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Newsom and legislative leaders are negotiating over how funding could be divided up in a final budget they’re expected to approve in a few weeks. Read more about how The Chronicle covers politics and what we do to ensure fairness in our reporting This week, they approved a placeholder state budget, a day before a constitutional deadline, that “defers” action on the $4.2 billion in bonds. Now, legislators have another chance to try to reroute train funding with the state budget. “I worry that insufficient funding could leave us with infrastructure that doesn’t accomplish the vision of high-speed rail, and doesn’t benefit Southern California,” Assembly Member Luz Rivas, D-Arleta (Los Angeles County), told rail officials. They pushed, unsuccessfully, for the authority to consider alternative routes. We’ve got to give people efficient ways to get around the state.”ĭuring a hearing on the Rail Authority’s business plan in March, Assembly members grilled rail executives about their strategy. “They’re always controversial, but once you build them, 10 years later, you can’t imagine living without them,” Wiener said. He noted that other transformative infrastructure projects, such as the Golden Gate Bridge, were bogged down by lawsuits and planning delays before they came to fruition. Wiener said while planning mistakes have been made, the project remains an important first in North America. The Golden State’s program is now the only bullet train under construction in the U.S. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said he worries that diverting monies would give federal officials a “very negative message” about California’s commitment to high-speed rail. “The speaker has been supportive of focusing high-speed rail funding in areas where it will meet the greatest need, including the Bay Area and Los Angeles,” Rendon’s spokesperson said in an email.īay Area legislators, meanwhile, have been some of the project’s most vocal defenders.
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Members of the powerful Los Angeles delegation, led by Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, argue regions with the most transit riders should take priority for state spending. The continued uncertainty about the rail project has fueled resistance at the Capitol. That money was recently restored by the Biden administration.įunding was further thrown into chaos at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when revenue from the state’s cap-and-trade auctions tanked. of Transportation withheld nearly $1 billion in expected funding in 2019, arguing the state had missed required benchmarks. Progress on the project was later throttled under the Trump administration, when the U.S. Originally, the Rail Authority planned to build track inward from Los Angeles and the Bay Area, including a line running east from Silicon Valley. Newsom also stunned many legislators and rail advocates two years ago, when he announced he would focus first on the Central Valley line due largely to rising cost. Now, the Rail Authority doesn’t anticipate the Central Valley segment will start operating until 2029, followed by the longer line in 2033. Trains were initially supposed to start running last year. Todd Trumbullīut the project has faced ridicule over repeated construction delays and soaring construction costs, with its budget growing from $33 billion to about $83 billion.
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He added, “Instead of fumbling around and stopping and starting, we should be showing off and showing we’re ready to go.”Ĭalifornia voters approved $9.95 billion in bond funding for high-speed rail in 2008, with the promise that money would be used to help build a bullet-train system to zip riders between San Francisco and L.A. “To take money away from that project - and therefore doom that project to failure - and put it into bits and pieces in other areas is counterproductive, not only for California but for the nation,” said Rod Diridon, a former Santa Clara County supervisor who served on the California High-Speed Rail Authority board for a decade. They said it could also put California at a disadvantage as it competes with other states for tens of billions of dollars in federal rail funding that could be part of President Biden’s infrastructure plan. Supporters of high-speed rail warn taking money from the Central Valley segment would only cause further construction delays and drive up costs. Assembly members from Southern California have pushed to divert money into local rail projects.
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But the funding ask has given skeptical legislators new leverage to air their frustrations about the rail project and the attention paid to the Central Valley versus more densely populated urban centers.