Governor Jerry Brown signed, Wednesday, Senate Bill 1029, legislation that will fund the modernization of existing regional rail systems in California as well as initial funding for a high-speed rail link between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Photos by Luke Thomas.
By Brian Rinker
July 19, 2012
Governor Jerry Brown approved Wednesday billions of dollars in government funding to initiate construction on a controversial high-speed rail line that will one day cut across the Central Valley and connect San Francisco with Los Angeles, despite threats of lawsuits and criticism that the cash-strapped state can’t afford such a massive project.
Billed as an investment in California’s future and a jobs creator, the $4.7 billion initial investment will be matched by an additional $7.9 billion in federal funds.
During a ceremony at the Transbay construction site in downtown San Francisco, Brown signed funding bill Senate Bill 1029 with political supporters, including Mayor Ed Lee, and construction workers wearing hardhats and reflective vests. Earlier in the day, Brown performed a similar ceremony in Los Angeles at Union Station. Both stations will anchor the future 800-mile high-speed rail line.
The California high-speed rail system will link Los Angeles to San Francisco at the -under-construction Transbay Terminal.
Brown and supporters say the electric high-speed rail line is necessary to accommodate the transportation needs for the state’s growing population, while using energy sources more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels. As global oil reserves dwindle and prices skyrocket, a high-speed electric rail system could be a huge benefit to the state’s infrastructure, said supporters.
Voters originally approved $40 billion in bonds for the rail project in 2008, but the cost has since grown to upwards of $68 billion. The ballooning costs, lack of funding, political hurdles and environmental issues have all fueled the fire of criticism. Critics said the rail project has changed to such a degree it is no longer the same proposition voted in.
“I know there are fearful men – I call them declinists – who want to hide in a hole and hope something changes,” Brown said. “This is the time to invest, to create thousands of jobs like this project.”
Governor Jerry Brown.
While California will be the first state in the country to adopt a high speed rail network, Brown said 16 countries around the world already have successful high-speed rail networks.
Brown has advocated for rail systems since his first stint in the Governor’s mansion.
“I signed my first rail bill 30 years ago,” Brown said to a cheering crowd. “It’s taken this long to get things going.”
The high speed rail network will connect commuters from San Francisco to Los Angeles via the Central Valley at an estimated 220 miles per hour. Although it may be decades before the rails are completed, tens of thousands of jobs are expected to be created.
The bill will provide funding to build the initial 130-mile stretch of rail line between Merced and the San Fernando Valley and give billions to regional transportation agencies. San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will get $61 million to build 1.7 miles of light-rail for the Central Subway, a project connecting Chinatown with downtown.
BART will get $145 million for new cars and to lengthen track at the Millbrae Station, and Caltrain will get $706 million to electrify its system.
The state’s investment in these projects will trigger additional federal funding that will total in the billions.
The Hunger Site
August 19, 2012 at 9:07 am
Gov. Brown’s new propaganda campaign includes his Office of Planning and Research website that attempts to demonize global warming skeptics, scientists and energy companies on the unsettled side of the climate change issue. The few “references” cited for Brown’s eco-propaganda website are neither current nor credible – citing Gore-era sources that are years, over three years, even over forty years old. Recent climate science research is more measured and rational with its predictions about the vagaries of global warming.
Jerry Brown’s budget proposals include almost $500 million in spending from the theoretical revenues of California’s unprecedented carbon cap-and-trade climate regulations. Brown’s bet to offset one-half billion dollars in future state deficit spending raises questions about the reality of sufficient climate tax revenues and the propriety of Brown’s budget backfill climate bet. Reuters has reported it unlikely that Governor Brown would get a fraction of the revenue for the state budget from an untested cap-and-trade carbon tax program. Brown has suggested that some of these projected revenues could help fund the unpopular $100 billion, 510-mile long, San Fran-to-L.A., High-Speed Rail Project.
The brief and inglorious history of risky reliance upon economic benefits from new green energies or new climate control regulations shows nothing but failures – public monies badly spent both in the government and private sectors, and in both U.S. and international economies. The frontiers of new technologies and gratuitous green regulatory initiatives have proved perilous — especially during our historic global economic slowdown.
If you want to see what America would look like in an Obama second term, just take a look at California after decades of progressive political domination and destruction.
July 21, 2012 at 9:20 am
Incredibly dumb project brought to you by the Democratic Party and construction unions. The state probably doesn’t even have enough money to finish the Train to Nowhere segment, not to mention the rest of the system. Progressives and liberals are collaborating on and enabling a fiscal disaster for the State of California.
The interest payments alone on the bonds authorized in 2008 by state voters will be more than $600 million a year at a time when the state is destroying our education system with budget cuts.