California High Speed Rail Plans
Held 4/19/99 at the MTA HQ in Los Angeles
Notes by Jim Stewart
Southern California Council on Environment and Development (SCCED)

The 50 representatives from Los Angeles Environmental and Transportation Activist Groups were mainly supportive of potential reductions in air pollution and highway congestion and less need for expansion of LAX. The group focused on the following issues:

1. Route alignments: The route along the I-15 corridor could encourage new suburban sprawl, while a route through Orange County would mainly go where there are already people living.
2. Station locations: Stations should be in existing downtown centers and transportation hubs.
3. Equity: Several people were concerned that the sales tax would mean everyone would be supporting a system used primarily by businessmen.
4. Quality of life: Will this promote more livable communities? Can it bring more benefits than comparable funds on improved local and regional transit?

Notes from the Meeting

Kathleen Gildred, Director of SCCED, welcomed the group of about 50 people, primarily from environmental and transportation activist groups.

Gloria Ohland, Director of Los Angeles office of Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP), raised the question of the transportation/land use connection. As California's population increases, either we build more highways, or a high speed train network. Will we have stations in the suburbs with huge parking lots that encourage more driving to the stations?

Dan Leavitt, Deputy Director of the California High Speed Rail Authority, presented an outline of the purpose and plans for high speed rail in California: Our process is to get input from across the state so that the plan speaks to the needs of all California. High speed rail is important because the state's population is expected to increase by 50% to over 50 million in the next 25 years, mostly from births to the current inhabitants. Currently many highways are congested, and airports are close to capacity.

High speed rail technologies have been in use for over 20 years by the French and Japanese. They work well at 200 miles per hour, and have been tested at 300 mph. No fatalities have occurred from train malfunctions. Magnetic levitation technology (called Maglev) could travel faster, but so far it has never operated in a revenue mode.

The proposed route would include the major population areas of San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego and the fastest growing parts of the state, including the Central Valley, Palmdale, and the Inland Empire. Anticipated travel times between San Francisco and Los Angeles would be 2 hours and 52 minutes using steel rail technology, and only 2 hours and 5 minutes with Maglev technology.

The complete 676-mile system would cost $23 billion for steel rail technology. Our plan is to secure funding by the end of 2000, requiring a voter measure on the November 2000 ballot. A 1/4% sales tax could pay for all capital construction costs, then the system would operate at a surplus.

Ridership projections are 20 million passengers per year by 2015, using steel rail technology, producing annual revenues of $27 million.

Discussion Highlights

Jim Stewart, SCCED: Using the income tax would be much fairer because the higher income people more likely to use the rail will pay more than lower income people.

Lynn Plambeck, Sierra Club: High speed rail will help you to live in the Antelope Valley and get downtown quickly. The result will be to promote suburban sprawl, unless you can tie it in with location-efficient mortgages so people have incentives to live near the stations and you don't eat up more farmland and open space.

Dan Silver, Endangered Habitats League: The Norm King article calls high speed rail an insupportable public subsidy. He says it doesn't help traffic congestion, there are other ways to spend 30 billion.

Leavitt: CalTrans says they need $150-200 billion for highway maintenance and improvements over the next 25 years. This project will not end congestion in Los Angeles or the Bay Area, but does allow you to have some transportation options. You could get from Riverside to San Diego in less than an hour. This 2 track system has the capacity of an 8-lane freeway.

Charles DeDeurwaerder: From a professional planner's point of view, we are developing an individualized non-integrated planning approach. If you develop high speed rail, you need a parallel plan for limiting urban sprawl, such as growth boundaries, so the trains are supporting an intensified urban growth.

Additional Written Comments

Elizabeth Moule, MPArchitects: It is critical that high speed rail has stops in the major city centers, like downtown LA and not have stops in peripheral suburban centers. The stops are far more important than alignments. Growth will develop concentrically around these stops and these stops could induce further suburban sprawl.

High speed rail is an important part of a comprehensive rail system for many reasons. High speed rail can increase the popularity of all rail because it is so efficient, clean, safe etc. It will definitely reduce air traffic and will decidedly question the expansion of other airports, not just LAX, but Ontario, Burbank etc.

Ellen Stern Harris, Fund for the Environment: It must have accommodation for the disabled, like the airlines have wheel chairs and porters.

Deborah Murphy, Los Angeles Walks: We need a route through the San Fernando Valley, with a stop in Van Nuys. It would be better to have high speed rail along Route 15 than none at all.