller towns like Rochester, NY and Lowell, Mass. to big cities like Chicago and New York, just as the Great Depression eventually produced a shift to suburbs, and as the 1970s stagflation produced a shift to the Sunbelt, the current crisis will accelerate a shift to 11 US "mega-regions". Two of them, "NorCal" and "SoCal", are here in the Golden State - and both are laid out exactly along the proposed HSR route.

The key insight of Florida's argument is that "mega-region" is more expansive than what we currently consider to be a "region." He argues that new technologies and proximity to dynamic economic centers will produce a new geography of growth:

New periods of geographic expansion require new systems of infrastructure. Ever since the days of the canals, the early railroad, and streetcar suburbs, we've seen how infrastructure and transportation systems work to spur new patterns economic and regional development. The streetcar expanded the boundaries of the late 19th and early 20th century city, while the railroad moved goods and people between them. The automobile enabled workers to move to the suburbs and undertake far greater commutes, expanding the geographic landscape still further.

Mega-regions, if they are to function as integrated economic units, require better, more effective, and faster ways move goods, people, and ideas. High-speed rail accomplishes that, and it also provides a framework for future in-fill development along its corridors. Just as development filled-in along the early street-car lines and the post-war highways, high-speed rail will encourage denser, more compact, and concentrated development with growth filling in along its routes over time. Spain's new high-speed rail link between Barcelona and Madrid not only massively reduced commuting times between these two great Spanish cities, according to a recent New York Times report, it has also helped revitalize several declining locations along the line.

What exactly does this mean for California? It means the integration of Modesto, Merced, Fresno and Bakersfield into either the NorCal or SoCal mega-region. Someone can work in Silicon Valley and live in Merced. Now, you might argue "that happens already." But there's a key difference using HSR - faster commutes at a lower cost. Freed from dependence on oil, workers will carry more take-home pay and can invigorate the economies of Central Valley cities. And companies that want to take advantage of the "knowledge economy" using the "creative class" of workers that Florida emphasizes can relocate to one of these mega-region towns, like Fresno, and attract workers from what we now consider to be a "reverse commute".

Already I'm sure this is setting off some folks' sprawl alarms. But as I have consistently argued before on this blog, there's no real reason that revitalizing Fresno or Bakersfield has to mean sprawl at all. HSR stations will themselves encourage greater urban densities. And sprawl itself was a product of the 20th century economic conditions that are dying, and in whose death the mega-region is emerging as the basis of future growth. Sprawl requires cheap oil, cheap credit and favorable land use laws. We're pretty much done with the first, done with the second (even when the credit crunch is over, credit will never again be as cheap as it was in the late 20th century), and laws like AB 32 and SB 375 are changing the third component.

Today Florida expands upon this point, responding to a point Seeking Alpha made about the resurgence of Baltimore and Philadelphia thanks to HSR, enabling those cities to tap into the prosperity and creativity of Washington DC and NYC:

Mega-region hubs are becoming more economically central to our spiky world. There's no getting around this. Chicago has in effect sucked up scads of economic functions that used to be done by other second- and third-tier Midwest cities. On the east coast, Baltimore and Philadelphia and, yes, Washington, D.C. have prospered because of transit connections, including relatively fast rail, which has allowed them to grow by hiving off pieces of economic activity attracted into the world city orbit of New York.

What we are seeing is the further deepening of the spatial division of labor: Suburbia is being stretched in a process of ever more intensive and expansive geographic development.

There's a lesson there for the industrial Midwest and for other regions of the country, North America, and the world. Those places that positon themselves for this new era of spiky, geographic growth and which have the infrastructure that connects them to major centers will prosper, while those that do not will likely fall behind even further.

In short, Florida helps us provide a very clearly argued explanation of exactly how high speed rail is vital to California's economic future. Whereas some in this state delude themselves that the 20th century model of automobile dependence and sprawl can still somehow produce growth, Florida says that is a recipe for turning California into Michigan - too deeply locked into an economic geography that is no longer able to provide economic growth.

California has to change if we are to thrive and prosper in the 21st century. High speed rail is an indispensible component of that shift.

Sunday Open Thread: Central Valley + Sunnyvale

UPDATE: The Fresno Bee reports that CHSRA is hosting additional scoping meetings for the project-level EIR/EIS process.

Tuesday, March 24, 3-7pm: Visalia Convention Center
Wednesday, March 25, 3-7pm: Fresno Convention Center Exhibit Hall

If you're planning to attend, the following questions need answers IMHO:
a) where is CHSRA at in ROW negotiations with BNSF for south Fresno - Bakersfield?
b) where is CHSRA at in ROW negotiations with UPRR for south Fresno - Merced (- Stockton)?
c) how fast does CHSRA intend to run HSR express trains (SF-SJ-LA-Anaheim stops only) in the Central Valley, specifically in the downtown areas of Fresno, Bakersfield and smaller towns along the way?
d) is CHSRA considering noise mitigation measures to support those speeds and, how effective are those at the speeds express trains will run at in the Central Valley?
e) if UPRR is not willing to share or part with its ROW through Fresno, has any thought been given to a western bypass - through farmland - for both HSR and BNSF/Amtrak San Joaquin?

As part of any such a grand bargain, the city/county of Fresno would need to commit to operating a new DMU-based light rail service ("Fresno Flyer", cp. NCTD Sprinter and SMART) on the current BNSF alignment through downtown. This Flyer would connect to both a North Fresno station near Gregg (also serving Madera via connecting regional buses) and a South Fresno station near Bowles (also serving Hanford-Visalia-Tulare, also via buses). Any HSR train that was due to stop in Fresno anyhow would then stop instead at one of these "beet field" stations - but not the other. BNSF's Calwa yard would be used for the new Flyer service and a new one built for BNSF's freight operations at a suitable location elsewhere - not a trivial decision for BNSF.

The trade-off would be between a downtown HSR station + speed/noise issues related to express trains vs. "beet field" stations serving a larger area + a starter line for regional rail transit.

---

We haven't had an open thread in a while. After yesterday's discussion of HSR in Merced county, I'd be interested in how folks in Bakersfield think about this project. The HSR station will be intermodal with Amtrak San Joaquin (the links off the Amtrak California web page are broken). The Bakersfield Amtrak station is currently at S St/16th St, even if Google Maps thinks it's further west. Given the city's population of around 250k, only a subset of HSR trains is expected to stop there. That probably means four tracks plus one island or two side platforms dedicated to HSR, in addition to whatever Amtrak's FRA-compliant trains need. Pedestrians/cyclists would use one or more over- or underpasses to cross the entire ROW or access any of the platforms.

What about HSR express trains that are supposed to run through there at close to 200mph? Is that correct and acceptable to Bakersfield residents?

For details of the route and the implementation options selected for cost estimation, please zoom in on CHSRA's Google Map of preferred HSR route. A combination of at-grade and aerial sections is indicated for Bakersfield. Note that noise mitigation measures were not included in the original cost estimates, sound walls typically cost on the order of $1-$1.5 million per mile.

Bakersfield rail yards and Kern river crossing (low quality):

View this video on YouTube

Near Wasco:

View this video on YouTube

Central Valley overview (High Definition):

View this video on YouTube

Originals of videos on CHSRA web site.

---

HEADS UP: the San Jose Mercury News has announced a CHSRA project-level EIR/EIS scoping meeting for SUNNYVALE, intended for city officials but open to the public.

Date: Tuesday, March 24 @ 6pm
Location: City Hall conference room, 456 W Olive, Sunnyvale

If you're planning to attend, you may want to prepare by looking at the following:

• Google Map of preferred route showing the implementation options used for cost estimation, please zoom in. North Sunnyvale: embankment, south Sunnyvale: at grade
  
  
• Cost estimation basis for HSR implementation in Caltrain corridor. Dated 5 Apr 2007 and marked as preliminary and subject to change. Sunnyvale section is on page 8.
  
  
  
  • North Sunnyvale: 3.7m (~12ft) retained fill embankment, i.e. solid walls with earth in-between, shallow underpasses for the cross-roads.
    
    
  • Transition: 3% grade, probably more than UPRR freight trains can handle. After the merger with SP, Union Pacific now has an easement for the Caltrain ROW and also a say if other railroads get to operate freight and intercity passenger services on it.
    
    
  • South sunnyvale: at-grade, no details yet on grade separation recommendation for Sunnyvale Ave. The other cross roads in south Sunnyvale already have over- or underpasses, double-check if they will present problems for expansion to four tracks.
    
    
  • Please ask if HSR will use the inside or the outside tracks. How will that decision impact the Caltrain stations, which may need longer platforms (e.g. 1000ft) to make full use of the two platforms at the new Transbay Terminal in San Francisco? What about anticipated noise levels and mitigation measures in Sunnyvale?
    
  
  
• Selected cross-section drawings of the cost estimation basis.
  

For background information on the project, please refer to the other appendices of the Bay Area to Central Valley Final Program EIR/EIS.

Additional information regarding Caltrain ROW width in Sunnyvale is here, maps 37-TCCM-200-B.pdf through 41-TCCM-200-B.pdf. The minimum width for four tracks is 75 feet. At Caltrain-only stations, 95-100 feet are required to also accommodate two side or one island platform, as the case may be.

Note that full grade separation at stations implies one or more pedestrian over- or underpass(es) to cross the ROW and access the Caltrain platform(s), even if HSR trains will never stop there. The number of passages depends on platform length and expected boardings/alightings, forecast data that Caltrain would have to provide. Afaik, ramps or elevators for ADA access are required by law for new construction, this may entail the acquisition of some additional ROW width.

Btw, grooves for bicycles next to stairs are very useful features in pedestrian over-/underpasses at stations:



If you decide to attend and write up a short summary of the salient clarifications and yet-to-be-resolved issues for Sunnyvale, you may want to send a copy to Robert Cruickshank who owns this blog.

The View From the Valley

I've spent two very interesting days here in Fresno organizing for another issue, but have had some time to talk to people about high speed rail (because really, what sort of HSR activist would I be if I didn't?!). I've found that the project actually has a fairly high profile here - most of the diverse group of people I've talked to actually know about it and support it. As there are at least 2.5 million people living along the HSR route between Merced and Bakersfield, their backing of the system is crucial - lest we forget, Merced, Fresno, and Kern Counties ALL voted FOR Prop 1A back in November.

What's behind the support? In my conversations there are some common reasons given:

1. Desire to connect to the rest of the state. Whether they love living in the Valley or not, most people here want to be able to get to and from the bigger parts of the state quickly. They may have family or friends going to school in LA, or want to see a show in SF. Typically they're going to drive, which is usually at least 3 hours in each direction. A rapid train will help make that easy.



2. Desire to cut pollution. Even though it's an early spring day, the air quality here in Fresno hasn't been so great this weekend. It reminds me of the 1980s in Southern California, where smog was commonplace. The San Joaquin Valley has some of the worst air pollution in the entire nation. Asthma and other respiratory diseases are extremely common, and given the frequent traffic on Highway 99 it's no surprise. People here WANT a method of travel that will not make their health problems worse.



3. Desire to stop sprawl. To hear some people tell it Valley residents love sprawl. That's always been a debatable point; in reality it's the Valley's political leaders who have promoted it, along with the inexorable logic of having built an entire national, even global economy on sprawl. With the housing bubble collapse, which has hit the Valley harder than probably any other place on the globe, there is a clearer desire for preserving farmland, stopping sprawl, and channeling growth inward. The people I talked to get this.



4. They're sick of being ignored. With at least 2.5 million people along the initial HSR route, and with over 5 million in the Valley as a whole (including Sacramento), Valley residents have watched state funds and projects go to the "cities" - SF Bay Area, Southern California, while Highway 99 has been ignored. And that enables opponents of mass transit, for example, to demagogue on the issue - "don't vote for this project, it's just going to help those Bay Area liberals who don't care about you." Which in turn emboldens those voices here that tell Valley voters "the cities will just take your tax money and give nothing in return" (if the Valley elected more Dems the 2/3 rule would no longer be an issue). San Joaquin Valley residents feel, quite reasonably in my view, that they deserve to be part of this system.
   
   And it makes practical sense in this case to include them. The flattest route between SF and LA involves the Central Valley. The 2.5 million people who live along the San Joaquin Valley portion of the LA-SF route are an important part of the potential ridership base of a financially viable HSR system. And it will play an essential role in achieving the kind of long-term shift in land use policy in California, a shift that cannot succeed unless the Valley is included. Otherwise the Valley plays the role of a kind of China, undercutting the efforts at higher labor and environmental standards elsewhere in the state.

I know that there have been some comments suggesting that we just bypass the Highway 99 corridor when building the LA-SF route, that the inclusion of Fresno and Bakersfield was just a political ploy, that it's just not necessary to build HSR in these places. I could not disagree more strongly. California High Speed Rail will not be successful unless it includes the Valley.

Where Should a Hanford-Visalia Station Go?

I'm spending the weekend in beautiful downtown Fresno, and as a result I've been thinking more about the San Joaquin Valley section of the HSR route. Now that the California High Speed Rail Authority has agreed to study the possibility of adding a station in the Hanford-Visalia area (and it should be emphasized that as far as I know, it's merely a possibility; no firm decision has been made whether to actually include such a station), the region must now debate where the station ought to go, as this Fresno Bee article examines. First, some background:

"In 30 years, there's going to be a million people in Tulare and Kings counties, southern Fresno County and northern Kern," said Visalia Mayor Jesus Gamboa. "I don't want the train to zoom by and we just look at it."...

This week, the Visalia City Council got a word of encouragement from Bob Schaevitz, project manager for the Fresno-Palmdale stretch of the 800-mile rail line.

"This station makes a lot of sense," Schaevitz said. "I've heard nothing negative about the station."

But the community should make its voice heard before the environmental impact report is written, he said.

There's precedent in speaking up. Two years ago, a coalition of city managers and elected officials from Visalia, Tulare, Corcoran, Kingsburg, Selma and Fowler went to the authority and asked for a station.

The group succeeded in getting the authority to change its route maps to include one potential station between Hanford and Visalia, and four more sites around Tulare and Goshen.

Now the goal is to get one of the sites changed from "potential" to "designated," Gamboa said.

The "million people" figure posited by Mayor Gamboa is open to question, which would be roughly double the current population of the area. Still, 500,000 people is nothing to sneeze at, and if there's a way to build the station without encouraging low-density sprawl, it ought to be examined.

Visalia would be a good place for a stop - it has a downtown with some actual density to it and is a larger urban center than Hanford. Unfortunately, Visalia is on the Union Pacific line, and since UP has made it clear they want no part of HSR that would seem to rule out a station east of Highway 99.

That leaves Hanford, 20 miles to the west of Visalia, as an option. Although it is not a binding indication, the CHSRA's own Merced to Bakersfield Notice of Preparation surmises that the most likely location of a Hanford HSR station would be just east of Hanford along Highway 198, somewhere near the 198/43 interchange:



The CHSRA map seems to preclude an alignment through Hanford, as the BNSF line and therefore the Amtrak California San Joaquin currently uses. That would indicate that a station would be placed on the edge of town, which could provide for some transit oriented development opportunities, but of an inferior quality to those that could be built in an existing urban center.

Update:See also this PDF map of the existing SJV rail network and Rafael's detailed look at how this might be upgraded.

I'm going to guess that unless the Hanford-Visalia region comes up with the money to build a station, it's not going to happen. And I'm OK with that. Amtrak California would still serve the San Joaquin route and could be timed to coincide with HSR trains at Fresno or Bakersfield, enabling residents of the Hanford-Visalia area to use a connecting service to get to the HSR system. It's not quite as robust a solution as an HSR station, but then, the Hanford-Visalia region has yet to make a strong case as to why they really need to have an HSR station.

That's my view. What's yours? The California High Speed Rail Authority is hosting public meetings on the Merced-Bakersfield route this month, at the following dates and locations:

• March 18: Merced Community Center, 755 W. 15th St., Merced
• March 19: Madera County Fairgrounds, 1850 W. Cleveland Ave, Madera
• March 24: Visalia Convention Center, 303 E. Acequia Ave, Visalia
• March 25: Fresno Convention Center, 848 M Street, Fresno
• March 26: Rabobank Theater, 1001 Truxtun Ave, Bakersfield

Show up and let your voice be heard.

Central Valley HSR to Open In 2015, With a Station in Visalia

UPDATE: The California High Speed Rail Authority has issued a correction to the reports on the "first" section of the HSR spine to open:

Some news reports Tuesday suggested the state's first completed high-speed train segment would connect Bakersfield and Merced. No decision has been made on which section of the backbone link between Anaheim/Los Angeles and San Francisco will be the first to become operational. Current plans anticipate that a test track may be built on a flat stretch in the Central Valley somewhere between Bakersfield and Merced.

Original post begins here:

Shifting to more productive news, the plans to build the first a segment of the California HSR project in the Central Valley are well under way, with the Merced to Bakersfield line projected to break ground in 2011 and open around 2015. It will be this track, of course, that will be used for testing trainsets as the CHSRA determines which train models to use on the entire statewide system.

And as the Visalia Times-Delta reports it is likely that a station will be built after all in the Visalia-Hanford area:

An earlier environmental study did not consider Visalia for a station. But input and intensive lobbying by Visalia officials led the rail authority to consider five possible stations in the Visalia-Hanford-Tulare area.

The most likely site for a station is on Highway 198 near Hanford, about 12 miles west of downtown Visalia. That location looks promising because Burlington Northern railroad company, owner of the railroad right of way, has expressed interest in partnering with the high-speed rail authority.

Four other proposed locations — all along Highway 99 — are near existing Union Pacific railroad lines.

"Union Pacific has stated it is not interested in high-speed rail," Schaevitz said.

High speed rail is an essential part of economic recovery in the San Joaquin Valley, which has some of the nation's highest unemployment rates, and has virtually no intercity travel options aside from overburdened freeways and the San Joaquins Amtrak California route, a great line but one that doesn't have high speed and that doesn't connect to Los Angeles.

This is further confirmation also that the CHSRA plans to follow the BNSF route through the Valley and not the UP route, although within Fresno there are still plans afoot to try and unite all the rail corridors in one place through the city, hopefully leveraging HSR funds to help accomplish that goal.

It's nice to see that we finally have some solid timelines on when to expect construction and first testing of trains. 2015 is only 6 years away - time will fly when we're turning dirt.

Again, I'm going to direct people who want to discuss the Peninsula to the previous thread - posts on that topic will be deleted from this particular thread.

The Central Valley Test Track, Part 2

In part 1, we discussed why CHSRA needs to construct a high speed test track early on in the project. Here, I'll propose one way how this might be accomplished.

The primary objective for the test track is to achieve speeds of 220mph for extended periods of time. Given that HSR can and will only run that fast in the Central Valley, that's where the track will need to be. In addition, the segment will have to be used in regular commercial service once HSR operation begin, because it would be far too expensive and anyhow not necessary (h/t to commenter thik) to construct and maintain a dedicated facility.

CHSRA appears to have decided that the central maintenance facility will be located in Merced County, quite possibly at Castle airport (formerly Castle AFB of the SAC) in Atwater. The airport is currently only used for general aviation, but its single long runway would be ideal for heavy air lift and air cargo services. Given the low population density of the area, it would be suitable for 24/7 operations. With the addition of a small passenger terminal featuring an HSR station inside the building, it could also support trans- and intercontinental passenger flights using the largest available jets (747, A380). In that sense, Castle airport could serve not just the Central Valley but - eventually (h/t to Robert Cruickshank) - perhaps also San Benito, Monterey plus Santa Cruz counties and, as a relief airport for the San Francisco Bay Area. Capacity at SFO is often constrained by dense fog.

The first part of my proposal is therefore to use Castle airport as the northern end of the test track.


View Larger Map

Legend:

• dark blue = current UPRR ROW
  
• light blue = current BNSF ROW
  
• yellow = proposed HSR test track alignment
  

Given that BNSF already hosts Amtrak San Joaquin trains, it may also offer to share its remaining ROW with HSR. Since UPRR has not, it makes sense to consider an alignment based mostly on BNSF's ROW. CHSRA had anyhow planned to use that south of Fresno, mostly because it affords easier access to the existing Amtrak station at Truxton Ave in Bakersfield. However, CHSRA had wanted to use the UPRR ROW in and north of Fresno because it affords access to the downtown areas of Fresno, Merced and Modesto. In and north of Stockton, UPRR is anyhow the only option. Since BNSF's ROW crosses UPRR's at a right angle in south Stockton, HSR would have to cut over further south, e.g. between Escalon and French Camp.

Merced County would probably be fine with having its station at Castle airport instead of downtown Merced, since it lobbied hard for just that solution. For Modesto, the current Amtrak station at E. Briggsmore lies at the the eastern edge of town. If UPRR is willing, it would be possible to cut over e.g. between the Stanislaus river and Modesto airport. Of course, all of these alignment changes would have to be reflected in the project-level EIR/EIS for the Sacramento spur, but construction on that won't start until the early 2020s.

Other advantages of using the BNSF ROW are that
(a) Amtrak can serve as an HSR feeder without a route change and,
(b) many towns that will not have an HSR or even Amtrak station will not be subjected to a lot of additional traffic through their downtown areas, possibly even high speed cargo operations at night. In Spain, AVE construction was complicated by small towns that desperately wanted to have stations on the high speed line between Madrid and Barcelona. Be careful what you wish for!

As the southern endpoint of the test track, I'd suggest Bakersfield. This will permit limited commercial HSR operations in the Central Valley to begin well before the entire starter line is completed. It also provides enough distance to conduct meaningful testing.

The fly in the ointment is that this means tackling the mess in Fresno early and head-on. Alan Kandel over at the California Progress Report has chronicled this saga in detail (though he has yet to discover Google Maps). The BNSF alignment in Fresno runs right through miles and miles of residential neighborhoods, at grade. Dozens of daily mile-long freight trains cause pollution, noise, vibration and especially, endless delays at the many grade crossings. The city has been trying to kick out BNSF for 90 (!) years, to no avail.

UPRR, for its part, appears quite happy to host the local San Joaquin Valley Railroad (SJVR, now a division of Rail America) and watch its primary competitor BNSF stuck with a PR nightmare. The company has resisted attempts to create a grade-separated joint freight corridor - conceptually similar to the Alameda corridor in LA - along its ROW, which runs next to hwy 99. Besides, Fresno has never had the money to implement all those grade separations and, FRA does not require them for alignment sections rated at less than 125mph - which means everything except the NEC. Its most recent "action plan" on grade crossings dates back to 2004 and suggests the agency spends most of its time writing reports and then mulling it all over some more.

Enter high speed rail, which Congressman Jim Costa (D-Fresno) has worked so hard for. All politics is local, after all...

A number of alternative solutions have been proposed, the one Alan Kandel prefers is called the Metro Rural Loop, subject of a recent regional planning workshop. It's still at the conceptual stage, calling for an enormous ring of bypass freeways around Fresno, stretching north to hwy 152 (Los Banos-Chowchilla) and south to hwy 198 (Hanford-Visalia-Exeter), perhaps even hwy 190 (Corcoran-Porterville).

Much of the area in-between would be gradually filled in with residential developments through 2110, by which time these four counties expect to be home to around 6.5-12 million people (baseline 7.7 million). Side note: it's not entirely clear to me where their drinking water would come from, unless agriculture in this parched section of California were to cease almost entirely.

Each of these bypass highways would consist of (see pp84 of this 8.2MB PDF document):

- 4 HOV, 6 mixed traffic and two emergency lanes (total 12 lanes)
- a two-lane frontage road to either side (total 4 lanes)
- two tracks of light rail, with zero room for express bypass tracks
- one multi-use path (i.e. bikes + pedestrians)
- eight rows of trees

Total width 400-450 feet. Some of the light rail lines would be over 50 miles long.

Grade separated major cross roads would feature:

- four mixed traffic lanes
- two BRT lanes
- two rows of trees

While I'm all for trees and transit, it seems to me the planners are steeped in asphalt lore and more than a little optimistic regarding the amount of gasoline and diesel that will still be available in 2110. Page 19 shows HSR scribbled in as a mere afterthought, several miles west of Fresno.

Transit oriented development - you're doing it wrong!

A slightly less grandiose - but still quite ambitious - alternative would be to focus just on the heavy rail alignments as a first step, since history suggests those are by far the hardest to move. CHSRA has decided - rightly, in my view - that high speed rail stations should be located in the downtown areas of major population centers. In the Central Valley, that means towns with 100,000 or more inhabitants that are expected to grow rapidly in the next few decades. Fresno surely qualifies.

The apparently simplest approach would be to leverage only the BNSF ROW and fully grade separate that. There are 26 road crossings, 23 of them currently at grade. The Fresno Amtrak station at Tulare and Q St. is located at the north-east end of the downtown area and would be an acceptable location for an HSR station. However, the alignment features a number of sharpish turns, which could well prevent operation at 220mph. Besides, even with full separation of the existing grade crossings, there would still be dozens of heavy freight trains running through residential neighborhoods every day, in addition to dozens of HSR and a handful of Amtrak passenger trains.

A more comprehensive, but also substantially more expensive concept has been suggested by Larry Miller in his recent op-ed in the Fresno Bee. What that might look like in practice is shown in this map:


View Larger Map

Legend:

• dark blue = current UPRR ROW/rail yard
  
• light blue = current BNSF ROW/rail yard
  
• green = current SJVR lines
  
• purple = proposed Western Freight Corridor (WFC)
  
• yellow = proposed HSR alignment (elevated for grade separation where appropriate)
  
• black = proposed passenger heavy rail (Amtrak/regional), available for freight only if WFC unavailable due to accident etc.
  
• brown = optional light rail alignments
  

The concept calls for the construction of a Western Freight Corridor (WFC) along a brand-new ROW through prime farmland west and south of Fresno, with access connectors for UPRR, BNSF and SJVR. It also calls for two new rail yards to compensate for the loss of access to the existing ones. The exact location of the corridor alignment and its rail yards would of course be subject to negotations, this map is just supposed to illustrate the basic concept.

This means no heavy freight trains would run through the city at all any longer. Optionally, a bypass freeway could be constructed just west of the WFC. That decision would need to be made early, as it would impact rail grade separation projects at the intersections with hwy 99 and rural access roads. A total of around 70 freight trains run through Fresno every day right now and, this number is expected to grow. During harvest time, slow road traffic would significantly impede freight trains, therefore the WFC should be largely grade separated before the tracks are even laid. It's much cheaper to do when there are no trains running yet.

The straight UPRR ROW within the city would be used for the following:

(1) HSR service, possibly including high speed cargo transshipment at the current BNSF yard in Calwa (south of downtown).

(2) Amtrak San Joaquin using FRA-compliant rolling stock. Note the option of additional county-level service between Firebaugh, Ingle, Pratton, Sanger, Reedley and Dinuba if planners decide to create new transit-oriented developments along part or all of this rural corridor. Heavy freight traffic would be permitted in downtown Fresno if and only if the new WFC were to become temporarily unavailable, e.g. as a result of an accident.

(3) optionally, light rail service using the current UPRR yard at N Weber Ave. The starter line would double back to the BNSF alignment via an existing ROW south of downtown and actually serve existing residential communities all the way out the Gregg, where the connection to the heavy rail tracks would be severed. A spur loop out to the airport terminal would be more difficult because the required ROW has been abandoned for so long. Also shown are optional extensions to Riverbend, Clovis (via the hwy 168 median) and Pinedale (via the hwy 41 median). Between them, these would vastly improve transit within the sprawling city and permit future growth via new transit-oriented developments arranged as a string of pearls.

However, the UPRR ROW is only 100 feet wide, enough for four tracks. Therefore, I'd suggest running HSR on an aerial structure directly above the at-grade tracks for the other services. That means there would still be grade crossings for these, but their gates would only be closed briefly, since passenger trains are short. In addition, they would be upgraded to meet FRA quiet zone regulations.

The new Fresno Central Station would be located near Tulare Street and feature the following:

• 3 underground passages:
  
  
  
  • wide stairwells to at-grade platforms from outer passages
    
  • narrow stairwells plus elevator to island platform from middle passage
    
  • high-capacity elevators to side platforms (both levels) from middle passage
    
  
  
• at grade:
  
  
  
  • station building
    
  • bicycle path + storage racks
    
  • 2 heavy rail tracks (west side)
    
  • room for 2 light rail tracks (east side)
    
  • side platforms plus shared central island platform. Level boarding for all trains would be preferable.
    
  
  
• elevated:
  
  
  
  • 2 express HSR tracks through the center
    
  • 2 HSR side tracks with wide level boarding platforms (1320' long),
    
  • each with 2 stairwells to grade level at ends, plus
    
  • 2 stairwells to ends of grade level side platforms and on to the outer underground passages
    
  • optionally, 2 additional side tracks. In that case, the side platforms would become island platforms.
    

All told, the required width at the station only will be around 150-200 feet. Note that HSR trains that need to stop at the station must not impede express trains as they slow down or come up to speed, so it may be necessary to run four tracks of HSR for as much as a couple of miles to either side of the station. The switches will have to be especially long to support safe transfers between adjacent tracks at what will still be high speeds. Failure to pay attention to this could result in increased headways, i.e. reduced capacity, of the line.

In terms of phasing,

• Step 1 would be persuading the city of Fresno, the four county-area and CHSRA that this concept is worth pursuing at all.
  
• Step 2 would be convincing the railroads - especially UPRR - to also agree in principle.
  
• Step 3 would be finding the money to fund construction of the WFC, likely to be a major sticking point. CHSRA certainly cannot afford to fund it by itself, nor should it.
  
• Step 4 would be constructing the WFC including grade separations, new rail yards and access connectors (including the turnoff for heavy passenger rail near Herndon).
  
• Step 5 would be migrating all freight rail operations out of Fresno.
  
• Step 6 would involve construction of
  
  
  
  • any underpasses Fresno wants for the UPRR ROW
    
  • quiet zone grade crossings for the remaining cross roads
    
  • gantries and tracks for HSR
    
  • the new multi-modal station, prepped for light rail service
    
  
  
• Step 7 would involve
  
  
  
  • migrating Amtrak San Joaquin to the new alignment
    
  • commencing HSR test runs (assuming the rest of the test track is completed by this time)
    
  
  
• Step 8 would be the concurrent
  
  
  
  • introduction of county-level heavy passenger rail services, if any
    
  • construction of the light rail starter line
    
  • remodeling of the two legacy rail yards. Air rights to at least the UPRR yard could be sold to developers of high-rise office buildings.
    
  
  
• Step 9 would be optional extensions to the light rail network in Fresno and the county-level heavy rail service.
  

See, I told you it was ambitious! Btw, the length of the test track as proposed here would be around 176 miles.

UPDATE by Robert: There is a meeting happening right now in Fresno about this topic. It's at the Central Valley Business Incubator, 1630 E. Shaw Ave, #163 next to the Old Spaghetti Factory by Fresno State.

Does Ashburn Deserve Cheers or Jeers?

AB 3034 finally passed the Assembly today on a 54-15 vote. The bill is NOT going to be sent to Arnold Schwarzenegger immediately, though, in hopes that a budget deal will be reached by Saturday.

AB 3034 would have been sent to the governor sooner had Senate Republicans not blocked its passage for several weeks, and Bakersfield Republican Roy Ashburn was the central figure in the delay. This blog was extremely critical of Ashburn for these delays. But were we wrong to do so?

Lois Henry is a columnist for the Bakersfield Californian and an ardent HSR supporter. In her column today she suggests Ashburn's actions were actually GOOD for HSR:

Here I was all set to blast State Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, for letting politics get in the way of progress, when common sense and fiscal responsibility got smack in my way.

His, not mine....

Being the jaded gal I am, I chalked up his apparent Luddite ways to his plans to run for the Board of Equalization when he’s termed out in 2010. No one has a prayer of winning that office with out the blessing of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and I’d just seen an editorial in the Orange County Register by the Jarvis group repeating Ashburn’s points nearly word for word.

Ah HA! I thought. This is just Ashburn feathering his future nest by dumping on the constituents in his current nest. The first phase of the 800-mile train corridor, after all, would be built from Bakersfield to Merced, giving us access to clean rapid transit before the rest of the state.

What the heck was Ashburn thinking?

Actually, he was thinking about making sure this project comes to fruition responsibly by not getting caught up in the emotion and instead sticking to facts.

I think Henry's first instincts were right - Ashburn was posturing for the Howard Jarvis Association in what will likely be a spirited contest for the Board of Equalization seat. But Henry thinks Ashburn was actually trying to do HSR a favor. Problem is, a close examination of her defense of Ashburn reveals some holes in the case:

Facts such as the High Speed Rail Authority’s business plan was last updated in 2000 and they didn’t plan to do a new one until October, meaning anyone voting absentee might not have a chance to dig into the particulars until after their ballot was cast. Under the fix Ashburn advocated, the business plan must be updated by Sept. 1.

But if Ashburn was genuinely interested in an updated business plan, why did he wait until July to demand one? He had plenty of time to call for it - AB 3034 was introduced way back in February. He had plenty of time to make his wishes known. Further, his delay meant that the production of a new business plan was also delayed. If he really wanted to give voters the opportunity to "dig into the particulars" shouldn't he have ensured that the bill got passed quickly, so that the Authority could produce the most complete and accurate document possible? Ashburn's delay has jeopardized even the Sept. 1 deadline, since AB 3034 still isn't signed by the governor.

Henry goes on:

And facts such as, under the existing proposition, the authority could stick its hand in the cookie jar and spend that $10 billion willy nilly with little or no oversight. Under Ashburn’s amendments, the authority must request money through the budget process, which means a lot more public scrutiny.

I did not realize that was part of AB 3034 - and I am not pleased. Far from a positive move, this could be an *extremely* bad change. Requesting money through an annual budget process is guaranteed to drive up the cost of the project and delay construction. Instead of the Authority releasing funds as contractors need it, to suit a proper and efficient construction schedule, they have to wait on a state budget process that is ALWAYS late. It also makes it difficult for the project managers to plan construction since they can't count on the money always being there. Worse, this makes it possible for politicians to stick their own hands in the cookie jar and mess with the way money is spent, causing inefficiencies and politically-motivated bad spending choices.

If Ashburn merely wanted to give, say, an independent commission the ability to disburse the money that'd have been one thing. But what makes him think politicians who haven't solved the state's budget crisis for 30 years are going to be effective stewards of HSR bond money?

It's difficult for me to see Ashburn's move here as beneficial for or in the best interests of the HSR project. Few things are more likely to cause delays and cost overruns than an annual budget appropriation.

Henry explains that she isn't convinced by some of Ashburn's other arguments:

I’d vote for the proposition either way. California must solve our ever worsening air and traffic conditions. But I’m glad Ashburn is asking some tough questions and keeping an eye on the bottom line.

I do disagree with Ashburn’s take that the authority has only a vague idea of how the train would operate, its ridership numbers, proposed fares, alignment and technology.

Almost all of that has been ironed out in painstaking detail, according to documents on the authority’s Web site and according to Mehdi Morshed, executive director of the authority.

That should be a clue that Ashburn really doesn't have the project's best interests in mind. Looking at this in whole - raising objections at the 11th hour, demanding a new business plan and then blocking the bill that would provide it, turning a smooth project funding process into something chaotic and dependent on a broken state budget process, and then demonstrating a lack of knowledge about the HSR operating details - all suggests that Ashburn actually was trying to block HSR, and that the amended AB 3034 isn't as great for the project as Henry believes.

We'll see what happens with AB 3034. Either way we, like Lois Henry, will be voting for Prop 1(A). But the issues she raises suggest some of the battles we will have to face after we win that vote. If you thought this blog was going away on November 5th...heh. Not gonna happen. We'll still have plenty of work to do.

Ashburn Keeps Trying to Kill HSR

The State Senate is back in session and Roy Ashburn is continuing his campaign to deny his constituents cheap, sustainable transportation by trying to kill the HSR bonds:

Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, lost his bid Monday to delay the vote now scheduled for Nov. 4 on a bond to help start building a high- speed railroad in California.

The Assembly Transportation Committee turned down Senate Bill 298, which would have pushed the $9.95 billion bond to the 2010 ballot.

Ashburn, who represents most of Tulare County, said he's a supporter of high-speed rail but opposes a bond vote this fall because there isn't adequate information available on such issues as expected use, fares, routes and energy use for the proposed train that would travel through the San Joaquin Valley.

Despite this rejection, the Bakersfield Californian reports he's going to keep trying anyway:

An Assembly committee rejected a bill by Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, to postpone the measure until 2010. However, Ashburn said he’ll try again later this week, when a fiscal oversight bill to be attached to the bond comes before the Senate for a vote....

Ashburn said he supports high-speed rail but the project is too expensive to approve without firm commitments for the rest of the funding. He also feels a September due date for the California High-Speed Rail Authority to produce an updated business plan isn’t enough time for voters to thoroughly assess the project.

“It’s a last-minute, last-ditch effort to put something together and rush it to the ballot,” Ashburn said. “For those of us that are truly supportive of high-speed rail, let’s take it off the ballot, give it time and work on these things.”

I don't believe Ashburn on this for a minute. He is being deliberately disingenuous, and the only thing that is last-minute, last-ditch about this is Ashburn's objections.

Let's think about this for a moment. Ashburn isn't a random voter, he is a two-term State Senator. If he felt there were problems with the Authority's business plan and funding, why didn't he raise these objections sooner? Why didn't he push for an updated business plan earlier? He must know that it's simply not possible for a thorough and complete update to be done sooner than September. And had AB 3034 been approved three weeks ago, the Authority would already be working on the plan.

As he must know, private enterprise and Congress are not going to commit funds to a project that California hasn't already committed itself to building. Not only does someone have to make the first step, but that "someone" can only be the state of California. It would have helped if our Congressional delegation, especially our two Senators, had been more proactive about securing at least a small amount of federal funding - perhaps $45 million for an HSR study, the same amount LA-Vegas maglev got - to show that Congress plans to support this. And private enterprise absolutely will not commit until the public sector has done so, as they explained to the Authority in June.

Ashburn's 11th hour objections are irresponsible. As a public servant he ought to have raised these concerns earlier in the year, instead of holding up the very bill that would address his concerns.

But more significantly, Ashburn is using this fear, uncertainty, and doubt strategy to try and kill the project outright. If he merely wanted an improved bond measure, he would have spoken up sooner. Instead he's using these last-minute objections to block AB 3034 - he already delayed past the deadline to alter Prop 1 - in hopes that either the bond will be pulled or the public will turn against a plan he's labeled as inadequate.

Even a delay is not a financially sound move, as Sen. Dean Florez explained to the Bakersfield Californian:

“Every year we put off moving forward with this ... we not only watch the overall cost of the project rise,” he said, “but we run the risk of losing investors who are unsure of our commitment to making high-speed rail a reality.”

We've already delayed this vote twice. It's time we let the voters of California have their say. Especially those in Bakersfield, in Ashburn's district, who desperately need a non-oil based affordable method to travel around their own state.

Ashburn vs. Yee

The California Chronicle has two short articles about the State Senate's approach to high speed rail, focusing on Democrat Leland Yee of San Francisco and Republican Roy Ashburn, whose district sprawls across eastern California but is based in Bakersfield. The articles help explain the politics surrounding HSR in our state capital, and may give us a preview of what we can expect to unfold Monday morning at 10 at the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on AB 3034.

The Yee article focuses on his work to restore the "spine" of the HSR corridor, from SF to LA and Anaheim, which as you all know was threatened by AB 3034's provision for building smaller, potentially disconnected HSR corridors instead. The article quotes my comments from Tuesday in support of Yee's position, and includes this portion from a Yee press release:

"The high speed rail bond has always been about finding ways to get millions of people out of cars and airplanes and into a cost-saving and environmentally-sound transportation portal," said Yee. "A piecemeal approach is not what is best for commuters, visitors, or the economy, and is certainly not what is best for our environment. As an advocate for high speed rail, I will continue to be steadfast in securing the San Francisco to Los Angeles corridor of the bullet train and then branching out to other cities."

Yee and I are in full agreement on this. For HSR to have maximal impact on our state's transportation habits, and to provide a badly-needed link between two cities currently connected by an airline industry in crisis, we need to link SF to LA first. I recognize that this can cause worry to those in Sacramento, Stockton, and San Diego who won't get HSR at the outset - but they ought to be reassured that once Californians see this system in operation, and see its value, they will not hesitate to support the extensions to Sacramento and SD, extensions that remain part of the overall state HSR plan.

The article on Ashburn provides some more details on his opposition to the HSR project:

Senator Ashburn asked tough questions, noting several problems with the measure. The Authority has failed to develop a business plan and lacks real experience in constructing such a large-scale project.

Actually, the CHSRA does have a Business Plan. Of course, it was finalized in June 2000, and desperately needs to be updated - which AB 3034 would direct the Authority to do. The frequent postponement of the bond and the low levels of funding for the Authority are the culprits here. The 2000 study was still of value in 2004, but should have been updated for 2006 and surely for 2008. But the CHSRA has not had the level of funding to both prepare a business plan AND continue with the necessary EIR statement preparation and other important studies and planning that voters also needed to see before a vote. And since AB 3034 will produce that updated business plan, it doesn't make sense for Ashburn to oppose it on those grounds.

The project manager is the same contractor that was responsible for many of the problems associated with the "Big Dig" in Boston, recognized as one of the worst transportation planning boondoggles in recent memory.

He is referring to Parsons Brinckerhoff, which surely did screw up the Big Dig. But this is also a deeply misleading statement in several respects. One of the key problems with the Big Dig was poor oversight by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which often turned a blind eye to reports about bad contracting practices in order to speed up construction only to have to spend money correcting those problems. Sound oversight of PB has produced good results in other major projects, and is a necessity no matter who ultimately designs, builds, and operates the system.

Unfortunately Ashburn and many other critics use "the Big Dig" as a kind of bogeyman, assuming that every large public works project will inevitably meet with the same problems as that project. That view ignores the details that caused the Big Dig to experience problems, and more importantly ignores the scores of public transportation projects that have been delivered on or close to the original budget. Seattle's Central Link light rail project will open next summer on budget. Same with the Metro Gold Line extension to East LA.

More importantly, the Big Dig was an unusually complex project, one that had rarely been attempted here in the US or abroad. HSR, on the other hand, is a familiar project to global engineers and builders. It's so common as to become routine. The most complex engineering will be the tunnels in the Tehachapis - but tunnelling through mountains is by no means new or difficult, especially here in California where Caltrans, PB and others have much experience with this; and the tunnel from Fourth and King to the new Transbay Terminal in San Francisco. There will be some cost overruns on the HSR project, no doubt about it - but I do not expect them to be large, and they will be due to factors outside of our control, such as the global inflation in construction materials and the declining value of the dollar.

To use the Big Dig as a reason to not ever build any ambitious project is therefore absurd and ignorant. It's a high profile screw up - but it's also an outlier, not representative of the whole.

Ashburn goes on:

Public employee unions successfully inserted language preventing competition by the private sector.

This refers to the controversial language the Senate Transportation Committee included in AB 3034 last week regarding Caltrans being given project design work. As Erik Nelson explained that provision was not given a final adoption by the committee. Even if this change is adopted, it does not speak to the quality of the project - Caltrans has one of the world's most successful project design records - but to politics. Ashburn and the Senate Republicans are ideologically opposed to public entities doing this kind of work. Such dogma should not be construed as a legitimate criticism of the HSR project.

The article notes that though "some of Ashburn's concerns" were addressed, presumably meaning the business plan, he still believes that the project is flawed:

"After six years and $58 million spent, the full-time Rail Authority still has yet to come up with a viable business plan, but they want the voters to trust them with 10 billion more of their hard-earned dollars," noted Ashburn.

As I discussed above, this is a weak argument at best. Ashburn knows perfectly well why such an update wasn't done and he knows that it will indeed be done in time for voters to assess it before they vote in November.

It would be a shame for Ashburn to oppose a project that would provide such enormous benefits to his constituents, especially those in Bakersfield. Bakersfield is poised to reap significant economic benefits from high speed rail. As permanently high gas prices might make it an uncompetitive location for business, HSR will provide Bakersfield residents with a fast connection to the state's major economic centers, as well as to their airports. It will position Bakersfield to become a bedroom community for Southern California workers, and with the station located downtown Bakersfield can construct a lot of transit-oriented high-density development to serve those workers.

Bakersfield has been hot extremely hard by the foreclosure crisis, with one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation. The city's growth depends on reliable transportation, and Highway 99 and Interstate 5 aren't going to do the job if fuel prices remain high. The new residents and the subsequent job growth HSR would provide will provide a stable and growing economy for the city for some time to come.

It is a shame Ashburn would toss all that away because the Authority didn't have the time or money to update their business plan. Ashburn's objections are grasping at straws, and he knows it. Let's hope he comes around this week and supports this vital project.