January 28, 2004
Trendytransit is in the house.
Not if, when, according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
On the front page of today's Examiner, and scattered through other news sources, many reports about the proposed 700-mile (and 220 mph) bullet train linking San Francisco (representing Northern Cal) and Los Angeles (So. Cal) noted that our Governator has voiced strong opposition to the $37 billion project.
As an alternative, the state could build 3,000 miles of new freeway (according to the 2,300-page draft environmental report) and build at least five new airport runways. Given the debacle over the proposed expansion (and bay infill) of San Francisco International's runways, that seems unlikely. (The runways would probably need to be in places like SFO, LAX, SAN, and SAC, where population is growing most rapidly; the study says, "intrastate demand will grow 63 percent and population will grow 31 percent, mostly in the Central Valley, they found bullet trains were the best option".) Co-incident to this, the Federal Aviation Administration has announced plans to triple air-control capacity in the next 20 years -- the same time-frame as the high-speed rail plan.
