Transportation officials and business leaders talked about high-speed rail at a Southern California summit September 21; developments and commentary this week reinforced their message. The possibilities: improved mobility with less traffic and congestion, more construction and transportation sector jobs, and lower carbon emissions. The challenges: expanding and coordinating local transit nodes, gaining wide public support, and securing more government, public, and private funding.
LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke about westside subway plans during the summit, saying Measure R will “lay the tracks for a system worthy of a world class city,” and local voters’ financial commitment can be leveraged for this and other transit projects. The MTA board voted on September 24 to submit the project for federal funding, which could help the mayor achieve his goal of completing it in ten years.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, at a press conference today at Union Station, announced California’s application for a share of $8 billion in federal recovery funds set aside for high-speed rail development. California voters have already approved a bond measure, Proposition 1A, for high-speed rail ($9 billion) and connecting services ($950 million).
Another transit funding victory occurred this week in the state courts: the California Supreme Court upheld an appeals court decision that state diversion of $3.4 billion in transit funds to the general fund is illegal.
Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Mortimer Downey said at last week’s summit that “High speed rail won’t work unless there is good public transit on each end.” MTA Chair Ara Najarian responded to Downey’s concern:
“At its heart, the California High Speed Rail project is intended to connect major public transit hub networks that already exist, such as Los Angeles Union Station, San Diego, and San Francisco. These stations already provide a large cadre of bus, light rail and subway services that have the potential to connect entire county regions to the statewide high speed rail network. Other cities – Anaheim in particular – are planning multimillion dollar transit stations envisioned as truly regional multimodal transportation hubs. Where other statewide high speed rail stations are identified, the project is anticipated to create a robust network of public transit options that would complement high speed rail service.”
With westside extensions (Expo Phase I and II) and Gold Line eastward extensions, is a fully coordinated scheme (think “user-friendly”) emerging for Southern California? As summit speakers noted, support for projects will only be forthcoming if voters see long-term benefits: routes and schedules must be reliable, accessible, and affordable, and take people exactly where they want to go when they want to be there.
A recent Streetsblog critique of Union Station’s confusing layout (along with a great photo essay beginning with the old ticket office, exactly where the Governor’s press conference was held today) charts the distance between this ideal and the realities now faced by hopeful transit users and several transit agencies.
“Schedules aren’t coordinated for seamless journeys around the region,” was one of many shortcomings of the network Paul Dyer, President of the Rail Passengers Association of California and Nevada, cited in a letter to the LA Times yesterday.
The lack of a local bus system in the city of Burbank, led a local blogger to question the need for a new Empire Center transit hub.
Meanwhile, LA Green Girl celebrates the westside extension and the possibility of “bus only” lanes on Wilshire, and an auto-industry commentator sees the potential of a mass transition to transit in LA, saying “No one should sell the city short, because when it comes to transportation, Los Angeles is the land of the early adopter.”
Job creation is another selling point for the big push to high-speed rail and connecting transit. The MTA board just voted to tentatively exercise options for light rail cars from AnsaldoBreda, based on several key stipulations the company must agree to within 30 days, according to Najarian. Villaraigosa pushed successfully to gain the Italian rail-car manufacturer as an anchor tenant and employer for LA’s new clean-tech corridor in an agreement that was concluded this past week.
There are only a few rail vehicle manufacturers that have provided train cars to MTA, including Japan-based Sumitomo Corporation, U.S.-based Siemens, and Italy-based Ansaldobreda. Najarian said that the selection of any light rail vehicle manufacturer is primarily based on a firm’s ability to meet Metro’s requirements and that there are no current plans to award a high speed rail car contract. In addition to cars, jobs required for a coordinated high-speed rail system will include surveying, land use clearance, construction, maintenance, administration, green energy enhancements, electronic systems, and more.