Support Proposition 1A to Build High-Speed Rail

By Stuart Cohen, Executive Director, Transportation and Land Use Coalition (TALC)

Sierra Club supports Proposition 1A, which would provide $9.95 billion dollars to catalyze the development of the 800 mile High-Speed Rail (HSR) system, and to make improvements to existing rail networks. Building HSR in California will reinforce our cities as the hubs of our economies, promote sustainable land use, significantly reduce global warming pollution, and get commuters off congested roads and out of crowded airports. While it is an extremely expensive project, adding the same capacity by expanding highways and airports would cost at least twice as much.

The fully completed high-speed train system would run between San Diego and Sacramento, with connections to the Bay Area. California's high-speed trains would run at speeds of over 220 miles per hour, making the trip between San Francisco's Transbay Terminal and Los Angeles' Union Station in two and a half hours.

HSR will help to achieve the state's greenhouse gas reduction goals by replacing car and airplane trips with rail trips. By 2030, when the whole system is in place, HSR travel is anticipated to reduce California's greenhouse gas emissions by up to 12 billion pounds of CO2 per year.

At their September 2008 meeting, the California High-Speed Rail Authority Board approved a goal of using 100% renewable, carbon-free electricity to run the system. Doing so would ensure the emission reduction benefits are not reduced by the consumption of electrical power.

Over the past four months, Sierra Club California, the Transportation and Land Use Coalition (TALC) and other organizations worked to put important safeguards into AB 3034, a bill to amend the original bond measure. This bill, recently signed by Governor Schwarzenegger, places Proposition 1A on the ballot and contains a host of important provisions, including protections for the Grasslands Ecological Area, allowing bond funds to be spent on improvements in the Altamont corridor connecting the Bay Area to Modesto and Stockton, and strong financial accountability provisions.

One of the most daunting challenges is the cost of the system; especially with our state budget in crisis. And while the price tag is very steep -- over $30 billion to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles through the Central Valley -- it pales in comparison to the cost of new highway and airport expansions. Caltrans estimates, for example, that it will cost $6 billion (2006 dollars) to widen Highway 99 from four lanes to six, a project that is now partially funded. Meeting interstate requirements and widening to eight lanes, now being discussed as the next phase, is estimated to cost at least $20 billion.

Californians will continue to demand mobility, especially as the state grows to 50 million people by 2030. It is time to give it to them in the form of a zero-emission high-speed train system that propels California into the 21st century. Passage of Proposition 1A would be just the first of many steps needed to make the system a reality. But it is a necessary step and one that environmentalists should strongly support.