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THE SURFACE TRANSPORTATION BOARD (STB) has approved the start on construction this summer on the first leg of what is what is envisioned as America’s first “true” fully certified High Speed Rail train at 220 m.p.h. between Los Angeles and San Diego. Am- trak’s east coast Acela at 150 m.p.h. is cur- rently the closest on this continent, indeed in the western hemisphere. (But how long will that last? See below). Other lines have been drawn on a map, but have yet to reach any shovels-to-the-ground benchmark.


No Small Matter, But . . . Let’s put the STB ruling in perspective. This is a big deal, though by no means necessarily the last word. In our democracy, nothing, it seems, is ever final until the very last phase is finished. Beyond that, we can often antic- ipate a 35-50 year debate before almost any- thing becomes a full-blown reality. Not the least of hurdles remaining for the California project is the question of from where the money materializes. Congression- al opposition has not softened. California Congressman Jeff Denham had appealed to the board to halt the project on a legal and jurisdictional issue. Denham, a onetime sup- porter of the HSR line, switched when he saw the costs escalate. Now he chairs the House railroads subcommittee. Then of course, new NIMBY battles are yet to be fought (in addition to those already ongoing), and somewhere, somehow new court challenges likely will be filed. But for the moment the overriding significance here is that once there is a shovel in the ground, it is less likely that any huge public works project will be stopped. Plenty of battles await, likely every step of the way, before the line will be complete. The segments to be built and their schedules (according to the Revised Business Plan) are as follows: San Jose to Merced, 2026; Fresno to Bak- 2022; Bakersfield to Palmdale,


ersfield,


2022; Palmdale to Los Angeles, 2029 (al- though Xpress West, a different HSR entity, plans to connect to Palmdale and have pas- sengers transfer to the Metrolink commuter system in 2016. The California state HSR — affected by the latest STB decision — is scheduled to run on dedicated HSR tracks — again in 2029); Los Angeles to Anaheim to run on dedicated tracks, also in 2029); San Francisco to San Jose currently used by Cal- train commuter, is scheduled to be electri- fied by 2020. High speed trains will run at reduced speeds on this segment Bay to Basin in 2026, then full speed on the entire segment in 2029.


STB Reasoning The STB, in its 2-1 decision, noted that ‘The current transportation system in the San Joaquin Valley region has not kept pace with the increase in population, economic activi- ty, and tourism. The Interstate Highway sys- tem, commercial airports, and conventional passenger rail systems serving the intercity market are operating at or near capacity


16 JULY 2013 • RAILFAN.COM


and would require large investments for maintenance and expansion to meet exist- ing demand and future growth over the next 25 years or beyond.”


Roll Call of Three


Board Chairman Daniel R. Elliott (an Oba- ma appointee) and Commissioner Francis Mulvey (a Bush appointee re-appointed by Obama) voted in favor of the west coast shovels to the ground. The one dissenter was Vice Chairwoman (appointed by Obama) Ann D. Begeman. She cited “the project’s fi- nancial information.” And she added, “Sig- nificant federal taxpayer dollars are at stake here, nearly $3.5 billion in funding awarded by the Federal Railroad Administration, and those taxpayer dollars may be only the be- ginning. As such, I believe the public inter- est showing clearly merits our robust scruti- ny in this case.


Instead, this decision


discounts the agency’s responsibilities and largely cedes our judgment to others.” California HSR CEO Jeff Morales said,


“We can now focus on starting major work on the project this summer and providing thousands of jobs in the Central Valley.” So all kinds of obstacles remain. But once


the shovel is in fact digging this summer, ad- vocates will have the argument along the lines of “We can’t stop now, not after all the money we’ve spent.” Opponents on the other side will continue to cite the money yet to be spent if the line is completed. Further delays will put an exclamation point on the notion that this undertaking is really something more relevant to future generations, but not necessarily to this one. However, just to make certain the current day “instant gratification” America is not neglected, arguments have been made be- fore the STB that (as we await the ultimate implementation of the first high-speed serv- ice in the not-to-near future) existing con- ventional Amtrak schedules will offer im- proved and faster trains between Fresno and Merced, and also that if “worse comes to worse” the construction improvements “will be connected to other infrastructure for use by other operators in the event that [HSR] does not go into operation.”


Meanwhile, On the Other Coast... A few days later, Congressman Denham’s House railroads panel held a hearing at the future Moynihan station in New York City, a part of the old 1912 Farley Post Office build- ing that’s slated to renew at least some of the architectural glory of the old 1910 Penn Station across the street (destroyed in the ’60s). The two architectural marvels were erected by the same builders (McKim, Mead, & White). Focus of the hearing was the Northeast Corridor as Amtrak CEO Joe Boardman told the lawmakers he would need $782 million each year for next 15 years just to keep the NEC from falling apart (not his exact words, but that was the essence). His language was “just for the costs of NEC normalized replacement” and “the backlog of infrastructure work.”


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