Obama announcing the American Jobs Act. Photo: SHRM

Specifically, they lay out the numbers:

• $27 billion for rebuilding roads and bridges
• $9 billion for repairing bus and rail transit systems
• $5 billion for projects selected through a competitive grant program
• $4 billion for construction of the high-speed rail network
• $2 billion to improve airport facilities
• $1 billion for a NextGen air traffic control system

It’s encouraging to see the words “upgrading” and “rebuilding” when it comes to roads, indicating that the administration might be adhering to a fix-it-first approach to transportation spending. But, as we mentioned last week, the bridge Obama highlighted recently as a prime target for jobs-bill money isn’t actually in need of repair — transportation officials just want to widen it to allow more traffic to go through faster.

Certainly, the administration has shown a desire to attack the maintenance backlog in the country, but that doesn’t guarantee that highway expansions and sprawl projects won’t get a slice of the “rebuilding” pie.

That said, it’s good to see the plan includes $5 billion for projects funded through a competitive grant program (think TIGER). And it also hits a somewhat more equitable balance between rail/transit and roads than Congressional transportation bills generally do.

The president’s plan also includes an infrastructure bank, funded with $10 billion seed money. The administration says projects will be evaluated on the basis of how badly they’re needed and how much they would help the economy.

Some have said over the last couple of weeks that the I-bank concept is in trouble after the GOP pounced on the Solyndra loan story, in which a solar company filed for bankruptcy soon after receiving half a billion dollars in government-backed loans. Experts say the infrastructure bank proposal would vet projects well and protect taxpayers from risk.

Senator Dick Durbin, co-chair of the High-Speed Rail Caucus, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ride a high-speed train in China. Photo from Reid's Flickr photostream

That’s still starvation wages for the program, but it’s at least a placeholder that keeps it limping along. The move was spearheaded by four Democratic senators — Dick Durbin of Illinois, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Dianne Feinstein of California and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana — who introduced the successful amendment to reallocate some funds earmarked for highway and transit projects to high-speed rail.

“I offered this amendment because we can’t turn our backs on a project that will invest in the future and put Californians back to work,” Feinstein said in a statement.

“Every dollar we spend on rail produces $3 in economic output,” added Senator Durbin, a founding member of the Bi-Cameral High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail Caucus. “Congress has maintained a commitment to high speed and intercity rail for over a decade. This amendment will continue that commitment.”

Highway funding in the Senate bill stays at FY2011 levels, but the chamber added another $358 million for the New Starts program for transit capital investments, previously funded at $8.3 billion. The House budget would reduce New Starts to $5.3 billion.

TIGER got a little bump too, with the Senate raising the allocation from $527 million to $550 million. Of that, $120 million is reserved for rural communities. The third round of TIGER grant applications is currently underway.

The Senate-passed budget keeps $90 million for the tri-agency Partnership for Sustainable Communities (down from $100 million in 2011), a victory for livability advocates and anyone who prefers federal collaboration and efficiency over stovepipes and silos.

The bill also includes $25 million for energy efficiency improvements for transit systems to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. And the Washington metro system, always threatened with federal cuts, comes away with $150 million for capital investments, with a focus on safety.

These numbers are by no means final. They vary widely from the FY2012 budget the House passed two weeks ago. At some point, the two chambers will have to find a compromise between two significantly different funding proposals, but for now, they’re just trying to figure out an extension (or “continuing resolution”) of the current year’s budget in order to keep government programs funded past September 30. Last night’s vote in the House failed dramatically, with both Democrats and Tea Party Republican dissenting.

Both chambers are supposed to be on recess next week, but leadership might require members to stay in Washington, at least through the weekend, to hammer out a deal if they can’t work one out by the end of the this week. Congress doesn’t normally vote on Fridays, either, so many lawmakers are hoping for progress today so they can return to their districts.

The president's "vision" for high-speed rail is getting cloudy. Image: White House

This morning, a subcommittee marked up the transportation and HUD appropriations bill, and the full committee will consider it tomorrow afternoon. Only after that will the draft bill be released.

During this morning’s subcommittee markup, though, a few senators divulged a few key points. For example, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) said he was ” discouraged by the elimination of high-speed rail grants” in the budget. “It’s a casualty of the cuts mandated in the debt-limit deal,” he said.

Despite his strong push last winter for high-speed rail service that would reach 80 percent of the U.S. population in 25 years, President Obama has been willing to sacrifice high-speed rail funding in tense budget fights with Republicans. The Senate seems to be following suit.

However, funding for Amtrak is untouched in the Senate budget bill, foreshadowing a pitched battle once the Senate and House have to reconcile their two budget bills. The House made devastating cuts to Amtrak in its version.

And Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR) emphasized that TIGER grants are “an important part of the transportation equation” and indicated that they were still in the bill. Through other channels, we hear that TIGER is being funded at $550 million, which is slightly higher than the $527 million allocation it has now. The House 2012 budget proposal would have eliminated the program completely.

Smart Growth America sounded the alarm yesterday that the Partnership for Sustainable Communities (a collaboration among USDOT, EPA and HUD) could be on the ropes. From what we hear, there is some money for HUD grants for livable and sustainable communities.

Amendments can be offered at tomorrow’s full committee markup, so anything can change.

Jeff Davis of Transportation Weekly reports that the Senate bill maintains current funding levels for highways and transit ($41.1 billion and $8.3 billion, respectively). It also has an extra $1.5 billion in emergency relief highway funding, which is “exempt from the $55.25 billion ceiling given to the THUD bill and subject instead to a separate annual emergency ceiling under the Budget Control Act,” the deal that ended the standoff over the debt ceiling.

Building America's Future's words, not ours! Source: BAF, via USDOT.

Building America’s Future, led by former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, has added their voice to the chorus calling for greater investment in U.S. infrastructure, lest the country fall behind its global competitors. In a new report, Falling Apart and Falling Behind, BAF recommends more focus on mass transit, a switch away from formula funding without performance requirements, and more emphasis on metropolitan areas.

A couple weeks ago, we took some heat from some of you, dear readers, about our coverage of a somewhat similar report from the American Society of Civil Engineers. Indeed, that report called for more infrastructure spending, but without specific recommendations on how to build a bettertransportation system. Charles Marohn at Strong Towns wrote a scathing critique of the report, questioning the urgent need to “spend trillions to save seconds” of commute time – especially the assertion that the U.S. should spend $2.2 trillion in order to save $1.0 trillion. Marohn went on to say:

At Strong Towns, we want our infrastructure maintained. In fact, it’s the common denominator of a Strong Town. But the reason why we can’t maintain our infrastructure is not because we lack the money or are afraid to spend it. It is because the systems we have built and the decisions we’ve made on what is a good investment are based on the kind of ridiculous math you see reflected in this ASCE report. We spend a billion here and a billion there and we get nothing but a couple minutes shaved off of our commutes, which just means we can build more roads and live further away from where we work. (Or, as we call that here in America: growth.)

Well put. And we’re glad to see that today’s contribution to the infrastructure debate goes deeper than the ASCE report in recommending concrete ways to build smarter, not just more.

Building America’s Future urges more spending, but says that to do it right, funding priorities should adhere to national strategies. And they’re not shy about spelling out what those are: more economic growth and mobility, less congestion and pollution. “Largely run on gasoline, our transportation system is environmentally, politically, and economically unsustainable,” they write.

Source: BAF via World Economic Forum.

To achieve those goals, BAF urges the federal government to redirect spending toward the 100 metropolitan areas that generate 75 percent of U.S. GDP, especially investing in their mass transit systems. BAF wants to “re-focus highway investment on projects of national economic significance,” including a fix-it-first priority that Rendell says should be built into law. BAF would invest in high-speed rail, but they join Republicans in criticizing the Obama approach of spreading the dollars too thinly around the country. Building America’s Future would focus on three key corridors: Boston to Washington, L.A. to San Francisco, and a hub-and-spoke system around Chicago.

As for how to pay for it, they unabashedly call for raising the gas tax and indexing it to inflation, pointing out that U.S. consumers spend way too little on gasoline, compared with other developed countries, with far too low of a gas tax, which can’t even begin to pay for the negative externalities of fossil fuels. “As high as gas prices in the U.S. seem today, they do not even fully account for the true cost of driving in terms of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions,” the report says. “In the interest of our own environmental sustainability and national security, we should consider the ways in which other countries’ taxes discourage overreliance on gasoline.”

BAF also seeks a shift toward longer-term solutions like a VMT fee, congestion pricing, and increased tolling, as well as establishing a national infrastructure bank, making TIGER permanent and expanding TIFIA. They emphasize the need to foster, not suppress, local innovation in the way that those programs do. Their zeal for public-private partnerships appears more tempered than some, and they call for an examination of best practices for PPPs – a recent focus among some constituencies that fear that PPPs can privatize profits while socializing risk.

All of these moves would finally yank our transportation system out of the Eisenhower age, Building America’s Future asserts. While some road-gang types wouldn’t mind staying in the Eisenhower age forever, more and more unlikely allies are popping up all over, realizing that building roads can’t cure congestion.

The report focuses on the United States’ freefall in global rankings of infrastructure, with the World Economic Forum rating us first in the world for the competitiveness of our infrastructure in 2005 and 15th today. And in his remarks to reporters, Rendell gave a good amount of airtime to the need to move metallurgical coal to ports as fast as Australia does. But the real strength of the BAF report is that it goes beyond a mere cry for more spending, as the ASCE report did. It says that without spending that money strategically, to reduce pollution, increase connectivity, maintain a state of good repair, and strengthen metropolitan areas, more spending isn’t enough.

Members of the U.S. High-Speed Rail Association on Capitol Hill with Rep. John Mica (center) on Tuesday. Photo courtesy of USHSR.

At a meeting with members of the U.S. High-Speed Rail Association Tuesday, House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica softened his stance somewhat on his plan to privatize the Northeast Corridor.

He acknowledged that the proposal is “controversial” and said that was why he framed it in a separate bill, apart from the rest of the reauthorization. He said he’s “heard the concerns” about the plan. A member of his staff said that the original plan was being portrayed as transferring Amtrak’s assets away from it, while leaving Amtrak holding the bag on the debt. “Which, when you put it that way, does sound sort of unfair,” the staffer said, indicating that issues like those are being worked out.

Andy Kunz, president and CEO of the U.S. High-Speed Rail Association, said he was glad to see Mica striking a more cooperative tone. “His initial bill and his initial hearing was a little bit ‘This is it; take it or leave it’,” Kunz said. “Now he’s recognizing there needs to be a bit more cooperative action.”

The committee isn’t easing up on everything, though. The staffer also stated that the committee was giving inter-city and passenger rail “a temporary rest” while it focuses exclusively on high-speed rail. “It does not serve the two programs well to be ‘smooshed,’ or put together and consolidated the way they have been and then have most of the projects that receive funding not be high-speed rail in any way, shape, or form.”

In response to the Congressional Research Service’s conclusion that the rail privatization scheme could run into constitutional problems, Mica’s staffer was dismissive, saying CRS merely warned that some courts could find it to be a violation, and they should be careful. (Sounds like a finding of unconstitutionality to me.)

As he often does, Mica spoke of his high-speed rail plans as a way to rescue high-speed rail from the Obama administration’s mismanagement and bungling. He often jokes about the “gift that keeps on giving”: the original $8 billion allocated for high-speed rail, some of which has been returned by gun-shy states and re-allocated.

Mica asserted that the involvement of the private sector is “non-negotiable” – which Amtrak itself would agree with, as it’s already seeking private sector partners. Mica gave Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman credit for being on board. “Boardman sees that you cannot [upgrade the NEC to high speeds] – at least in his lifetime – under the current proposal,” Mica said. He also said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is “willing to negotiate.” But he cast blame on Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), who he said are willing to give “none of the pie” to private investors.

Everyone is still trying to figure out exactly what the “pie” consists of, in any case, and Mica let the USHSR know that he had sent a letter to Joseph Boardman asking for an itemized inventory of all the assets on the NEC and their fair market value. Mica’s staffer says that “knowing what’s there and how leveraged it is and what are the encumbrances” would be a “building block of private sector financing participation.”

Kunz of the U.S. High-Speed Rail Association agreed that Amtrak “needs to show that they’re willing to bend a little bit,” if for no other reason than because “Amtrak needs funding from the federal government every year.”

In an interview with Streetsblog immediately after the Capitol Hill meetings, Kunz said, “Amtrak is just assuming they’re going to control everything and run everything, and that may not be in the interests of the whole country… it’s the country’s rail system. They need to do what’s best for the country, which may not always be what’s best for Amtrak.”

Mica is hoping that transit-oriented development will be a key source of private sector involvement, and, perhaps, revenue. He pointed to successes with TOD in Phoenix and said, “Can you imagine, in the Northeast Corridor, what you could do?”

Mica also said he’s been meeting with Democrats on the larger reauthorization package, and that so far they’ve gotten about 55 or 60 percent of the way through the bill. It’s been lamented that there haven’t been “Big Four” meetings in the House like there have been in the Senate, bringing together top members of both parties from the committee, but those meetings have now started in the various subcommittees. Mica started to say that all that consultation was the explanation for the delay in marking up the bill, but then he said, “We will continue in a slower motion fashion,” he said, “mainly because our leadership controls the floor time.”

He granted that the delay makes sense. “Given the intensity of the current drama on the budget deficit, they probably calculated right,” he said. “To get this to the floor before next Friday seems highly unlikely. But we have a commitment to do it as soon as we get back [from recess]. So you’ll see everything go from slow motion into fast motion as soon as we get back.”

The U.S. High-Speed Rail Association is trying to drum up interest in its new “Republicans 4 Rail” program. They’re trying to get members of Congress, governors, state and local officials, and even some rank-and-file members of the Republican party to sign on.

For now, the pickings are still somewhat slim. Mica counts, although many Democrats see his Northeast Corridor proposal as the “death knell” of passenger rail in the U.S. So does Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), one of few Republican senators representing urban or industrial states. In trying to brainstorm other Senate Republicans who might be interested in joining R4R, Kirk’s staffer and the USHSR came up with a short list indeed: maybe Rob Portman from Ohio; maybe Scott Brown of Massachusetts if he weren’t running for reelection.

The rail lobbyists met with Kirk’s office after the meeting with Mica, but Kirk himself was not able to show up. His staffer talked about the Lincoln Legacy Infrastructure Development Act, also designed to draw private investment to public infrastructure projects.

He also alluded to the House/Senate split around the duration of a reauthorization. He said the constituent calls he gets on the subject are about split, 50-50, on the issue of whether to lock in low spending levels for six years, a la the House bill, or go with a two-year bill at higher spending levels, but offering less ability to plan long-term projects.

Photo: The Onion

According to The Onion, al- Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has demanded that the U.S. make significant repairs and upgrades to its roads, bridges, and railways before al-Qaeda would even consider destroying them with terrorist attacks.

Reading from a prepared statement, al-Zawahiri blasted the U.S. government for its lack of foresight and admonished its leaders for failing to provide Americans with efficient and reliable modes of public transport to reduce traffic congestion, lower carbon emissions, improve air quality, and supply suitable targets for terrorists.

“The al-Qaeda network is fully prepared to continue the jihad against the American infidels by launching deadly attacks, but your outdated and rusting transportation infrastructure needs to be completely overhauled for those strikes even to be noticed,” al-Zawahiri said. “We want to turn your bridges into rubble, but if we claimed credit for making them collapse, nobody would ever believe us.”

They even got in a dig about the nation’s paralysis around building high-speed rail.

The al-Qaeda commander confirmed his organization initially hoped to cripple travel in the United States by destroying its nationwide high-speed rail system, but had been shocked to discover no such thing exists. Calling it a cost-efficient, modern way of travel that would serve as a boon to small businesses and the national economy, al-Zawahiri implored U.S. officials to invest in not just one high-speed passenger train network, but many of them, so they could all be blown up simultaneously in a signature al-Qaeda attack upon the nation’s major population centers.

Throughout the threatening video, the terrorist leader questioned the priorities of American politicians, asking why they would refuse to fund engineering projects that would create jobs, bombing opportunities, and new ways for the U.S. compete globally.

If this desperate plea for adequate infrastructure funding by The Onion and al-Qaeda doesn’t move Congress to act, I don’t know what will.

Is Bakersfield-to-Fresno a good start for HSR in California? Photo: Neighborhoodr

On Thursday, the California High Speed Rail Authority accepted the resignation of Ogilvy Public Relations. The PR firm was about to get axed over accusations that it billed excessively while doing little to counter a tide of anti-rail propaganda.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, at the Rosemead Community Recreation Center, east of Los Angeles, the Authority displayed maps and renderings of the rail system it’s designing to link California’s major cities. Up and down the state, in fact, the Authority is holding regular outreach meetings as it draws up detailed blueprints, including a planned initial segment from Bakersfield to north of Fresno, through the state’s agricultural Central Valley. “We hope to start construction in the fall of 2012,” said Project Manager Maj. Gen. Hans Van Winkle at a high-speed rail conference in downtown Los Angeles. So in theory, everything’s on schedule and there’s $6.3 billion in state bonds and federal funds ready to go.

The Ogilvy firing, however, was just the latest indication of the vicious brawl going on between HSR opponents and supporters nationally and in Sacramento. With Florida’s decision to abandon its project, California is now the only state with a dedicated HSR system in advanced planning. That’s put California in the cross-hairs of anti-rail politicians and petroleum-and-aviation-industry-backed groups such as the Reason Foundation.

The battled heated up May 10, when California’s Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) came out with a report attacking the decision to build the first leg in the Central Valley. Engineers prefer this long, straight section because it minimizes construction challenges. Nevertheless, the report set off a flurry of anti-rail editorials in papers ranging from the Sacramento Bee to the Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. Many echoed the Reason Foundation’s statements that the Central California segment will be a “train to nowhere.”

“This initial money, if we spent it instead in Southern California…we could use it for existing commuter rail and high-speed rail,” said Southern California State Senator Alan Lowenthal.

In 2008, voters in California approved Proposition 1A, which authorized the state to issue $10 billion in bonds to begin funding a dedicated, 220-mph high-speed line from Los Angeles to San Francisco. However, it stipulated the dollars can’t be spent unless they’re matched — in this case by the Feds.

Roelof van Ark, Chief Executive Officer of the California HSR project, requested that the Federal Railroad Administration consider “flexibility” with funds slotted for California. But it mandated the Central Valley segment because it’s the most shovel ready. And Roy Kienitz, Under Secretary for Policy, rejected changing that stipulation.

State Sen. Alan Lowenthal wants to change the HSR route. Some say a change could derail the whole project. Photo: LAT

The LAO report had other criticisms, including a claim that the cost of the project was underestimated at $43 million and is more likely to run about $67 billion. But it’s the tug-of-war between the Central Valley and the ends of the state that threatens the project as politicians vie for control over the money pot.

The Republican Mayor of Fresno, Ashley Swearengin, is a staunch supporter of HSR and the decision to start in the Central Valley. She talks about how important the project will be for giving her constituents a way to reach Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Southern California’s Alan Lowenthal, however, introduced Senate Bill 517 to fix “deficiencies” — by, among other things, firing the entire HSR Authority Board. “I love the project — I just don’t feel we have the right people in place,” he said, “or that we’re getting accurate information.” High-speed rail supporters say he just wants a board that will reverse the decision to start in the Central Valley.

“He’s constantly harping and nitpicking every detail,” said Daniel Krause, executive director of Californians for High-Speed Rail, a volunteer group trying to counter the anti-HSR wave. “It’s not that there shouldn’t be critiques, but he bases all his arguments on figures from rail skeptics. He’s seriously endangering the project.”

Lowenthal concedes that without a dedicated revenue stream set up to fund construction of the entire system he can’t support starting in the Central Valley, even if the alternative is the project’s death.

Then there’s Assembly Bill 145 from another Central Valley politician, Stockton Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani. It would put the entire project under a new agency called the Department of High Speed Trains. Advocates see it as a way to give the project continuity and to protect it from Lowenthal and shifting political winds. Galgiani herself is more conciliatory. “I see the two bills as complementary,” she said. Her main beef is with the LAO, which she accuses of playing “Monday morning quarterback” by launching its critique so late in the game.

Either way, Galgiani wants 517 amended to include a grandfather clause that would allow current board members to complete their terms. That keeps the board intact until shovels start turning. Without that clause, the project could end up with an openly hostile board, predict HSR’s boosters. They could change the decision to start in the Central Valley, thereby sabotaging Federal matching funds and halting the project. In that case, California follows Florida and the project dies. “Then you won’t see true HSR in the U.S. for a generation,” said Krause.

House Appropriations Chair Hal Rogers (R-KY). Image: Mindfully

The House Appropriations Committee has released details [PDF] on the budget agreement between the two houses, including more information on the agreed-to $38.5 billion in cuts. Where we’d heard before that high-speed rail was getting a $1.5 billion haircut, down to the $1 billion for 2011 that President Obama had originally requested, it turns out now that that last billion dollars is being cut too. And to add insult to injury, they’re also zeroing out $400 million of rejected Florida rail funds (technically cutting funding from 2010), bringing the grand total of HSR cuts to $2.9 billion.

This is a big blow to one of the president’s signature projects, with which he was planning on “winning the future.” It further clouds the outlook for his $53 billion proposal for high-speed rail over the next six years, starting in 2012. These budget cuts, of course, are for FY2011, before the $53 billion was to start, but please believe the Republicans aren’t looking for a massive increase in rail money for next year either.

TIGER, which had appeared to be safe, is getting $72 million cut from its $600 million budget, and the Appropriations Committee eliminated all funding for “planning, preparation or design” of projects eligible for TIGER funding. For now, the Partnership for Sustainable Communities appears to be safe.

Meanwhile, New Starts transit funding, already slated for $280 million in cuts, is now getting $502 million cut from its $2 billion budget, with another $128 million coming out of Amtrak grants for capital improvements and debt service. They’ve also cut $3.1 billion in highway contract authority that had not been obligated, as opposed to the $2.5 billion cut announced Friday night.

The attorney for the state senators argued in Florida's Supreme Court to save high-speed rail funding.

Florida’s Supreme Court ruled this morning that Gov. Scott doesn’t have to accept federal money to build a high-speed rail line between Tampa and Orlando. Two state senators had filed a lawsuit, claiming Scott had “overstepped his authority” by turning down the money, since the state legislature had voted to authorize the project. (Check out Transportation Nation’s chronology of events.)

Scott put the final nail in the coffin this morning when he formally told Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, for the last time, he was rejecting the federal funds for the project. LaHood had been trying for weeks to assuage Scott’s concerns by assuring him that Florida would not be held responsible for cost overruns and that private investors would assume most of the risk.

A USDOT spokesperson said the department had “addressed every legitimate concern Governor Scott has raised” and “repeatedly and clearly told Governor Scott and his staff that Florida would not bear financial or legal liabilities for the project.” Florida Senator Bill Nelson and Rep. John Mica begged him to change his mind. Still, no dice.

This morning, after talking to Scott, LaHood issued a statement saying, “The Obama Administration’s bold high-speed rail plan will not only create jobs and reinvigorate our manufacturing sector in the near term, it is a crucial and strategic investment in America’s future prosperity. I know that states across America are enthusiastic about receiving additional support to help bring America’s high-speed rail network to life and deliver all its economic benefits to their citizens.”

He’s right about that – politicians from around the country – and especially the Northeast – have been lining up to ask for Florida’s hand-me-downs.

U.S. Department of Transportation announced this afternoon that nearly $1.2 billion in passenger rail money will be withdrawn from the states of Ohio and Wisconsin at the behest of their incoming governors. The money will be transferred to other states to support “high speed rail projects already underway.”

Photo: Fox 6 Now

California, Florida and Washington State come away as the big winners, receiving up to $624 million, $342 million and $161 million respectively. Those funds will help advance plans to connect San Francisco to San Diego, Tampa to Orlando and Portland to Seattle.

Each of the recipients were granted less money than they originally applied for in their HSR application, according to Justin Nisly, a spokesman for DOT. The additional funding will allow these states to further their plans.

“I am pleased that so many other states are enthusiastic about the additional support they are receiving to help bring America’s high-speed rail network to life,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement accompanying the announcement.

Even Wisconsin will receive $2 million to improve its Hiawatha Amtrak line from Chicago to Milwaukee.

Here is the way the money will be distributed in more detail:

• California: up to $624 million
• Florida: up to $342.3 million
• Washington State: up to $161.5 million
• Illinois: up to $42.3 million
• New York: up to $7.3 million
• Maine: up to $3.3 million
• Massachusetts: up to $2.8 million
• Vermont: up to $2.7 million
• Missouri up to $2.2 million
• Wisconsin: up to $2 million for the Hiawatha line
• Oregon: up to $1.6 million
• North Carolina: up to $1.5 million
• Iowa: up to $309,080
• Indiana: up to $364,980

High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program Investment Map, via USDOT

USDOT said they will review the contracts to determine whether Ohio and Wisconsin will be forced to reimburse the federal government for any portion of the money already spent. Funding was pulled after Wisconsin governor-elect Scott Walker and Ohio governor-elect John Kasich each indicated an intent to halt passenger rail projects underway in their states when they take office next month.

A total of $8 billion was distributed around the country to promote high speed rail as part of the President’s Economic Stimulus bill last year.

Rail advocates in Wisconsin had been protesting Walker’s plans to kill the project and forfeit a $810 million federal grant to connect Milwaukee to Madison. Rail proponents were hopeful recently that at least some of the money could be salvaged to support passenger rail in a different form.

Meanwhile, in Ohio, Governor-Elect Kasich had written President Obama requesting permission to reallocate Ohio’s $400 million grant to highway and freight rail projects. LaHood responded that the money could be used only for passenger rail.

Just this week, Ohio’s current Governor, Ted Strickland, wrote a letter to Kasich, urging him to reconsider his position. Rail proponents in Ohio had been circulating a petition to present to Kasich when he takes office.

A variety of states have been angling for the money since Walker and Kasich were elected. Officials in North Carolina and New York and other states had expressed interest in competing for the funds.

Rick Harnish, executive director of the Midwest High-Speed Rail Association, said the loss of funds in Ohio and Wisconsin is a big blow to the region.

“It’s a very sad day for the Midwest economy,” he said. “We really need to build stronger links between our cities.”

Image: CAHSRA

In states where building high-speed rail is not politically toxic, elected leaders are scrambling to get a piece of the federal (essentially free) money Tea Party and Republican pols are unwilling to accept for rail projects. As soon as New Jersey governor Chris Christie killed the Access to the Region’s Core tunnel under the Hudson River, Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo told the Federal Transit Administration he would gladly take the $3 billion the feds had committed to the project.

When newly elected governors in Ohio and Wisconsin pulled the plug on their high-speed rail projects, the prospect of all that money being reassigned got more than a few politicians excited. The Associated Press reported both Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein yesterday informed US DOT Secretary Ray LaHood they would love more money for our High Speed Rail Project.

Now Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is piling on.

“It is with a certain sense of astonishment that we note recent announcements from some of our gubernatorial colleagues that they are uninterested in federal contributions to their high-speed rail systems,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement. “You are more than welcome to redirect that money to California – where we know how to use it to generate hundreds of thousands of jobs and provide a clean, fast and low-cost way to travel.”

Hopefully LaHood isn’t too concerned about the recent conflict of interest investigations casting a shadow on California High Speed Rail Authority boardmembers Curt Pringle and Richard Katz, the latter announcing his retirement from the board yesterday.

Read the rest of Schwarzenegger’s statement after the jump:

In fact, we are proudly leading the nation in the planning and development of our high-speed rail system, with the strong support of our fellow Californians, the federal government and soon the private sector.  If other states refuse your support, we would certainly welcome their shares – particularly as we continue to demonstrate how well those dollars will be spent in our great state.

In California, we have secured a total of $4.3 billion to begin construction on the core of our system.  That includes a recent $715 million in federal funding, on top of previous economic stimulus funds and state and local matches.  The California High-Speed Rail Authority Board is poised to select within a matter of weeks the location of the first section of the line.  We are set to begin construction in 2012 and begin passenger service in 2020.  In short, the progress, pace and precision of California’s project has been nothing short of remarkable.

Californians eagerly await a high-speed rail system and, with last year’s approval of major bond funding, they have done their part to make it happen.  With a firm long-term commitment of federal funding, state matches that stretch your investment still further and the private funding such assurances will bring, we will be pleased to demonstrate to the rest of the nation the environmental and economic value of high-speed rail.  As President Obama said, “There’s no reason why the world’s best infrastructure should lie beyond our borders.

Image: CAHSRA

The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CAHSRA) Board of Directors won’t make a decision on where to start building California’s first high-speed rail segment until December, but nearly everyone can see the writing on the wall.

Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Adminstrator Joe Szabo wrote [pdf] CAHSRA CEO Roelof van Ark on Wednesday to inform him that all of the $2.9 billion in federal money given to California’s project, including the $715 million awarded last week, must fund either of the two Central Valley segments between Fresno and Bakersfield.

The FRA’s letter comes in the middle of the comment period to formalize the segment selection criteria, with the federal government all but deciding the first segment ahead of a formal process. And despite the letter, van Ark said the CAHSRA was committed to objective criteria.

“The selection criteria should be neutral of the four segments,” said van Ark at the CAHSRA Board meeting in Sacramento yesterday. “The first step of the process, to select and build the first segment, is really that, it’s a first step. Building a high-speed rail line means means connecting metropolitan areas. We have to make a selection that will logically lead us to our final goal. The final goal remains building the complete system.”

van Ark suggested his board consider four general criteria for segment selection, with subsections :

1. Provide expansion of the alignment to ensure an appropriate operational high-speed system
2. Minimize construction risk
3. Minimize schedule risk
4. Build the most useful high-speed rail infrastructure for the least cost.

Despite these criteria, van Ark noted the obvious, that the state could lose the federal money if it doesn’t meet FRA requirements. “At this stage, going by the FRA letter, it would be the selection as together: the Merced-Fresno or the Merced-Bakersfield segment should be built first.”

While project supporters like Californians for High-Speed Rail say they support all segments equally and say the CAHSRA must start somewhere, Jose Luis Moscovich, executive director of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA), feared the FRA letter meant the Bay Area had lost out and the decision could hurt the overall project in the eyes of the public.

“I’m the biggest high-speed rail supporter you’re going to find anywhere and I believe it will be built and it has to be built,” Moscovich told Streetsblog. “The reality is that we have about $13 billion to build something that’s going to cost well over $40 billion and we have no clear idea where the rest of the money is going to come from.”

Moscovich was concerned about the significance of segment selection and the overall success of the project if the Central Valley sections were first. “Where the initial amount of money gets spent really matters. I’m not sure that by putting the majority of the money in the Central Valley we are going to be able to demonstrate the value of high-speed rail for California,” he said.

“It’s not just about creating jobs, it’s about building the system in a way that makes sense,” he continued. “To me, the way that made sense to build the system was to build a demonstration segment between San Francisco and San Jose and another one between LA and Anaheim and have better service in the Central Valley, acknowledging that you can’t build the whole system with one fifth of the money.”

Moscovitch noted that the Bay Area will be negatively impacted on many fronts if the first segment is in the Central Valley. Infrastructure improvements like electrification of Caltrain and improvement to commuter rail will be delayed and jobs will not materialize. Given that less than a quarter of the total funds necessary to build the project have been identified, controversy around the project hasn’t dissipated and new Republican leadership in Washington has vowed to spend less not more, Moscovitch argued there is a risk the Bay Area segment won’t be built.

“Up until recently, the Authority was embarked in a process that I think was less than ideal, less than responsive to the concerns of the communities along the right-of-way that has probably generated much self-inflicted pain,” said Moscovich. “Now the Authority  is working very well with us and others to try to correct those problems, but it’s going to take some time to do that. In the meantime, there’s going to be a need to spend money that has already been allocated to the Authority for this starter segment and it may be that because of the fact that controversy still exists in parts of the Bay Area right-of- way.”

Further, Moscovich said no high-speed rail system in the world has been built without a massive federal government outlay and the private sector cannot be expected to invest the remaining $30 billion or more needed to complete the project if the controversy persists.

CAHSRA officials have until the December board meeting to pick the segment, but board members at the meeting seemed resigned to choosing between two segments.

According to van Ark, that stance wasn’t a bad thing and he argued the public shouldn’t consider it a competition between segments, but a commitment to a complete system.

“We must remember that this is a high-speed rail system. This not talking, as I know some people are talking, about a segment, a commuter rail line,” he said. “This is the beginning of a high-speed rail system that connects southern California to northern California. It is all part of building a high-speed rail system by 2020.”

Image: CAHSRA

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced $2.4 billion in grants for high speed and commuter rail projects around the country today, including $900 million for various portions of California’s rail network and High-Speed Rail project.

US DOT Secretary Ray LaHood compared the initial investment in high-speed rail networks across the country under the Obama Administration to the Interstate Highway system under President Eisenhower starting in the 1950s. The highway system, writes LaHood on his blog, “is the life-blood of American commerce and mobility.”

“Every vision this nation ever realized began with a few courageous steps,” LaHood continues. “If we put off high-speed rail by saying it will take too long to build, then it will never happen. Now it’s time for another bold step. The America I grew up in didn’t just happen. Our nation’s progress was only made possible through the imagination, investment, and hard work of those who came before. And I’m proud that, today, we’re adding to that legacy with President Obama’s commitment to high-speed rail.”

The federal money is being spread across various high-speed rail corridors from Florida to Illinois to Seattle. John Robert Smith, the CEO of national transit non-profit Reconnecting America, commended the Obama administration for the grants and also compared the initiative to the Interstate Highway system.

“A national high-speed rail system is not only an opportunity to redefine how we travel and how our regional economies grow, it represents the type of innovation and progress that can guarantee another century of growth and prosperity in America,” Smith said in a statement.  “It gives people a choice in how they travel, something polls have shown Americans want.”

Of the various high-speed rail projects around the country, the California project received the most money, reflecting the groundwork that has already been done in the state to prepare for a system that will link San Francisco with Los Angeles in under three hours.

The first phase of the 800-mile high-speed rail system will span the San Francisco Bay Area to the Los Angeles metropolitan area and will be built in several sections to manage the construction process and gets trains on the tracks as soon as possible, according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CAHSRA). The four sections being considered as the potential launch point for high-speed rail construction are San Francisco to San Jose, Merced to Fresno, Fresno to Bakersfield and Los Angeles to Anaheim. The CAHSRA  is currently in the environmental analysis phase for all sections in the system.

Of the $900 million total to the state, $715 million of the funding is earmarked for the Central Valley Corridor, either the Merced-to-Fresno or Fresno-to-Bakersfield sections. The money is expected to build 500 miles of high-speed rail track, rail stations and control technology. The new grant brings the total secured for construction on the CAHSR system to $4.3 billion, according to the CAHSRA. Construction of the core system will begin in 2012, after route alternatives have been chosen and environmental review completed.

CAHSRA CEO Roelof van Ark has committed the CAHSRA to a set of route selection criteria and the Federal Railway Administration has given the CAHSRA until January to determine which segment of the route it will begin building first.

“It is absolutely critical that we invest these funds where they will do the most good,” van Ark said in a statement several weeks ago. “We want our board of directors to have all the facts when they make this decision, so we are spelling out both the legal requirements and a clear assessment of the benefits and risks in each eligible section.”

Though the federal grant is directed at the Central Valley Corridor, there is no guarantee the CAHSRA will start with that segment, though van Ark acknowledged that today’s grant could lead to the impression that the Central Valley Corridor would be the first.

“While we recognize that the federal government has indicated a preference by specifying the Central Valley for the bulk of the award, the [CAHSRA] is committed to using formal criteria in making the selection to decide where to begin building high-speed rail,” said van Ark.

The next meeting of the CAHSRA board is set for November 4th, when it will discuss the formal criteria and obligations it faces under federal law and Proposition 1A, the $10 billion bond California voters approved in 2008. According to the CAHSRA, the selection for construction of the first segment is expected before the end of the year.

Robert Cruickshank of Californians for High Speed Rail, a non-profit that supports the project, argued the grant shouldn’t be seen by the public as competition between segments. “This shouldn’t be about picking winners and losers. This should be about picking the timeline for construction,” said Cruickshank. He said the availability of federal matching funds is one of the important criteria for selecting the first segment, but it is not the only one.

“I think they have to assess other pieces of the puzzle,” he said. “They have to make sure the environmental approvals are significantly advanced. It may make it a bit more likely, but it’s not a done deal.”

Cruickshank argued that much more energy should be spent on securing additional federal funding, a prospect that could be increasingly difficult depending on the outcome of the November 2nd election. If Republicans took control of the House or both the House and the Senate, said Cruickshank, a new transportation bill with significant money for high-speed rail could be wishful thinking. At that point, he said, the CAHSRA might need to rely on foreign sovereign wealth funds from China, Japan, or the Middle East.

“A lot will depend on what happens on Tuesday,” said Cruickshank.

Federal Grants Beyond High Speed Rail

In addition to the money given to the CAHSRA for the Central Valley Corridor, the US DOT announced various other grants for improving existing rail infrastructure throughout California. From the US DOT announcement:

• Caltrans will receive $100 million to purchase approximately 40 new bi-level intercity passenger rail cars and several locomotives for use throughout the state.
• The San Francisco to San Jose High-Speed Rail Corridor will get a $16 million grant to improve San Francisco’s 4th and King Street Station by reconfiguring tracks and signals, elongating platforms, and modifying the building to accommodate future high-speed rail service on the San Francisco – San Jose segment of the California high-speed rail corridor.
• The Pacific Surfliner Corridor from San Luis Obispo to San Diego will receive grants worth approximately $30.1 million to pay for planning and environmental studies along the route.
• Two additional FY 2009 awards of $24.9 million and $13.5 million will be used to install positive train control technology and upgrade signal communications on the corridor between San Diego and Moorpark. These projects will improve on-time performance and ultimately allow for top speeds of 110 miles per hour on the segment connecting Los Angeles and San Diego.
• A $1.5 million grant will allow California to complete its State Rail Plan.
• The San Joaquin Corridor (Sacramento/Oakland — Bakersfield) will receive a $300,000 grant to fund the completion of planning and environmental studies.

Next time, I might take the bus instead. For all the attention given to the potential expansion of high-speed rail, there’s also been a concurrent but not-so-glamorous development: the rise of intercity bus travel.

Greyhound's fancy new buses, with tickets from Philly to NYC starting at $10. Greyhound

Today Greyhound, in their neverending quest to beat first the Chinatown bus lines and then the deluxe Bolt/Mega/DC2NY service, announced that they will step up their service. In a campaign they’re calling Uncommon Transport, they’re lowering fares and dressing up their buses with Wi-Fi, power outlets, and more legroom. All that for just ten bucks between Philly and New York. And next time I head up to meet with my comrades at Streetsblog NYC, I can spend just $30 round-trip if I book it online.

These services have fostered a new era of growth for intercity bus travel. Back when gas prices were skyrocketing in 2008, a report from DePaul University [PDF] found that intercity bus service grew 9.8 percent in the previous year, and 8.1 percent the year before that. Meanwhile, air travel and driving were declining.

It’s great to see bus companies competing to give better service for lower fares. Intercity travel shouldn’t be the privilege of the rich, and a transit option that’s noticeably cheaper than driving is good for the environment. The DePaul study authors calculated that the growth of intercity bus travel had reduced CO2 emissions by 36,000 tons.

But here’s a question: If high-speed rail ever materializes on the northeast corridor, will it be able to compete with prices this low? If it can, will the bullet trains be affordable only for the wealthiest while the rest of us make the most of what Greyhound and the other bus companies have to offer? Interestingly, the same DePaul study noted that intercity rail service increased at the same time as intercity bus service, though not quite as rapidly. It’s definitely not a zero-sum game.

What do you think?

The new design of the California High Speed Rail Authority website.

As California’s high speed rail project continues to gain attention, both positive and negative, the makeup of visitors to the official website has been shifting, with an increasing number of general public who know very little about the project, according to the California High Speed Rail Authority (CAHSRA). In response to this trend and based on thousands of user surveys and feedback from 13 focus groups, the CAHSRA redesigned its website as a portal it hopes will be more user friendly, intuitive and useful to a wide range of interested public.

“A user-friendly Web site is a key way to reach millions of people both in California and around the world,” said Curt Pringle, Chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority Board, in a statement. “We took our cues from the people in the online community and revamped our Web site so that it not only provides current and in-depth information, but does it in an easily accessible way.”

In addition to creating a cleaner aesthetic and updated navigation bar, CAHSRA indexed and tagged its documents so the search function is more effective, which CAHSRA spokesperson Rachel Wall admitted was a big improvement over the previous iteration. “The previous site wasn’t serving people’s needs statewide. It had a ton information but it wasn’t navigable,” said Wall.

In a teleconference with media, Wall demonstrated the site’s new functionality, including the new search options that can be geographically narrowed with a simple click for localized data. Wall said this better functionality and tools like the new glossary of terms would enable “every Californian [to] get in touch with the project and understand what’s happening.”

According to the CAHSRA, current website traffic is about 40,000 monthly visitors, depending on the visibility of the project in the press. The most trafficked page on the site behind the home page was the trip planner, then news and facts, followed by the video and image library, which was redesigned to be more user-friendly.

The new website also coincides with an effort by the CAHSRA to increase its profile on social networks, notably Facebook and Twitter. The Facebook group page has yet to gain a significant following, especially when compared to groups like Californian’s for High Speed Rail, which counts nearly 35,000 members, but Wall said the CAHSRA hoped to do better at reaching the public through these channels.

Jeff Barker, the CAHSRA’s Deputy Executive Officer, explained the agency only had 17 full-time staff at present and it needed to maintain a balance on certain issues while in environmental review. “Of course we support high speed rail in California,” he said, but he noted there were no plans to start a CAHSRA blog or a more intensive outreach strategy. “In environmental review, we’re required to be objective. There is an advocacy line that we don’t cross.”

While some meetings are currently webcast on the site, Barker said they were at the mercy of the facilities where they held their meetings, which often don’t have good enough connectivity to meet their needs.

Our goal to hit every meeting,” he said, but he admitted, “with the state budget the way it is, we don’t have the funds.”

Barker admitted in the past they hadn’t had the capacity to respond to feedback in a timely manner, but the new website is part of the effort to improve communication between the CAHSRA and its future customers. Readers are encouraged to give the CAHSRA feedback on the new website, both in our comments below and through their feedback form.

Amtrak envisions a new path for 220 mph high-speed rail on the Northeast Corridor. Image: Transport Politic

Sure, I could pay more for an Acela and get there in less than three hours.

But why can’t it take 90 minutes?

Yesterday, Amtrak unveiled a plan [PDF] to build a high-speed rail line between Washington and Boston, with trains running up to 220 miles per hour. Estimated travel time between DC and New York: 96 minutes. New York to Boston: 84 minutes.

And the price tag? They’re expecting it to cost $4.7 billion a year for more than 25 years.

The high cost of the project has led observers to characterize it as worthy but improbable. Like many conversations about the future of rail, this one is full of hand-wringing about how to pay for it all. So what are the options?

First, according to Mark Reutter, author of Making Steel, there’s the Highway Trust Fund, which pays for both highways and transit. In a recent policy paper, Reutter states that “Congress could easily allot $5 billion a year for HSR construction – without an increase in the gas tax – by cutting out earmarks and formula-based grants that now soak up billions of dollars.” His numbers come from a government oversight report on the ineffectiveness of the current HSR program.

But at a panel discussion today in Washington on the issue, Ken Orski, founder of the transportation newsletter “Innovation Briefs,” said using the Highway Trust Fund is a nice idea, but “any such proposal would raise howls of indignation and opposition not just from the highway interests but also from transit.” He’s in favor of an independent Rail Trust Fund.

Another strategy is to identify who would benefit from high-speed rail and find a way to get them to contribute to its cost.

Pierce Homer, transportation director at the engineering firm Moffat & Nichol, is a proponent of this approach, known as “value-capture.” “Who benefits from HSR? What are the economic benefits?” he asked. “There have to be individuals, organizations, institutions, regions, quarters that see benefit and value from an investment in high-speed rail and are willing to pay for it.”

Homer said it hasn’t been common for HSR to be funded this way, but value capture techniques are frequently applied to transit. He cited the Dulles rail extension in Northern Virginia. “About $400 million of that two-and-a-half billion dollar project are being paid for by commercial real estate,” he said, noting that office buildings and office parks in the area signed a petition asking to be taxed in support of the rail extension.

The potential of rail to jump-start economies along the corridor suggests that it should be feasible for some of that value to help pay for the rail line itself.

When a Spanish woman in the audience mentioned her country’s system (in addition to the oft-cited ones in Germany and Japan) as a model for fast and reliable rail service, Petra Todorovich of the Regional Plan Association noted that the Spanish HSR network has been paid for with general government funds. Spain also got huge financing bonuses and grants from the European Union.

Ultimately, Todorovich suggested, the most important resource Spain has drawn upon is political will. “In that country, their High-Speed Rail program is a national priority.”

Senator Barbara Boxer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, US DOT Secretary Ray Lahood, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Transbay Joint Powers Authority Board Chairman and SFMTA CEO Nat Ford at the Transbay Transit Center groundbreaking. Photos: Matthew Roth.

Though most of the California political class celebrated the groundbreaking of the new Transbay Transit Center with U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood in San Francisco yesterday, significant questions remain for funding a national high-speed rail network through the federal transportation act.

The event swarmed with Secret Service and various other branches of law enforcement keeping an eye on a crowd that, as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom joked with LaHood, was mostly made up of consultants on the Transbay project.

LaHood cracked wise several times at Newsom's expense, repeating more comments Newsom made before the press conference to the public and the media and suggesting Californian's should vote him in as Lt. Governor on his humor alone.

When he stopped ribbing Newsom, LaHood gushed about how far "ahead of the curve" California is on high-speed rail. LaHood said U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) had cast "courageous votes" that made the stimulus bill possible, which meant a $48 billion infusion for the US DOT or nearly two-thirds his annual budget. From the $8 billion President Barack Obama added for high-speed rail nationally, California received $2.3 billion, $400 million of that for the Transbay Transit Center.

"People who come back from Europe or Asia and have ridden high-speed rail, like many of you have, come back to America and ask why we don't have high-speed rail in America? Because we've never made the investment, that's why," said LaHood. "This year we had 8 billion times more money for high-speed rail given President Obama's vision to connect America with high-speed, inter-city rail."

LaHood also pointed to California's competitive advantage in federal money for high speed rail because the state has "its act together and you want high-speed rail, you've been working on it for a decade."

"The people deserve a lot of credit, to go to the polls, and to cast votes to raise taxes in order to develop the kind of infrastructure for high-speed rail, the people deserve a lot of credit."

While ribbon cutting on such a monumental project made for good photos and sound bites, long-term funding for high-speed rail nationally and in California is not a sure thing. Despite the $8 billion last year and another $2.5 billion this year, the U.S. lags far behind China, which is investing nearly $300 billion over the next decade on its high-speed rail network. What's more, states sought seven times more funding for rail than the stimulus gave out and demand is only growing.

When asked if the Senate will take up the re-authorization of the national transportation act, Senator Boxer told Streetsblog after the Transbay event she hoped to have a bill out of her Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and to the Senate floor this year. "I think we have a very good chance but I can't say for sure," she said.

When asked if her bill would mirror House Transportation Committee Chair James Oberstar's (D-MN) commitment to increase transit funding, Boxer said, "I would hope so. I would hope we will be able to do that."

When asked whether she thought she could convince Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking minority leader on her committee and an opponent of linking climate and transportation policies, to support money for high-speed rail or at least stay out of her way, she said, "I don't know how he feels on high-speed rail," but that it was "not necessarily a problem."

Senator Boxer elaborating on the climate and transportation bills.

Boxer also noted that with a comprehensive energy bill unlikely in the near term, she and her colleagues were looking for numerous other options to "put a price on carbon," whether by making sure the Environmental Protection Agency was vigilant in regulating carbon emissions or by supporting states' efforts to limit climate change, such as the Western Climate Initiative.

"If we can't convince our colleagues that this is serious, we're going to do absolutely everything we can absent comprehensive legislation," she said.

While the federal agenda was important to her, Boxer indicated she was concerned with a local battle now brewing: California's Proposition 23, which would suspend the landmark AB 32 climate change law. "The other thing I have to do is just make sure California can move forward and that there's no preemption of what we're doing. Right now I'm fighting to defeat Prop 23, which would be a disaster," she said.

Given recent polling that shows Boxer losing ground to her Republican Senate challenger, Carly Fiorina, transportation advocates nationally should be concerned. If she were to lose her seat to Fiorina and the EPW committee were to be shaken up, a transportation act with significant funding for transit and high-speed rail would be more precarious.

Possible high speed rail alignment options for San Francisco. Image: HSRA.

A number of residents in the Potrero, Dogpatch, and Showplace triangle neighborhoods addressed representatives of the High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) today during an informational briefing of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA), decrying an option under consideration that would keep the trains at grade and would depress 16th street in a short tunnel under the tracks.

District 10 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell started off by saying she was concerned that dropping 16th under the tracks would "essentially create a freeway, creating unsafe conditions for cyclists and pedestrians and creating a breeding ground for graffiti." She said 16th Street was the only significant connection linking the Mission, Potrero and Showplace Triangle neighborhoods with the eastern waterfront.

She clarified she didn't want her comments to be construed as obstructionist or hindering "this huge, wonderful project," but she asked the authority to consider options that wouldn't divide neighborhoods further.

Dick Millet, Vice President of the Potrero Boosters neighborhood group, started a wave of public comment voicing similar concerns as Maxwell, arguing the HSRA hadn't brought detailed drawings to the limited meetings with the neighborhood, nor had they seriously considered the detrimental impact of the at-grade option.

"We're concerned about the rail crossing at 16th Street, the only major road for two and a half miles to get to the east side," he said. "We're separated by the 101, the 280, and now we're going to create another one."

Josh Smith of Walden Development, which has properties near the proposed alignment, said while he is an avid supporter of High Speed Rail, he was concerned that it would be a "huge mistake" to depress 16th Street and argued that engineers have said it would be feasible to bury the rails, so it should be done. "They haven't come to community meetings with detailed drawings. The devil is in the details, we all know that," he said.

Most of the testimony from the community suggested the best options would be to elevate the trains with aerial tracks or bury them in tunnels, both significantly more expensive than keeping the alignment at grade along existing Caltrain right-of-way.

Robert Doty of the HSRA told Streetsblog after the meeting the agency was considering various options, but warned that placing the rail lines under ground, whether in trenches or deep tunnels, would be very expensive. As a rule of thumb, the HSRA assumed that every dollar spent on at-grade construction would be seven dollars for a deep tunnel, three-to-four dollars for trenches.

Ultimately, the actual cost could be dramatically different depending on the geology constraints, though specific cost analysis wouldn't be available for the various alignments until environmental review was further along, likely in December.

Various San Francisco departments are preparing a memo of goals and expectations to be delivered to the HSRA tomorrow, according to SFCTA Executive Director Jose Luis Moscovich. Though Moscovich didn't provide too many specifics about the memo, he said the city family was collaborating to deal with some of the complex issues relating to the alignment of the trains.

"There's a lot of moving parts here," he said. "I think we need to let the High Speed Rail Authority understand our preferences for how you get from A to B and then let them come up with the construction techniques and let them come up with the solutions they think are going to be the most cost effective."

Despite his assertion that he wanted to the HSRA to analyze numerous solutions, Moscovich came down on the side of the neighbors by telling Streetsblog the at-grade track alignment option through the city along Caltrain right-of-way was a non-starter.

"I don't see a way that we should have at-grade high speed rail trains crossing the city. It doesn't make sense, it doesn't make a lot of sense to divide the city with rail infrastructure at this late stage," he said.

While Moscovich said vibration and noise issues from the high-volume high speed rail trains were not good for residential neighborhoods, in the end the HSRA would make the final decisions.

"Everything else is going to be more of a question of how High Speed Rail is going to be able to penetrate San Francisco with the least impact and so that we have both full use of Caltrain and its stations and the 4th and King yards, that the assets the city's transportation system already has are preserved and enhanced."

Image: CAHSRA

Bay Area news outlets have long given a large soap box to Peninsula residents and policy makers who don't want the rail alignment to go through their cities unless it is built into deep, expensive tunnels. The new report will likely arm opponents to high speed rail in California and beyond with new ammunition they hope will ultimately kill the project before it goes to construction.

Among the findings of the report, the State Auditor argued:

• The CAHSRA's 2009 business plan estimates it needs $17 billion to $19 billion in federal funds. However, the Authority has no federal commitments beyond $2.25 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), and other potential federal programs are small.
• The CAHSRA's plan for spending includes almost $12 billion in federal and state funds through 2013, more than 2.5 times what is now available.
• The CAHSRA does not have a system in place to track expenditures according to categories established by the Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century, its largest source of committed funding.
• The CAHSRA has not completed some systems needed to administer Recovery Act funds, for example, a system to track jobs created and saved.
• Some monthly progress reports, issued by the CAHSRA's contracted Program Manager to provide a summary of program status, contain inconsistent and inaccurate information.
• CAHSRA staff paid at least $4 million of invoices from regional contractors received after December 2008, without having documented written notification that the Program Manager had reviewed and approved the invoices for payment.
• The CAHSRA paid contractors more than $268,000 for services performed outside of the contractors' work plans and purchased $46,000 in furniture for one of its contractor's use, based on an oral agreement contradicted by a later written contract.

The CAHSRA's response to the report was tepid: It acknowledged that it could do better with some of its management, but contended that the State Auditor repeated a number of findings that the Legislative Analyst Office had already brought up and that the CAHSRA was already addressing.

We note that many of the findings in your draft audit are similar to those outlined earlier by the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO). As a result, in many instances the Authority has already taken action to address issues raised in your report. In particular, the Authority earlier this month approved an addendum to its 2009 Business Plan that clarified our efforts to address funding for system construction, risk management, and alternatives for securing the private capital investments necessary to bring this important project to fruition. We appreciate that in many cases the draft audit takes note that the Authority is already taking steps to improve its operations based on recommendations made earlier by the LAO, as well as on findings in your draft audit. 

The CAHSRA goes on to criticize the title of the report as being "inflammatory" and the findings of the report failing to be equally as "scathing," but doesn't defend any of the individual contentions made by the State Auditor. Perhaps their strategy is to batten down the hatches and hope for better weather?

The strongest defense of the high speed rail project comes from the ever incisive Robert Cruikshank at the CAHSR blog, who writes that the State Auditor is wrong in her assumptions about federal funding for California's project and the project's competitiveness compared to other high speed rail lines. Cruikshank notes that a House subcommittee has already voted to appropriate $50 billion to the national high speed rail network in the new Transportation Act and California could reasonably expect to receive a large portion of that money.

As one of only two true bullet train projects in the country -- and with the other one, Florida, facing growing questions about its route choices and short intro line -- we’re much further along than most other states, and can turn around federal money relatively quickly after we receive it. If $50 billion over 6 years is indeed approved, I do not foresee any problem whatsoever with California getting $17-$19 billion of that, and nor should anyone who has been watching the federal government’s HSR actions the last two years. California’s powerful Congressional delegation, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, also count in our favor.

As Cruikshank notes in his post today, the State Auditor's report has predictably led to a round of stories in the press that give the impression California high speed rail is limping toward death.

Beyond complaining about the tone of the report's title, I find it dispiriting that the CAHSRA leaves the task of managing its public relations work to a blog, albeit a very well-informed blog.

Image: Metro.net

In perhaps the strongest sign yet of just how politically potent the statewide high speed rail project has become, a bid by a Republican Assemblywoman to squelch the project has fallen flat (Assembly Bill 2121) and as a face-saving move the bill has been amended to merely mandate the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) submit funding reports as it goes forward with the project.

As I noted in a prior commentary, the buzz this project now generates floors me. For the longest time it received scant attention or respect.

Now if anything is it suffering from "too many cooks" as jurisdictions and interest groups clamor to offer their two cents. The most prominent example of this is the recent request of local transportation agency heads Art Leahy (of Metro) and Will Kempton (of OCTA) for CHSRA to reconsider shared use options for the Los Angeles to Anaheim segment of the project.

Leslie Pollock at the recent American Planning Association conference outlined why many high speed rail supporters look askance at share use being compatible with true high speed service.

But this may be a case where the locals have a good point. In discussing this situation with local advocate Jerard Wright, he pointed out to me this is a key corridor worthy of upgrades whether it is served by full out high speed service and supplemental services or perhaps a half hourly bullet train from Anaheim that services Los Angeles and continues on the the Bay Area (and vice versa) along with a more blended mix of upgraded existing Metrolink and Amtrak services. I would imagine Leahy and Kempton would agree that is about the level of service the coastal stub (the high speed line in Orange County will only go as far south as Irvine) will require for the foreseeable future. That factor would allow a less impactful plan for the corridor of the sort local officials have put forward of late.

The good thing is all the stakeholders are now at the table and talking. Not so long ago that wasn't really happening. I keep noting this is a huge project, on a scale comparable to the construction of the state aqueduct. Our California civic culture is grappling with how to deal this new and unfamiliar kind of challenge, which admittedly at times results in zigs and bumps as the project goes forward. That is the price you pay for being a pioneer.