High-speed train line plan may be derailed Schwarzenegger moves to slash funding for the state’s $40-billion system, citing other transportation needs. By Marc Lifsher, Times Staff Writer April 29, 2007
For more than a decade, policymakers have debated, studied and scoped out a high-speed rail line that would whisk travelers between downtown Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2 1/2 hours.
But, this year, the $40-billion dream of building a Japanese- or European-style bullet train through the Central Valley may find itself stopped in its tracks.
Even as state lawmakers visited France earlier this month for a glimpse of a passenger train as it set a world rail speed record of 357 mph, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was applying the brakes to California’s plan for a high-speed system.
The governor wants “to quietly kill this — and not go out and tell the people that high-speed rail isn’t in the future,” said state Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter). The lawmaker from the southern San Joaquin Valley is counting on the trains to help bring jobs to his district.
Schwarzenegger asked the Legislature in his 2007 budget to slash money for the California High-Speed Rail Authority. In addition, the governor also wants lawmakers to postpone indefinitely a $9.95-billion rail bond issue that is slated to appear on the November 2008 ballot.
Adam Mendelsohn, a spokesman for the governor, said Schwarzenegger still wanted to build a bullet train — just not anytime soon: “Right now, the voters are crying for relief from congested freeways. That’s the immediate priority.”
The governor’s moves come as the rail authority, which already has cleared its first environmental hurdles, is about to begin some crucial steps, including engineering, right-of-way acquisition and financial planning.
At stake is a 700-mile rail corridor with no potentially dangerous vehicle crossings. It would follow sev