Calif. bullet train work begins but lacks support it once had
Associated Press
FRESNO, CALIF.
Trucks loaded with tomatoes, milk and almonds clog the two main highways that bisect California’s farm heartland, carrying goods to millions along the Pacific Coast and beyond. This dusty stretch of land is the starting point for one of the nation’s most expensive public infrastructure projects: a $68 billion high-speed rail system that would span the state, linking the people of America’s salad bowl to more jobs, opportunity and buyers.
Five years ago, California voters overwhelmingly approved the idea of bringing a bullet train to the state. It would be America’s first high-speed rail system, sold to the public as a way to improve access to good-paying jobs, cut pollution from smog-filled roadways and reduce time wasted sitting in traffic.
Now, engineering work has finally begun on the first 30-mile segment of track in Fresno, a city of a half-million people with high unemployment and a withering downtown core.
Rail is meant to help this place, with construction jobs now and improved access to economic opportunity once the job is complete. But the region that could benefit most from the project is also where opposition to it has grown most fierce.
Anti-rail sentiments can be heard throughout the Central Valley. Growers complain of misplaced priorities, and residents wonder if their tax money is being squandered.
Aaron Fukuda, a civil engineer whose house in the dairy town of Hanford lies directly in one of the possible train routes, says: “People are worn out, tired, frustrated.”
Voters in 2008 approved $10 billion in bonds to start construction on an 800-mile rail line to ferry passengers between San Francisco and Los Angeles in 2 hours and 40 minutes, compared with 6 hours by car now during good traffic. Since then, the housing market collapsed, multibillion-dollar budget deficits followed, and the price tag has fluctuated wildly — from $45 billion in 2008 to more than $100 billion in 2011 and, now, $68 billion.
Political and financial compromises led officials to scale back plans that now mean trains will be forced to slow down and share tracks in major cities, leading critics to question whether it will truly be the 220-mph “high-speed rail” voters were promised.
The high-speed rail business plan says trains will run between the greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area by 2029.