2014 was the best year for California high speed rail since at least 2008, when voters approved the Proposition 1A bonds. But there’s an argument it might have been even better than that. Let’s take a quick look back at the year that was.
• Cap and trade money secures California HSR’s future. The June decision to give 25 percent of the cap and trade revenues each year to high speed rail was a game changer. It ensured that the project would have long-term financial support – delivered by Prop 1A delivered $9 billion to the high speed rail project. Federal stimulus added another $4 billion. But California’s cap and trade system could add $10 billion or more in total to the system. That’s still not enough to get the entire system built from LA to SF. But it is a stable, long-term source of revenue that will help bring in new money.
Just how much money HSR will get from cap and trade isn’t quite clear, as the Sacramento Bee’s David Siders reports. But it has unlocked new interest from the private sector:
Talks between the rail authority and prospective private investors have picked up in recent months, benefiting both from the cap-and-trade announcement and a series of favorable legal rulings.
Among companies that contacted the state when cap and trade materialized was Sener Engineering and Systems Inc. which called cap and trade “a turning point” for high-speed rail.
Spain’s Sacyr USA said in a letter that ongoing funding represented “the signal the private sector has been waiting for as it shows the state is committed to getting this project done and moving it forward now,” and ACS Infrastructure Development Inc. predicted “this commitment by the state will in turn motivate private sector involvement in the financing and development of the program.”
The approval of cap and trade for HSR has been a crucial political signal to the private sector that California government is committed to building high speed rail and is putting in an additional stake to help get it built. That’s especially valuable in an era when the Tea Party controls Congress and flatly refuses to spend any more federal money on HSR, despite its proven record of success.
• HSR supporters win at the ballot box. Jim Costa may have had to eke out a narrow victory in Fresno, but the big news is Jerry Brown’s 20 point drubbing of Neel Kashkari in the race for governor. Kashkari thought he could win by rallying the public against the “crazy train” – only to discover Californians actually support it (see next item), or at least aren’t interested in seeing it die. Fresno mayor Ashley Swearengin lost her bid for Controller, but that was because she made the mistake of running as a Republican. Her campaign at least had the nice effect of getting Betty Yee, a fantastic elected leader and Swearengin’s Democratic challenger for Controller, to endorse HSR. The result is, as I described it in October, that California now has a pro-HSR political consensus.
• Polls show majority of Californians backs HSR. A March PPIC poll found that 53% of Californians support high speed rail, a crucial element of that pro-HSR consensus. Some in the media still claimed that HSR was somehow unpopular with the electorate, but the numbers don’t lie.
• CHSRA racks up big court victories. California HSR didn’t just win big in the state legislature and at the polls. 2014 was also the year it overcame its legal hurdles, probably for good. It’s not clear yet which is the bigger legal victory: the October ruling from the State Supreme Court upholding an appeals court decision that saw the CHSRA prevail over Kings County, or the December ruling from the Surface Transportation Board that their approval preempts CEQA and thus calling into question present and future litigation against HSR based on CEQA – and most of that litigation has been rooted in CEQA. This project will probably face lawsuits until the day it opens, given the litigious nature of California NIMBYs and HSR opponents. But after 2014 it’s hard to see how those lawsuits can succeed. No wonder Bakersfield chose to settle.
• California pundits come around to supporting HSR. Recognizing the trends, pundits are beginning to realize that HSR really is a good idea – and that it is really going to happen. I really liked Joe Mathews’ article at Zócalo from November, pointing out that Southwest Airlines isn’t actually a cheap and easy travel option within the state any more – and therefore, HSR makes a lot of sense. The LA Times’ George Skelton reached a similar conclusion just before Christmas, realizing that HSR travel is much more desirable and comfortable than the cattle call that has become modern air travel. Yes, HSR supporters have been making these same points for over six years, but better late than never that good people like Mathews and Skelton realize we were right.
Overall, 2014 has been a fantastic year for high speed rail in California. And 2015 will get off to an even better start with the groundbreaking in Fresno on January 6. It took a lot of work to get to this point, and there’s plenty more to come, but HSR is finally free of most of the obstacles it had to face in the years after 2008.
Finally, thanks to all the blog’s readers and commenters. You can look at the upper right of the site and see that posting has dropped off a bit since the site’s peak activity in 2009-10, but I plan to keep this blog around as long as there is an interest in reading about high speed rail in California.
