Environmental groups undecided on high-speed rail plan

California bullet-train enthusiasts risk losing support from key environmental groups because of a dispute over the train's route. Unless resolved soon, the conflict could pose problems for a high-speed rail bond measure on the November ballot.

The Sierra Club and the Planning and Conservation League have not yet taken a position on Proposition 1, which would authorize $9.95 billion in state borrowing to jump-start the 800-mile rail.

But environmentalists are still seething over the selection of relatively undeveloped Pacheco Pass as the route to connect the Central Valley to the Bay Area. They favor the more urban Altamont Pass to the north because they say it would induce less sprawl.

The Planning and Conservation League likes the concept but "has continued to be quite concerned about the whole planning effort," said Gary Patton, the league's lead lawyer.

The initiative aims to reduce air pollution and traffic congestion by connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles with low-emission trains that would zoom through the Valley at speeds of more than 200 mph.

With high gas prices, the timing is right to bring the idea before voters, said Mark DiCamillo, Field Poll director. But if environmentalists actively oppose Proposition 1, some voters might be turned off.

A recent Field Poll showed Proposition 1 leading 56 percent to 30 percent, with 14 percent undecided. It requires a simple majority to pass.

The High Speed Rail Authority board chose the Pacheco route last month after years of spirited debate. Environmentalists would rather see trains run farther north in the Valley before heading west so more populated cities are served.

Sacramento is not scheduled for a stop until later phases. But once built, the trip from Sacramento to San Francisco would take longer using the Pacheco route – one hour and 47 minutes – instead of Altamont's time of a little over an hour, environmentalists said in a letter to the authority.

The Altamont route would "make the high-speed rail system much more effective in carrying more people and relieving congestion," said Bill Magavern, a Sierra Club lobbyist.

But crossing at Altamont would make for longer trips from Southern California to San Jose. The route also has other problems, said Mehdi Morshed, the rail authority's executive director.

A bridge would have to be built across San Francisco Bay, Morshed said. Also, communities along the Altamont corridor have concerns about high-speed trains passing through town, he said.

A potential compromise would use some of the bond money to enhance regional rail service in the Altamont corridor that could also accommodate high-speed trains running at slower speeds. But a bill to make the initiative more flexible is stalled in the Senate in a partisan fight over how to beef up project oversight.

Today, an Assembly committee is to take up a measure by Republican Sen. Roy Ashburn of Bakersfield to delay the bond measure until 2010. Lawmakers have pushed off the bond measure twice before.

Meanwhile, environmentalists are considering a lawsuit to demand that the rail authority re-examine each route's environmental consequences.

With environmentalists still undecided, the campaign is shaping up into a duel between a coalition of engineering companies that support the measure and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which blasts the project as a "political boondoggle" that might never get built.

The bond would raise about a third of the cost. Supporters are counting on government and private companies for the rest, and say corporations won't step up until the state commits to the project.

"It's very difficult for them to work with their business models and not know at the end of the day if they're going to get to build it," said Jo Linda Thompson, a lobbyist for the Association for California High Speed Trains.

Association members include companies that engineer big transportation projects, such as LTK Engineering Services and Parsons Brinckerhoff. The group so far has donated $24,000 to the "yes" campaign, which has nearly $80,000 on hand.

Opponents have yet to raise money, said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis association. That could change if airlines weigh in.

Southwest Airlines, which serves some of the markets targeted for bullet train service, "could never support the use of public money to subsidize" high-speed rail but has no "current plans to engage in lobbying efforts on this issue," said company spokeswoman Marilee McInnis.

Union Pacific Railroad also plans to stay out of the campaign, said company spokeswoman Zoe Richmond.

The railroad has refused to share its right-of-way on portions of the route because it wants to preserve the option of building its own tracks there.

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