Prop 1A and HSR's Role in Fighting Sprawl

In the comments to Thursday's post we saw an old claim get revived - that somehow Prop 1A and HSR would induce sprawl. The entire argument is absurd.

If you were concerned about sprawl in the first place, you're likely to also understand the need to reduce carbon emissions, reduce pollution, and wean California off of oil. So why on earth would you argue against a project that will cut 12 billion pounds of carbon emissions per year or save 12.7 million barrels of oil every year? The Sierra Club endorsed Prop 1A after a very thorough and detailed discussion. They were satisfied that Prop 1A will not add to sprawl, and understand that we would be crazy to miss this vital opportunity to build sustainable mass transit.

This opportunity is not likely to return anytime soon if we miss it. High speed rail will help bring millions more Californians on ALL our passenger rail systems, from bullet trains to Amtrak California to commuter and urban rail. Prop 1A will provide Amtrak California and Metrolink with badly needed additional funding. Voting against Prop 1A means voting against improving alternatives to oil.

But we can go further. Sprawl is NOT a force of nature. It is a product of three factors: cheap oil, cheap credit and favorable land use laws. Cheap oil is a thing of the past. Cheap credit is, as we all know from this last week, gone as well. Even with a bailout, we are highly unlikely to see a return to the lax lending practices, fueled by cheap credit, that enabled the most recent binge of Central Valley sprawl.

As to the last point, land use rules are going to have to change regardless of Prop 1A's fate. Defeating Prop 1A isn't going to eliminate sprawl, far from it. But to eliminate sprawl, you need to provide opportunities for urban density and transit-oriented development. Portland, Oregon provides the model. Portland has strict anti-sprawl rules, but these were only successful because Portland promoted urban density. Providing passenger rail has been the key to that. In short, if you want to stop sprawl, you need to give people another option.

HSR is that other option. Without HSR Central Valley cities will have less incentive to channel development to city centers and will lack the infrastructure to make it happen even if they chose to do so.

That's not all. The state legislature is also planning to link land use, sprawl, and global warming via Sen. Darrell Steinberg's SB 375. Prop 1A contains a provision forbidding construction of a station at Los Banos, a key demand of anti-sprawl advocates. Some HSR deniers claim that doesn't mean much since the Legislature could reverse it - but the Legislature can reverse virtually anything, including CEQA, including the AB 32 global warming reduction bill. That doesn't stop us from rightly pursuing strong legislative action and defending it once we get it.

Environmental justice activist Van Jones recently explained the need to move from opposition to proposition. If you want to stop sprawl, you need to propose something better. HSR is that "something better." Folks who hate sprawl will love Prop 1A and high speed rail, one of the most revolutionary anti-sprawl measures in California history.

Sierra Club Endorses Prop 1A

It's now official - the Sierra Club of California has voted to endorse Proposition 1A. We all knew that high speed rail would provide a major boost to California's efforts to produce environmentally friendly, sustainable, and global warming-fighting policies, and the Sierra Club's endorsement will help communicate that clearly to voters. From their Yes on 1A statement (.doc file) authored by Stuart Cohen of the Transportation and Land Use Coalition:

Sierra Club supports Proposition 1A, which would provide $9.95 billion dollars to catalyze the development of the 800 mile High-Speed Rail (HSR) system, and to make improvements to existing rail networks. Building HSR in California will reinforce our cities as the hubs of our economies, promote sustainable land use, significantly reduce global warming pollution, and get commuters off congested roads and out of crowded airports. While it is an extremely expensive project, adding the same capacity by expanding highways and airports would cost at least twice as much.

The statement also mentioned safeguards that the Sierra Club helped include in AB 3034, including the elimination of a Los Banos station and protection of important ecological areas. It also mentions the cost of doing nothing - $20 billion to bring Highway 99 to interstate standards, and far larger sums for airport expansion. They also noted approvingly that the Authority approved the goal of powering the trains with 100% renewable energy, ensuring that we get maximum carbon reduction benefits from the project and spurring development of new renewables sources.

A small number of activists in Northern California have been trying to claim that high speed rail is somehow environmentally damaging or won't bring the promised benefits. The Sierra Club of California has resoundingly rejected those arguments by backing Prop 1A - with nearly unanimous support from those who cast votes on the endorsement.

Over the last few months the urgency behind global warming action seems to have eased a bit as economic and energy concerns have dominated the public mind. But all three - environment, economy, energy - are fundamentally linked. To grow the economy and provide affordable, reliable energy we need to reduce carbon emissions and build sustainable, green infrastructure in our state.

The Sierra Club has demonstrated that it understands the importance of what Van Jones called moving "from opposition to proposition" with their endorsement of Prop 1A. It will be a pleasure to campaign for high speed rail alongside their membership.

AB 3034 Passes the Senate

(Updated as information comes my way - now on Update 3)

The State Senate today finally passed AB 3034. It will now return to the Assembly, which will consider the Senate's amendments and send it on to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Despite their earlier opposition, several Senate Republicans voted for AB 3034. They include Roy Ashburn and Dave Cogdill, who have previously been less than supportive of HSR. Additionally Jeff Denham, Tom Harman, Bob Margett, and my own Senator Abel Maldonado voted for AB 3034.

What changed? The Senate amended the bill yesterday to provide more oversight, including a "peer review" committee (see the bill text for details) and mandating that a revised business plan be produced by September 1 - not October 1 as previously suggested.

Also, Monday is the new deadline for altering the Prop 1 ballot language, contrary to reports from mid-July that suggested the deadline had already passed.

The Sierra Club, which took some criticism from this blog earlier this week, did play a major role in getting AB 3034 passed. The bill would address many of their concerns and Tim Frank of Sierra Club California had this to say, in a press release put out by Sen. Leland Yee's office:

This bill will ensure that the High Speed Rail Bond on this November’s ballot contains important environmental and fiscal safeguards and accordingly will help assure voters that their money will be wisely invested in a system that can dramatically improve California’s environment while providing mobility options that improve our competitiveness and quality of life.

That's more like it. Good to see the Sierra Club keeping focus on the value of HSR. Let's hope they will endorse Prop 1.

This good news, however, is tempered by remaining obstacles. The Assembly may not be pleased with the changes the Senate made, which include Leland Yee's move to secure the "spine" from SF to LA and Anaheim. But the Assembly is under the gun to approve the changes by the Monday deadline. Time to call your Assemblymembers and let them know that they ought to back AB 3034 as-is, and send it onto Arnold for his signature.

And that part is also tricky. Arnold is throwing a temper tantrum right now, claiming that he'll not sign any new bills the Legislature sends him until a budget deal is done. Funny thing about AB 3034, though - Arnold himself was its driving force, as the bill primarily exists to satisfy many of his demands about the HSR bond. Some Republicans who praised Arnold's silly move - like Jeff Denham, who said most bills "do more harm than good anyway, voted for AB 3034 anyway.

More importantly, AB 3034 required a 2/3 vote to pass each house. 2/3 just so happens to be the amount needed to override a governor's veto. So if Arnold continues his hissy fit, AB 3034 can still become law anyway.

All in all, it's a very good result. Props to everyone who helped pass it through the Senate - they understand the need to keep our eye on the ball and get HSR built.

UPDATE Here is what I'm told about how the ballot stuff works. Apparently the Legislature can remove Prop 1 and replace it with AB 3034 - as a new Prop 1 - if they act by August 11, which is Monday. They must both remove the existing Prop 1 AND pass AB 3034 for this work, and AB 3034 would go onto the ballot as Prop 1. If they miss the deadline, then AB 3034 would go onto the ballot as a supplemental prop - Prop 12 or, god forbid, Prop 13. It's been shown that this might cost 5-10% points in support, which could be fatal. Also, having two HSR props on the ballot would be incredibly confusing and might well lead to both failing.

The lesson: This last-minute stuff is really not good policymaking. This needed to have been resolved at least two months ago. If the first scenario cannot be accomplished - removing the current Prop 1 and replacing it with AB 3034 as Prop 1, then AB 3034 should be abandoned and groups should move to support Prop 1.

UPDATE 2 Sen. Dean Florez, longtime HSR supporter, calls on Arnold to support AB 3034 in a press release:

If Assembly Bill 3034 is not signed into law by Monday at 5 p.m., voters will be forced to consider a measure which lacks information considered critical to garnering support.

“The Governor’s childlike pledge has put years of work on the high-speed rail project in danger,” Florez said, chiding, “We need to end the foot stomping and get to work. Given Schwarzenegger’s handling of the budget crisis thus far, I wouldn’t be surprised if his next press conference included a new pledge to hold his breath until he turns bright blue.”

While the Governor may be loathe to reverse himself so quickly, Florez – who is sure Schwarzenegger could not have been aware of every possible ramification when he made his latest pronouncement – encouraged him to look to his own words on the issue.

“The Governor himself told a national television audience that flip-flopping is a great thing; that it is a wonderful thing when someone has made a mistake and is able to be honest about it and change his mind,” Florez said. “Keeping a viable high-speed rail bond off the ballot at this critical juncture -- after decades of laying the groundwork for a system that will move this state forward -- would be a huge mistake. The only thing remaining to be seen is whether the Governor will recognize and acknowledge that fact before it is too late to correct.”

Sounds like the ball's in Arnold's court now.

Update 3 Missed this the first time I read through the amended AB 3034 - if Arnold signs it by Monday at 5, Prop 1 is dead and will be replaced with Prop 1A:

This bill would require the bond measure to appear first on the November 4, 2008, general election ballot and to be designated as Proposition 1 1A. The bill would specify the ballot label and title and summary to be used for the measure.

Apparently the revisions also have more flexibility on funding minimum operable segments, but as I read it the "spine" from SF-LA-Anaheim is still prioritized. Anyone have a better reading? Put it in the comments.

Frivolous Lawsuits

In a move they've been telegraphing for weeks, a group of wealthy NIMBYs have convinced the cities of Menlo Park and Atherton to join forces with the Planning and Conservation League, the California Rail Foundation (which has all of 3 members) and "lawsuit-happy activist" David Schonbrunn of TRANSDEF and sue to block high speed rail. Their claim is that the EIR/EIS that was adopted last month by the California High Speed Rail Authority violates the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) - but what is really going on is that a small coterie of long-time HSR deniers are greenwashing themselves and using the courts to stop one of the most important projects in state history.

Menlo Park and Atherton's objections are perhaps the most absurd. Driven by a handful of wealthy landowners, including Morris Brown and Martin Engel, their argument is that HSR would harm the aesthetics of their wealthy enclave:

The proposed route of the project runs down the heart of Menlo Park and Atherton on a narrow corridor occupied by CalTrain. The necessity of 4 tracks, where there are currently only 2 as well as needing the high 15 foot berm for the rail bed to accommodate grade crossings is of concern to both communities. With a minimum of 100 feet of width needed , as well as overhead catenaries for the electrical power to power the train, the impact in both communities is severe.

This is a comical, classic NIMBY objection. They're arguing that clean, sustainable mass transit, which California so desperately needs, should be stopped because it might not look pretty in two of the state's wealthiest communities?! That they're making an environmental argument is even more ridiculous. Currently Caltrain is powered by diesel trains and has a high rate of accidents caused by cars and people wandering onto the tracks. HSR would solve both problems by electrifying the tracks and physically separating them from the surrounding landscape, eliminating air pollution and making the entire corridor much safer.

Morris and Engel are inherently opposed to this project, and have spent months trying to dredge up any thin reed they can find to kill HSR. They never have proposed alternatives to how California can deal with the energy and climate crisis, and seem to prefer the failed status quo. And why not? They've got their land already, who cares about the masses?!

NIMBYism is one thing. The involvement of the PCL and TRANSDEF, two groups that have done good work in the past on containing sprawl, in this lawsuit is another. It's a profound disappointment to see them engaged in an effort to kill the HSR project. Surely they realize that a lawsuit filed three months out from the election jeopardizes the passage of Proposition 1. They don't have an alternative political strategy either on this, either for passing the HSR bonds or for dealing with our state's transportation issues.

Their reason for suing involves the choice of Pacheco Pass to connect the Bay Area to the Central Valley instead of the Altamont Pass. As this blog has repeatedly argued, both alignments had their good points and their bad points - but neither was clearly superior to the other. The most important thing for those who truly want to see HSR built in California is that we make a choice and stick with it. The California High Speed Rail Authority chose Pacheco, and so these Altamont supporters are choosing to sue.

The arguments against Pacheco are weak and by no means enough to suggest HSR should not be built. We dealt with the sprawl issue on Sunday but more detail is warranted. Much of the Pacheco Pass region cannot be built upon for topographical or legal reasons. A station at Los Banos has been permanently canceled. Gilroy has an urban growth boundary that could be stronger, but it exists. Moreover, HSR as a station-oriented system would primarily encourage growth near the station itself, not in far-flung exurban areas. Finally, these critics have consistently ignored or dismissed the reasons why sprawl is in mortal danger - without cheap oil and cheap credit, sprawl is simply not possible.

More to the point, sprawl is a problem whether we build HSR or not. So why hold HSR hostage to an issue that we have to solve no matter what? This really is a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good. HSR would mitigate against sprawl, would reduce carbon emissions, save on oil consumption, and promote mass transit riding habits. Why on earth would two organizations who are usually supportive of mass transit try to kill HSR?

The Altamont option isn't perfect either. It would require a new rail bridge across the bay, which would bring environmental problems of its own. The cities of Fremont and Pleasanton promised to sue if it were built, while the cities along the Pacheco route are supportive. On the whole there is no clear and compelling case to choose Altamont over Pacheco - and besides, if we really want HSR to be built, we need to rally around the project and ensure it passes, not drag this out forever. It's like Hillary vs. Obama all over again.

The deeper problem is that these groups have no sense of urgency. Al Gore and Van Jones have both explained the need for environmentalists and conservationists to come up with solutions NOW if we are to blunt the momentum of the "drill now, drill everywhere" crowd. We cannot build the public momentum for mass transit solutions if environmental groups spend their time in opposition, It is time to start showing Californians that high speed rail is a better deal for them than relying on wallet-busting oil prices, a failing airline industry, or carbon-spewing methods of travel.

The last group involved in the suit is the California Rail Foundation, headed by Richard Tolmach. Their opposition sounds dire, but the CRF has all of three members. The much larger - and therefore more representative - California rail organizations have chosen not to join the suit, such as TRAC, or openly support high speed rail and Prop 1, such as RailPAC and the National Association of Railroad Passengers (TRAC's decision on whether to endorse will be made later this month). Several chapters of the Sierra Club, including many in Southern California, are also supportive of high speed rail, suggesting something of the broad support HSR has around the environmental community.

So it's deeply unfortunate that a small group of people upset that their favored route wasn't picked, or upset that their wealthy communities will have safer and cleaner trains, are choosing to sue. They don't represent the California environmental movement, they don't represent the California transit movement, and as the election results in November will surely demonstrate, they don't represent Californians period. Their frivolous lawsuit is a nuisance, but it won't stop us from making the case to Californians that high speed rail is a good and necessary project.

The Sierra Club Loses Focus

It wasn't the article I was hoping to read upon my return from my honeymoon, but it's not that surprising to read in the Fresno Bee that the Sierra Club and the Planning and Conservation League are hesitating on backing Prop 1 and even considering a lawsuit - and for the nonsensical reason that the choice of the Pacheco route might "induce sprawl." That objection is bad enough, for reasons I'll discuss in a moment.

But what's really disturbing about this move is that it suggests the Sierra Club and the PCL have lost their focus - instead of looking at the big picture of high speed rail and emphasizing the game-changing environmental benefits it brings, they're focusing on a small non-issue instead. They've lost sight of the forest for the trees and instead of providing leadership on this issue they may instead cast their lot with the far right and leave Californians with no viable alternative to soaring fuel prices and a transportation system that is making our environmental problems far worse.

First, their criticisms as reported by E.J. Schulz:

But the environmentalists are still seething over the selection of relatively undeveloped Pacheco Pass as the route to connect the Central Valley to the Bay Area. They favor the more urban Altamont Pass to the north because they say it would induce less sprawl....

Environmentalists would rather see trains run farther north in the Valley before heading west so that more populated cities are served. They like the Altamont route because it would bring trains closer to Modesto, Dublin, Pleasanton and Livermore in the first phase.

By contrast, the Pacheco route -- roughly following Highway 152 -- is in a less populated area. Environmentalists worry that a planned station in Gilroy would induce sprawl in surrounding rural areas.

These worries are baseless. Gilroy and much of southern Santa Clara County have strict urban growth boundaries. If those places were going to sprawl they would have already done so given their proximity to the job center and hot housing market of Silicon Valley. HSR doesn't change that dynamic.

Nor does it change the fact that sprawl is facing hard times. Sprawl is bad, but it isn't a force of nature. It is instead a product of three major factors: cheap oil, cheap credit, and favorable land use laws. The first is disappearing for good, thanks to peak oil. The second doesn't exist now, and may never return. Certainly land use policies need to change to limit sprawl, but those changes have long ago been made in southern Santa Clara County. Why should HSR alone carry that burden? AB 32 carbon reduction goals should be applied to new housing developments, and ultimately, localities will have to change their ways.

The loss of cheap oil and the shortage of cheap credit together will lessen sprawl dramatically in the coming decades. I fully support land use changes to further kill off sprawl, but it's not worth holding HSR hostage to produce the changes that need to happen anyway at the state and local level.

The death of sprawl has already made itself manifest in Gilroy. The Westfield shopping center developers had a plan to convert a significant amount of farmland acreage east of Gilroy along Highway 152 into a huge mall. The plan aroused the opposition of the community and it was dropped earlier this year. High fuel prices, the credit crunch, and public defense of urban growth boundaries all combined to kill that sprawl project. Those factors will do so again.

A Gilroy HSR station would produce strong incentives for transit-oriented dense development in Gilroy, the kind of development that California cities need to focus on instead of sprawl. Gilroy is already partway there, and an HSR station where the current Caltrain station is located at 8th and Monterey would actually discourage sprawl because there would be viable alternatives to building on new farmland. The combination of infill development and strict urban growth rules are what have made Portland's anti-sprawl plans a success - you need both for the anti-sprawl measures to work. And high capacity mass transit is a necessary component.

Further, since the Authority has rejected plans for a Los Banos stop, and since as Mehdi Morshed explained in the Fresno Bee article that the communities along the Altamont route were not supportive of HSR, what on earth explains the ongoing refusal of the Sierra Club and the PCL to throw their support to Prop 1?

The only answer is a very depressing one, but an answer that is becoming more widely accepted among many environmental activists, sustainability activists, transportation activists, and folks on the left more broadly: the Sierra Club and the PCL have lost their way, and have lost sight of the big picture. In case folks haven't been paying attention, this country faces a climate crisis and an energy crisis. It's not like we have a whole lot of time to be fighting over objections that are not grounded in fact. At Netroots Nation two weekends ago Al Gore explained that we need to stop burning carbon and make a bold move to power our society with renewable energy. An electrically-powered high speed train system won't achieve that 100% renewables goal itself, but it would provide significant environmental benefits:

-Reduce carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to removing 1.4 million cars from the road, and take the place of nearly 42 million annual city-to-city car trips (Final EIR p. 92)

-Reduce CO2 emissions by up to 17.6 billion pounds/year (Quentin Kopp op-ed)

-Reduce California’s oil consumption by up to 22 million barrels/year (same as above)

According to the Final EIR 63% of intercity trips over 150 miles in California are taken by car (scroll to page 12). HSR would provide a huge dent in that figure.

High speed rail is one of those game changing proposals. How can the Sierra Club and the PCL overlook the cars taken off the road? How can they overlook the CO2 reductions? How can they overlook the reduction in pollution, especially in the Central Valley?

Four years ago Michael Schellenberger and Ted Nordhaus criticized the Sierra Club directly in their seminal essay The Death of Environmentalism. In their view the environmental movement, by focusing on small battles, has totally failed to address global warming, and that organizations like the Sierra Club "have little to show" for nearly 30 years of environmental activism after the big victories of the late '60s and early '70s. One of their specific criticisms is that the Sierra Club, for example, often eschews big policy changes for a niggling incrementalism that has done nothing to arrest the rate of warming. This has led them to refuse to articulate a bold vision for addressing the global warming crisis that of course hurts the natural environment, and it has led them to ignore the politics of producing change.

The Sierra Club's failure on high speed rail proves each of Schellenberger and Nordhaus' controversial charges. Instead of helping change the way Californians get around their state, shifting them away from oil-burning methods of travel to clean methods of travel that limit sprawl and generate urban densities, they are focusing on a small objection that doesn't even hold up on close examination. They have endorsed the concept of high speed rail in the past but if they don't endorse Prop 1, what other opportunity will they have to get it passed? If the HSR bonds don't pass this year, they aren't coming back anytime soon. It might take 10 years to revive the project - it's taken 15 in Texas - and that means completion of the line wouldn't happen until close to 2030.

By then it may be too late. Instead of refusing to support Prop 1 out of pique that they lost the Altamont vs. Pacheco argument, the Sierra Club and the PCL should follow Van Jones' advice and move from opposition to proposition. We have a proposition - literally - before us. Instead of being on the constant defensive the Sierra Club and the PCL can help California take a bold step in the right direction with Proposition 1. If we pass these bonds in November it will then be a signal to other states and to Congress that HSR is a politically popular project and it will spur similar projects around the country - projects that we desperately need.

Why would the Sierra Club and the PCL oppose these things? They have let their opposition to the Pacheco alignment blind them to the bigger picture. That decision has been made and even though the Sierra Club and the PCL lost, they can still be big winners. Let's hope they recognize the pressing environmental need for high speed rail before it's too late.

Feds Ready to Drop Big Money on HSR - But Will the Sierra Club Block It?

The current issue of Capitol Weekly is full of HSR material, including columns from Quentin Kopp and US Rep. Jim Costa in favor of the project. We'll get to those tomorrow, but of more immediate interest is this article by Anthony York on recent political developments surrounding our HSR plan.

One of the most welcome pieces of news is that Congress is looking to throw down some serious money on HSR next year:

A delegation of state high-speed rail board members recently went back to Washington D.C. seeking an answer to that very question. And the answers, according to Crane, were encouraging.

State officials say they have received indications from members of Congress that there will be roughly $60 billion set aside for high-speed rail projects nationwide in next year's federal transportation bill. And they are further encouraged that California, which is further along than any other state in its high-speed rail development, is well positioned to capture some of that money.

But, said Crane, "it will require a strongly unified and aggressive California Congressional Delegation" to capture some of those funds for the state high-speed rail program.

$60 billion is a pretty stunning number. The CHSRA has been aggressive in pursuing it - a major reason for having chosen the Pacheco alignment was that California members of Congress pressured the Authority to choose it. And given that no other HSR project in the country is anywhere close to being as developed as ours, it bodes well for the project finances. Of course, this is dependent on a Democrat winning the White House, as John McCain is a noted train hater.

It's also dependent on the California environmentalist community. Their support for HSR would seem to be a no-brainer - it would get millions of Californians out of their cars and planes, would provide dramatic carbon emissions reductions, and would kick off a national trend of moving toward sustainable, renewable, environmentally friendly transportation solutions. Reversing the American dependence on pollution-spewing transport would seem to be a holy grail for environmental activists - it sure is for me.

But not so much for the Sierra Club:

Meanwhile, some environmental opposition remains. The Sierra Club's Tim Frank said that while his group is encouraged by the decision not to build a rail station in those protected grasslands between Gilroy and Merced, his group still has concerns with the project.

"High-speed rail will be growth-inducing in the Central Valley," said Frank. "The question is, will it be good growth or bad growth?"
Frank said he wants to give the High-Speed Rail Authority some say over land use decisions as the Central Valley continues to grow.

"Now is the time when we have some leverage," Frank said.

I am as strong an anti-sprawl advocate as you are likely to find on the internets. But the Sierra Club is barking up the wrong tree here. They are defining themselves as an exclusively anti-growth organization, even at the expense of transformative action on global warming and pollution.

Sprawl needs to be ended in the Central Valley. But we also have to realize that sprawl is NOT a force of nature. It is instead a product of three major factors: cheap oil, cheap credit, and favorable land use laws. The first is disappearing for good, thanks to peak oil. The second doesn't exist now, and may never return. As a result the Central Valley is now the world leader in foreclosures. Certainly land use policies will need to change there, as they must statewide. But why should HSR alone carry that burden? AB 32 carbon reduction goals should be applied to new housing developments, and ultimately, localities will have to change their ways.

The loss of cheap oil and the shortage of cheap credit together will lessen sprawl dramatically in the coming decades. I fully support land use changes to further kill off sprawl, but it's not worth holding HSR hostage to produce the changes that need to happen anyway at the state and local level.

Unfortunately the Sierra Club has been attacking electric rail transportation more and more of late. In Seattle, where I lived from 2001 to 2007, the Sierra Club joined with right-wingers to successfully kill a ballot measure to provide a 70-mile expansion of the region's light rail system. The plan was unfortunately linked to an expansion of local roads, but the Sierra Club's opposition included the flawed charges that the light rail stations would have induced sprawl in suburban Seattle (flawed because Washington State's Growth Management Act would have prevented most sprawl). The Sierra Club promised to support a rail-only ballot measure in Seattle in 2008, but so far that support has so far been withheld.

Cathleen Galgani has addressed some of the Sierra Club's concerns in a new bill, written about in the Capitol Weekly article:

The bill makes one major concession to environmentalists, explicitly stating that there will be no rail station in Los Banos. Environmental groups including the Sierra Club opposed the Los Banos station, saying it would damage protected grasslands in the Central Valley.

I agree that there was no compelling need for a Los Banos station. And the Sierra Club can play a valuable role in ensuring that the Pacheco Pass route is designed and built with maximum respect for the surrounding landscape. But especially with the Los Banos change, the Sierra Club would be well-advised to declare victory and join us in supporting one of the most environmentally necessary and useful projects this state has ever considered.

Especially when there is up to $60 billion waiting for us in DC.