Jun 4, 2009 10:42 pm US/Pacific
High-Speed Rail In Bay Area May Get Stimulus Funds
SACRAMENTO (BCN) ―
The California High Speed Rail Authority decided in its board meeting Thursday to accelerate the engineering studies for the Bay Area portion of the high-speed rail project in order to make it eligible for federal stimulus money, according to a board member.
Ron Diridon Sr. said the board decided in a meeting at Sacramento City Hall Thursday that the Bay Area corridor of the state's high-speed rail project will be eligible for more than $1 billion in federal stimulus if the environmental impact report is completed by the end of 2011.
Diridon, a past chair and current member of the board, said the board had decided in its last meeting on May 7 that the San Francisco to San Jose corridor of the rail project would not be eligible for stimulus money because the report was scheduled to be done in January 2012, a month after the deadline.
To be eligible for funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, planners of the Bay Area section of the project have to prove they can be under contract by September 2012 and have the environmental impact report finished by December 2011, according to Diridon.
The board decided to reverse its decision Thursday by allowing the consultants hired to do the engineering reports to have the chance to accelerate the work on the report to meet the deadline.
"Otherwise, the Bay Area is giving away billions of dollars," Diridon said.
He said the consultants "will have to save at least a month and hopefully more to leave time for unforeseen events, and that's without reducing the hearing periods, because we want full public involvement on this project."
Public criticism of the high-speed rail project in the Bay Area could be one such unforeseen event that causes delays.
The plan to run the rail line through the Peninsula has provoked sharp reactions in cities like Palo Alto, where hundreds of people packed a February meeting hosted by the rail authority to gather public input.
Decisions about building over ground or underground tracks, as well as concerns about noise, safety, and aesthetic blight were all issues raised at informational meetings held in the Peninsula earlier this year.
Diridon said "the board has no opinion whatsoever about how that corridor should be completed. That has to be decided as a result of the engineering study, but nothing should occur to delay the studies."
Voter approval of Proposition 1A in November 2008 gave the California High-Speed Rail Authority money to jump-start the first phase, between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Bay City News contributed to this report.)
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