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California High-Speed Rail Authority officials are traveling to the nation’s capital this week to drum up federal support for rail projects, armed with what they say is new evidence that state residents want an alternative to flying and driving.
The trip comes a week before they plan to submit an application for a share of $2.3 billion in federal stimulus funds.
Authority officials are aiming to persuade administration officials and Congressional leaders with the results of a recent survey of state voters that they say shows statewide support for the 800-mile rail network.
Over a weeklong period in May, a public affairs research firm contacted 800 registered California voters by phone to assess their knowledge of and attitudes toward the $45 billion project that would eventually link Sacramento to San Diego.
According to the findings, 34 percent of those surveyed said they support moving forward with the project, said Lori Weigel, a partner with Public Opinion Strategies, one of the firms that conducted the survey.
Another 42 percent said they tentatively support the project but have reservations about the timing and the cost.
“Those who have heard the most about the project have tended to be the most supportive,” Weigel said.
She noted that residents of the Bay Area, which has dozens of transit agencies, provided “even more positive responses,” given their “feelings and familiarity with transit.”
The survey results were not broken down geographically, but populations were represented proportionally, Weigel said. That is, the communities that would be most affected by the rail line had more residents surveyed.
Some Bay Area communities – especially those along the Peninsula, where the high-speed rail tracks would cut through 16 cities between San Francisco and San Jose – have called for the authority to address their concerns about the project before it moves forward.
Authority representatives said today that the intent of the survey was not to highlight regional support for the project, but to demonstrate to federal leaders that Californians as a whole want to see the rail line built.
The government agency prepared the survey to leverage support for the project – funded by a mix of taxpayer dollars and private sector investments – with the aim of spurring a steady stream of federal funding.
“This is a tool to help bring money to the state,” authority Deputy Executive Director Jeffrey Barker said.
He said the project cannot continue to rely on one-year appropriations such as the $2.25 billion awarded to the state in January as part of $8 billion in federal stimulus money for developing a nationwide network of high-speed rail.
“What we really need is an ongoing funding stream, and we need to work with federal officials to establish this,” Baker said, noting that the authority and the state need to signal to the private sector that the project has stable funding and can proceed with planning.
“We need to see that level of serious commitment on the federal level to attract private investors,” he said.
Applications for the next round of federal stimulus dollars, which will split $2.3 billion between the states, are due on Friday, Aug. 6.
This project is absolutely ridiculous. The money isn’t there. There is no money. Forget about it.
We already have an alternative to flying or driving: government-run regular-speed passenger rail. Not many people using that. Is making it a little faster really going to make that much difference in ridership.
Yes, faster trains get more riders.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority paid for this survey…you really think they would have come up with any other result?
Elect Meg . She will stop this project.
Can Meg (or any other candidate) stop it? Isn’t it happening because of a voter mandate from a few years ago? My guess is that there would have to be another ballot measure to stop it.
It was in cronical that the governor makes the final desigon.
The poll was biased – it mentioned the supposed benefits but not the drawbacks of HSR. See the Mercury News story: http://www.mercurynews.com/california-high-speed-rail/ci_15618849
“The Coast Starlight” had 400,000 riders last year. Projected ridership for California’s high-speed rail is 88 – 177 million passengers by 2030. That’s 220 times as many riders, if we use the 88 million low estimate. A little faster train commute between cities is going to pull in that many more riders?
re: “The poll was biased – it mentioned the supposed benefits but not the drawbacks of HSR.”
The Merc story doesn’t get into it, but high-speed rail, to get the levels of ridership that are projected, would have to kill off the business of commuter air travel within California. The plan has an unstated goal of destroying local airline-related jobs.
HRS is: A) A Sham, B) A Hoax, C) A Boondoggle, D) A waste of our children’s money as well as our own, E) All of the Above
And remember, they aren’t lobbying for us, they’re lobbying to keep their substantial paychecks. If HSR dies, they become unemployed. THAT has now become the driving force behind HSR. The fact that ridership estimates were almost criminally fudged should have killed it, and hopefully have, no big deal, just what voters used to make their decision
Mike Lawson makes a good point on the effects (if magically successful) of this project. All the commuter air traffic would be going by rail. This is why UC Berkeley Transportation researchers and the CA State auditors say HSR Authority staff (and directors) are ‘full of it’. ‘Fiscal’ explains the more personal motivation – if they can’t get more money – their careers are at an end in this field.
It’s sad, because the concept is great. But look how poorly Rod D. and his thinking has turned out with the ridership projections and routing of out VTA Light Rail.
Lobby the Gov [‘cronicle’ comment] and your local state legislature member to not authorize the yearly sale of these bonds. {Fiscal Emergency anyone – remember no budget yet]