Apr 6, 2008

State's high-speed rail hopes revived by bill

Pending Assembly legislation would reword ballot bond measure; private financing grows

By Erik N. Nelson / Bay Area News Group

A year after its already modest budget was slashed and its mortality became the butt of Sacramento jokes, California's high-speed rail enterprise appears to have reawakened.

The threat that its most promising source of funding - a $10 billion bond measure on the November ballot - would be killed has dissipated with a pending state Assembly bill that will reword the measure.

"It is accelerating the consummation of the project," beamed Quentin Kopp, chairman of the state High-Speed Rail Authority's board of directors, as he left a board meeting Wednesday.

And Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who last year brooded over the $40 billion-and-rising cost of the program, seems placated by an effort by the California High-Speed Rail Authority's effort to obtain some private financing. On March 27, the authority attracted dozens of financiers, train manufacturers, construction contractors and rail service operators exploring investment opportunities.

And if the anticipated public support of former Democratic and Republican governors wasn't enough to gladden the hearts of bullet train devotees, an army of college students has pledged to spend their summer vacations bicycling around California towns promoting the 700-mile system.

The authority is newly estimating that the system's first leg, from Anaheim to San Francisco, could begin moving paying passengers in 2020. That still depends, however, on November's bond measure, Congressional appropriations and private partners contributing $30.6 billion.

Schwarzenegger has gone from dubious to noncommittal, which is a positive step in the eyes of bullet train backers.

"The governor is very much supportive of high-speed rail, but he has no position on the November ballot measure," said Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Sabrina Lockhart. "It is not unusual for the governor to reserve his opinion on a particular ballot measure until it gets closer to an election."

On the other hand, Lockhart noted that one of the governor's financial advisors, David Crane, is serving on the high-speed rail board and has helped develop a new financing scheme that calls for equal parts state bond funding, private investment and federal transportation dollars.

A current U.S. House of Representatives proposal would appropriate $60 billion for high-speed rail projects around the country, said authority board member Rod Diridon, a former Santa Clara County Supervisor.

At the Wednesday board meeting, directors were especially upbeat about their project's chance of survival. With an agreement on the new state legislation, Assembly Bill 3034, there are signals from key figures that they'll not only abide the hefty borrowing measure, but they'll campaign for it.

A bipartisan campaign by the Republican governor and Democratic leaders of the Assembly and Senate helped get a $42.7 billion package of infrastructure bonds passed in 2006.

Former governor and Oakland mayor Jerry Brown, now state Attorney General, is high on the list of likely bullet train boosters. Former Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis has written opinion articles in favor of it, and other political luminaries are expected to follow suit.

The anticipated groundswell of political support is a major turnaround for a project that was on the chopping block last year.

Seeking $55 million to keep such basic components as engineering and environmental impact studies percolating, the bullet train authority was told to make do with less than a third of that.

If the ballot measure were taken off the ballot a third time -- previous legislation would have put it before voters in 2004 and 2006 -- Kopp predicted that the program would die.