Link: California High Speed Rail Blog: The Play To Block HSR Stimulus Funds
Thursday, August 6, 2009
The Play To Block HSR Stimulus Funds
The California High Speed Rail Authority held its monthly meeting today, and included a project phasing workshop after the regular meeting, part of Chairman Curt Pringle's efforts to provide more opportunities for the public to get involved with providing feedback on the planning process. One of the outcomes of today's meeting was that the Authority is becoming more assertive in providing management and oversight:
Under the leadership of newly elected board chairman, Curt Pringle, the Authority created three standing committees:
* Executive Administrative Committee: Chairman Curt Pringle, Judge Quentin Kopp, Director Fran Florez
* Operations Committee: Directors Richard Katz, Rod Diridon, Jr. and Russ Burns
* Finance: Directors Tom Umberg, David Crane and Lynn Schenk...
Additional organizational transparency measures include maintaining and keeping current the California High-Speed Rail Authority Web site, posting all applications and other required documentation....
Discussed proposal for development of new “investment grade” ridership and revenue forecasts to assist in attracting public-private partnerships.
All of which is quite welcome.
The board apparently also discussed fast-tracking certain deadlines to enable more stimulus funding to arrive in California. It's hard to figure out exactly what this refers to - the article from ABC/7 in LA is written at something resembling a 6th grade level and is maddeningly vague. But whatever was discussed and decided, it was enough to provoke some of the usual suspects into their usual outrage:
"The biggest danger is that citizens don't get heard, alternatives don't get considered. They don't want to study any route alternatives. And to me, that's absolutely wrong when you're doing a $40 billion project," said Richard Tolmach, California Rail Foundation....
"You can't short-cut the process on a high-speed train. You end up with a mess," said Tolmach.
Tolmach is not being truthful here - the CHSRA spent 11 years studying route alternatives. He's just unhappy they didn't pick his preferred route.
More significant than Tolmach's desire to study the project until 2049 is his implication that stimulus funds are less important than building the project his way. This is a completely crazy approach, jeopardizing the entire HSR project and the federal funds it needs to be built over a relatively minor spat over a routing choice.
Tolmach is joined in working to undermine the HSR stimulus funds by the Planning and Conversation League, which last month sent this rather extraordinary letter to a bunch of state legislative leaders:
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